JUST Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 2, 2000

• 1542

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order. We're looking at Bill C-3, an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and repeal other acts. I believe Monsieur Bellehumeur is interested in speaking to us for a few moments.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): I could go on for several days.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a correction. This morning I alluded to a letter that had been signed by the Quebec Minister of Justice, when the Liberals were in power. This was Mr. Roger Lefebvre. Indeed, he had signed a letter jointly with Mr. Lucienne Robillard criticizing the attempt to amend the Young Offenders Act. This was not Bill C-68, but Bill C-37. We have to go back to 1994, to the 35th Parliament.

Bill C-68 was tabled during the 36th Parliament, during the first part of the Liberal government's current mandate. Bill C-68 then became Bill C-3, which we are in the process of reviewing.

Ms. Lafontaine, are you satisfied with this clarification? She is nodding her head.

Mr. Saada, I can begin again. If you are happy with this, I am too.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, the fact remains that the point I wanted to raise this morning, namely, having the Minister come back to the Justice Committee in order to answer our questions and examine Bill C-3, is very important. In addition, this is an old problem that exists between Quebec and Ottawa, because although the number of the bill has changed from the time when Mr. Allan Rock was Minister of Justice, in 1994, the objective sought by his bill was to repeal the Young Offenders Act and to make amendments.

At the time, Quebec was governed by a Liberal government, a federalist government that had denounced Bill C-37 in a letter written by Roger Lefebvre, Lucienne Robillard and Mr. Middlemiss, who at that time was Minister of Public Security in Quebec.

• 1545

Mr. Chairman, today we are dealing with Bill C-68, which underwent another number change so that now it is known as Bill C-3. However, this has done nothing to change the deep disagreement that exists between Quebec and Ottawa. Last November, on November 30, 1999, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the federal government to go back to the drawing table and to withdraw Bill C-3 so that it could determine the impact that the proposed amendments would have on the people. We did not ask that this be done only for Quebec; we requested that the process for passing Bill C-3 be suspended to enable the Minister to make a better assessment of the way that the provinces apply the measures provided for in the Young Offenders Act.

I sincerely believe, Mr. Chairman, that this would be a good starting point to determine whether or not we're heading in the right direction. In order to make this determination, we must conduct a serious study.

In Quebec, although we have for a very long time been concerned about young offenders, about the approach and the treatment provided to young offenders, we nevertheless decided to conduct another very exhaustive study, which began in 1993-94, under the direction of Mr. Michel Jasmin, the Associate Chief Justice of the Quebec Youth Court Division. He was given this mandate by the Liberal government at the time, and on February 17, 1995, Judge Jasmin submitted his report to the PQ government.

The Jasmin report is a keystone in the Quebec approach or, rather, it's a report that confirmed certain practices. The report confirmed that the Quebec approach was right, that we were headed in the right direction and it also helped the Quebec government to make changes to other practices in other sectors, sectors which at times go beyond the field of justice. As an example, I would mention the approach taken by police officers when working on a youth offender file: the way that they question the youth, the way that they present themselves to the youth, the way that they deal with the young person at the police station, etc. We wanted to find out whether or not the police officers took a special approach when dealing with young people and, more importantly, we wanted to know whether or not they were familiar with the Young Offenders Act and we wanted to see how they applied it.

We conducted the study and a report was tabled in the National Assembly in 1995. We should be asking ourselves the type of questions raised in the study or, rather, we should be putting these questions to those individuals who apply the Young Offenders Act in the provinces.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, it is clear that we haven't asked the provinces how they apply the Young Offenders Act and, more especially, we haven't asked them about their youth policies.

We could do as the Minister does and say that we respect the Quebec approach whereas in practice, the approach taken is contrary to the one in Quebec. You are either speaking from both sides of your face or you don't understand what you are hearing or what you are seeing as regards the Quebec approach.

In order to understand the Quebec approach, you must grasp certain basic concepts, as I was saying this morning. You have to do some useful thinking on the matter in order to truly understand the Quebec approach, especially the Quebec model. You have to examine delinquency, as I was saying this morning, Mr. Chairman. You have to determine whether or not the crime rate is rising or falling. The statistics show that it is falling. Accordingly, there is no urgency. There is no reason to amend the Young Offenders Act. The protection of society, the crime, the responsibility and rights of young people must all be borne in mind. Mr. Chairman, we have got to the needs of youth.

• 1550

Without doubt, the needs of the youth constitute the most important issue in the Young Offenders Act. Whether you are a judge, a lawyer, a Crown attorney, a social worker, a police officer or any other individual involved in the young offender's file, the first question that has to be asked pertains to the needs of the youth. What does the youth need in order to reintegrate society as quickly as possible and become an anonymous citizen?

What do we mean when we talk about the needs of young persons? What does the declaration of principle, found in Section 3 of the Young Offenders Act, enable us to do with respect to the needs of young persons? In Section 3, at least three references are made to the needs and the situation of a young person, to his or her needs, responsibility, dependency, degree of development, maturity, special needs, required assistance. What exactly are these requirements?

Mr. Chairman, the Quebec approach that was developed over the years that that province spent applying the Young Offenders Act properly showed us that society could intervene to help young people who have experienced run-ins with the law, in all kinds of ways and at all kinds of levels. We must understand that the individual who commits a major crime, who commits theft, who is a member of a gang, or something along those lines, has other problems resulting in this behaviour.

A review of the file will show that the individual, if he or she is young and still in the school system, is experiencing academic problems. Frequently, the young person has a drug problem. Mr. Chairman, we often see that the young person comes from a difficult family situation and that, as a result, psycho-social development is delayed, the young person may be immature, experiencing problems with the members of the family, a member of the family may be in a criminal organization, and perhaps the young person is a member of a criminal gang.

We know that the phenomenon of criminal gangs is on the rise and its members are becoming younger and younger. We may realize that the young person is grappling with some of these problems. Each individual needs to be treated differently, requires different tools, tools that reflect his or her needs. It is this type of need, Mr. Chairman, that we examine when we review the young offender's file, and this is provided for in the current legislation.

It is by applying the current legislation that we, over the course of the years, succeeded in developing a Quebec approach which is a source of pride to us and which has prompted certain ministers to say that they respect it. But these are just words. I think that the Minister's mind is full of contradictions when she says that, on the one hand, she respects the Quebec approach and then, on the other hand, does just the opposite. I think that there are some questions she needs to answer.

