Mr. Speaker, I do not quite understand why the member for Mississauga West is criticizing the Reform members. The bill before us this morning is Reform policy that the government has put into the text of a law.
Who in this House called for the publication of the names of the young offenders, as we currently see in Bill C-3? The Reform members. Who in this House wanted young offenders referred as often as possible to adult court? The Reform members. Who in this House called for harsher sentences and greater repression for young people? The Reform members.
I cannot understand why the Liberal member is attacking the Reform Party. This is the very policy that the Minister of Justice has included in the bill, a policy that has been tested and that does not work. This policy has been tested in Quebec, and there is universal agreement that it does not work.
Rehabilitation is the way to go. Nothing in the bill will encourage the other provinces, which are not enforcing the Young Offenders Act in its present form anyway, to enforce the new legislation. In addition, it will cost millions of dollars to implement this new bill, when Quebec has been enforcing the legislation for the past 16 years, with convincing results, very good results.
Under pressure from western Canada, the Minister of Justice has scrapped the old act and drafted a new one. These are not amendments—let us strike this word from our vocabulary—to the Young Offenders Act. This is really a new act entitled the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This is a complete change of vocabulary and a complete change of philosophy.
The government may think that this bill is about public safety, but it is mistaken. In the long run, Canada and Quebec will pay for the amendments that have just been introduced. When young offenders re-enter society, they will not be anonymous citizens the way they are today when the existing Young Offenders Act is enforced the way it was intended to be and funds are made available, as they are by Quebec.
I think that the member opposite does not know what he is talking about. I think that he has not even read Bill C-3 and I definitely think that he has not looked at the differences that exist between today's young offenders system and Bill C-3. What I heard this morning was shocking.