Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister and Mr. Deputy Minister, for being here . We do appreciate getting back to a functioning justice committee. It's like a new season.
I'll start right off with a question about youth criminal justice.
Mr. Minister, all of us are in ridings where youth criminal justice is an issue, and most of us are in ridings where the minister's tour on YCJA hit town. We in the opposition only know about it because we were given the opportunity perhaps to buy a T-shirt; we weren't invited to the meetings. But as a result of your meetings—the stakeholders were invited, many of whom, at the local level, MPs across the country would know—many of the stakeholders have told me that they were quite adamant with you, Mr. Minister, that the integration or the insertion of the principles of sentencing, namely denunciation and deterrence, would not work in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Of course, the reason for that is, why have a Youth Criminal Justice Act, a Young Offenders Act, any youth legislation, unless it is markedly different from the Criminal Code?
As you know, the Criminal Code has the provisions for denunciation and deterrence for adults within it. You also know that for really heinous crimes there is discretion left. Your government has not been fond of keeping discretion in the judiciary, but it still remains for trial as an adult to occur in certain cases.
So my question—and it is related, although you may not think it is, to the estimates—is that you went on tour, you spent money and engaged experts and met stakeholders, but we have yet to see any work product from the tour. In short, did the tour take place, the consultations? What were the expenses? What product came out of it in real terms for Canadians who have spent the money? Since February 2008, you've met with the ministers of the territories and the provinces. There is product somewhere. When will Canadians see the work of that product and assure us that denunciation and deterrence were not the flavour du jour in any of the meetings from the stakeholders—because that's what I understand?