This is why I am hoping that the Minister will testify before the committee and also explain how the amendments that she has proposed will meet Quebec's concerns.

The needs, therefore, can be quite diverse. We can also ask ourselves how the Young Offenders Act is able to meet the needs of young persons.

• 1555

On this topic, I will quote Justice L'Heureux-Dubé of the Supreme Court of Canada, who was quoted by Justice Lamer himself when he rendered an extremely important decision: R. v. M. (S.H.)—[1989] 2 R.S. 446. The quote is as follows:

... that for nearly one hundred years Parliament has committed itself to the separate treatment and rehabilitation of young offenders found in the criminal process. [...] An attempt is made through legislation to “prevent these juveniles from becoming prospective criminals and to assist them to be law-abiding citizens”.

A little further on, we read:

While in 1982 the legislation was revised, the fundamental values remained and permeate the provisions of the Act.

Mr. Chairman, when reviewing a young offender's file, the crucial question pertains to the amount of weight to give to the needs of the young person in the decision-making process. When a judge reviews a file, his sole motive is need. Why? Because we very sincerely believe that by investing in the needs of young people, there will be greater security for the people.

We find another decision, a little later on. This time, it is Justice Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada who established a few guidelines and talked about the factors pertaining to the special needs of young persons.

The situation in the home of a young offender should neither be ignored nor may the predominant factor in sentencing. Nonetheless, it is a factor that can be properly taken into account in fashioning the disposition.

You will note that there have, in fact, been some guidelines that have been established as the Supreme Court of Canada deals with the problem of youth requirements, the needs of young persons. This quotation was taken from the decision R. v. M.J.J. [1993] 2 R.S.C. 421.

I believe, therefore, that I have given sufficient attention to the issue of needs, something that is not necessarily reflected in Bill C-3. What we find in the amendments, Mr. Chairman, is something else. These amendments are subject to various subsections and paragraphs.

After that, Mr. Chairman, to truly understand the approach advocated by Quebec, we must take a look at the role of victims. What role does the victim play in the system that has been used in Quebec over the past several years? The Jasmin report, in paragraph 1.7 on page 25, provides the following explanation. I will quote from the report because it is very important. When the Minister comes to the committee, I will be able to have an exchange with her with respect to these and many other issues. I quote:

1.7 THE VICTIMS

In participating in the justice system, victims must be treated in a manner that recognizes their situation: they must be shown respect and sensitivity as dictated by their needs and rights.

However, justice must do more than simply limit itself to these particular concerns. Victims are also people who have been hurt by a crime and who may rightly wish to see some type of compensation, restitution or apology. These desires must be given more consideration in our judicial and social practices.

• 1600

You can see, Mr. Chairman, that when we look into a particular issue, when we in good faith examine the problem before us and try to come up with solutions or really improve the process, we find answers. The Jasmin report does not state that everything is perfect and that there is nothing left to be done. Take, for example, the case of the victims. After consulting various stakeholders working in the field of young offenders, the report concluded that perhaps victims were not necessarily given the attention required and that, in the future, more attention should be given to them than it is the case presently. However, the report did not call for amendments to the legislation.

We examined the Young Offenders Act and we determined whether or not we could, under this legislation, make special room, greater room for the victims. We realized that yes, indeed, we did have the required flexibility to do this under the Young Offenders Act.

We did not complain to the federal government about amending the Young Offenders Act. We assumed the responsibilities that the legislation gave us and we changed the way we did things. But in order to do this, we had to, first of all, ask questions about our youth policy, Mr. Chairman. That's the first question that has to be asked.

After the victims, we automatically think about parents. What role should parents be playing in all of this? We understand that parents are the ones who have primary responsibility for the children. As I said this morning, Mr. Chairman, there are some parents who do not look after their children. There are some children who do not know where to go once school is over. There are some children who grow up in a very difficult family environment. I do not know if you heard the news yesterday, but the statistics show that the number of abused children in Canada is rising. How are these children supposed to grow up in a healthy fashion? How are they supposed to not have some type of desire for vengeance coursing through their veins? They grow up in a bad family environment, in a family environment that causes them to get off the straight and narrow path. How are they supposed to get out of this situation? It is not by stigmatizing them and treating them the way that is described in Bill C-3 that we're going to resolve the problems experienced by these children.

You will tell me that there are lot of preventive measures. Yes, indeed, there are many preventive measures. There will never be enough. If we have extra money, we must invest it in prevention. We must invest this money in programs that will prevent certain things. There is no point in investing money in repressive measures or in more stringent measures, such as the Minister of Justice is suggesting we do.

The Minister should come to the committee and hear what we have to say on this topic. Surely there are some things that she forgot to examine. If not, her presenting such a bill does not make sense. She was no doubt very poorly advised when she tabled such amendments, unless she was motivated by political considerations in order to get re-elected in the Canadian West. If that is the case, she is not acting properly as a minister. She should resign as Minister of Justice and focus solely on keeping her seat in the House of Commons. She should work to keep her riding if she is afraid of losing, but she should not table any legislative measures solely for the purpose of keeping her seat and to respond to a right-wing tendency by throwing out the window all that has been achieved in Quebec over the past 20 years.

So we know from the outset that parents have the prime responsibility for their children. They have to be partners in the intervention. They have to support the system to adequately respond to the child's needs and above all, they have a role to play in the specific interventions used in their child's case. I think that they hold part of the solution and it's by working with them that we will succeed in determining what kinds of programs we can provide to attain the objective of the Young Offenders Act, namely the social reinsertion of the young person.

• 1605

One point that I mentioned on several occasions is that of delays. If we had taken a better look at what's done in Quebec under the Young Offenders Act and if we'd listened to what we've always said had to be done to improve this Act, we would have understood that one of the points to be improved is the whole issue of delays.

We've reached this conclusion through practice, but this was also highlighted when Mr. Jasmin and other experts examined the Young Offenders Act in depth. It was realized that speed of intervention was crucial, and that intervention had to take place as quickly as possible after the individual has committed a reprehensible act.

Page 29 of the Jasmin report reads as follows:

Speed of intervention is an essential condition to impact and credibility. A slow social reaction is interpreted by adolescents as an expression of indifference, if not a form of tolerance by default.

How will Bill C-3 improve the speed of intervention? In no way, Mr. Chairman. On the contrary, with the amendments contained in Bill C-3, the number of certain interventions will be increased, as will certain judicial procedures that do nothing to improve the speed of intervention.

