Bill S-9 (Historical)

Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create offences in connection with the theft of a motor vehicle, the alteration, removal or obliteration of a vehicle identification number, the trafficking of property or proceeds obtained by crime and the possession of such property or proceeds for the purposes of trafficking, and to provide for an in rem prohibition of the importation or exportation of such property or proceeds.

Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice]

moved that Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime). This bill targets property crime, in particular auto theft which continues to cause serious harm to Canadian communities.

To this end, Bill S-9 would create a new offence of motor vehicle theft, a new offence to address tampering with an automobile's vehicle identification number and new offences to address trafficking in property obtained by crime.

Just how serious is auto theft in Canada? According to information provided by Statistics Canada, motor vehicle thefts are one of the most common types of police reported crime in Canada. In 2008, they accounted for 6% of all Criminal Code offences and 7% of all non-violent offences. In 2008, police reported approximately 125,000 motor vehicle thefts, averaging about 340 stolen vehicles per day. It is estimated that this costs auto insurance policyholders approximately $465 million in increased insurance premiums.

We also know that motor vehicle theft is one of the least likely crimes to be solved by police. Of all vehicle thefts in 2008, 12% resulted in an accused person being identified compared to 34% of all other non-violent offences.

Motor vehicle theft is a crime often associated with youth. In 2008, police reported motor vehicle theft rates were highest among 15 to 18 year olds. Youths accounted for approximately three in ten persons accused in motor vehicle theft in 2008.

Auto theft also creates immense public safety risks. As a representative from the Winnipeg Police Association testified before the Senate committee, auto theft has had tragic consequences in many parts of Canada, including Winnipeg. Mr. Sutherland, the president of the association, listed for the committee a few examples of the Winnipegers who have been killed or seriously injured by stolen vehicles since 2007.

In 2007, a jogger in Winnipeg was seriously injured by a car thief who deliberately targeted joggers by hitting them with his car door as he drove past. Two other individuals were killed in Winnipeg in 2007. A woman was killed after her van was hit by a stolen vehicle and a cyclist was killed after being struck by a stolen car driven by a repeat offender. In 2008, a cab driver was killed after his vehicle was struck by a stolen vehicle. In 2009, a man was killed when his Subaru was struck by a vehicle that was being driven by a repeat offender.

There have been other cases in Canada. In 2007, two teenagers were killed in Toronto when a stolen vehicle smashed into their taxi. That same year a York Regional Police officer was killed trying to stop the theft of an air bag. In 2004 in Nova Scotia, a young woman was killed when a stolen car driven by a repeat auto theft offender smashed into her car.

The bill proposes that the distinct offence of theft of a motor vehicle be added to the Criminal Code. It would be a hybrid offence with a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment on indictment and 18 years imprisonment on summary conviction. There also would be a mandatory minimum penalty of six months imprisonment for a third or subsequent conviction when the prosecutor proceeds by indictment. This penalty is a balanced approach to repeat offences of a serious nature.

Canadians have repeatedly told us that they want appropriate penalties for repeat offenders and we believe this legislation moves us in the right direction.

Bill S-9 is also proposing to create an offence for wholly or partially altering, obliterating or removing a vehicle identification number, or VIN, on a motor vehicle. Under the new amendments, anyone convicted of tampering with a VIN could face imprisonment for a term of up to five years on indictment or six months, or a fine of not more than $2,000 or both on summary conviction.

Both the VIN tampering offence and the distinct motor vehicle theft offence would offer benefits to the criminal justice system not offered by the current offence used to cover these activities, “possession of property obtained by crime” found in section 354 of the Criminal Code. A conviction for either of these offences would clearly and more accurately document a person's involvement in an organized vehicle theft ring as part of the criminal record. This, in turn, would help police and crown prosecutors to deal appropriately with these people in subsequent investigations and prosecutions.

The House will note that the VIN tampering offence contains an express exception in subsection 353.1(3) to ensure that those individuals who must remove or alter a VIN in the course of legitimate auto repairs, maintenance or modification are not captured under the ambit of this offence.

A question was raised in the Senate committee on why this express exception is required when subsection 353.1(1) also contains a lawful excuse defence. I will take a moment to explain how the provision works.

A VIN is not located only on the dashboard of a motor vehicle. It can also be found in numerous locations such as the door, the engine block, the door frame, and on the steering wheel or steering column, to name but a few. These VINs will be affected and possibly removed entirely when parts are changed or repaired following accidents or in the course of regular maintenance or modification. It is clearly necessary that any definition of VIN tampering not apply to the numerous law-abiding Canadians who could technically fall within the scope of the definition of the offence while engaged in repairing or modifying vehicles.

The inclusion of the lawful excuse clause by itself would be insufficient to protect innocent Canadians from being charged under the provision. The lawful excuse defence is meant to apply only under those limited circumstances in which a specific defence cannot be envisioned by Parliament, even though it is acknowledged that there could be situations in which some lawful excuse could exist.

Lawful excuse is a flexible concept designed to provide an accused who bears the onus with access to justifications that, depending on the nature of the offence and the circumstances in which it was committed, may be appropriate in particular cases, although these cases will usually be rare. With some offences, it is impossible to envisage every situation that can amount to a lawful excuse for a particular offence. Whether there was a lawful excuse for certain offences is a determination that must be made on the basis of all the circumstances presented in evidence.

However, when Parliament can identify circumstances that are clearly blameless in nature but that would otherwise fall within the scope of a broadly phrased criminal offence, it should be incumbent upon Parliament to expressly set out such circumstances in the law. This way there is no uncertainty on the part of the individuals who engage in that conduct and no uncertainty on the part of the police or prosecutors about the lawfulness of the conduct.

This is why we have the express exception in the proposed VIN tampering provision. Without specifying the exceptions, there is a real risk that individuals engaged in conduct that Parliament does not wish to criminalize will be caught up in the criminal process. The exceptions complete the definition of what the offences seek to capture.

Bill S-9 also proposes to create offences to address trafficking and property obtained by crime. The proposed trafficking offences are intended to target the entire length of the marketing chain that processes the proceeds of theft and other crimes like fraud.

One form of trafficking in property obtained by crime is the movement of stolen automobiles and their parts. This is where organized crime is most involved in auto theft, either through car- theft rings, chop shops, or re-VINing a car for the sophisticated international rings that smuggle stolen luxury cars to foreign locations.

Currently, section 354 of the Criminal Code, the general offence of possession of property obtained by crime, which carries a maximum of 10 years imprisonment for property valued over $5,000, is the principal Criminal Code offence used to address trafficking and property obtained by crime. This possession offence does not adequately capture the full range of activities involved in trafficking.

Both proposed offences have higher penalties than the existing offence of possession of property obtained by crime. If the value of the item trafficked exceeds $5,000, anyone convicted of this offence could face imprisonment for up to 14 years. If the value does not exceed $5,000, it would be a hybrid offence and subject to imprisonment for up to five years on indictment or up to six months on summary conviction.

In the auto theft example, the trafficking offences would capture all of the players in a chop-shop operation, whereas the offence of possession of property obtained by crime would apply only to those in possession of property such as stolen cars or car parts. In order to avoid detection and reduce the probability of multiple counts in the event of an arrest, chop shops have very little inventory at any given time. It is to be noted, however, that the trafficking offences address dealings involving all property obtained by crime, not just the results of auto theft and chop-shop operations.

I am pleased that the trafficking offences also provide the Canada Border Services Agency with the legislative tools necessary to allow them to detain property, including stolen cars about to be exported from Canada, in order to determine whether they are stolen and to allow the relevant police agency to recover them and take the appropriate action.

Bill S-9 is a comprehensive piece of legislation that addresses many of the activities that organized crime undertakes in relation to auto theft and other forms of property crime.

Bill S-9 has been studied in-depth by the Senate and in the last session by the House of Commons in its previous form as Bill C-26.

Bill S-9 is unchanged in any material respect from Bill C-26, and, in my opinion, there is no reason to delay bringing this bill into law. I would urge all hon. members to support this bill in its early passage.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill, and the member in his explanation, touches on organized crime and trafficking of parts. We all accept that this is an extremely serious issue. He has also talked about the theft of cars and the harm that can be done to innocent bystanders. He cited examples of that.

In respect of the sophistication of the technology, the member mentioned the VIN number. With some of the high-end vehicles, investigations have found that the GPS systems designed to give locations in the event of a theft can be compromised by the sophisticated technology that the legislation is aimed at preventing.

Does this bill also look at the level of technology used for illegal purposes? People who work at dealerships and have access to the VIN numbers could become accessories to theft on a large scale. Does the legislation anticipate that level of sophistication? Is the member satisfied that the recommended approach in the legislation will act as a deterrent to those who may be interested in pursuing theft at that level?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, GPS technology is now available, and in the future it will make it a lot more difficult to steal vehicles. We look forward to the dissemination of this technology in new vehicles across Canada.

The problem is that a lot of vehicles on the road today do not have that technology, and this will be the case for many years. We need to update the Criminal Code to follow the current practice of organized crime, auto-theft rings, and chop-shop operations.

The VIN tampering provisions that the member refers to will make it an offence to alter, obliterate, or remove a vehicle identification number. This provision would also contain an express exception to ensure that legal activity, such as legitimate motor vehicle repair and maintenance, is not captured by this proposed offence.

The punishment for this offence would be a five-year maximum term of imprisonment on indictment, and a six-month maximum term of imprisonment or $5,000 fine on summary conviction.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of historical accuracy, we should note that this bill finds its origins in a high-level delegation that came to Ottawa from the province of Manitoba in 2007. The delegation included Gary Doer, the Premier, and his minister of justice; the mayors of Winnipeg, Brandon, and Thompson; the chiefs of police of Winnipeg, Brandon, and Thompson; and a very special person, a victim that my colleague made reference to, Kelly Van Camp, a personal friend of mine. She was a victim of what they called, “bowling for joggers”, where these thieves were running down joggers deliberately with stolen cars. The victims suffered terrible injuries as a result.

They came to Ottawa asking four things. I note that three of them are in this bill. First, car theft should be a stand-alone offence. It is an offence in the Criminal Code to steal a cow, yet it is not an offence to steal a car. That should be corrected. Second, tampering with VINs should be criminalized. Third, additional authority for Canadian Border Service Agency personnel to intervene should be covered.

The fourth thing is something we fail to find: amending the Young Offenders Act so that police can detain young car thieves during the night until their first court appearance, instead of turning them back out on the street where they can steal another car before the night is over. This is something these key actors from Manitoba asked the federal government for.

Why did the government not do this?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a valid point. In fact, the requirement that he is referring to is included in Bill C-4, which is currently before this House. It contains an amendment to change the Youth Criminal Justice Act in connection with pretrial detention.

If the member takes a look at Bill C-4, he will find it there. This is the appropriate place for it, because it is an amendment to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

He also makes the point that Winnipeg has seen a lot of organized auto theft. When the justice committee visited Winnipeg this past spring, we heard from many witnesses, including the chief of police, about the problem of organized auto theft in Winnipeg, which is putting many good citizens of Winnipeg at risk.

I thank the hon. member for raising that in the House. I think it is important. This is why the government is proposing this bill today.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Winnipeg noted the number of car thefts in Winnipeg and the terrible consequences of them. I want to put a B.C. context on this for the member who brought forward this motion, the member for Mississauga—Erindale.

In 2009, thefts of vehicles in British Columbia jumped 71% from the previous year, according to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

The member mentioned in his speech a number of consequences, including increased insurance costs for all Canadians, and costs to individuals injured as a result of the horrendous driving practices of car thieves. In our area, a stolen vehicle was driven out on a railway trestle over a big ravine and the thieves set the vehicle on fire, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the trestle.

I wonder if the member would comment from his experience, because he is very experienced in this file, on the public costs incurred in addition to the costs of the vehicles and the insurance.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a terrible cost associated with endangering human lives. Vehicles are often stolen by young offenders, who will take the cars on a joyride. I think it was the member for Winnipeg Centre who mentioned the tragic case of the jogger who was killed. There was actually some kind of a competition among auto thieves, I believe, to see if they could hit joggers. That is one thing that happens often.

