Someone just called it con college. Do they come out better criminals? Are they more angry citizens, less willing to rehabilitate themselves or conform themselves to society's norms? Are they less able to participate in a meaningful role in society by getting a job? All of these things will be consequences of locking that door when they happen to be on the inside. That is what the bill would do, and at great cost.
We need to get rid of the notion that this is for the long-term protection of society, claiming that the streets would be safer. I think there is a little germ of an idea there that at least while offenders are inside they will not be able to commit crimes. That is the simplistic notion that the government throws out. I guess it does not really believe in rehabilitation.
The Conservatives say that while offenders are in jail the streets will be safer. The trouble is that is a false notion. The evidence as to how we make our streets safer when it comes to youth criminal justice comes from decades of experience in the province of Quebec. A minister from the province of Quebec came to see us and told us Quebec's approach to this. He spoke with great passion about how Quebec wanted to ensure that young people who were running afoul of the law would get a chance to rehabilitate themselves.
For decades, Quebec has posted the lowest rates of recidivism in Canada. Does the government want to learn from that? Does the government want to say that there is something happening there, we should study it and try to emulate it? If Quebec has the lowest recidivism rates in the country, we have a laboratory in which this approach has been tried par excellence, followed rigidly with the understanding of what it was doing. It was not just willy-nilly. It was not an accident. It happened as a result of Quebec's policies, its approach, its understanding of what works with young people and putting it into practice over decades.
If one has had the lowest rate of recidivism in Canada for 10, 20 or 30 years, would one not want to emulate that in Manitoba, in Newfoundland and Labrador, in Ontario and in British Columbia? We cannot forget about B.C. Do the people of Alberta not want to find out how Quebec has the lowest rate of recidivism in the country? Are they somehow or other less with it than the rest of the country? I do not think so. We should ask the people of Alberta if they would like to have young people, who are brought into contact with the traditional system, to come out, after being treated, and not commit crimes. Is that not what we would rather have or would we rather have them as they are now, part of a revolving door? Even if we lock them up longer, they will get out. We do not lock people up until they die. Even if they get a two year, three year, four year or five year sentence, they will get out.
When they do come out, what do we have? Do we have a person who is remodelled somehow, rehabilitated? Is that what we have the longer we put them in? That is not what any of the literature and the experts will say. It does not work. That is why we have this approach to rehabilitation, which is built into the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It was not designed primarily as a punishment, although there is some punishment.
Some offenders will be removed from society to what they call closed custody because some of these people are a danger. I have no illusions about that. Just because they are young people, it does not mean they cannot be a danger. Young people of the ages of 14, 15 and 16 can do terrible things, and they do. The question is what do we do with them. We will not put them in jail until they die. We will put them in jail, in custody or subject them to a system of criminal justice. However, what do we want to achieve? We want to achieve a safer society. We want to have a young person who is capable of being rehabilitated. We want to have a young person who may have to be given some program and some assistance to make up for the fact that he or she is where he or she is.
I am not saying that every person who commits a crime is somehow a victim of society. I have been around too long to think that. We have people from all walks of life who get into difficulty with the criminal justice system. However, many who do run afoul of the law have societal problems or poor backgrounds. Some may have difficult family lives or may have no proper home in which to live. They may be living in poverty and do not have the essentials of life. They may be in a home that is forced to go to a food bank. We know that by the number of food banks. We know by the demographics of this country that many people live in poverty, especially families headed by a single parent where the children do not have the opportunities that some of our kids have. They do not get the music lessons. They do not get to play hockey, join a soccer team or participate in extracurricular activities. They may have difficulty even having the right clothes to go to school and be accepted by their classmates and friends. They may grow up in an aboriginal community with a poor school. They may not have the things that make their life and their prospects something positive to look forward to and they may run afoul of the law one way or another and come into contact with the youth criminal justice system.
What attitude and approach do we want to take? The youth criminal justice system as it is written right now is telling us that the object of this act is rehabilitation, that based on that and based on the Quebec system and approach totally having the means, through its approach, for decades, and resulting in it, that this must be significant.
I do not know if this has been discussed in the House before but when we hear the Minister of Justice and the attorney general of Quebec saying that this approach has been used in Quebec for nearly 40 years and that for decades it has had the lowest rate of recidivism for young people in the entire country, I feel like yelling hallelujah. I am pleased that somebody has proven that rehabilitation works so let us get on the bandwagon and find out how we can replicate this from Newfoundland and Labrador to Yukon.