Do we have quorum, Mr. Chairman?

Welcome, Mr. Saada.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, there's nothing in Bill C-3 that improves one point that could easily have been improved, that is the whole issue of delay. Right now, each province has its own way of doing things. I know that the administration of justice is a matter of provincial jurisdiction, but you will understand that when amendments to the Act end up increasing the number of steps at the courthouse, we are greatly hampering the administration of justice as well as influencing considerably the way justice will be administered in a given province or court house.

The bill or any subsequent amendment could have highlighted the importance of acting as quickly as possible and of being very proactive. We could have added a clause stating that speed of intervention is crucial. We could have amended clause 3, the declaration of principle, by adding a paragraph to indicate that timing is very important. Thus, we would undoubtedly have improved the Young Offenders Act.

To my knowledge, no legislation is perfect. There is no law that doesn't require some amendments at some point if such amendments are wanted by those who have to enforce the law. I'm sure that you would have only garnered congratulations on the part of the coalition and Quebeckers who enforce the Young Offenders Act on a daily basis if, in response to their demands, you had amended certain clauses to require that stakeholders who deal with young offenders act as quickly as possible. I think you would have been congratulated by these people and above all, I wouldn't have had to make long speeches, albeit very interesting ones. Everyone is listening with great interest. My speech would have been very simple. I would have congratulated you. It would have taken far less time, but I would have done it.

• 1610

So Mr. Chairman, after having dealt with the speed of intervention, there's an extremely important point to which I'd like to devote a bit of time. That is the consistency and responsibility of all intervenors. One of the problems that we find right now in other provinces and that we have experienced in Quebec, is that intervenors do not know what others involved in the case are doing. They don't talk to one another, there's no interaction between them and they do not know the Young Offenders Act and its declaration of principle. The intervenors in the case do not know that the needs of the child are the top priority. Each intervenor is one extremely important link in the enforcement of the Young Offenders Act if we want to obtain sound results. If each link doesn't know what the other one is doing, one of these days, one of them will weaken the others. That is why there's little or no success.

From the point where a young person commits an offence, a number of people intervene in the case: police officers who investigate, a social worker who handles the file, investigators, the Youth Protection Branch, intervenors who work in youth centres, other people in charge, the child's parents when they're present and they want to look after their child, lawyers and Crown attorneys, more social workers, people who foster young people with problems, judges and those responsible for executing the court's rulings. All these people have to know what is going on in this specific case they are handling. I don't know whether other provinces have conducted any studies to determine whether all these people know what's going on with a case.

In 1995, in the Jasmin report, this issue was examined and a chapter was devoted to it starting on page 31. Let me quote what it says about consistency and the responsibility of all the stakeholders:

Beyond the specific requirements of their individual responsibilities, the people involved in the case of a young offender must see their role and assume their responsibilities in accordance with overarching objectives and common means, with a common perspective in which they all participate. Consistency is the common thread on which each intervenor (police, judicial or social) must be able to hang the interventions for which he or she is responsible.

If we want there to be a common thread, as the report says, if we want there to be proper communication between each intervenor, the intervenors have to feel responsible, they have to feel in the game, as we often say. They have to feel that the work they do on the case is important for the rehabilitation and reinsertion of the young person. They have to have the common objective. This can't be imposed overnight. In Quebec, I will admit it took years. Instead of amending the Act as we've been doing regularly for the past few years, perhaps we should start looking at whether all the intervenors have common objectives and are working in the same direction, Mr. Chairman. We should see whether they are familiar with the Young Offenders Act, how they apply this Act in their province and what the youth policies are in their province.

This subject is nothing new and Mr. Jasmin's group was not the only one to examine it during the evolution of our approach to young offenders since the 1900s. The role of intervenors has been examined on a few occasions and, in a very structured way, we've come up with something very specific in the Jasmin report. Since the Jasmin report, some things have improved with regard to the interventions in each case.

• 1615

Mr. Chairman, I mentioned that the Young Offenders Act allowed judges and others who enforce the Act to make rulings that take into account the young person's individual situation. I must admit very sincerely that with Bill C-3 that we have before us, I'm not sure we will be able to continue applying measures such as those we have in Quebec and to make decisions that take account the overall situation.

I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I have some difficulty concentrating because there are people talking in the room. I understand that people may want to do something else, but I want to concentrate and continue my speech here. I'm having trouble doing so. I'd like there to be less talking so that I can concentrate. We're here to examine the Young Offenders Act. I believe that it's important that we dedicate ourselves to the examination of this document and this extremely important law. I think that no one is above that and has nothing to learn about this matter. On the contrary, it may be important for everyone to listen, or at least to read this. If they don't want to listen to me, well, let them read something about the Young Offenders Act because that's what we're discussing here today. I would urge everyone to behave a little more professionally and to simply look at what's going on around them and especially be more respectful to those who are speaking, in this case myself.

So it is desirable to make a decision taking into account the overall situation, Mr. Chairman. Page 33 of the Jasmin report, which is an important one, reads as follows:

Everything must be done by police forces as well as social and judicial intervenors in order to group together the files related to a young person, in accordance with the relevant judicial principles, so as to allow any decisions made to take into account the overall situation of the young person.

We must take into account all the elements relating to the situation of the young person, Mr. Chairman, including the offence, his or her personal situation, lifestyle, family history and personal history, as well as other circumstances. Mr. Chairman, we have to see how we could reconcile taking into account the overall situation with the provisions of Bill C-3 before us. We have to determine how we will be able to manage that.

Sometimes, it is a very minor point that leads us to find the trigger of a given situation and helps us discover that if we invest more in a given aspect of a young person's life, we'll manage to help him. But to do that, we have to take the time to examine the young person and find the cause of his or her problems, and then find the interventions that may help him or her cope with a given event.

Mr. Chairman, before I continue my speech, let me tell you about a case that someone told me about. The facts have been verified and apparently it's true. A few years ago in Montreal, in Quebec, a Black youth was somewhat ridiculed in his school. He lived in a rather poor neighbourhood of Montreal where there were gangs present. It was very rough, as we say back home. The young people had all kinds of prejudices about him.

• 1620

One day, in the week before Christmas, this young person, who was called Corey, came to school and brought a little gift for his teacher: a broken bracelet and a half-empty perfume bottle. His whole class started laughing and the gang that he was part of started telling him that he could have stolen something else, given something else, etc. The teacher, who'd always looked down on this young boy, did the complete opposite this time. She thanked him and put on the broken bracelet. She even applied some perfume. The young boy was very happy.