Another thing that often happens is that police in hot pursuit of a stolen vehicle can be involved in accidents.

These are some of the tragic and negative consequences to the public, in addition to the costs of the loss of the vehicles.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question regarding the government's agenda on justice and its crime bills.

Yesterday, in the city of Toronto, there was a celebrated case about a storekeeper who tried to defend his own property and now finds himself before the courts on a whole series of charges. Some of them have been dropped, but it still appears that the victim is being victimized twice.

I presented a private member's bill that would amend section 494 of the Criminal Code, and one of my colleagues from the NDP did the same thing last week.

The hon. member across made a promise last year to the individuals involved that the government would present such legislation.

I wonder why the government will not follow through on any of the promises that it made with respect to the justice agenda.

While I am on my feet, perhaps the parliamentary secretary can also explain why the government called for a standing vote on its own crime agenda when it had the support of the entire House on the bill. Why would it require a vote when everyone already agrees on legitimate things, even before prorogation? I just wonder where the sincerity lies.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the hon. member's private member's bill and the one that has been presented by the member for Trinity—Spadina.

Just to correct the record, I promised, personally, to present a private member's bill. Unfortunately, before I was able to do so, I was appointed as a parliamentary secretary and the hon. member will know that I no longer have the right to put forward private members' bills in my current capacity.

The member for Trinity—Spadina is putting forward a bill that is very similar to the one that I had drafted. We have discussed it. And I very much look forward to the debate on both of these bills in the House.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise on Bill S-9, the tackling auto theft and property crime act.

I rise today to speak to this bill, an act I am pleased to see yet again in this place. I hope it will not follow its ill-fated identical twins, Bill C-58 and Bill C-26, which we mourn today. They were killed on the order paper by the poll-obsessed Conservative Party for the sake of political expediency. This is another well-intentioned piece of legislation and another piece of legislation where good intentions are late and not enough.

Let us be clear, as vice-chair of the justice committee, I and the Liberal Party promise that we will support this bill going to committee and being expeditiously dealt with at that committee.

The system within this bill will fail to keep Canadians safe and secure in their property without a commitment to enforcement, not headlines and hype but money and manpower, boots on the street, a dedication to putting Canadians' safety first, above hyperbole, above how our parties are faring or may fare in the polls.

Standing up and acting for Canadians, which I believe is a slogan of one of the parties here, standing up for Canadians, means taking concrete action. On this side, we have committed to taking what action we can to protect Canadians and encourage government to fund the police forces that can put laws like this, albeit very lately enacted, into action.

That means making the best of a flawed bill like this, sending it to committee, studying it, amending it, recognizing the good and singling out the bad, but nothing that this bill or the justice committee can do will affect the deficit of police forces and money to police forces across this country.

I want to reiterate the point that my friend, the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre made in having us remember what could be called the good law firm of Doer, Chomiak and Katz, and of course those were the Manitoba premier and minister of justice and the mayor of Winnipeg. The Manitobans came to town and asked for four things.

Now it is over four years since they came, and this bill addresses three of those items. The last item was in fact a request towards the realization that gangs, and youth gangs in particular, were being used in Winnipeg as the pawns, the effectors, of organized crime thefts of vehicles. The Youth Criminal Justice Act as it existed then and as it exists now allows for an accused youth to be let out of remand, to be not remanded, pending trial and in between offences.

Now this was precisely the situation that led the province of Nova Scotia, on my coast, to commission Justice Merlin Nunn to study the issue of youth criminal justice legislation and to make recommendations in what is now known as the Nunn commission report.

One of those glaring recommendations was to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act in the smallest way, with the fewest words to absolve our communities of this problem, the problem of youths being let go from remand, being let out of the custody of the court pending a determination of their issues. Remand is something that keeps a person who is accused of a serious offence in custody pending the determination of their issue, if there are grounds.

In many cases there are grounds for adults, and adult offenders are remanded or kept in custody. It is not so in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It was that fact that in the Nunn commission case study gave rise to its need. It was not the case and it had disastrous consequences.

As I said Doer, Chomiak and Katz came to Ottawa wanting that simple amendment more than four and a half years ago. They have not, as my NDP colleague mentioned, received that simple amendment.

People might ask why a simple wording amendment to a fairly large and complicated act, which would not have met with any resistance from this side, was not done. It is because, like everything the government does, it has to be presented in a political fashion. Politics has to be played with the Criminal Code. It has to be played in the realm of criminal justice.

When everybody agreed on an amendment to the Youth Criminal Justice Act that would have given Manitobans the fourth item they wanted, the Conservative government added a phrase that was of debate. The point is that there was unanimous agreement on the amendment, but it had to add another element of denunciation and deterrence, which is alive with debate in the country, and spoiled it. It spoiled the idea that very quickly and very simply, for the benefit of the people in Nova Scotia, Alberta, Manitoba and all the provinces in Canada, it could have had this amendment that everybody wanted. No doubt this has wreaked havoc across this country and has resulted in further actions by youths not in remand, joyriding and stealing cars, as adjuncts of gang activity in cities such as Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Abbotsford, British Colombia, and have made Canadians less safe than when the Conservative government was elected.

Shame on the Conservative government for not acting quickly on that fourth request from the Manitoba delegation.

Any night between 5:00 and 7:30, depending upon where one lives, newscasts will show the Conservative government as friends of the police, as friends of victims, but it does very little in action for police forces across the country. Police forces have been requesting funding. Police forces have not received the man hours, the boots on the streets that they require.

With respect to auto theft, members may say that more police officials will not necessarily lead to a decrease in auto theft. The Toronto Star reported in July 2009, three years or so into the mandate of the government, that the provincial auto theft team, a joint task force involving the OPP, the Insurance Bureau of Canada and local police forces, was going through a restructuring that would see a further decrease in the number of officers investigating auto theft in the GTA.

This is Canada's largest city. Now we know that the government has money to throw around in Canada's largest city on various security measures for a very short-term project, but it does not have the money to flow through the provinces to keep the provincial auto theft team properly staffed. If I were the mayor of Toronto or running for election as mayor of Toronto, I would be kind of steamed at the federal government for not putting its resources in policing.

Police forces are indeed the front line of how to prevent auto theft. I recall, as part of our study on organized crime, that in Winnipeg we met with a number of police officials who were very surgical in how they were going to approach the problem of auto theft in their community, and they were very successful. They were not successful with laws, necessarily. They did not rely upon the after-the-fact retribution or punishment that is replete in the Criminal Code. They relied upon intelligence, savvy and resources, and they successfully reduced the level of auto theft in Winnipeg. That was a matter of resources, of money.

While we might sit here as parliamentarians all agreeing to what is in this bill, we as parliamentarians have a deficit with the public in suggesting that this bill was brought forward in a timely basis and that it will have the effect of completely eradicating auto theft or even reducing auto theft in the short term. In other words, we have gone to the shelf and we have seen what is on the shelf. We are going to grab what is on the shelf, but it is not enough to feed the issue that is burning, in this case, auto theft across this country.

Let us examine some of the elements of this bill.

It includes mandatory minimums. We can have a long debate on whether mandatory minimums work. Some of the bad in this bill includes the provisions for mandatory minimums in sentencing. We have been at this experiment of increased mandatory minimums for five years. I look forward at committee to seeing whether the mandatory minimum increase experiment is working. In this case it is a six-month mandatory sentence for third and subsequent auto theft offences. These mandatory minimums are less severe than the Conservatives have brought forward in the past, but as always they impinge on judicial discretion in sentencing. It is why the Canadian Bar Association has expressed opposition to mandatory minimums.

This is a continuing trend with the government. As in many other justice bills, the Conservatives seek to strip judges of their authority. There is lack of overall respect for judges. On this side, for probably the umpteenth time I am here suggesting that we have one of the best judiciary systems in the world. We should be very proud that we do not have the kind of capricious justice that takes place in almost every other country but Canada. As the government is always saying, we should celebrate our strength. We should celebrate the fact that we have a great judiciary.

I was here yesterday in this place making the same case on white collar crime. This is a bill that would not have incurred much opposition had it been brought forward earlier. It is a bill that we should have brought to the Canadian public earlier, and it is a bill that might have prevented other white collar crimes or frauds having taken place in the time it took us, I will say, to get to this.

Of course the reason we did not get to it is we have been having elections every couple of years. The government prorogued Parliament, and I hope the public understands that if a piece of legislation that is ready to go, could be almost all the way there, has not been signed by the Governor General it is not law. If it is not proclaimed, it is not law. So it can be right up to the eleventh hour and all the work has been done on it with respect to amendments and committee reports and witnesses coming before the committee, and all the speeches in the House, and if we have prorogation the bill dies. All that work goes down the drain and we start the process over again.

That is why we have this subject today in Bill S-9 which is really the same bill as C-53 and Bill C-26 before it. It seems that the government is okay with wasting this chamber's precious time on failed ideology and simplistic conceptions of crime prevention. Conservatives feel that a sentence, something to amend the Criminal Code, will really work with respect to crime prevention. It is not the case. Crime prevention starts at an early age with respect to an offender. It starts in the communities and the police forces when they have to be properly equipped and resourced to combat crime.

The second element of the bill, which we applaud, is the separating of the offence of auto theft. One of the positive aspects is the creation of the new separate discrete offence of auto theft. It provides for a far more appropriate range of sentencing options than could be found in previous legislation. The summary conviction aspect of it has a maximum penalty of 18 months, which tripled the existing summary conviction and average summary conviction limit of 6 months. It shows strength. It takes account of the realization that auto theft is a major and numerously copied crime in all communities in Canada. It is a response to the delegation from Winnipeg and from the various articles from decades before in the larger cities in Canada.

The indictable conviction has a maximum term of 10 years regardless of the value of the vehicle. In case the House is curious, I can inform it that the most stolen vehicle in Canada is the Honda Civic. So everyone who has a Honda Civic, please take note. Lock it up.

There is no minimum sentence for summary convictions, and the type of prosecution is up to the crown attorney, creating a broader spectrum of options. That hybrid aspect, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned, is a very good and flexible way to deal with the different types of auto theft. It is an improvement on the previous legislation. However, I have to put my two cents in that if the government believed in discretion with respect to how a crown attorney or crown prosecutor might proceed, it should give a little more leniency toward the idea of judicial discretion, as we were saying just a minute ago about mandatory minimums.

The aspect of giving more powers to the Canadian Border Services Agency is another positive change. The Canadian Border Services Agency will be empowered, if this legislation passes, to stop, search and seize goods believed to have been obtained criminally. At present, the CBSA may only stop, search and seize goods whose importation or exportation was prohibited by an act of Parliament. There is no provision for the seizure of goods, the possession of which is prohibited by law. Therefore, this is a very good enhancement to the authority of CBSA.

Perhaps what is most modern about the bill is the respect that it gives to vehicle identification numbers.

We believe it is useful to add measures concerning vehicle identification numbers and we would like to discuss this measure in committee. That is the kind of innovative measure that could help combat the problem of auto theft in Canada.

The obliteration of VIN numbers is a low-risk, high-profit tactic of organized criminal gangs. This provision should help crack down on organized criminal activity, a main source of auto theft in Canada. By denying criminal gangs access to a primary source of funding, the currency of gangs, we can inhibit them from developing their activities elsewhere.

The possession of property: to be in possession of a stolen car:

The provision concerning the possession of stolen vehicles is interesting and also merits discussion. That is another measure that could prove to be a useful tool for police forces. We need to be innovative in order to combat criminals who steal vehicles, who themselves are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

The measure is the first half of a clause meant to combat the trafficking in stolen goods following the actual theft. By cracking down on those in possession of stolen property, the disincentive from purchasing property one suspects or knows to be stolen is created. By restricting, therefore, the ability of criminals to fence or sell their stolen goods, their capacity to easily make money is reduced, their risk level goes up and their profit goes down as consumers choose to forgo the risk in inherent in the slightly cheaper, ill-obtained good from their legitimate cousins.

