Mr. Speaker, I am sure you can imagine just how pleased I am to actually be able to stand in the House and speak about youth issues. Far too infrequent are the occasions in this House in which we get to directly invoke and address young Canadians. Mr. Speaker, you can also imagine my concern and my distress to realize that yet again, the only time the government talks about young people, the only time it brings forth measures relating to young Canadians is to talk about locking them up and punishing them.
For me, young people deserve better. Young people are our future, and that future depends on making them into powerful, engaged, committed, active and successful citizens, not just some of them, all of them. With our ageing society, with our ageing demographics, we need to make sure that our best and our brightest come from all corners of society, even the ones who do not necessarily get the best shots, or do not have the best environment around them or the best opportunities. That is where the focus on prevention and rehabilitation, investing in youth services and youth organizations, ways to empower, to encourage and to engage our young people becomes extremely important.
What has the government done recently? It has been cutting community programs. It has been cutting youth initiatives. It has been reducing opportunities for our young people to grow, to develop, to serve, to become more.
There are two personal examples that really affected me, one small and one large.
Canada's summer jobs program in my riding was cut this year by about $8,000 from last year, based on what the government called administrative tweaks. It is not a lot of money but it does mean that four or five young people will not have opportunities this summer to serve, to work, to help community organizations. Those cuts happened right across the island of Montreal, in talking with my colleagues, and some of the cuts are much larger. This is an example of where the government just does not get it and chooses to shave off programs here and there for young people.
On the other side is a larger example. The government announced with great fanfare a few months ago that it was renewing funding for Katimavik, Canada's national youth service program, for three years. What it did not mention in its news release was that it was renewing the funding at $5 million less per year than the program had received before. Every year, thousands of young people apply to Katimavik for an opportunity to serve their country, to work hard within communities, to build a better Canada one neighbourhood at a time. At a moment in time when young people need a framework like that, need opportunities to discover their importance and their relevance in our world, the government is cutting $5 million a year.
What is it doing with that funding? With this bill, it is proposing to build more detention centres, and that does not make much sense.
The very foundations of the Canadian judicial system separate the rights and needs of youth and adults, an internationally recognized norm that this bill seeks to undermine. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by Canada, recognizes child-specific needs and rights. The best interests of the child must be ensured by the state. Our country's participation in this convention would be damaged by the government's push to further adult incarcerations for young offenders in Canada.
Recognizing a young offender as a developing individual, the important role parents and guardians play and children's rights to privacy, protection from exploitation and expression of their opinion are all necessary if we are to prevent further crimes. These are the very principles the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child embodies and they have been reflected in the current Youth Criminal Justice Act.
I find it very troubling that this government is choosing to set aside the interests of our young people, when all Canadians want a justice system that focuses on prevention and rehabilitation.
Let us look at the statistics. The reality is that despite what the Conservatives tell us, crime rates, and youth crime rates, are going down all over Canada.
Youth crime is down right across the country, but the government will say that violent crime among youth is rising slightly. That is true in some parts of the country, but the one part of the country where violent youth crime is down is the one part of the country that we have spent a lot more effort and energy into investing in prevention and rehabilitation. That is my home province of Quebec.
Quebec gets it. Quebec knows that we cannot base everything on other generations' fear of youth. We must give our youth the chance to make mistakes, and guide them to learn from their mistakes so that they can fully participate in society. That is not what this government is proposing.
These are the politics of cynicism, division and fear at their very worst. The cynicism is apparent even in the choice of the name of this bill. For me, to call it Sébastien's law is a slippery slope, not taking away anything from what Sébastien and his parents have gone through and the tremendous voice that Sébastien's parents have been in terms of standing up for victims' rights. But to call it that at the same time that victims' rights groups across the country have been coming forward and complaining, calling out and decrying the fact that the Conservative government is cutting aid to victims' programs, cutting help and support to community organizations that are helping victims deal with their crime, that is the politics of cynicism. The politics of division are all about picking among groups who are likely to vote for a party and groups who are unlikely to vote for a party and pandering to those who will.
We are encouraging the division between seniors and young people by promoting a mistrust of young people, by engaging the stereotype that youth crimes are horrible and young people need to be punished and set on the straight path. Spare the rod and spoil the child; that sort of mentality does not work.
Yes, there have been situations in which young people have committed horrible crimes, but our judicial system has largely been able to deal with those in a responsible manner. For me, the fact that we have to further politicize and attack young people is shameful.
I have been across the country. I have spoken with young people who want nothing more than to be valued by their government, listened to and empowered by their government. The fact of the matter is the government does not talk about young people except to create fear. Those are the politics of fear, to make us afraid of young people and what they represent, to make us afraid of the violent crime that young people are capable of, instead of working on bringing people together, on creating opportunity for young people to learn, to grow, to contribute. This knee-jerk reaction of the ease to lock them all up and throw away the key is why there is this tough on crime agenda on the other side of the aisle.
We need to focus on energy on being tough on crime, but the government tries to make things evil and scare people. The idea is that we need to bring people together within politics, not divide them.
I am told by my colleagues that there are possibilities of salvaging some elements of this youth crime bill in committee, which is why I look forward to hearing those discussions in committee. However, the fact of the matter is I fundamentally wish that the government had a better opinion of young Canadians and of their capacity to be not just leaders of tomorrow, but leaders of today, if we give them the tools.
Young Canadians and all Canadians deserve better.