From that point on, she started to take a good look at the youth. She started to watch what he did in the evening. She starting to do preventive work with him, because she felt that there was some good in him. She learned subsequently that the broken bracelet and the bottle of perfume belonged to his mother, who had just died. He had given these gifts to his teacher because she was the only woman in his entourage who had some consideration for him.

The teacher didn't maintain contact with little Corey, but each year she did continue to intervene with youngsters, to try to see what was going on in gangs and so on. And one day, three years later, she received a little note that said: “Dear Ms. Johnson, I have just received my high school diploma.” The letter was signed by Corey. A few years later, she received another little note which informed her that he had just received his college diploma. Four years later, Ms. Johnson received another note which included airline tickets and an invitation to attend his convocation at the faculty of medicine. He had just graduated in medicine from a university outside of Quebec. He said that he was first in his class and sent the tickets so that she could take the place that should have been his mother's.

All of this, Mr. Speaker, is because one day the teacher listened attentively to a young person who was about to have problems with gangs and criminal behaviour. She had the good sense, as we say, to be there for him at the right time, to have an attentive ear and to do what was required at the right time.

The Young Offenders Act, Mr. Speaker, does not allow us to apply such preventive measures at that level, through the actions of teachers—that's just an example I gave you—but in applying the Young Offenders Act appropriately, we do have success stories as well.

Bill C-3 and its new approach are worrisome to all the players in Quebec who have being working for years to ensure that Quebec is a model in the application of the Young Offenders Act. They feel that today with Bill C-3, all the expertise that they have acquired over the years with the Young Offenders Act is going to be destroyed.

• 1625

The example that I have given you with this teacher is a very good example of prevention, and the Young Offenders Act promotes prevention.

Furthermore, when Justice Jasmin and his group examined all of the Young Offenders Act, they looked very seriously at the whole issue of prevention. The issue of prevention is dealt with in Chapter 2 of the Jasmin report. I have already spoken about it briefly. I said that there were several types of prevention: primary, secondary, tertiary prevention, etc. and that I was going to get into more detail with you. And that's what we are going to do this afternoon. I would like the Minister to come to the committee so that we could discuss with her various types of prevention and to have her tell us if she feels that C-3 will foster this prevention or not.

I am of the opinion that C-3 will not favour this approach, this way of doing things, but perhaps she has something to say on the issue. She would have to tell us very specifically how C-3 goes along the lines of what Quebec is doing. One must remember, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister of Justice, in a letter dated April 25, told all of us who read it that:

... the Government of Canada has undertaken to establish a bill respectful of the approach adopted by Quebec over the past 15 years.

I would like her to come before the committee to explain what she meant regarding Bill C-3 in relation to the Jasmin report. Once we have studied the Jasmin report together and once she will have commented... I'm convinced that there are some things that she will learn from this. If she had read the Jasmin report, she would never have presented a bill such as the one before us and have asserted that it respected the Quebec approach. She would never have done that, Mr. Chairman.

Therefore, the types of prevention are aimed at the situations that are conducive to delinquency or the individuals who are the guilty parties. In this regard we would talk about situational or individual prevention. This is getting rather theoretical, but I think that it is important to know this before we take an in-depth look at the Young Offenders Act and Bill C-3.

Furthermore, the preventive measures may involve ordinary citizens, those who are particularly at risk of becoming involved in delinquency or those who have already been identified as delinquents. You will understand that in the field, we are already aware of the clientele. What we will do subsequently will be different depending on whether we're dealing with an individual who is dealing with major delinquency problems or someone who is committing a first offence. We examine the group and we try to act preventively within the group. According to the group involved, we will talk about primary, secondary or tertiary prevention.

Even prevention has several aspects, Mr. Chairman. These are all things that the Young Offenders Act allows us to pursue. And if you will allow me, I will now discuss of some types of prevention.

There is situational prevention. As you know, there are some situations or some living arrangements of groups, families, or environments which tend to favour the commission of offences. It is good to be able to target them quickly and to intervene preventively at that level.

• 1630

We can think of a number of very concrete examples that we read about practically every day in the press. They are all those car theft networks, art object thefts, antique thefts or whatever. Often, the owners have left their keys in their car inadvertently. These are not master criminals, but individuals who, in their particular environment, can foster criminal activity of one type or another.

Therefore, situational prevention is aimed at modifying the circumstances that are conducive to the commission of an offence.

What I was saying a little bit earlier was somewhat different. When we examined the whole issue of young offenders, we had interventions from the Justice Ministry, naturally, and we heard from the Health and Social Services Ministry and the Public Safety Ministry as well. The Public Safety Ministry plays a role in terms of the safety of the population, but also in terms of prevention. In Quebec, this department has a number of programs dealing with crime prevention.

Do similar programs exist in other provinces? I don't know. Perhaps. Is that enough? I don't know. It would be up to the members in each of these provinces to gather information and to see why, in other provinces, the crime rate is higher than in Quebec. Perhaps they will realize that it is because prevention programs are insufficient. They may perhaps see that it is because the Young Offenders Act is not being properly enforced, in a precise manner.

They will surely arrive at some conclusion. However, before arriving at a conclusion, you have to ask the right questions and talk to the right people. And that is what I would have liked to see the members on the other side do during Easter break, so that, when the Minister came before us, we could have exchanged the information which they had collected from their respective provinces.

Now, I imagine that if the Minister does come before us, there will not be many exchanges on information that the members opposite have accumulated during the two-week break.

So, I was saying that in Quebec, there are programs that are implemented by the Ministry of Public Safety. I'll give you a list of some of them, just to give an indication of what they are all about and how they are applied in the field, on a daily basis.

Some of the programs deal with surveillance of the physical environment. In certain municipalities in Quebec, there are subsidized programs, payed for by the Ministry of Public Safety. There are others which deal more specifically with delinquency in areas where we know that there are problems with crime. In certain neighbourhoods of Montreal, among others, the Ministry of Public Safety provides money so that adults supervise from Friday to Sunday in certain neighbourhoods in order to prevent offences. That is real prevention.

They have targeted a certain number of specific places where young people tend to congregate, to plan out their crimes, to commit such or such an offence. Programs were established to send responsible adults into those areas to approach these youths, to try to speak to them and do preventive work. That is called situational prevention.

