Statement made on 19 October 2011 by Senator Céline Hervieux Payette
Hon. Céline Hervieux-Payette:
The streets were not very safe for native women in B.C. The government could use other means besides Bill C-10 to correct the suffering of Aboriginal women.
I would like to talk about another fragile group that represents the future of Canada. At a press conference in Montreal on October 17, three young offenders serving a sentence at the Centre de jeunesse de Montreal explained how the passage of Bill C-10 would hinder their social reintegration and the possibility of having a second chance in life.
When we speak to young people who got off to a bad start, we find that quite often, it all began at an early age in the family. One of the centre's directors, Clément Laporte, the coordinator of the Centre d'expertise sur la délinquance des jeunes et les troubles de comportement, said that the government's decision is not supported by the scientific literature.
The experience in Texas showed that it is useless for a society such as ours to want to protect itself — in the criminal sense of the word — by using deterrence through longer sentences but without doing anything else in the meantime.
He went on to say, "You have talked to youth. They either act on impulse" — that is what they said — "or they are hard-core criminals," because they have not had any support for a long time "and they think that they will never be caught."
The government's actions are based on politics and popularity. But science has proven the opposite.
What does the government intend to do to give young Canadians — who are often intelligent and can overcome their issues — a second chance instead of pushing them into the arms of hardened criminals by sending them to prison for unjustified sentences?
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