Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know I only have a short period of time, but I have so much to say.
With regard to Ms. Jennings' comment, she obviously doesn't understand what a “warn, caution, and referral” is, because it's not an arrest. There is a very lengthy process involved. I was just describing what we do when we warn and we caution.
It is very frustrating for police officers to have to use the Youth Criminal Justice Act, because it takes, on average, approximately six to eight hours to process a youth. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act they put in many different layers of process, including a youth waiver form that's two full pages, which you have to go through with the youth over and over again. It takes an enormous amount of time. The youths feel as if they are being subjected to too much pressure in the room. Frankly, it's not helping them.
I want to clarify for the record that it takes about six to eight hours. We don't have six to eight hours for me to do a whole arrest here, but when you warn or caution a youth, no one--neither the judiciary nor the government--has the right to tell the parent to go to any kind of reform. We can't tell them to go to the services. We can recommend; we give them the list of resources, but under a warn and a caution, there is nothing to force those children into any kind of helpful program.
It's not only that: YCJA said every province would create programs, but in my province no programs were created several years into this YCJA, so police officers were left not having anywhere to refer them to. As well, don't forget that this government decided to increase the social transfer payments to the provinces by 3% every year. I think we're at a 30% increase now. If there are no programs, we ought to be asking the provinces about that.
I want to come back to the report. Mr. Lemay is wrong. All those kids that I took those drugs from, that I exploited, are my aboriginal youths, my vulnerable kids who ended up in jail because they were exploited by criminals, and that is wrong. That is why the Youth Criminal Justice Act is a huge failure: those aboriginal kids would never have been exploited had we had deterrence, denunciation, and public safety as the priorities.
It says exactly what you said, sir. It says, “Concern was expressed at the over-representation of Aboriginal youth in the youth justice system” because they were exploited under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
In any event, I want to go back to Paul Cherewick and the murder of my neighbour. Public safety is a huge recommendation, which you cited just recently, minister. When it comes to public safety, the 17-year-old male who was responsible for that murder got bail and then went out and almost murdered another person while on bail. Had public safety been taken into account, do you think that might have been prevented?