Mr. Speaker, the amendments before us today raise a larger issue and that is the need, which is ongoing, to study the Young Offenders Act as a whole and not to bring in piecemeal methods.
I heartily disagree with my Reform colleagues who would simply lock up every young person in the hope that they would not commit a crime. At the same time they would cut the social programs and the kind of facilities available to young people.
We have a disturbing trend in this country of a very anti-youth movement. The government has not addressed youth unemployment. Why is it not doing that? It has not addressed the need of young people to have better services for treatment and for work in the communities. Instead it is contemplating cutting some of those very services.
Of course we have to deal with those young people who are committing crimes. We have to deal with the communities and the parents who are dealing with those young people. However we will not do it by the government's policy of an anti-youth campaign which this legislation is.