Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the hon. member across understands. I certainly am not a vengeful person. I am a grandfather and a father. I have worked with youth in the community for years. My wife is two years away from retirement as a school teacher. Many of her friends and my friends are school teachers. I hear what they say. I hear what is going on in the school grounds and the school systems as they deal with young people. I am friends with RCMP people and many others in my community.
It is the consensus of the people I know that young people are not being done a favour by being allowed to operate under a veil of secrecy. Peer pressure is very powerful in the life of a young person. If we do this properly we will allow some positive community pressure to come to bear on the young person and on the family.
As for the statistics, who is to say what the crime rates really are? In our town if there is a near riot of young people outside my window, which happens many times, or there is fighting going on and an exchange of drugs, if we call the police they do not come because they know there is no use dealing with young people under the Young Offenders Act.
Last summer I was approached by four young people in my own front yard and threatened simply because I wrote down a licence number. Night after night in that park there are drug exchanges and the police will not even bother because they know it involves young people and there is no use dealing with them.