Certainly we saw exactly that with the coming in of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Many police officers no longer bother even taking reports or filing charges. So it wouldn't surprise me that in many respects crime stats are going down, but the incidence of crime continues to climb.
On one very recent example out of Vancouver, the new Mayor of Vancouver has just re-announced--I heard this about two months ago--that they are now actually going to send out police officers to investigate break and enters. If you were broken into before, you just phoned it in and that was the end of the investigation. Now these stats that were previously kept out will continue to be reflected. Because no one was following up, there were no official stats.
Just speaking on a common-sense basis, people know that the condition of our streets in terms of crime is nowhere near what it was 20 years ago. You're in northeast Winnipeg, an area where I grew up, and I know that changes have occurred there. There are robberies, break and enters, and auto thefts, where those were unheard of 25 or 30 years ago.
I note your hard work with community organizations in that respect and your support of the police. Your son is not only an RCMP officer who just joined the RCMP, but he was a Brandon city police officer for many years. With his very close connection to the aboriginal community in Manitoba, he has a very strong and good insight into what is actually happening on our streets and in our aboriginal communities, which are so plagued by rising crime rates.
We are concerned about support for crime prevention. My department, together with the Department of Health, is managing the drug treatment court funding program. Under this program we are providing contribution to six drug treatment courts: Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Regina, and Vancouver. There are other justice funding programs that will continue--the youth justice renewal fund. The justice partnership and innovation program is always willing to consider proposals that aim to prevent and reduce crime. We work in close collaboration in the Department of Justice with other departments, such as public safety, and there are strong programs on crime prevention.