Trafficking in stolen property initially is buttressed and improved in, let us call it Bill C-26-Bill C-58-Bill S-9. We wholly support this aspect. The penalty for trafficking or fencing in stolen goods can be severe: up to 14 years in prison. It is an example of an effective provision that leaves the judicial determination through discretion of giving a sentence that severe in the most severe case of auto theft, trafficking or being in possession, and we support it.

In this case, the Winnipeg and Manitoba officials support this law and the stakeholder reaction has been very supportive of the bill, although half-heartedly. The support is that. yes, this is a good bill, but Professor Rick Linden, University of Manitoba, at the heart of the auto theft activity in this country, noted that the bill was a good step forward but that significant reductions in crime would only occur if we also invest significant resources in police tactics, numbers and in implementing other evidence-based prevention programs.

That is where I would like to conclude. As I stated, we could have had and should have had this bill long ago. It is only one step and only a minor step forward in the battle against car theft in this country. We need to get boots on the street and respect and resource municipalities, communities and police forces who will use, as Professor Linden says, smart tactics and other evidence-based prevention programs. There is something new for the government.

With that, I am happy to conclude and say that we support the bill going to committee. In fact, I have every indication that we will deal with the bill by the end of the year and get it onto the books as a minor step forward.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Before opening the floor to questions and comments, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Davenport, transportation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I did note several points in my colleague's speech about the need for more resources for our police forces across Canada. He failed to leave out a salient fact. I know he is a student of the history of politics so he will remember that shortly after coming to power in 2006, this government provided over $2 billion for additional police resources across Canada, which has been used in my city and many other cities across Canada to great effect.

I wonder if he could comment on what support the former Liberal government provided to municipal and provincial police forces across Canada in its 13 years in government prior to 2006.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I sense we are straying a bit from Bill S-9 on this but I am happy to engage in debate with my colleague.

I was not here during the previous Liberal government so I do not know first-hand. Oh, I do remember. When I was mayor of a city and a member of FCMs finance committee, I remember the Liberal government. I remember Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin developing the first infrastructure program and the first gas tax that benefited communities and cities across this country. They did much better than what the Conservative government has done in its almost half decade. I was there. I was a consumer. I know the Liberals did the best job of any government in recent history.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

How much? How much for police?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. It is customary to ask one question at a time and to give one answer at a time. I would ask all members to listen to their colleagues when they are responding to a question or comment.

The hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the bill should have been passed a while ago but because of the games that the Conservative government keeps playing, it has not been passed.

There are basically three different types of auto theft: first, joyriding; second, theft perpetrated by an individual who steals a vehicle for the purpose of committing another crime; and third, and the one that has significantly increased, is theft for profit by organized crime.

Does my colleague feel that this legislation is aimed more at auto theft as it relates to the trafficking of automobiles by organized crime, or is it more a problem of automobiles being stolen by individuals or gangs for joyriding?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, joyriding is already covered by the code. The specificity of this offence with respect to auto theft and the specificity with respect to the inclusion of vehicle identification numbers clearly takes it toward penalizing the people who steal cars for financial gain.

As I have mentioned, stolen cars are becoming the currency of organized gang activities in Canada and, like any business, organized crime can be cut off at the knees by taking away its profit source. It is the same with respect to drug production, particularly on the west coast, or the trafficking in guns or trafficking in human beings, which we have talked about in the House. Those are the currencies of organized crime and any bill that can cut down on those currencies would be a good thing.

What I said in my remarks is that the police, who these laws actually affect, are not being properly resourced.

This bill is a couple of years too late just because politics had to be played.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe is such a thoughtful person and has assessed this bill well.

This bill is a reiteration of Bill C-58 and Bill C-26, both of which died on the order paper due to prorogation. The Conservatives promised big things but never kept their promises. They promised a law and order agenda.

Why, with families facing economic hardship and people not being able to make ends meet, the government is not focusing on the economy? Why is it reintroducing and recycling all its justice agenda which should have been done long ago?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the hon. member. Our job here is to give thoughtful recommendations, comments and persuasive arguments to the government in the House and move bills on to committee, as I said we will do, in order to deal with them in committee and get bills through that there are no real objections to.

We have not really object to making auto theft harder to do in this country. We have not really objected to making white collar crime a harder thing to effect in this country. We think child Internet pornography is an awful thing. We would like all of these bills moved along to committee and made law. However, we wanted that probably three or four years ago.

We need to stop the politics and get on with the more serious aspects that affect this chamber and this country, which is where society and the economy are going. Right now we are talking about justice bills and we need to move them along, improve them and get them passed.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, but we have a problem at the outset. I am going to say something important, and the members opposite should listen, because if they do not, they are going to make the same mistake again.

Currently, in committee in the room next door, we are trying to finish studying Bill C-4. Some members will say that that has nothing to do with Bill S-9. I am coming to that. Because of the government, we are still waiting for a report on Bill C-4 that should have been tabled on June 16. We have been waiting for three and a half months for this report so that we can finish studying this young offenders bill. The government says that we are dragging our feet. I have good news and bad news for the government. The good news is that we are not the ones dragging our feet. The bad news is that they are the ones dragging their feet. The same is true of Bill S-9. The first iteration of this bill was introduced on April 14, 2008—not last week, not in April 2010 or April 2009, but on April 14, 2008. All the parties said they were prepared to study this bill quickly in committee, as I am saying today.

The problem is that they are introducing so many silly justice bills, so many populist bills as they see it, that we can no longer work. As we speak, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has already received four bills to study, and the session only resumed on September 20. Does the government think we are going to have the time to consider Bill S-9? Still, the government should not take us for idiots. That is the problem with the Conservative Party, the problem with this government. It thinks it can ram bills through. It is wrong.

Getting back to this bill, I have some trouble calling it S-9 because they tried to pass it through the Senate before bringing it here. It is not moving any more quickly because the problem is that part of the work had already been done on Bill C-26. The committee had already heard from representatives of the Insurance Bureau of Canada and Statistics Canada. It is the party in power, not us, that is delaying the work. I hope that the public will remember this because auto theft is an important issue. Everyone in Quebec and across Canada is asking us to do something. We certainly have no objection. It is an interesting bill. It is a bill that should have been introduced well before Bill C-4, and well before a number of other bills, given that we were probably going to move more quickly on it.

We do not have recent statistics, but just in terms of auto theft—addressed by Bill S-9 before us today—there was a small drop in 2007. However, auto theft remains one of the most common offences in Canada and is committed in particular by youth between the ages of 15 and 18. In 2007, they were responsible for three solved auto thefts in ten. That same year, 146,000 vehicle thefts were reported to police, an average of 400 thefts per day. I imagine that I will be asked about the statistics for 2008, 2009 and 2010. We do not have them. I believe we should have them soon. It is possible that we may not get all the information because the census will not be taken. However, with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, as well as Statistics Canada and the police stations, we should have a good idea and we believe the numbers will be similar. Unfortunately, there will be around 140,000 vehicles stolen per year.

That is a huge number and it is far too high. We need to eliminate this scourge.

We in the Bloc Québécois think that Bill S-9 is not a bad bill. We agree that it should be studied quickly in committee, as was the case with Bill C-22. Perhaps we will set some other bills aside in order to pass Bill C-22 on child pornography. Perhaps the same thing could happen with Bill S-9, but for that to happen, it has to come to us in committee. It seems as though the Conservatives have other bills like this. In fact, we have been told that we will spend the whole week discussing justice bills. We have to be able to work at some point.

I have been looking at what is being done with the bill. I am sorry to say it this bluntly, but there are three types of motor vehicle theft. Three out of ten vehicles are stolen by youth. We call it theft, but the young people take what are known as joy rides. In French we call them des promenades de joie. I know that it is likely not the best term, but no better terms come to mind. They take a vehicle from somewhere and drive around town. They take a vehicle that was “forgotten” at the corner store, with the keys in the ignition, lights on, motor running. They take it for a ride and leave it somewhere else. This type of crime happens a lot with youth.

Where it becomes a bit more dangerous—and this is happening in Manitoba—is when someone takes off with a vehicle and kills someone. Unfortunately, this type of offence happened recently in Abitibi-Témiscamingue when a young man took a motor vehicle from Rouyn-Noranda to Val-d'Or. He stole the vehicle in Rouyn-Noranda and caused an accident that seriously injured two people. This is extremely dangerous and something must be done.

I am not saying that the motor vehicle thefts I just mentioned are not serious. They certainly should be punished, but there are worse kinds. There are several different types of motor vehicle thefts, and there are essentially two main methods. One of them involves stripping the vehicle for parts.

I will read a list. I do not know if my Conservative colleagues have these models, but if they do, they should be careful, because they are the most likely to be stolen: 1999 Honda Civic—this one is a bit old, but it gets stripped for parts; 2000 Honda Civic; Subaru Impreza; Acura Integra; Dodge Grand Caravan or Plymouth Voyager; 1994 Dodge Grand Caravan or Plymouth Voyager with all-wheel-drive; 1998 Acura Integra; Audi TT Quattro and Dodge Shadow or Plymouth Sundance. These vehicles were among the 10 most commonly stolen vehicles in 2006, and I do not think much has changed since then.

We need to take action quickly. These vehicles are generally stripped for parts, and are rarely exported. They are exported, but not much. This is where organized crime comes in. These individuals place orders for certain types of motor vehicles, which are then stripped for parts. The thief is one thing. Yes, he is a criminal, but the ones who place the orders are the worst ones. These types of orders are generally made through organized crime groups. So we must find a way to punish them.

Bill S-9 does contain some interesting elements. We believe we can improve it through further study in committee. It seems to me that we all agree that we need to improve this bill and that we need to find ways to prevent criminals from taking vehicles apart. We need to reduce the incidence of auto theft. We need to create an offence for tampering with an identification number. When certain vehicles are taken apart, some very important parts disappear, such as the engine, the body and the doors, if they do not have a VIN. As we heard in committee, if the thief is really organized, a vehicle like a 1999 Honda Civic, for example, can be taken apart in half an hour. Now that is organized crime. We must absolutely find a way to make it impossible to take vehicles apart.

We also heard in committee that there are small electronic chips placed in secret locations in certain vehicles, and when those vehicles are stolen or taken illegally, they can be found with a certain kind of GPS. We did not take our study any further, which is why we want the bill to be examined in committee. Perhaps we could find a way to encourage manufacturers to install this kind of electronic chip in several specific locations in vehicles without necessarily forcing them to do so. This would allow authorities to find these vehicles or parts quickly, as soon as the theft is reported. We began receiving this information when we started studying the bill.

Today we must absolutely find ways to prevent this crime. To do so, we have to work with Industry Canada. The Criminal Code is not enough. It is used to punish individuals who steal and dismantle automobiles. We will probably invite the departments involved to work on prevention, which is the best way to avoid this type of theft. If someone knows there is an alarm system set up, they might be less likely to commit a break-and-enter. We want to look at the bill from that angle in committee. Even though we are on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, it is nonetheless important to find ways to prevent crime.

There are some major offences. However, at least there are no minimum prison sentences. That is a step in the right direction. If the bill passes, then we will amend the Criminal Code to ensure that there are maximum prison sentences for trafficking in property obtained by crime. This did not exist before. The bill will create the offence of trafficking in property obtained by crime, specifically parts from stolen vehicles. The offence of possession of stolen goods exists in the Criminal Code, but when a vehicle is dismantled into parts and there is nothing left but the car door, generally speaking, if there is no identification number or electronic chip linked to a GPS, the door cannot be linked to the vehicle stolen a few weeks or months before. The offence that will be created will concern trafficking in property obtained by crime. That is how the parts will be linked to the vehicle. Circumstantial evidence will show that the vehicle was dismantled into separate parts and that some parts were sold to this or that individual.

To traffic will mean to sell, give, transfer, transport, export from Canada, import into Canada, send, deliver or deal with in any other way, or to offer to do any of those acts.

This bill will help border services officers conduct searches. It will tighten the noose around criminals who tend to steal vehicles to resell them quickly or, more importantly, to alter them. We think this is a worthwhile bill, and we will have to come up with ways to put an end to this scourge.

