Mr. Speaker, I hope I will be granted as much time as was granted my hon. colleague who just rose with his comments.
I have a couple of comments. The hon. member from the Bloc finds himself a thousand miles away from Reform thinking. That is very obvious and all I can say is thank goodness for that.
The hon. member likes to quote statistics. I notice that most members seem to be using statistics that support their case. I guess we will continue to do that as long as this debate lasts.
I am referring to the Canadian Centre for Justice statistics which say: "Since 1992-93 the number of property cases has decreased by 5 per cent"-this is referring to young offenders' statistics-"while the numbers of cases in all other offence categories have either increased or remained near the same level. The number of cases involving violence has increased by 8 per cent".
We can all quote statistics. We can all say the problem is getting worse or better, depending on what side of the House we are on and what side of the argument we are on.
The point I would make to the hon. member is this. The people who are demanding justice the loudest are the children themselves, the good kids. We tend to forget that. Some seem to think that if Reformers get up and say that we have to get serious with these young offenders that we are somehow attacking youth.
We are trying to defend the youth who are the good citizens, the model citizens, the ones who are afraid to go to school, scared to walk down the street after dark because they could be attacked by some gang because the gang is not being properly dealt with by the system. The system is failing these young people.