Madam Speaker, if my colleague thinks the juvenile crime rate is okay in Quebec I disagree with him. I disagree with the crime rate of juvenile offenders in Quebec. If the crime rate is going down that is wonderful, but for years it went up year after year after year. Now it is levelling off and coming down a bit, which is wonderful. If there are methods to account for that, let us emphasize those methods. Let us see what we can do.
As I said in my opening comments, we are very much in favour of the three pronged approach that is evident in Quebec to a greater extent perhaps than in any other province where provincial programs are set up. When a child is struggling in school with aggressiveness or whatever, where it is clearly indicated that the child and perhaps the parents need assistance, that is provided.
We recommended that all provinces adopt that approach and funding be set aside for it. At the second level we very much embrace community committees such as the Sparwood and Maple Ridge programs. I am sure there are programs like those in Quebec where on the first or second minor offence children are taken not into the court system but into the community system where they can receive the assistance they need.
If the acting out by these children is a sign or a signal to society that they need help, surely we should be giving them that help. We also wanted to encompass 10 and 11 year olds because we felt the federal government had abandoned them. In the province of Quebec perhaps there is a good program that looks after those young people who are signalling by their misbehaviour that they do need help.
We say the federal government, because it is the only authority that can legislate in the area of criminal law, has abandoned these young people who, by committing criminal offences, are signalling everyone within seeing or hearing distance that they need help. It has abandoned them.
That is why we urged the recommendation made by Professor Bala and others; that under certain circumstances the justice system have authority in this area to ensure that those young people receive the type of rehabilitative treatment that obviously their actions are signalling they need. We are very much in support of that.
I want to touch on the point that perhaps the juvenile crime rate is down. In so many areas, the offences committed by young people are not even reported because the police tell us that they cannot do anything about it.
If there is break and enter into a home, what answer is there when the police are called? They say “Send us a list of the items that have been stolen”. That is as far as it goes. At one time the police used to come to every break and enter with their fingerprint section and test for fingerprints. They do not do it anymore because they do not have the budget for it. The federal government has cut back in that particular area of law enforcement and crime prevention. It is unfortunate that it is doing that.
If there is one area in which we would like to see greater spending it is in the area of helping our young children. We say, save the ones we can, help the ones we can, but for those who create a threat to our lives, we must not shrink from the use of incarceration. However, if we do incarcerate them we must make sure they get the help they need while they are there. I hope that answers my colleague's question.