Criminals tend to take the easy route. Why do young people steal cars? Generally, car thefts take place outside a corner store, when the car owner leaves the key in the ignition and steps inside for some milk. How many tens of thousands of thefts sadly result in penalties that may seem light to a young person, but that can have an impact if the offender commits other crimes later?

We support this bill, which we have to say is worthwhile, even though it should have been introduced much sooner. I do not understand the government. We have been waiting for this bill since April 2008, but it seems to have been forgotten when Parliament was prorogued.

Vehicle theft is an easy crime that is often committed by young people. We must find ways to prevent people from falsifying the vehicle identification number or VIN.

The question was put to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, and this was its reply:

The Insurance Crime Prevention Bureau has identified an increase in four main fraud techniques that are used by organized crime to steal vehicles. These include: the illegal transfer of Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) from wrecked vehicles to similar ones that have been stolen; a legitimate VIN is used to change the legal identity of a stolen vehicle of the same make, model, and colour, a process called “twinning”.

Let us consider the example just given. The VIN from a wrecked Honda Civic 1998 can be used for a stolen Honda Civic 1999. This is where we are being asked to take action.

In closing, we want to study this bill quickly. We can work on it in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but on the whole, it is a worthwhile bill that the insurance companies and police forces have been calling for. I do not believe that any member of this House will be against having this bill studied quickly in committee.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague’s comments. He spoke about prevention and could probably say more about it. I agree with him that the bill should have been introduced and passed some time ago. It should obviously be sent to committee so that the necessary changes can be made to ensure that there are no Charter problems with it.

I would like to hear what he has to say about the resources that will be needed to enforce this legislation, especially the people at the frontier. Maybe he can say a bit about these officials.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that when my colleague speaks of the frontier—

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

The border.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

She means the border. I understood she meant the border. My colleague is quite right, but what I mean is that we know this bill is coming. We know we will study it and probably try to pass it quickly.

Everybody wants this bill, so we will not rag the puck, as they say. We will try to get it passed as quickly as possible. However, a system could be set up now, a computer system. Another possibility is to strongly encourage vehicle manufacturers to install a chip system right away, as I mentioned. They could start installing them on vehicles now. Why do we always have to wait for a law in order to act? It seems to me that insurance companies could put on the pressure. Given the tens of millions of dollars they spend compensating people whose cars are stolen, maybe they have some solutions. In fact, they do. The solutions already exist. Their representatives came and told us in committee.

Since I have the Minister of Industry across from me, maybe he could strongly encourage companies to protect themselves against these thefts by putting chips in vehicles starting now. That would save some time once the bill is implemented.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has talked about the sophistication that now accompanies auto theft rings and about the twinning of VIN numbers. I think he said that CSIS was providing an analysis as to how security codes could be placed in a vehicle and how the law could support that kind of approach.

I will ask him a question similar to the one I asked the last speaker. It is at an even higher level than that. It is not just the question of chips. Auto theft now takes place at a level where the circuits and systems are analyzed and stolen, fed to a ring of thieves that steal the car without having to break a window or anything else. They simply know the codes to unlock the doors, to start the ignition and overcome the GPS capabilities the chips have or any other level of technology at this point. Law enforcement has pointed that out.

Could the member comment on whether the committee could look at it at that level? I have not heard anyone touch on that level of sophistication. The law does not seem to come to grips with that. Perhaps the committee could look at it, call witnesses and take the kind of remedial action that would be required.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. I would like to consider it when the bill comes before the committee. However, I also believe that this suggestion regarding the design and construction of vehicles should be made to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is dealing more with which Criminal Code section to amend in order to prevent the offence of trafficking in property obtained by crime. This committee is more specific to the Criminal Code than the industry committee might be in this matter.

I find my colleague's suggestion very interesting. However, with due respect—I am not trying to ignore it—I believe it should be brought before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology because it involves design and application, and the newest cars on the road.

The system mentioned by my colleague is very interesting. That is what attracts thieves. However, we will be looking for ways to punish crime.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, briefly, at the closing of this debate, it is offence to the sensibilities of all democrats, or should be, to read that the title of the bill is Bill S-9, which means it originates in the unelected, undemocratic Senate instead of in the House of Commons, where people are elected by the people of Quebec and the people of Canada to put forward legislation.

I want to know my colleague's views. Does he not find it an affront to democracy in general that it is the unelected, undemocratic Senate that is driving these bills into the House of Commons? If these bills have merit, they should be generated in the freely elected democratic institution, and that is the House of Commons.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that my colleague knows the Bloc Québécois's position on the Senate. The only option is to abolish it. But we are not there yet.

If the government thought that it would be quicker to go through the Senate, it was wrong. It is trying to do the same thing with Bill S-4 on aboriginal matrimonial rights. The Conservatives may be able to get any bill they like passed in the Senate, where they have the majority, but there are still 12 members of this House on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which meets twice a week. They cannot make anything up. They are trying to hurry us, but they will have to wait a bit.

I personally thought this bill would be introduced right away. It is the type of bill we all agree on. The same goes for Bill C-22 on child pornography. Everyone agreed on Bill S-9. I do not understand why it is being introduced through the Senate. I agree with my colleague, and as we like to say, enough is enough. Let us just leave it at that.

I find the government is trying to push things through the Senate where it thinks things will move more quickly because it has a majority and the Senate sits in June and July. When a bill arrives in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights or in the House, it does not move any more quickly. We have been waiting for this bill since April 2008, two years and six months ago. It is time to act. We could have come to an agreement with the House leaders. These are bills we all agree on. Let us proceed more quickly than planned.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by the member's comments about the microchips that could be installed in the cars. Does he have a cost associated with that? I recall a few years ago the Insurance Bureau of Canada had some statistics on immobilizers and that they could install them in cars at the factory for, I believe in those days, $30 to $100 extra for each car. The car manufacturers refused to do it.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will give the same answer I gave my Liberal Party colleague. I believe this is Industry Canada's responsibility and that of the car manufacturing industry.

I was not here, so it is easy for me to talk about it. When the government decided to make headlights mandatory, it was done. As soon as people start their cars, the lights come on. That has been mandatory since 1998, if my memory serves correctly. The funny thing is, when we want something, we can make it happen. Industry Canada needs to take action, and since the minister is here, I know he is listening to me.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill S-9. I want to follow up on an issue the Bloc member dealt with in terms of the microchip solution.

I had pointed out that a number of years ago Manitoba was looking into making immobilizers mandatory. In fact, in the beginning Manitoba made them optional. There was a reduction in the insurance premium for people who voluntarily installed immobilizers in their cars. Guess what? Absolutely nobody took the offer. There were maybe 100 people in the whole province who did. It was only when the provincial government took the bull by the horns and made immobilizers mandatory and free that we started to see results.

We saw a huge reduction over the first year or so. In fact, auto theft was down to the point where there was one day in March a year ago where there were no auto thefts. As a matter of fact, the problem has changed to one where people have been having difficulty finding cars to steal and lately they have been commandeering taxis. That has become a problem that Manitoba is dealing with. The taxi drivers are looking at options involving shields and further protection because recently quite a number of taxis have been commandeered.

At the time we were looking at the immobilizer program there were some statistics available from the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Those insurance statistics would represent all the provinces outside of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, as they all have government-run programs.

I believe the studies at the time showed that if the big car companies were mandated by the government to install these immobilizers it could have been done 10 years ago at a cost of $30 for installation in each car. I may be wrong on the amount of $30, and it could have been $40 or $50, but it did not cost a lot to install an immobilizer in each car. We would have nipped the auto theft problem in the bud in the beginning and it would have cost a fraction of what it has cost society overall. However, the car companies refused to do that.

People then would have to put in after-market immobilizers. We all know that after-market immobilizers often do not work with the car's electrical system. Also, the engineering department of Ford, for example, refused to honour the warranties if the owners had put in after-market immobilizers. The car owners were caught. They wanted to do the right thing, but if they put in an after-market immobilizer, it would cause problems with the warranty on their new car, so there was a bit of a standoff. It is no surprise that very few people put in after-market immobilizers which, by the way, were very expensive.

The government had a responsibility here. In those days it was probably still a Liberal government because it was a few years ago. The government has to look at the Insurance Bureau of Canada statistics and it should be proactive. It should be looking for a solution and not waiting for the problem to mushroom to the extent that it has.

I am not sure whether it was during the last days of the Liberal government, but I think it may have been the Conservative government that actually mandated immobilizers in all new cars in Canada as of a certain date three or four years ago. That was a very positive thing to do. Within a 10-year period, which is the time it will take for all the older cars to be removed from the road, the problem should cure itself. That is quite a long time. Certainly, if the microchips are going to help solve this problem or do more to curb the problem, then we should be looking at them as well.

In Manitoba there are people who joyride in cars. In Toronto and Montreal, it involves more organized crime in high-end vehicles.

Madam Speaker, I understand that my time is up for today.

The House resumed from October 5 consideration of the motion that Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

When this bill was before this House last, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona had the floor.

He has 14 and a half minutes left in the time allotted for his remarks. I therefore call upon the hon. member for Elmwood--Transcona.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue my presentation on Bill S-9, which was Bill C-26 last year. This is another bill that was killed when the House was prorogued. We will have to spend a lot of valuable parliamentary time going through the various stages to get it back to where it was when the government prorogued.

My files on all of these government bills are quite substantial now, as we have been going through these bills a second time and a third time in some cases.

I have in my files a press release issued on September 13, 2007 by the Manitoba government of the day with respect to Bill C-26 regarding its mission to Ottawa to press for tougher sentences with respect to auto theft. For the tough on crime Conservative government, it must come as a bit of a surprise to know that an NDP government was even tougher on crime and three years earlier.

On September 20, Premier Gary Doer, who has since been appointed ambassador to Washington, led the Manitoba mission to Ottawa to press for urgent national action on auto theft and tougher sentences for serious youth crimes. The Manitoba delegation included Attorney General Dave Chomiak, who has since been replaced by Attorney General Andrew Swan; Conservative opposition party leader Hugh McFadden, who is still the opposition leader; Jon Gerrard, the Liberal leader; and Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz who will be mayor for at least two more weeks. I am not familiar as to whether the rest of the members of the delegation are still in their respective positions. Nevertheless, this was a concerted effort on the part of a provincial government to lobby Ottawa politicians to do something about auto theft in this country.

The Government of Manitoba was not sitting back resting on its laurels and demanding another government to solve the problem, as so often happens in the political world. The province, simultaneously with the request, had a program of its own. The province's approach to reducing auto theft and youth crime focused on four broad areas, one being prevention, which is an important part of all of this. It provided lighthouse programs, friendship centres and education pilot projects, as well as initiatives like vehicle immobilizer, which I have spoken a lot about that in the House over the last two years.

The second area was intervention. The government provided programs, such as the highly successful turnabout program which involved intense supervision for repeat offenders.

The third area was suppression, with more targeted funding for police officers, corrections officers and crown attorneys dealing specifically with auto theft. In fact, Manitoba set up a task force that identified the top 50 level 4 offenders, the most serious offenders, and singled them out for special attention. They were watched on an hourly basis. In addition, there were consequences. Repeat offenders faced a possible lifetime suspension of their driver's licence.

In addition to all of this, the Manitoba government adopted a program that has been reasonably successful in Nova Scotia. It involved monitoring car thieves and forcing them to wear ankle bracelets. This initially was a one year pilot project but I believe it has been extended so it must be reasonably successful.

The Government of Manitoba also tried the bait car program. One of the government members in this House spoke positively about the bait car program in British Columbia. For whatever reason, however, the Manitoba situation did not mandate the bait car program.

I am not certain what the reasons were for that but I would suggest that perhaps it was because of all those days where the weather in Manitoba is minus 40, as opposed to the nice temperatures and moderate climate out in Madame Speaker's province of British Columbia. The British Columbian government chose to pursue the bait car program, and I do not fault it for that. If it gets results, that is what we want to see. In Manitoba, we decided to go with the immobilizer program and the gang suppression unit and we were able to reduce our car thefts very substantially over a very short period of time.

