Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It is an excellent question because it has two parts.
Back in 1994 I had the honour to present a petition containing about 25,000 signatures that was started by high school students in Kelowna. They asked that the Young Offenders Act be amended because it was a joke.
We had a meeting about two weeks ago in the constituency dealing with some of the provisions of the proposed act. The people knew we had the Young Offenders Act and were to have the youth criminal justice act and asked what had changed. That was their first reaction.
The name has changed. Indeed there is more flexibility in the new act, and we went through some of it. One of the points I made this morning with regard to the justice system not being in fact the justice system but being a legal system is one point that they drove home over and over again.
Another point they made was that no matter how good the legislation is that is presented to the House we as parents, as educators and as leaders in society need to recognize that young people have to be taught and shown what is right and what is wrong. It should be incumbent upon every leader in the community, teacher, parent, church or whatever group, that once they have dealt with young people there should be no equivocation that a joyride in a stolen car is an acceptable the right of passage into adulthood.