Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. He summarized the situation beautifully. Unfortunately, crime does not just spring up out of nowhere. Criminals are not born, they are made.
I am still talking about Winnipeg, but it could be anywhere. At the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, I met youth who were barely 16. Their experiences included the death of a parent, poverty, dropping out of school, sexual assault, drugs, violence. How can we judge children in this type of situation and not think that they will be recruited into street gangs? These youth are looking for love and a family, and street gangs say that they are their family, that they will feed them and give them power, that they will protect them and make them stronger than everyone else, that they will be their family. That is what street gangs give them.
We should not put these children in jail. They are victims. We should give them the chance to work, to go to school, to be loved and to live. That is how we will fight crime.