The point here is to look at best practices. That is essentially our entire criticism of the government when it comes to crime. We hear it with the speakers from the Bloc, the speakers from the opposition and the speakers from the NDP constantly. There is a recognition, at least in the opposition, that governments should look for best practices. They should look for what works in other parts of the world, and not just blindly follow ideology and implement programs, for example, from the United States that have a 25 year track record of not having the desired effect, of not working.

That is all we are telling the government. We are prepared to support the government in positive approaches to the problem but we want to ensure that whatever money we are putting into the program is well spent.

What we have here is that three years have gone by and still the government has not done what the Manitoba government delegation was asking for, which was to provide stronger penalties for youth involved in serious crimes, especially those involving auto theft; allow first degree murder charges for gang-related homicides; eliminate the two-for-one remand credits; classify auto theft as an indictable violent offence; and make shooting at buildings and drive-by shootings indictable offences.

Three years later, the government is now starting to get around to implementing some of the requests of the Manitoba government. So much for its tough on crime approach and its suggestions that somehow the NDP is soft on crime.

I will now deal with some of the macro issues here that should have been identified 20-some years ago.

As I had indicated yesterday, when I look around I see a lot of grey hair in this Parliament. There are people here with a lot of experience. In former careers, they were provincial members, city councillors and mayors. There is a lot of collective experience here. The fact is that most of us remember that in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was still possible to leave our cars unlocked on the street and find them still there when we went to look for them. Auto theft was not really a problem in those days.

There are two types of auto theft that we are dealing with here. In the larger cities, like Toronto and Montreal, the issue with auto theft is more criminal activity. Criminal gangs are stealing high-end vehicles, changing the VINs on the vehicles and chop shops tearing these cars apart and selling them for parts or exporting them out of the country. That is the type of activity that perhaps is growing but, if we were to look back, I think we would find that it was still a problem many years ago and probably much easier to do in the 1970s and 1980s.

Our problem here with the big numbers is the joyriders, the young people who steal the cars for no other reason than to just simply take them out and go from point A to point B. Another group of people steal a car with the intention of committing burglaries. They just steal a car whenever they feel like it and go and break into houses. Some other joyriders have been in races with the police. They have killed people, sometimes deliberately running people over. They have had car accidents with police. They have even put bricks on the accelerators and sent the cars into buildings just for fun. These are the types of activities going on, which makes it very hard for the police to deal with the problem.

Had we been on our toes 20 to 25 years ago, governments would have seen those statistics coming up each year and would have mandated the car companies to factory install immobilizers.

It was not until 1997 that the Ford Motor Company started to install immobilizers in its higher end vehicles. When I looked at the statistics a number of years later, at least in Manitoba, no vehicle with an immobilizer had been stolen. The proof is in the pudding. The more vehicles that have immobilizers the less cars are being stolen. Therefore, there is a lesser pool of cars for people to be stealing.

I need to correct myself. It was the Liberal government that announced the anti-theft immobilizer program in all new vehicles built after September 1, 2007 for sale in Canada in July 2003, but it was the current Conservative government that actually implemented that requirement. It is great that it did this but it should have been done years before and years before the Insurance Bureau of Canada indicated that the cost of requiring factory installed immobilizers was something like $30, $40 or $50 a car. Can we imagine the small cost that this would be given the huge cost that society has paid because this mushrooming problem?

Now it will take at least 10 years to get all these old cars off the road and the problem, of course, will solve itself. However, it will take another decade and it will take a lot more effort.

However, in Manitoba there is the exception. The Manitoba government initially offered an incentive for people to avail themselves of the optional immobilizer program but it changed the rules a couple of years ago to make the program mandatory. As of 2007, I believe, the registration of and insurance for all cars without immobilizers could not be renewed but the government paid for the immobilizer.

While we had a voluntary program, the uptake was very poor. As soon as the government mandated it, a few people complained about having to do it. Even though it was free, they still complained. However, as long as the government made it free, people could not renew the insurance or registration until an immobilizer was installed in the car. Starting with the highest theft vehicles, because we could identify them based on the type of car, we gradually mandated that all those be brought in. We worked group, by group, by group and now we find a smaller and smaller pool of cars on Manitoba roads.

Has that solved all of the problems? No, not exactly. It has certainly reduced the costs and the rate of car theft. The fact that we are using the gang suppression program to chase the level 4 offenders has also been very positive. We have had to fine-tune the program but most people agree that we are on the right track.

I do not know why more jurisdictions do not get on board with this idea. Simply waiting over the 10 year period to allow the old cars to be gradually phased out is not being proactive. It is just accepting the fact that we will have more carnage on the roads and more costs to society. The point is that all provinces should be moving equally to make immobilizers mandatory as quickly as possible.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's speech on this. I was here yesterday when he spoke to this as well.

He talked about the Conservatives tabling bills and then proroguing the House. Now we are back to square one, wasting all the time in which we could have passed these bills.

I am sure my colleague will agree that the government loves to talk about how tough it is on crime. It also talks about building more prisons. The government just closed the prison farms. That cost taxpayers more because it was a lot cheaper to keep the prison farms going than to build new prisons without putting the resources in place. I would like my colleague to talk about that.

First, when legislation is put forward, we need to ensure it will withstand legal and constitutional challenges. Second, we need to ensure the proper resources exist, whether it is with police services or in rehabilitative processes. Maybe he could elaborate on how important it is to have those resources in place when such bills are tabled.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the closure of the prison farms is something that confounds even Conservative voters. I am familiar with many Conservatives in Conservative areas of the country who shake their heads when they hear it. In fact, they find it hard to believe the government would close down all six prison farms that have been active for many years in Manitoba and Kingston, Ontario. Rather than closing these farms, we should be looking at expanding the prison farm system.

I hope the government has learned a lesson from the last time it prorogued the House. I have suggested many times that the Conservatives look back to the six years of the Lester B. Pearson minority government and do some study of that period to see the many programs that were brought in, such as the unification of the armed forces, the Canadian flag, medicare and many other substantial things that were done in a minority Parliament, and quit the divide and conquer wedge politics issues they seem to practice, so far reasonably unsuccessfully. This practice has not given them a majority. Nor has it increased their polling numbers, which go up a little and then drop.

Perhaps the brain trust over there is in transition. Perhaps the Conservatives are looking at a longer period between now and the next election. Maybe we will see a new attitude on their part to try to work with the opposition and get some bills through. If they show some leadership in that area, they will see co-operation on our side of the House. However, members on this side are very reluctant and resistant to a government that simply yanks our chain whenever it feels like it and brings in bills with all its great speeches about being tough on crime, for example. Then on a whim it prorogues the House and everything goes back to square one again.

There is a price to pay for a government that acts like that, and it is paying it. Perhaps it is planning to go in a new direction, but time will tell whether it does.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, the previous speaker is always so well prepared when addressing issues, and this was no exception. Still, there is an issue that I find intriguing, and I would like some answers. He has probably noticed the same thing that I did, even if he did not mention it.

In Canada, auto theft varies greatly from region to region. It is rather difficult to determine if it is more common in rural areas or in urban centres. For example, since 1999, Manitoba's rate of vehicle theft has been the highest in the country. In 2006, 1,376 thefts were reported. During the same year, 507 thefts were reported in Quebec, 303 in Ontario and 187 in New Brunswick. In Western Canada, the rate is somewhat higher, with 725 thefts in Alberta, for example.

I think that shows that passing legislation does not necessarily change behaviour, but enforcing it does.

Does the member have any idea why the rate is so high in Manitoba and why it varies so much across Canada?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the fact is there has to be a comprehensive approach to the problem and I see this legislation as designed toward the criminal gangs and organizations. Statistics show that criminal gangs largely operate out of the bigger centres, Toronto and Montreal, where they are entrenched and where they deal in high-end vehicles.

In Manitoba, for example, in most auto thefts the cars are recovered. The indication there is that these are just joyriders if we find the cars. Thieves take them from point A to point B and drop them. Then they steal another car.

It is like in Holland years ago where thieves could pick up a bicycle whenever they needed one. A person would use the bicycle to get from point A to point B, drop it off and leave it for the next person. Then when a person needed another one, he or she simply picked it up. That seems to be the attitude.

We have less statistics as far as professional organized crime dealing in high-end vehicles. I have the statistics, but I do not have them at my fingertips. However, it is almost the reverse. In Manitoba it is more like 70% for joyriders and 30% for high-end vehicle theft versus Montreal and Toronto where it would be 70% for professional gangs and criminal organizations dealing in the theft of high-end vehicles for export perhaps and 30% for joyriders.

In Manitoba it is more of an urban issue than a rural issue. That is reflected in the insurance statistics that we have. Being a government-run insurance corporation, our statistics are kept separate. I know Quebec has a limited government program as well. However, when we look at the Insurance Bureau of Canada statistics, they do not reflect British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Manitoba because they are government-run schemes in those provinces.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am sharing my time with my colleague from Charlottetown, and I am pleased to do so.

I am pleased, once again, to speak in support of Bill S-9, but I have to admit it is somewhat in frustration that Parliament is yet again debating this important legislation.

We have heard from others here today that Bill S-9 is identical to Bill C-26 from the last session of Parliament, which was killed when Parliament was prorogued last year. I am struck by the fact that it was May 5, 2009, when I spoke in favour of Bill C-26, which was, as of yesterday, 17 months to the day since that bill had been introduced.

We on this side have consistently supported legislation to effectively reduce crime and to enhance community safety, including motor vehicle theft. We have heard from the previous speaker that this is an issue of particular concern to those who live in Winnipeg and Manitoba. It is a very serious issue.

Some may recall that in September 2007 a delegation from Manitoba came to Ottawa, met with members of the government and the opposition party. It was a very significant delegation, made up of the mayor of the city of Winnipeg, the mayor of Brandon, members of the aboriginal community, members of the police force, leaders of the opposition parties in Manitoba and several victims of crime. They asked for motor theft to be made an indictable offence.

As a result of that, I introduced my private member's bill on motor vehicle theft in March 2008, which was originally known as Bill C-526, and in the last Parliament I reintroduced it as Bill C-237. While I support the bill, I am somewhat saddened that it has taken so long for the government to act and to move forward on what is a very pressing issue for Manitobans.

After the delegation was in Ottawa, I made a point of doing a broad-based consultation within my riding and within my community on the issue of property crime and, most specifically, auto theft. I had several meetings with the police in district 6 in Winnipeg. I met with young people, some of whom were in the process of rehabilitation. I also met with victims of crimes, with business owners and with a broad-based representation in the community to understand what had been done. I heard of some of the initiatives that the provincial government had undertaken to reduce the number of auto thefts. We heard earlier about the immobilizer prevention programming, the intervention programming, suppression programming and the consequences for young people, which often includes a lifetime suspension of a driver's licence for repeat offenders.

I also heard very clearly that there was a role for the federal government to act, and that is why I introduced Bill C-526. Unfortunately my name was further down on the list and we did not have the opportunity to debate it in the House. The bill proposed that a person who committed a motor vehicle theft for a second or subsequent offence would be guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a prison term not exceeding 10 years and would require a mandatory minimum sentence of a year.

I am not, for the most part, someone who endorses mandatory minimums. I think prevention in all its various manifestations is equally important. However, there has to be consequences for the offence. There also has to be prevention programming. The provincial government does it, but it is also incumbent upon this federal government to undertake more support and resources both for the provinces and what they do and for the community groups directly in the work that they do.

I am struck by the irony of the government putting forward tough on crime legislation while at the same time not providing the supports to communities that deal with young people in distress, or reducing the supports, or narrowing the criteria of the support so that the violence is not curtailed.

This bill is not perfect, but it is indeed an important start in taking this issue seriously by updating the Criminal Code. Significant reductions in crime will indeed occur if we also invest significant resources in evidence-based prevention programs, and I underline evidence-based prevention programs. We need to see what works and build upon it, not decide on an ideological basis that we want to do x or y and then make the program fit the criteria.

If the government were truly serious about tackling auto theft and property crime, the Prime Minister would not have killed Bill C-53 when he broke his own fixed election date in 2008, and he would not have prorogued Parliament last winter, killing Bill C-26. Seventeen months later, I am speaking to the same issue.

