Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.
As I said before, we simply cannot deal with young offenders and make sure they do not reoffend if they go back to the
environment they were in before, regardless of how much money is poured into counselling and counselling services.
A better idea is to incarcerate them for a longer time in an area away from their former environment where they can focus on work and education in a disciplined environment. It is essential to remove them from their former environment if we are to ensure these kids do not become adult offenders in the future. A ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. It is a worthwhile investment in our time. It need not cost us more money but it is something we desperately need to look at now.
We have to look at a new approach for dealing with crime and punishment. Oftentimes we see the precursors to criminal behaviour very early on. They are often rooted in cases in which there is a terrible environment of violent sexual abuse and neglect. These children need to be identified and picked up very early on.
Furthermore, it would serve many departments well if they were to work in collaboration with the educational department, particularly grade school, in trying to identify families at risk, by bringing the parents into the educational system so that they can also learn the fundamental aspects of being a good parent and what is considered to be reasonable behaviour. They in turn can help when the kids go home and the children will have an environment that will be conducive to building the pillars of a normal psyche.
There has been some interesting work done on this in a number of areas. The early data show that this is a very worthwhile investment of our time. If we can focus more on children when they are three, four and five and early on to identify families that are in crisis when a lady is pregnant, if we can have early intervention into these areas it will pay off in spades later on.
Therefore I strongly implore the government to show a leadership role in working with its provincial counterparts to try to address these problems which will decrease the cost to our justice system, our social programs and make a healthier and safer society for all Canadians.