Mr. Speaker, by all means. It is true and the hon. member raises a good point. Violent crime among youth is on the increase. Certainly, that is what the statistics show. Again, we always have to address the challenges and deficiencies in all our laws.
With respect to crime in general, I think we have been keeping statistics for adults and others since 1961. Certainly, it has gone up, but whether it went down last year or up, I appreciate that fewer young people are being charged under this act. They get into extrajudicial measures. They may be picked up for committing a non-violent crime. They get diverted and then somebody will always say that crime must be going down. That is not necessarily true. Just because a person has not been charged with a crime or a crime is not reported, it is not quite the same thing.
I always tell the members of the Liberal Party to not look for excuses and to not look for ways to not support what are very reasonable measures. We have to update the law. We have the royal commission report of Justice Nunn, who pointed out a number of areas within the Youth Criminal Justice Act that have to be updated. We are looking at that. We are responding to that. That was a very reasonable, focused analysis of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and we have to respond to that.
Again, with respect to other pieces of legislation such as the auto theft bill, the drug bill, and the identity theft bill that we passed, we have to capture activity that is not currently in the Criminal Code. I appreciate the fact that, yes, violent offences among young people have been on the increase, but the important part is that the law has to be updated and that is what we are doing.