This is the third time the government has introduced the bill. It took the government five months to reintroduce it in the exact form after the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. We tried to expedite it in the past and we on this side will continue to do so again.

We are glad that this bill is more robust than Bill C-53 and that the government chose to make auto theft a unique offence in the Criminal Code. The separate offence did not exist in Bill C-53.

We know that according to Statistics Canada the rate of motor vehicle theft has declined almost every year since 1996. Data for 2006 confirms that motor vehicle theft has fallen by 20% since 1996, but motor vehicle theft has a major effect on vehicle owners, third party victims, indeed law enforcement agencies and certainly the insurance industry. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, it costs insurers and the public close to $1 billion a year.

Statistics Canada numbers show that Manitoba has the highest rate of auto theft, which is nearly three times the Canadian average. We also know that Montreal has the most stolen vehicles and the fewest recovered in any city.

When I speak to this issue, while I support and want to see this bill implemented, this time in a timely fashion, I also want to underline once again the importance of prevention programs.

When I met with a group of eight young people in Winnipeg who had been in trouble with the law, they expressed to me the absolute importance of having prevention programs available. That week, while we were meeting, community clubs in the city of Winnipeg were being closed down for lack of resources, lack of infrastructure.

We cannot give with one hand and take away with the other hand. It is important that there be a coordinated policy of prevention that will reduce overall the auto theft in the city of Winnipeg, provide opportunity for young people and provide opportunity for the residents of the city.

Having said that, it is important that this bill be implemented and moved through this House and through the Senate in a timely fashion. I would ask all colleagues to co-operate in doing so.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, we are dealing with auto thefts here and perhaps the member could explain why this particular legislation is needed. I know that with auto theft generally and the trafficking in stolen vehicles, there are plenty of elements of the Criminal Code that already deal with these matters, such as the conspiracy to steal, organized crime and all of the other provisions that are available.

Would the member comment on why this particular bill is needed and how it will better address the problem, particularly as we see that the number of auto thefts have been going down considerably in the last 15 years?

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, the importance of this bill is that it is specific to auto theft. There are provisions in the Criminal Code, but this bill is specific to auto theft and very much responds to the requests of the leadership in the province of Manitoba and in the city of Winnipeg.

The police very clearly identified a bill of this sort as what the police determined to be one of the biggest deterrents for young people.

I talked to young people who were in a rehabilitation program about auto theft, and it was one of the more interesting things I have done as a member of Parliament. Their response was that they were in the rehabilitation program and were taking the training program in order not to go to jail. Obviously the prospect of incarceration was certainly a deterrent for them, and it resulted in their making a real effort to turn their lives around.

The bill also gives powers to the Canada Border Services Agency, which I think is important in this case so that it can identify and track down stolen vehicles.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague just mentioned the Canada Border Services Agency. I think it is important for us to look at legislation that will actually change laws in order to deter violations such as this one. Car theft is a big one.

All too often we see bills being put forward and passed without any thought to how we actually ensure that there are proper resources in place.

I worked for the Province of Ontario. We saw Mike Harris change the legislation and put nothing in place in the interim to help protect the most vulnerable.

On this note, and given the fact that she did mention the Canada Border Services Agency, if we are going to provide such legislation we also need to make sure that there is more money available for the Canada Border Services Agency so that its agents can do their job. Maybe the member could elaborate on the importance of that.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member raises an important issue.

If one is going to provide the powers to the Canada Border Services Agency, it is equally important that the government provide both the financial and human resources to do what is required.

In the case of auto theft, this bill will allow the Canada Border Services Agency officers to investigate, identify, detain imported vehicles or vehicles about to be exported, and to search databases to determine whether or not said vehicles are indeed stolen.

It is important that the databases be maintained and kept up to date, and that there be the important resources available to do what is required in this instance.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Madam Speaker, let me say at the outset that, like my learned friend, the member for Winnipeg South, I will be supporting the bill when it comes before the House for a vote.

However, I am disappointed because I have supported the bill before, and before, and before. It has come to a point that I feel like that mouse on the treadmill; I am just going around and around. Sometimes we think if we go faster we will get off the treadmill. I am hopeful that the bill may see the light of day, but I am certainly not sure of that.

The bill came before the House three or four years ago. At that time I indicated to the House, as did my colleagues on this side, that we would support the bill. Our hopes and our desire was that the bill would be enacted into law and it would be now in full force and would have been in full force now probably for two or three years.

That was not to be because at that time, which was in October 2008, the Prime Minister called an election. He violated his own fixed date election legislation, which is somewhat ironic. It is cynical that people watching us see that we are imposing legislation to tell people not to steal automobiles but the Prime Minister had no problem at all in violating his own fixed election dates act .

When an election is called, everything is cleared from the table. We are back to square one. The bill dies on the order paper. It is as if it never had been before Parliament.

We had the election and Parliament resumed sitting, but the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament when he faced a non-confidence motion. He did not have time to reintroduce the bill. After the first prorogation, which was in late 2008, Parliament did resume and the bill was reintroduced. I believe it was Bill C-53. At that time I indicated to the House, as did my colleagues, that we would be supporting the bill. At that time we were hopeful that the bill would become law.

However, that was not to be because in January of this year, the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament. Things were getting wobbly on some of the Afghan detainee issues. Instead of facing the House and answering questions, he decided that he would prorogue Parliament. He would shut Parliament down. When the Prime Minister does that, everything on the order paper disappears. All the bills that have been introduced, debated and gone to committee all disappear from the order paper and we start again.

We came back in March of this year and on June 10 the bill was introduced for the third or fourth time. Again we are here debating it. We can see the unproductivity of the House, which is why I sound somewhat cynical. However, such being the case and as disappointed as I am, I am perhaps for the fourth time supporting the bill. Hopefully the bill will be enacted and become the law of this country.

It specifically relates to car theft which is a serious issue in certain parts of the country. It more or less deals with organized crime in some of the major urban centres. It specifically targets those groups, especially when we are talking about the sentence, when we are talking about the tampering of the VIN, the vehicle identification number. We are giving more powers to the officials at the Canada Border Services Agency when it comes to dealing with people who traffic in stolen automobiles.

It tightens up the law. Car theft is a problem, although I should point out as previous speakers have pointed out that car theft has actually decreased in Canada. I believe it has gone down approximately 20% since 1996, which is a good thing. That does not suggest that we do not have a real problem. We do have a real problem in certain areas of the country. That is why this bill will give the police officers and crown prosecutors more powers as they deal with car theft generally.

I have reviewed the bill carefully. We have to be careful that it really goes after either the organized element that is out there, which it does, or repeat offenders, the people who have had their first, second or third chance.

We do not want to imprison those I call first-time teenage joyriders, and most of the car theft in my community is of that nature and most of the cars are recovered. When it does happen it is very unsophisticated. Someone leaves the keys in the car and somebody takes it, usually for a joyride. When the car is recovered it is sometimes badly damaged, sometimes not. Sometimes that is done by a first offender, sometimes a very young offender. Those particular cases deserve some leniency. Cases involving an organized ring that takes cars and removes their VINs or strips them altogether do not deserve leniency. Neither do people who have done this three or four times and, for the protection of society, should be put behind bars.

The bill is specific. A few changes have been made in this bill from the previous bill, so it has been refined and improved.

I would like to give one message to the House today. Let us get the bill enacted. Let it become part of the law of Canada. I do understand that it has general support in the House, but it had general support before. I hope that in 18 months' time I will not be up speaking in the House on the very same legislation, whatever the new number will be, dealing with the same issue because it never was enacted into law.

I have a couple of specific points.

I believe the alteration of the VIN is important. It is a significant issue in the bill. It is really not covered now, or at least not that I am aware of. It would create a separate offence. Anyone who alters a VIN is a very sophisticated operator. This is not done by the unsophisticated element in our society. It is organized crime, and it usually involves high-end vehicles in urban centres. The VIN is stripped down and the car is moved out of the country. In some cases the car is stripped down altogether for parts. That is a serious offence in my mind and is one that should receive serious punishment under the law.

The bill would give additional powers to the Canada Border Services Agency, and this is important. It deals specifically with the theft of automobiles. As one of the earlier questioners rightfully indicated, there is provision in the Criminal Code for theft over $5,000. This bill deals with auto theft with specific sanctions.

We have been dealing with a lot of crime bills, but we do not seem to get them through the House, because of the actions of the Prime Minister. Hopefully we will not have prorogation in the next month. We would like to see this legislation become law.

I am being somewhat repetitive when I say there are whole elements missing in this debate. That has been stated by previous speakers. We have seen time and again cutbacks made to programs that deal with crime prevention.

The primary deterrent to a person who commits a crime is whether or not that person thinks he or she will be caught. That goes right back to resources, police, prosecutors and others.

We are talking about spending $9 billion to build new prisons for those convicted of an unreported crime. I do not know how an unreported crime can become a crime, because a crime is a crime when a person is convicted. I know that there are victims who do not report crimes, but a crime does not become a crime until there is a conviction. That is a whole other issue. We are talking about spending $9 billion of taxpayers' money for new prisons for unreported crime, but we are talking about doing it at a time when we have a $54 billion deficit, which is a serious issue.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to respond to an earlier question from the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, because I did not have the exact numbers when I was answering. In fact, it is more extreme than I thought.

In Manitoba, the recovery rate of stolen cars is 80%. That means that eight out of ten cars are recovered within a day or two, which would indicate joyriding as the motivation. Only 20% then, it is assumed, would be expensive vehicles that are being sold through criminal organizations. However, in Montreal it is even worse, in the reverse. The recovery rate is only 30%. That means 70% of auto thefts in Montreal are more than likely professionally done by criminal organizations.

I want to point out something else as well. Manitoba had been a dumping ground for used cars, and when the government changed the rules a few years ago to stop odometer rollback, that solved the problem by making it impossible to register a vehicle without the mileage on the odometer. It stopped the problem. So having tough laws is good, but I agree with the member that there has to be enforcement as well.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I really do not have much to add, Madam Speaker. Those statistics are interesting, but what the member did not state is the condition of the 80% of vehicles recovered. Are they recovered at the bottom of a lake? If that is the case, it is relevant too.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member rightly talked about the number of times this bill has come into the House and how we have heard the same speech from the government over and over again. It is a colossal waste of House and committee time to do the same bill over and over again.

I thought the hon. member would be interested in commenting on the fact that this is an S bill, S-9, a Senate bill. The Senate, an apparently unelected, unaccountable institution, started with first reading of this bill on May 4 and had second reading May 6. The bill went to committee on June 3 and it was reported on June 3. Third reading was on June 8 and it was reported to the House immediately after. That is pretty efficient on the part of an unelected, unaccountable Senate.

I would be interested in the hon. member's comments on how it is that the institution across the way, as it is euphemistically known, can proceed with a piece of legislation that pretty well everyone in the room agrees with in such an expeditious fashion, yet the justice minister and the Prime Minister do not seem to be capable of moving a piece of legislation forward in any kind of expeditious fashion. They seem to prefer to make the same speeches over and over again.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I believe the short answer to that question, Madam Speaker, is that the Prime Minister and the justice minister are probably not taking this issue as seriously as they ought to.

The member is right that it did go through the Senate in two weeks, which is unusual. Usually justice bills would originate in the House, but this is somewhat different. This bill came from the Senate and once it got through the Senate came to the House as Bill S-9. Hopefully that means that it will become law. Let us all roll up our sleeves and get this bill enacted so that we will not be talking about it anymore.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is the fourth time that this bill has been introduced in Parliament. I do not know if anyone said it was an urgent matter at the time, but they were ignored.

It started out in 2005 as Liberal Bill C-64. They were stopped short because an election was called, which they did not appreciate. It then became Bill C-53, and was shelved by an election or prorogation. It then became Bill C-26 and we now have Bill S-9, which was introduced by the government in the Senate in order to speed up its passage.

I believe that everyone recognizes that the government is responsible for the recent delays. That contradicts what we hear on a regular basis from the Minister of Justice in this Parliament, who says that the opposition is dragging its feet and that the opposition systematically opposes the legislative program it wants to present.

