I would like to thank all the chiefs of police and deputy chiefs of police for coming before committee today to discuss this critical issue impacting your cities and the residents of Canada. I thank you first and foremost for your diligence and your efforts, and for the efforts of your officers in putting their lives on the line to keep our communities safe.
I have a number of questions for all of you. I will start with Deputy Chief Demkiw.
I was very impressed with your remarks in terms of your outreach to the community and looking at a community level. It sounds to me like you were really talking about youth diversion as a primary tactic to combat gun and gang violence. Could you comment a bit further on the resources the Toronto police and other police forces need to really go after youth when they're...?
What we're hearing at committee is that when you get a youth who's doing petty crime, maybe stealing a car or breaking and entering, they're as young as eight or nine or 10 years old when they're starting to do that. They kind of get on that path of gang violence. Can you comment on that? What resources are needed to invest in more youth diversion programs?