Certainly, Madam.
I refer you specifically to section 8 of the act which provides for the administration of cautions instead of the starting of judicial proceedings based in part on the young person's participation in extrajudicial, non-punitive programs. If I can talk briefly about the situation in New Brunswick, in the case of a young person who has not committed a violent offence, if that young person is prepared to take responsibility for his behaviour, then he is very quickly steered toward a program that will help him turn his life around.
If the federal legislation requires us to maintain a list of participants in drug treatment and accountability programs, or simply a list of individuals who have been issued warnings by the police, then our concern is that these lists will be used later to sanction these persons. A lawyer could certainly instruct a young client not to take responsibility for his behaviour, to go to trial and to spend more time in the system. The young persons would then spend less time participating in programs that could help him.