First, that is not true; second, the opposition's philosophy about some matters is diametrically opposed to that of the current Minister of Justice. We do not want our country to follow the example of the United States and become a country with one of the highest rates of incarceration. We know that half of all inmates in the world are found in U.S. prisons and it is obvious that this has not produced the desired results. There is a considerable difference in our philosophies. When a criminal justice bill that will really improve things and address an urgent problem is introduced, we are ready to collaborate. The minister knows that. Why did he not move more quickly before?

That said, now that he has introduced it, we will get the bill passed quickly because I note that there are no objections from the other two opposition parties, nor do we have any.

Nevertheless, I would like to make some comments. First of all, I must point out that auto theft has declined since 1996. I think the members who spoke before me said it is down by 20%. I think that corresponds to the statistics I have. Clearly, the nature of auto theft has changed somewhat over the years and now our legislation requires certain adjustments.

For instance, one thing that really surprised me when I consulted the most recent Statistics Canada data on the subject is that the incidence of auto theft varies considerably across the country. For example, Newfoundland and Labrador reports only 131 auto thefts per 100,000 inhabitants. Prince Edward Island reports 115. Nova Scotia reports 263, which is very high for the Maritimes. In New Brunswick, the number is 187. Quebec reports 507 thefts per 100,000 inhabitants, which is quite high. The number of auto thefts per 100,000 inhabitants in Ontario is 303, and in Manitoba, it is 1,376.

We have heard some reasonable explanations so far. I can come back to some and add to them, in order to understand. Personally, I do not say this to humiliate Manitoba—as we have been unfairly humiliated—because in Quebec, we do more to tackle corruption; we tolerate it less and we prosecute the offenders. Therefore, it is in our newspapers more often than in other places, but it does not mean that we have more corruption than other places, nor does it mean that the entire population is corrupt. In any case, we can look at it hypothetically.

In Saskatchewan, the number of auto thefts per 100,000 inhabitants is 663, in Alberta it is 725 and in British Columbia, it is 682. As we can see, the incidence is higher in western Canada. Once again, this clearly shows that the Parliament of Canada, which creates legislation for the entire country, does not necessarily have the power to make the changes needed to address crime. It was my experience, as a member of the Quebec government, that crime must be fought locally first, with local police forces and our own policies.

It is our duty to amend legislation when needed and that is what we are doing.

Statistics vary a great deal according to the province and the size of the city. I am all the more sympathetic to Manitoba when I know that the city in Quebec with the highest theft rate is the one that I have the honour of partially representing. Part of my riding is in Laval. In Laval, there are 852 car thefts per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to Montreal where there are 723 thefts per 100,000 inhabitants. That is quite high.

I understand that the rate is higher in Toronto than in Montreal because of Montreal's port. In Montreal, there are orders from foreign countries for four-wheel-drive luxury vehicles with air conditioning and other accessories. These vehicles can be shipped out of the country quickly through the port of Montreal, something that is not an option for car thieves in Toronto. This certainly plays a role in organized crime, which makes crime prevention more difficult, but not impossible.

Another significant number: the stolen vehicle recovery rate is 75% in Toronto and 56% in Montreal. This also clearly illustrates that organizations that steal luxury cars are able to offload them quickly because of the port, or so I am told by the police.

When I was young, another common reason for stealing a vehicle was joyriding, which is far less common today. Cars were not stolen for the thrill of stealing, but to cruise around and try it out. We all need to understand that boys are fascinated by cars. At least, that has been my experience. Young girls think about the utilitarian side of a car, but young boys think about how much fun it would be to drive one. That is why, quite often, the only crime a young person ever commits is having helped steal a vehicle. Young men are fascinated by them.

How do we combat this? I think that we have done it over time. It is far more difficult to steal a vehicle now. We have taken measures to make it more complicated to start a car. In earlier days, among young people, both delinquent types and those not overly involved in crime who had never committed a violent act and who were respectful, it was a source of pride to know how to start a car without the key and things like that. That is another explanation.

Perhaps the members from Winnipeg can tell me if they agree. When there is a large population of youth from not-so-rich families, there are perhaps more youth who are tempted and fascinated by automobiles, as are all young boys. If their fascination is not satisfied by their family's vehicle, they will be more tempted to steal vehicles simply for the joy of riding around in a car, being in control and driving it.

We are taking advantage of the opportunity to change the legislation. First, a minimum sentence of six months has been added. People may think that the Bloc Québécois has an ideological stance against minimum sentences. We are not against minimum sentences, but we recognize the circumstances under which a minimum sentence can be effective. Most of the time, the minimum sentences that have been proposed are not effective. I am sure that not even 10% of the members in the House know how many minimum sentences there are in the Criminal Code. If I gave them a test and asked which offences have a minimum sentence associated with them, less than 2% of them would pass. And I am being generous.

So how can we expect criminals to know what the minimum sentences are? These sentences have no impact on criminals' behaviour because they do not know what the minimums are. I have always said so. The most striking example is the importing of marijuana in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I began practising law. Marijuana was starting to spread. It all came from outside the country, because the marijuana that grew here was not hallucinogenic at all. The minimum sentence for importing marijuana was seven years. This was when marijuana use went up the most, so someone had to import it. We found that this minimum sentence, which was the longest in the Criminal Code after the minimum for murder, did not deter anyone. Minimum sentences generally have no deterrent effect, except under certain circumstances. The minimum sentence in this case is smart because it is for subsequent offences and because the offender is informed.

As a lawyer, I always informed my clients that if they were caught a second time, a minimum sentence would apply. That can act as a deterrent. If I had been appointed as a judge, I would have made a point of informing offenders when I had to sentence them for a crime for which a minimum is provided in the event of a subsequent offence. That way, an individual who might commit the same offence again is aware of the minimum sentence. That acts as a deterrent.

That is what we are talking about here. There is a reasonable minimum sentence of six months for a second offence. The minimum sentences that the members opposite come up with are always paradoxically flawed. Logically, a minimum sentence should apply to the least serious form of an offence, so that the maximum sentence can be handed down for the most serious form of the offence. But the people who come up with minimum sentences think about the most serious cases, which is why they want a minimum sentence. However, because they are motivated by the most serious cases, they set very long minimum sentences.

We have seen this in the United States, where there are many minimum sentences. Moreover, this is one of the problems with minimum sentences. In this case, there is no such problem. I feel that a six-month sentence for a third offence is reasonable. It can certainly act as a deterrent. As hon. members can see, the Bloc's objections are not ideological, but are based on rational knowledge, experience and criminology.

A new offence has been created—tampering with the vehicle identification number. I am surprised it is not already an offence. Someone who alters a VIN obviously does not have honest intentions. I really believed it was prohibited. No matter, it will be in the future.

A presumption is created: if an individual owns a vehicle with an altered VIN, he is presumed to have obtained it illegally. I believe that this is a reasonable presumption, but it does not always hold true. One can always provide a defence, if it is a good one. If it raises a reasonable doubt in the judge's mind, he will not accept the presumption. It seems to me that something is amiss if we own a car with an altered VIN, unless we dealt in good faith or were victims of the person who stole the car, changed the number and sold it to us. We apparently bought the car lawfully, and went to register it with the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec. That is a good change.

There is another new offence concerning trafficking in stolen vehicles. I have always thought that there could not be trafficking in a stolen car without possession of a stolen car. However, this is not a bad change—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member.

I would ask the members in the back of the room to continue their conversation outside. It must be difficult to make a speech with a conversation going on in the background.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, how humiliating. I thought I was interesting enough for them to pay attention. Fortunately, others are listening to me.

It is impossible to traffic a motor vehicle without also being in possession of stolen property. It is true that trafficking may be worse than simple possession, for example, purchasing a stolen television. The crime of trafficking is much worse. I have no objection to adding it as an offence, because that makes more sense. In practice, judges handling cases of trafficking in stolen vehicles would take into account the fact that the criminal was in possession of stolen property.

The bill also adds the offence of importing and exporting. This is the same thing. When we understand the purpose, it is clear that it is a good idea to add it, because it enables the Canada Revenue Agency and customs officials to intervene.

I think it would be a good thing if the bill contained a provision to supply border crossings with a list of stolen vehicle registrations so that it would be easy to check. Technology should make this relatively simple. It could be very useful.

We will probably never put an end to these types of crimes, but we could considerably reduce the prevalence. Changing the legislation is 10% of the work. The rest must be done at the local level by police forces or the industry.

The industry has tired of asking us to create tough legislation to prevent its products from being exploited or stolen. That said, the industry is responsible for making these crimes more difficult to carry out and for making it easier to find stolen vehicles.

Now, thanks to GPS, it is easier to find stolen vehicles, so the cost should go down.

In Montreal, a company launched a new initiative. Vehicle owners could pay a fee to have a device installed in a secret place in their vehicles. Stolen vehicles could be found using the cellular phone system.

GPS, a rapidly evolving technology, has become standard in luxury cars. I think that this technology should be used as widely as possible, especially since we know which models are the most commonly stolen. Oddly enough, the incidence of luxury car theft is lower, probably because there are fewer of them. The Honda Civic, Dodge Caravan, Acura Integra, Audi TT—a more unusual and luxurious model—and Dodge Shadow top the list. These are very common models, and they are the most popular with car thieves.

I believe that prevention and enforcement by police are two important aspects. I also believe, and I say this with all due respect to those who prepared it, this bill is much more balanced in terms of what it is proposing, much more comprehensive also, and much more responsive to the problems it is designed to address than the bills that the Minister of Justice regularly brings forward, in which I always detect an undercurrent of propaganda and sensationalism.

I am being very candid in saying this because that is not my party, but it is clear to me that, originally, this was Bill C-64, which was introduced by the Liberals. Very often, we have a meetings of the minds on legal issues, even though we definitely do not on other issues. Our approach to fighting crime is not about grandstanding; it is about taking meaningful, productive action.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, as has been mentioned many times here, we have been through this drill a couple of times on this bill and the government keeps getting in the way of progress.

The member from the Bloc went through the list of the most popular vehicles and talked about having manufacturers onside. Could he give me his thoughts on improvements in standards in terms of this bill and what the government can further do?

Often the government talks about cracking down on crime. Could I hear his thoughts on how we are going to make a dent on the mitigation of crime in general, other than just cracking down on it, as the government likes to do, and putting people in jail? Could the member talk a bit about prevention when it comes to auto theft?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows my favourite subject.

I support the prosecution of criminals and putting convicted criminals in prison when necessary, for a period of time that will make them less dangerous and rehabilitate them as much as possible in preparation for their release.

I would point out that it is not the severity of the law that discourages or reduces crime, but rather something else, specifically, police action and prevention. We have so many examples when it comes to motor vehicles. It was really easy to steal cars when I was 20 or 25. Certain protective measures have been added, such as locking the steering wheel and adding all kinds of things to vehicles that make them harder to steal, which has reduced the number of auto thefts.

In my opinion, if something could be added that would allow authorities to track down vehicles quickly, we would get better results. I would like to be clear on that. It is frustrating for us, as federal legislators, because it is not up to us.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my hon. colleague who speaks on behalf of the Bloc. He is certainly quite knowledgeable and he has spent a fair bit of time on the justice committee.

He spoke briefly about minimum mandatories, the numbers of minimum mandatories and whether members of Parliament, let alone criminals, knew about minimum mandatories, et cetera. One of the truisms of minimum mandatories is it increases the prison population, not to any discernible effect on the rate of crime. It would be reasonable to anticipate that this bill would increase the prison population.

In his capacity as the justice critic for the Bloc and as a long-standing member on the justice committee and as a former practising lawyer in Quebec, has he any idea whether the government has shared any data as to what the impact of this bill might be on an increase in the prison population?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, in this case, no, I do not anticipate an increase, because I think it will actually be used to discourage the right people from continuing. So it should not have much of an impact on prison populations.

The main reason that minimum sentences increase prison populations is very simple. It is because judges are forced to hand down prison sentences, even though they know in their hearts and in their consciences, and after examining 24 or 25 criteria in the law for sentencing, that certain individuals should not go to prison.

