Madam Speaker, on March 12 I asked the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister about Canada's youth criminal justice act that had just been introduced the day before. Obviously there are a lot of concerns about the bill. The public had not had much of a chance to look at it, but we had some concerns and we were seeking answers at that time and were also anxious to see the bill move forward.
Today it was disappointing when the government House leader talked about adjourning the House earlier than what is on our normal calendar because the government is really running out of legislation and is talking about possibly getting out of here next Friday. Yet when I got up and asked the government House leader why we were not dealing with the Canada youth justice act his comment was that it was being filibustered by the opposition.
It is quite interesting. I did go and look. I know we have had some speakers on the bill. We have had some obvious input. My colleague from Surrey North has great concerns on the bill and has been up as well as many others. But we have spoken as the opposition for four hours, 240 minutes on this bill since it was introduced.
The bill was introduced by this government over five years ago. It was something the Liberals wanted to do and it took them five years to get the bill to the House. After three months we have only had the bill before the House a very small amount of time. We certainly want to see it get to committee. We want to see many changes in it but the government seems to be dragging its feet.
The Liberals do much talking and introduce a lot of PR jobs. They spent about $5 million on advertising in this area so far. Yet the book they put out says that the Government of Canada will establish a five to six year implementation plan. The Liberals have had five years to look at. Now they are talking about taking five to six years to implement it.
The Liberals go to great lengths in their advertising to talk about how they have committed $206 million over the first three years for the Canada youth justice act.
The Young Offenders Act is supposed to be supported by 50:50 contributions from the federal government and the provinces. This government is only paying about 30% on average for Canada's young offenders. That is the problem. It is a lack of money. It is a lack of really caring about what is going on in society today.
Today in my community in British Columbia on the lower mainland, one person every day dies from a drug overdose, yet we have no money from the government to solve that problem. I do not know what the numbers are in Toronto and Montreal and other major cities but they are very large. British Columbia is one of the capitals for drugs and it is very serious.
Here is a government that talks about money but it is not putting it where it is needed. It is not putting it there fast enough.
The Liberals are great at talking about the Canada youth justice act and how they are going to implement it and what they are going to do for young children, but they do not get behind their words with actions. They do not get behind their words with money. They know how to spend money with PR firms to make it look like they are doing a good job.
They are spending a couple of hundred million dollars to register guns across Canada, really guns in the rural areas because guns have been registered in Canada for a long time. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on that but there is very little being spent on drugs. There is very little being spent on young offenders.
We have a case today where a young man 18 years old is going to spend about seven years in jail for viciously murdering a young girl in Victoria. I do not think that is acceptable to most Canadians. Had this bill been brought in a year or two ago as it should have been, it would have had a major impact on that young man. He would have been treated as a real adult and got real adult sentencing and served a long time in prison for a very vicious crime, which is what he should do.
We also are not spending any money on rehabilitation. The government did not want to include 10 to 12 year olds in this bill. All the provinces want to do that whether they are NDP provinces, Conservative provinces or Liberal provinces. They want to include those young people to rehabilitate them to make sure they do not turn into criminals. This government will not do that because it does not want to spend the money.
This country has a serious problem with crime, a serious problem with young children. We have a government that likes public relations but likes very little action and that is too bad for our families and too bad for our children.
I hope the government will take a chance over the summer holidays to look at what it is doing and come back with a mandate from the people to do what the people want to solve this problem for young people.