There is also another type of prevention, which is focussed on individuals. We know that in such or such a family, in such or such a school, in such a group, in such a location, there are individuals who are inclined to commit certain offences. We know that certain individuals are more easily influenced and more open to being approached by older individuals. That is prevention focussed on the individual. In my opinion, it is one of the more difficult forms of prevention, but it is probably the most successful.

• 1635

In order that the committee properly understand the three types of prevention based on the individual, I will read you a brief excerpt of the Jasmin report which explains primary prevention focussed on the individual, secondary prevention focussed on the individual, and tertiary prevention focussed on the individual.

I will be quoting from page 42 of the Jasmin report, Chapter 2. In order that you properly understand and that the members opposite be able to tell the Minister of Justice how helpful it would be for her to reappear before the Justice Committee to speak to the honourable Member for Berthier—Montcalm on various points—and among them, primary, secondary and tertiary prevention—I will quote a certain number of passages.

This part of page 42 reads:

Delinquency is associated with various social problems which do not only affect delinquents, such as poverty, unemployment, scholastic failure, violent environments or neighbourhoods, and so on. By primary prevention, we try to reduce the effect of these problems, hoping in such a way to reduce the social vulnerability of the individuals affected and, therefore, decreasing the occurrence of delinquency. Policies and programs therefore focus on approaches such as the fight against poverty, employment strategies, the implementation of certain types of education programs, social and economic integration of immigrants, community organization, prevention clubs, parenting-skills workshops, and so on.

That is primary prevention. I will now digress a little bit. When we said on a number of occasions before the House that the changes made to the Unemployment Insurance Act, among others, would lead to many other problems, we were referring to, among other things, youth delinquency. If the parents get poorer, there will be a direct effect on their children. Thus, we weaken prevention at the level of the fight against poverty when the parents become poorer, Mr. Chairman. Thus, primary prevention can most definitely be ascribed to certain policies and programs.

I will continue by quoting page 43 of the Jasmin report:

Several attempts have been conducted in these areas, without however the accompanying assessments that could have provided us with information on their impact. Among the programs that were assessed, one in particular is often quoted as an example of success: the Perry Preschool Project.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Jasmin report did not focus exclusively on the Quebec courts. If we want to improve practices in Quebec, it is perhaps necessary to look at what is being done elsewhere. That is what Mr. Jasmin and the professionals working with him did. They looked at what was being done outside Quebec and if a program existed, what aspects of it were successful. The report continues:

Implemented in what was considered a problematic area in a city of Michigan, this program provided an experimental group of preschool- aged children with a two-year program that revolved around developing intellectual and social skills in addition to a weekly home meeting with the social worker, the child and his mother. The researchers followed the children to the age of 19 and compared them to a control group of children who had not participated in the program.

What follows is important.

• 1640

They observed “a 20% decrease in the number of arrests in the experimental group as well as similar advantages in literacy, the drop-out rate and dependency on social security.”

Mr. Chairman, that means that although money must necessarily be spent in the short term on primary prevention, there are long- term economic, social and legal gains. These are things we can do with the Young Offenders Act and the approach advocated in the declaration of principle that is contained in section 3. These are things we are in favour of and have done in Quebec. Moreover, following the study, we did even more. That is what I wanted to tell you about individual-based primary prevention.

I will now move on to individual-based secondary prevention. What does the report say about prevention? I will continue to quote from page 43 of the Jasmin report:

Various research projects have made it possible to identify certain links between the behaviour or other characteristics of children and their involvement in significant delinquent activities during their youth. Obviously, we cannot predict with any certainty which children will be involved in delinquent activity during their youth, but we can identify some who appear to be at a greater risk of doing so than others. The aim of secondary prevention is to try...

It is important to bear this in mind.

... and prevent these young people who have been identified as being high-risk from getting involved in delinquent activities.

In addition to various types of psycho-social assistance, some measures that are used in the context of primary prevention (like developing social and intellectual skills, developing parenting skills, etc.) can also be used in secondary prevention, provided that they target children identified as being at risk.

In primary prevention, a very broad approach with rather broad social measures is used to try and cover as many categories of risk as possible. We try to solve certain problems at the source. We promote socio-cultural and psycho-intellectual development to help young people make progress.

Secondary prevention is more targeted. We use a more targeted approach with groups of children identified as being at risk. If this approach was developed in Quebec, it is because we felt we had the support of Quebec legislation, namely with the Youth Protection Act, as well as certain social and health-based programs in Quebec. We also felt we had the support of another very important act, whether we like it or not, which is the Young Offenders Act, which contains all of these elements relating to prevention and the programs I mentioned. It is contained in the declaration of principle of the Young Offenders Act, with a view to protecting society in the long term, of course.

The report contains an extremely important example of what secondary prevention involves in the work conducted in co-operation with the Research Unit on Children's Psycho-social Maladjustment and the Montreal Catholic School Commission. They reached some rather important conclusions on the secondary prevention program.

Mr. Chairman, allow me to do a brief overview of this program, so that we can truly understand the problem and the approach adopted in this area.

• 1645

In the spring of 1984, elementary teachers in 53 schools in the most underprivileged socio-economic areas of the MCSC were invited to evaluate behaviour in terms of aggressiveness, opposition, lack of attention, acting out in class, etc. They were asked to assess the behaviour of both boys and girls in the classroom. They quickly realized that they had to focus their attention to a larger extent on boys. So they primarily examined the behaviour of boys in the classroom. In total, 1,037 boys of francophone parents were evaluated. These boys were subsequently evaluated on a yearly basis by teachers, parents, peers and self-assessments, in addition to a variety of tests.

I will quote a paragraph from page 44 of the Jasmin report:

To assess the effectiveness of preventative measures, three representative samples of the most disruptive elementary school boys were randomly created. The prevention program was offered to one of the three groups, whereas the two others were control groups. The prevention program was spread over a two-year period, when the boys were between the ages of 7 and 9. The program included visits to parents and training sessions on parental skills as well as visits to the schools to provide children with sessions on developing social skills.

The study lasted quite a long time. The research was conducted by researchers at the RUCPM, the Research Unit on Children's Psycho-social Maladjustment. The Jasmin report reads as follows:

RUCPM researchers are monitoring the boys to determine the long- term impact of the program. Once the boys have reached the age of 18 we will be able to establish the results on their delinquent activity throughout their youth.

The program was still underway in 1995.

For now, data available cover a period where the oldest boys are 15.

Earlier on, I was wondering how many years this program covered; it goes from elementary school to age 15. So it covers about a 10-year period.

