Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for sharing with us the enlightened approach being used in Quebec. We, in the rest of Canada, seem to forget that sometimes that is a very progressive way of viewing young people, in particular, who get involved with crime.
I am concerned with the government's cookie-cutter approach which it has proposed with this change. One thing people do not seem to take into account is if a young person winds up before the courts. The working poor or the working families who cannot afford the $1,200, $1,500 or even $2,000 a day for a lawyer may face the same kind of situation that the young blacks do in the U.S. Two-thirds of the people who are in prisons there are of colour. Of that number, it is figured that almost three-quarters of them may be totally innocent of the crime of which they have been charged and convicted.
I am very fearful, and I would suspect the member opposite would share this concern, that we are heading down an Americanization road with our system where people want quick solutions to very serious situations.