Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things that are obvious when we debate young offenders. The summary of the bill suggests that we want to try to increase public confidence in the youth justice system. One of the difficulties with that is there are certain crimes that occur in society that we take greater offence with than others. We had a debate in the House on the sex offender registry and there can be no crime more repugnant than that.
When young people get into trouble with the law, they cannot be named and they appear to get a slap on the wrist, headlines scream. People get upset and the flames get fanned. We get the impression that the Young Offenders Act, which the bill is designed to replace, will not solve the problems. Young people will be running amok committing crimes, raping, pillaging, murdering and building a society that will fall apart.
The reality is that the vast majority of young people who commit crimes do not commit rape, assault, aggravated assault, attempted murder or murder. Surely to goodness we can arrive at an agreement on that. The vast majority of young people who do commit crimes, commit crimes that need to be dealt with seriously but dealt with in some new creative way rather than just punishment. We as a society should perhaps look at solutions on how to properly rehabilitate.
A member opposite spoke about a young offender in western Canada who had been charged with 85 car thefts. That is absurd and absolutely ridiculous. We need to find out why that is happening. We need to put a system in place that would allow society to address the problems that this young person is obviously having.
Perhaps we could agree that many of the people who commit youth crimes have other problems. They may have been abused or they may have grown up in a less than supportive family. There is no justification by any means, but perhaps there is an explanation as to why the young person went against the law. That is not what we talk about in this place. We talk about throwing away the key after three strikes.
I will check Hansard but I made notes on one of the speeches made by a member who quoted from a study. It stated that kids did not shoot up schools before gun control. He quoted another study that said that kids who have been taught how to use guns show more maturity and better attitudes. The member went on to say that there are programs being recommended by himself and others that would teach our kids how to kill an animal. They believe that it will somehow teach our young people the consequences of pulling the trigger.
Let me be clear here. I have nothing against hunting whatsoever. My oldest son, much to my amazement, hunts bears with a bow and arrow. I do not know how in the world he ever got into that, but he loves it and he is a good sportsman. He will go out with a gun with some friends and hunt for deer at the appropriate time. There is no background of that in my family, but that is his choice. I have no difficulty whatsoever with that practice.
I also recognize that hunting is an activity. That was the point that I was trying to make for the hon. member. It was the same issue as involving a young person in any organized activity. However, to suggest that gun control in some perverse way is preventing hunting clubs and other organizations from organizing hunting expeditions or taking young people out and teaching them how to target shoot is just absurd.
If that is what people in some parts of rural Canada want to do to get their children involved in an activity, by all means. The difference is that under gun control they will be using a weapon that is registered. Is that awful? Maybe that would also teach them that it is no big deal and that maybe their parents should get over that fact.
I heard an hon. member say that he had heard some language that he could not imagine, that he had never heard before. I am sitting here thinking, what could they have said? We know all of the big bad words. I raised three boys and, as a result of that, I had the wonderful opportunity and privilege of having young children around our house all the time. We were involved in all the different activities in the community. I am afraid I have to admit that the odd time we may have heard something a little stronger than ah, shucks come out of the mouths of some of these young competitive individuals.
Did any of them go astray? We had young children come through our lives who got into trouble with the law, who may have been mixed up in some drugs. Fortunately in most of the cases that I have seen the services have been there in the community. Whether it was through the home, church, school, social services or working with the police, the services have been there in the community to help these young children get their lives back together again.
I almost sit and marvel at the naiveté of some members who say they have never heard bad language like that. The society our children have grown up in is dramatically different from our own. Times were fairly simple for those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s compared to what these young children go through today.
Today everything is instantaneous. There is instant gratification. They watch the news at night or play video games and they see the violence. These are realities. Are we supposed to put our young people in cocoons and say that they will never be exposed to any of these kinds of problems? Are we supposed to dwell on the fact, as one member opposite did, that somehow it was different in our day? Of course it was different in our day. That is why we need to change the bill.
If young offenders get charged with serious violent crimes, should we name them? Should we put their picture on the front page? I think not. The bill would not allow that to happen. However, if they are convicted of a crime and they in turn receive an adult sentence, to be served in a youth facility, because there is absolutely no sense in putting young convicted criminals together with adult criminals as we would simply turn out an adult criminal, or if they have escaped and are considered dangerous, then their names could be publicized. Simply throwing their names out, destroying their lives, and then finding out that they are innocent is not something that is based on justice at any age, and surely it is not based on justice in terms of Canada's youth.
There are many very positive points in the bill. I wish we could talk about the positive stories of our young people instead of scaremongering and dwelling on the problems that are there. The bill will help fix many of these problems to ensure that young people who do run afoul of the law have an opportunity to get their lives back together again.