The data shows that the boys who participated in the prevention program have fewer problems with school and social adaptation than the others. By the end of elementary school, 44% of the boys in the control groups had serious problems adapting to school [...], whereas only 22% of the boys treated had serious problems.

That is half of them, Mr. Chairman. Some people say that the clientele of the Young Offenders Act often comes from families living below the poverty line, that these are children who come from families that have experienced turbulence, problems with criminal parents, etc. We have a very good example here. In this study, we realize that as soon as we invest in secondary prevention, target groups and provide prevention at that level, 50% of the people who were monitored more closely were less involved in crime and had less serious behavioral problems. That is very important.

The report continues, and I quote:

The boys in the treatment group were less likely to spend time with friends who were deviants. Between the ages of 10 and 15, the young boys who participated in the program reported less delinquent behaviour than the boys in the control groups; they were less likely to participate in gangs, to get drunk and to use drugs; a lower percentage of them reported having been arrested by the police or having a friend who had been arrested.

A lower percentage of children who had been well monitored had themselves been arrested or knew someone in trouble with the law who had been arrested by the police.

• 1650

These steps did not however seem to have an impact on the perception they had of disciplinary behaviour and parental supervision.

I just want to help you understand that prevention and rehabilitation pay in the long term. Whether we take young children or young people who are a bit older and who are in trouble with the law, if we invest in them and give them an opportunity to be well monitored and put on the right track, these young people can become anonymous citizens who are not in trouble with the law.

That is a good example of the fact that taking action quickly and investing in secondary prevention pay in the long term.

Mr. Chairman, we then have individual-based tertiary prevention. What is tertiary prevention? When a young person is identified as an offender, after having committed an offence, we often take steps designed to prevent him from re-offending. When someone is identified as a young offender, we try to make sure that the young person does not end up back in the system in the future.

In tertiary prevention, steps are taken to help ensure a young offender will not commit any future offences. That is perhaps what we focus on the most in the Young Offenders Act. It is thanks to the declaration of principle and the general thrust of the Act that in Quebec we have invested more in tertiary prevention, to try and make sure that a young person who is grappling with a criminal problem does not re-offend in the short, medium or long term. Mr. Chairman, the objective is to never again see the individual in criminal circles.

Several steps can be taken. Once the issue has been examined and we know about primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and we know that the Young Offenders Act contains a declaration of principle that enables us to take specific measures, possible action needs to be identified.

The Jasmin report contains something rather important in this area:

Reading the previous section can help explain why the chapter on prevention is the shortest one in our report: the enforcement of the Young Offenders Act is essentially based on tertiary prevention.

That is what I was saying earlier.

As important as they are, prevention-based measures that revolve around situations as well as social measures that target individuals fall under primary and secondary prevention and are not part of our working group's basic mandate.

The report does however state that these measures must be taken into account to determine what is done in terms of tertiary prevention.

Of course, prevention involves progression. I have told you on several occasions that in Quebec, we studied the issue of young people not only from the perspective of crime but also a broad social context. Part of the Bouchard report is quoted: the reference for the Bouchard report is as follows: QUEBEC, Groupe de travail pour les jeunes, Un Québec fou de ses enfants, Quebec, Ministry of Health and Social Services, 1991.

• 1655

I am going to quote a section of this report that deals with what is called “fragile prevention”.

Services and communities are certainly not lacking creativity and hard work. Projects dealing with prevention and promotion of all kinds are showing up in the regions and communities, but often die off after a year or two because of a lack of adequate funding. Considerable progress has been reported by program organizers, but often without systematic assessment. Many discoveries are made and there is constant innovation, but that is often because people are unaware of the numerous precedents in the field. There is a lack of human resources to implement these projects, but it is often because there is a lack of co-operation among the services. Budgets earmarked for preventative measures are at the mercy of ad hoc and sector-based decisions, where there is often a lack of political will to protect an envelope in this area and a lack of consistency in the sector-based approaches.

You can feel the fervor and the involvement of the many actors in the field, but also often the scepticism and doubt at the decision- making level. People are demanding more guarantees and it seems that it is easier to ignore increased knowledge and success in the field of psycho-social prevention than in the area of physical illness. And yet, contemporary scientific literature is replete with data about the reasons why children and youth are vulnerable. This body of information goes on at length about program results, projects and approaches which would help decrease the risk factors and even eliminate them. We therefore must look for the root causes of this scepticism elsewhere; it may lie with corporate interests which tend to protect certain areas of expertise and professional activities. We have to change attitudes in the way we do things.

The Jasmin report says:

In view of these facts, the report has certain characteristics which, without guaranteeing the success of prevention projects, appear essential to their success:

- establishing and maintaining a relationship of trust between people who work for the system and the parents or other adults responsible for the young people;

- ensuring program continuity;

- intervening intensely;

- opting for flexibility;

- respecting the values of the people concerned, especially parents, and appreciating their knowledge;

- avoiding labelling and stigmatizing the people we want to help;

- taking advantage of transition periods of families and youth;

- supporting people who work with youth;

- pooling resources, including resources between departments;

- counting on competent staff;

- focussing on long-term rather than short-term results in the area of prevention;

- assessing situations in order to learn from them;

- adequate funding.

Mr. Chairman, all these factors are necessary to ensure the success of a prevention program. There are many factors, but they are all important: “avoid labelling and stigmatizing the people you want to help; adequate funding; pooling resources; counting on competent staff”. If it is true that all these factors are necessary to implement a program, then it is doubly true to implement an Act.

• 1700

Do we have quorum? No, there is no quorum.

The Committee Clerk: Have you counted Mr. Cadman who is at the back?

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: Yes.

Do we have quorum, Mr. Chairman? No.

If we did not have it before, we have it now.

As I was saying, before seeing if we had quorum, the Bouchard study, which was published in 1991, says that in order for a prevention program to be successful, you need 11 conditions. You will understand that to ensure the success of a new Act, it is even more important to have the same kinds of conditions. One condition which stands out and which Bill C-3 does not address is the fact that we should not label or stigmatize anyone. I do not understand what the Minister's objective is, since she desperately wants to set apart young people who have run afoul of the law in Bill C-3. How is this going to help these young people?

In her letter dated April 25, the Minister says:

... Bill C-3 addresses a number of weaknesses contained in the Young Offenders Act by making the system more fair, more efficient and by giving young people more protection.

