Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member for his comments on the nature of the bill. One of the challenges that we have to engage in with respect to the judicial system, and I used to be a correctional officer many years ago, is how to separate those individuals who are inveterate violent criminals with those who are first time offenders and non-violent.
If someone is an inveterate criminal who commits violent offences, it is our responsibility to ensure that those people do not get out on the street if there is any reasonable chance of them recommitting an offence.
It is very reasonable to put forth solutions that would increase the penalties for those who are violent offenders. I would suggest increasing the penalties for those who use a gun in the commission of an offence to ensure that those charges cannot be plea bargained away, that they run consecutively and not concurrently. In doing so we actually fulfill our responsibility to the public to protect them. I would suggest that this would be a better way of doing that and in fact through the gun registry in its current existence.
Having said that, the head start program for kids is probably the most important initiative we can have for prevention. It focuses on children from zero to eight. Its essence is to ensure that parents have better parenting skills. Strengthening the parent-child bond, by ensuring that parents have good parenting skills and children have their basic needs met, we will go a long way toward addressing a host of social problems including the issue of youth crime. It has been shown that the head start program actually reduces crime by 50% to 60%.
Would the hon. member and his party support a national head start program that focuses on children from zero to eight, its essence being to ensure that kids have their basic needs met and that parents are taught the parenting skills which will affect their children and society at large?