If you set them apart, are you really protecting them against themselves? Are you, in fact, protecting them at all? Is it fairer to stigmatize a young delinquent?

I would like the Minister to come before the committee and to tell me to my face that by stigmatizing a young delinquent, we are going to help him. In any case, I would invite you to think about this and to give me an answer when she comes, since this issue is one of the more important conditions regarding prevention programs. You cannot label or stigmatize the young delinquent and you certainly need adequate funding.

The reason why Quebec has the lowest crime rate in Canada and the lowest youth incarceration rate is because we have alternative sentencing and programs to that effect. It all costs money, Mr. Chairman. Before amending the law for the provinces which do not apply it or which have not had much success with it, perhaps you should encourage those provinces which have successfully applied it. The provinces for whom the Act works should be encouraged and given adequate funding.

Quebec will be penalized because it has implemented the Young Offenders Act well. I don't know how much it costs to do so now, but I believe that in 1996, when I studied the issue, it cost about $88 million. The federal government owed Quebec $88 million because it was applying the Young Offenders Act, whereas in western Canada and in other provinces, the money was ploughed into infrastructure.

Programs were designed in such a way—and that has not changed—that those who invested more in incarceration and facilities got the most out of the federal program. Does that make sense? It does not make sense, Mr. Chairman. The system should work for the provinces which correctly apply the Young Offenders Act. And I am not inventing anything, since when the former minister, Allan Rock, came before the committee with officials from his department, they confirmed that the program benefited the provinces which invested in facilities by giving them more money than the provinces which truly lived up to the declaration of principles contained in the Young Offenders Act. If it is true that prevention costs money, it is also true that it costs money to successfully apply a bill or an existing piece of legislation, such as the Young Offenders Act.

• 1705

Regarding prevention, the Jasmin report made three recommendations which fell within its mandate as received from the National Assembly. These three recommendations are on page 50, and it may be a good idea for the federal minister to keep them in mind when she considers whether to come before the committee, as per the request we are making today, to answer our questions and, especially, to justify the amendments she has proposed in response to the very specific recommendations contained in the briefs we received. Over the course of the week, I will have the opportunity to analyze every single brief, if necessary, in order to highlight the specific points raised therein, and to see how the Minister would respond to them.

Therefore, the recommendations regarding prevention are as follows:

We recommend:

(1) that the ministries and organizations concerned make youth delinquency prevention a priority and provide the necessary resources;

(2) that the Ministries of Public Security, and Health and Social Services:

(a) follow up on recommendations made in the area of prevention by the Table ronde sur la prévention de la criminalité and by the Groupe de travail sur les jeunes;

(b) focus on funding innovative projects which would then be assessed;

(3) that the Ministry of Health and Social Services take on a leadership role in bringing together various ministries and organizations in order to work towards preventing youth delinquency.

Mr. Chairman, at first glance, it might seem that the Young Offenders Act should fall under the Justice Ministry, but the first recommendations contained in the Jasmin report were for the Ministries of Public Security and Health and Social Services. Therefore, when people say it is a complex problem, indeed, it is. But it is solutions like the ones we are proposing which are going to solve this complex problem. It is not by drafting a complex bill that you are going to solve the issue.

So we have talked about primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention. We have recommendations on all these. But right after prevention comes involvement by the police.

If we really want to understand exactly what happens when a young person is arrested, we have to see exactly how the police deal with him. We have to see how the police work.

The Jasmin report also focussed on that issue, to determine what information police officers elicited during an investigation. What information makes it possible for them to answer a range of questions, including three very specific questions? The Young Offenders Act must always be at the forefront of our minds, Mr. Chairman. Here are the three questions police officers must be able to answer. The first one is:

(1) is there sufficient evidence to identify the person or persons who committed the offence?

This is the case under the Young Offenders Act and this also applies to other legislative measures.

(2) in the affirmative, should the case be referred to the representative of the Attorney General for prosecution? (3) if so, should the young person be under custody or released pending further action?

• 1710

As you will note, we are getting into how the Young Offenders Act is enforced. We are examining how Quebec applies the Young Offenders Act. We have conducted a series of studies so that we could properly understand how Quebec enforces this Act, and now we are getting into the nitty-gritty.

The first people with whom the young person comes into contact are police officers. They have to ask three questions right away. These are: “Is there anything we can do for this young person?” If you can satisfactorily identify who committed a given offence, then you must determine whether to refer the case to the Attorney General's representative—Quebec's Solicitor General—for prosecution, or whether something else can be done to deal with the young person's offence. You determine whether the case can be handled differently. If you decide to refer the case to the Attorney General's representative, you must then decide whether the young person is to be held in custody or released pending legal action.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot overstress the role of police officers in the day-to-day enforcement of the Young Offenders Act. I don't know whether all provinces are aware of how just important that role is, and just how important police officers are in the sound management and proper application of the Young Offenders Act. In most cases, young people who commit an offence encounter police officers before any other representatives of the justice system. It is the police that citizens and victims call first with a complaint. It is the police who study the complaint, who decide whether to investigate it, who are the first to determine who commits an offence, who initially gather evidence, and who are the first to become aware that an offence has even been committed.

The entire machinery of justice can depend on the quality, speed and efficiency with which police officers do their work. If they do their work properly, if they are aware of their role and thoroughly familiar with the Young Offenders Act, if they really know how important their actions are to young people, then they do good work, fast work and efficient work. They never lose sight of the very specific objectives of the Young Offenders Act.

Police officers do not just learn all this in books. It is by working with all the other people active in the youth justice system over the years that they develop the expertise and affinity with other groups involved in applying the Young Offenders Act.

I think we have to stop and think about the work police officers do from the very beginning of a case. Perhaps we should determine whether they have the tools they need to do their work well, and to apply the Young Offenders Act properly. It was through a study that we finally realized a number of things that we can think about during my speech today. Police officers have a role to play and even some discretion—as we will see—in how they apply the Young Offenders Act.

• 1715

We allow police officers to play an important role, not just to be part of the scenery. We allow them to be genuinely involved in the achievement of objectives expressed in the Young Offenders Act and its declaration of principle. But I really don't know whether the police would feel as much a part of the process under Bill C-3, the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I don't know whether police officers will feel as involved as they do now, when there is good co-operation among all parties involved in a case.

Mr. Chairman, before summarizing what I have just said, I will quote an excerpt from page 53 of the Jasmin report. It states:

The role played by police officers is also very important because, for the majority of ordinary citizens, they are most closely associated with an image of justice. Therefore, the credibility of the justice system rests on what police officers do and how they do it. This is particularly true in the case of young people who become involved with the justice system through the police, and often encounter only the police. For those young people, a police officer is the first, if not the only, official representative of the justice system to show them that what they have done is wrong, and to remind them, on behalf of society, that the law exists, and what the law consists of. A police officer's role goes far beyond detecting offenders: it is an integral part of the mission to educate which society assigns to adults in whom it has vested authority over young people. Thus, it is extremely important for police officers to fulfil their duties and responsibilities in a way that encourages young people to subscribe to the standards that they themselves symbolize for young people.

So if police officers are there to inform young people about their rights, and particularly about their obligations to society, and if they are also there to tell them that there are social standards, then you will agree with me that police officers must know all the ins and outs of the Young Offenders Act, including the declaration of principle, so that they can apply it properly.

Most, if not all, police officers are already thoroughly familiar with the Young Offenders Act. And it is not an easy piece of legislation. It includes many different provisions, and is written in legal language. It was written for people very familiar with the justice system. However, police officers do know the YOA and understand it very well.

In all the provinces—including Quebec—where we examined how police officers dealt with the Act, we have seen that there is a great deal of experience. I look forward to seeing how police officers and even lawyers respond to the new legislation. I have asked lawyers whether they understand Bill C-3. They said they find it extremely complex, and even incomprehensible. I could use some other terms they applied to it. Bill C-3 contains a number of aberrations that raise many questions in our minds, Mr. Chairman.

I will repeat that if we want police officers to be able to explain the legislation to young people and provide information, they have to understand it properly. I really don't know whether they will go back to school to learn all the new provisions, but we believe it is so complex that one gets all mixed up. I don't think I have ever seen so many cross-references in any piece of legislation before. One section refers you to another. For example, section 63 or 64 of the Bill refers us to subsection 62(1) and 63(1). Then, there are references to subsections 62(2) and 63... It's impossible to understand.

• 1720

Moreover, Mr. Chairman, there are several references to the Criminal Code and other legislation. This is an extremely complex piece of legislation, and we would want everyone to be thoroughly familiar with it. Right now, there is already a piece of legislation everyone is thoroughly familiar with—the Young Offenders Act. The YOA is a statute that we are applying and want to continue applying in Quebec, Mr. Chairman.

I believe we do not have quorum?

[English]

The Chair: No, I think there's a quorum here.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: No, we do not have quorum. May I continue?

[English]

The Chair: Actually, I wanted to put a question to you, if I could. I anticipate at 5.30 p.m. bells for a vote and so, not knowing how long it may take you to answer this question, I wanted to make sure we had enough time to put it and get a response.

Given the fact that the substantial nature of your motion is to ask the minister to appear, and given of course that this wouldn't be possible absent a vote to that effect, would you be able to indicate to us in any fashion how long you think it may take you to convince us to support this motion?

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, allow me to glance at my agenda. We have scheduled meetings for Wednesday and Thursday this week. I believe I can finish this before we go on recess next week. I should be able to cover the issue and persuade everyone. When is the recess week?

[English]

The Chair: It was May 22.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: Yes, I believe I can persuade everyone during the week of May 18, that the Minister must come and testify.

An honourable member: By the end of the year 2000.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, I assume that is anticipating regular hours?

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: Yes.

[English]

The Chair: We'll leave this one to you, Monsieur Bellehumeur. We have five minutes. You can fill it or we can go off to await a bell. The floor is yours.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, if you would help me a little to keep my concentration, I believe we would move along more quickly.

Some honourable members: Ha, ha!

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: They may laugh, but it is not funny, Mr. Chairman. Seriously, Mr. Chairman...

[English]

The Chair: With respect, Mr. Bellehumeur, I think the—

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur: I find it very difficult to focus my thoughts when people are talking all over the room—on the left, on the right, in the back, and on the phone. Everyone is walking around as well. We attend this meeting in order to do committee work. I am not doing office work here, and I would like my colleagues to concentrate on the work we have to do here. I keep losing my train of thought, and sometimes halfway through a sentence I don't know what I said in the beginning, so I don't quite know how I should end it. I would get through this speech a lot better if you were listening. Members who come to a committee meeting should listen and do the work they are here to do. They are making me lose my concentration. I want to talk to a quorum and often, while I am talking, I have some math in my head to make sure there really is a quorum. But it is difficult—I am not a genius like Napoleon.

In any case, Mr. Chairman, I want to use all the time I am allowed. I know that I have only three minutes left, and I will continue talking about the action of police officers. Police officers play an extremely important role that, in my opinion, should be highlighted in several ways. They play an extremely important role in applying the Young Offenders Act. When we read the statement of principles, we can see that everyone involved in the case of a young offender has a role to play, including police officers, whose role is in fact extremely important.

• 1725

Mr. Chairman, I am not convinced that the same philosophy or approach is to be found in Bill C-3 and that police officers will be encouraged to continue the work they do at present. Tomorrow, when I talk about police investigations in greater depth, we will no doubt see that deficiencies have been identified and that we have made an important recommendation to correct those deficiencies.

It is by studying the full issue and by asking relevant questions that we can determine whether or not we are on the right track. My purpose in doing what I am doing today and also two weeks ago is to awaken the members' opposite as well as you, Mr. Chairman. If a member of the House of Commons sufficiently believes in the Young Offenders' Act to the point of becoming the spokesperson for a number of coalitions, associations and organizations that implement the Act on a day-to-day basis, it is probably for a good reason. I am not doing this for fun, just for the sake of annoying you. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Justice since 1993, Mr. Chairman, and it is the first time that I feel compelled to do what I am doing right now in an effort to make you aware and to convince you that we are on the wrong track with Bill C-3.

We should not be playing Russian roulette with such a bill. The roulette might stop and we will pull the trigger. There might not be a bullet, but it could also be disastrous. Mr. Chairman, we have every indication that what we are doing is dangerous and that we risk destroying Quebec's long-standing and effective system. Of course, we could do even better and we admit that there is always room for improvement. In my speech, I do not pretend that we are perfect in every way. Some things could be improved, I admit, in terms of time frames especially. However, it is not by throwing the baby with the bath water that we will solve the problems. That's what the minister is doing, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bellehumeur and everyone else, it's now 5.30, and I will look forward to seeing the assembled cast tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. in room 308, West Block.

The meeting is adjourned.