All kinds of people who should not go to prison are sent there anyway, and that is why the United States has 730 or 732 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants. In Canada, that number is about 100 to 115 per 100,000 inhabitants, as it is in all civilized countries like ours, such as those in western Europe, for example.

But in this case, the law is well targeted. I hope it will be applied with the same professional conscience that guided me when I was a lawyer. I think judges need to think about this. I have seen it. The judges were not saying that, but they should have. If they say so, there will be fewer auto-related crimes and therefore fewer people in prison for such crimes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague from the Bloc Québécois thinks about prevention. We have to find out how to punish people who commit the type of crime we are talking about today, but we also have to recognize who they are. For the most part, they are young people.

In my province, Manitoba, a large number of these young people are victims of fetal alcohol syndrome. They come from underprivileged neighbourhoods in Winnipeg or elsewhere, where they go through traumatic experiences that make them more likely to become involved in this type of activity.

A number of my colleagues and I feel it is important to adopt an approach that recognizes the characteristics of the people involved in this type of crime. I would like the hon. member's opinion on that.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, these characteristics are quite diverse. Young boys will always be fascinated by cars. Boys are eager to get their hands on a steering wheel. When they live in a family where they will never have that opportunity, they are tempted—with their friends—to find a way to drive a car. In that case, the best prevention is to make it difficult to steal a car. Young people take pride in beating the system.

In the Montreal area, there is a more serious problem. There are fewer young people. This phenomenon still exists among young people, but there is also a problem of organized crime. These are people who receive stolen vehicles and dispose of them quite quickly. There are other measures we should be using in those cases.

I think the hon. member is right when she says we should work on the root causes of crime. Education and fighting poverty can help. To get people out of poverty, we have to give them hope. A host of measures is needed to tackle all kinds of crime. We cannot address this issue in 30 seconds. Nevertheless, everyone knows what we are talking about. Better education and promoting physical activity such as sports can have a positive effect on reducing poverty.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the bill. Other speakers have commented on the repetitive nature of the speeches given by the government and by the minister. I imagine they are putting the photocopier in overdrive, given the essential sameness to these speeches and the vacuous content to them.

Pretty well everyone in this chamber, including my party, will support sending the bill to committee for further study. I do not propose to get into much in the way of the details about this study, but I would have preferred that the minister, when supporting and advocating the bill, would have come forward to the House with some costing of the anticipated increase in the prison population by virtue of a bill, which has both minimum mandatories and also increases the number offences. It stands to reason that the courts will be busier.

I note in the stakeholder reaction, the Insurance Bureau of Canada supports that. Why would it not support that? I support it, as a person who pays insurance on a regular basis for my vehicles and had my car stolen a number of years ago and returned intact five or six days later. This seems to be a particular problem to Winnipeg and to Montreal. I noticed that the Manitoba justice minister and the Winnipeg mayor, Sam Katz, support this bill, as do the Winnipeg police and, I dare say, as do most police forces.

I thought, however, that Rick Linden, a professor at the University of Manitoba, made an interesting observation. He noted that the bill was a good step forward and hoped that it would reduce crime. However, he makes note that it will only occur if we invest significant resources in police tactics, numbers and in implementing evidence-based prevention programs.

The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers is opposed to the bill because of issues of judicial discretion. They think, rightly in my judgment, that a judge should be given maximum discretion as to the allocation of sentencing.

The Crown Counsel Association is opposed to the bill. It thinks it will add to the workload of an already overwrought system, without any mention or apparent mention of adding resources to support the legislation.

Hence my concern with the way in which these bills come forward to the House with, frankly, no costing of any kind whatsoever. There is no costing on police resources, on prison facilities, on custodial facilities, no costing whatsoever. We are supposed to simply take this on faith that this is a good thing, that our streets will be safer and that this will be, in effect, a cost-free exercise.

I hear various Conservative members say “what price justice?” There is always a price.

I want to spend some time talking about the evidence given by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Mr. Page, before the government operations committee yesterday with respect to the bill, truth in sentencing, which passed through the House. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has tried to establish the costs to the system if the bill is fully implemented. He is receiving no co-operation whatsoever from the government.

This was in response to a request from the member for Ajax—Pickering, where he tried to meet with the corrections officials. As he said in his testimony:

Over the course of this project, PBO encountered a number of challenges. Other than the initial communication between PBO and Correctional Service Canada, which is available on PBO's website, the PBO was unable to secure a single meeting with CSC officials in spite of repeated requests. Moreover, the PBO was unable to verify the government's own estimates, assumptions, or methodology for the various figures presented publicly. Much of the data used for the PBO report was sourced from the annual surveys by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada, and from provincial and territorial correctional departments themselves.

In other words, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is our officer. He is the person who is charged by Parliament to cost the various initiatives put forward by the government and to fully inform members of Parliament as to the real cost of any initiative whatsoever.

In my judgment, we are looking at something similar here. In response to a question, the previous speaker said that there may be no cost whatsoever. He may well be right. I hope he is right. On the other hand, there may be significant costs.

In my view, if there is a minimum mandatory initiative put forward, the prison population is going to be increased. The prison population may well be increased significantly with no real impact on the actual rate of crime. It is not as if the people who are stealing these cars are the sharpest knives in the drawer. In fact, if they heard the phrase “minimum mandatory”, I dare say that pretty well 10 out of 10 would ask what we were talking about. I dare say that most of the population in Canada would have no idea what a minimum mandatory sentence is.

For those of us who do pay some attention to justice issues, a minimum mandatory is simply an elimination of a discretion on the part of a judge to make an appropriate sentence under all of the circumstances. It circumscribes his or her ability to fashion a sentence that he or she thinks is appropriate having heard all the evidence.

The more minimum mandatories there are, the more realistic it is to assume that this person will end up spending custodial time. Over a period of time, with the pileup of these bills, one after another after another, circumscribing and further circumscribing the discretion of judges, we will end up with an increased prison population.

What does that actually mean in terms of an increased prison population? The first thing it means is that there may or may not be any reduction in crime. The rate of crime generally goes up and down independent of whether there is an increase or decrease in the prison population.

Frankly, crime is, in and of itself, something where people who are committing crimes do not think they are ever going to get caught. They think that somehow or another they will be exempt from the possibility that if they steal this particular car or this particular vehicle, regardless of whether it is a Honda or a Dodge, they are not going to get caught.

The police are efficient in this country and they do catch a significant number of people. Therefore, those people end up in the justice system, having convictions, and frequently in a custodial situation.

This is a not a cost-free exercise. To wit, my point is that if a prisoner is incarcerated in a provincial system, the rough cost is about $85,000, and if a prisoner is incarcerated in a federal system, the rough cost is about $147,000 per person per year. That is a lot of money.

So even if the number of people who find themselves in a custodial situation is bumped by 1%, 2%, or 10%, the cost is actually bumped up rather significantly with no provable reduction in the actual rate of crime. That was the Parliamentary Budget Officer's core piece of testimony yesterday.

The truth in sentencing bill, like this bill, was not costed. We really have no idea as to how many more people will end up in jail. It seems reasonable to assume that more people will end up in jail. It seems reasonable to assume that more people will be bumped from the provincial system into the federal system. That was the point that the Parliamentary Budget Officer was making.

Since the Parliamentary Budget Officer could not actually get a meeting with Correctional Service of Canada, he could not get a meeting with the minister, he could not get a meeting with the departmental officials or the minister's officials, he therefore had to take documentation and material that was in the public realm. Based upon that information, he said that at a very minimum, that one bill alone, Bill C-25, the truth in sentencing bill, would cost $620 million on an annual basis.

Madam Speaker, $620 million is a lot of money. It is half a photo op, for goodness' sake. That is just on the basis of an increase. That is with no capital increase whatsoever. It is $620 million, give or take, increasing year after year, based on the assumption that the increase in the prison population is double-bunked. More people will have to be jammed into less space. The Parliamentary Budget Officer was working on the current occupancy rate of 90%, which are public figures put forward by Correctional Service of Canada.

If, however, the prison population is literally bursting at the seams by virtue of not only the Truth in Sentencing Act, but possibly this bill and other bills that the government wishes to put forward, we therefore are going to have to start building new prisons.

On building new prisons, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated a building program at something in the order of $300 million or $400 million a year. His estimate on what is currently passed, the truth in sentencing bill, is that the cost to the taxpayers of Canada would be increased by a minimum of $1 billion a year.

It actually gets worse than that. It is $1 billion a year for the federal government. However, the prison population would actually be increased on the provincial side of the equation as well, and the rough figure again is another $1 billion for the provincial authorities. So what do we have? We have an increase in the cost to the taxpayer of roughly $2 billion a year to put away more folks in prison, and that is on one bill alone.

That may or may not be true. I am perfectly prepared to accept my learned friend's argument here that this may not increase the prison population. However, both he and I, and everyone in this chamber, have not been told by this government what the actual cost might be. We have no costing. We have no figure as to how much more this will cost.

I want to emphasize again the point that this is an increase in a custodial population. More people would be put in jail. For some people, that is greatly satisfying, but the crime rate is not necessarily being reduced and we may or may not be achieving any form of justice.

Inevitably, with Winnipeg being a unique case, and certainly Regina as well, the populations represented in prison are the most disadvantaged, the most vulnerable. There are aboriginals, minority groups of some kind or another, and frequently people with disabilities, whether those are learning disabilities, behavioural issues, mental issues, or things of that nature. We would be housing more of these kinds of people.

Again, that is a gross generalization. Certainly it is subject to challenge, but the government is not prepared to put forward the basic data that parliamentarians need in order to be able to assess the validity and viability of the bill.

The question was asked, why should we be concerned about this? In respect to the Truth in Sentencing Act, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said it will have significant impact on the correctional system, which is one reason we should be concerned about it. Parliamentarians should be concerned about how this will impact the fiscal framework and whether the budget actually reflects the cost pressures arising out of the bill.

The taxpayer is not an unlimited tap. We cannot just keeping going to this well. The taxpayer has limits. So if there is a limit and if this is the limit, we are going to have to start shifting resources. Where is the money coming from in order to increase Correctional Service of Canada's budget?

It is increasing the budget. It is one of five departments that are actually increasing the amount of money available for staffing resources and for facilities improvement. So where is it coming out of the fiscal framework? That is a perfectly legitimate question to ask and I encourage my colleagues on the justice committee to ask that very question.

Parliamentarians should be concerned about the lack of transparency to Parliament in the cost and by the Government of Canada. Parliamentarians should be concerned about the operational cost on the provincial-territorial issue.

During the Parliamentary Budget Officer's speech, his point was that at this stage it is roughly 50:50. If we are spending $1 billion in extra costs on truth and sentencing from the federal fiscal framework, we are going to be spending another $1 billion under the provincial framework. There is no indication we know of that the provinces are going to get an extra $1 billion in order to be able to house the inevitable increase in prison population.

However, it actually gets worse than that, because over time the federal share of the cost of this initiative reduces to roughly 44% and the corollary is that the provincial share increases to about 56%. If I am a provincial premier and I am looking for every dollar that I can find and I am trying to contain costs on health, education and the other appropriate responsibilities of provinces, I am going to be a little upset that I have to take a pro-rated share of $1 billion and find it for an increase in the prison population for which I had no say whatsoever.

In the case of my province, Ontario, if the number is an increase of $1 billion because of the increase in prison population, I am stuck with roughly 40% of that. So that is $400 million that the Premier of Ontario has to find, that he has no resources for, and he is receiving nothing from the federal government.

I thought the Parliamentary Budget Officer did us all a great service yesterday when he made a very sincere attempt to try to cost a previous piece of legislation, and I would draw a parallel between that legislation and this legislation. Whether it is greater than Bill C-25 or less, and I suspect that it is less, the principle still applies that members of Parliament should be given a fully costed analysis before they are asked to vote on the legislation.

At this point, we are all being asked to take things on faith. We are being asked to believe that this bill would make things safer and better for Canadians. On the face of it, it seems like a good idea. On the other hand, it would be appropriate that members of Parliament, whether they are from government or opposition, actually know what the cost might be.

Is there something wrong with asking the question and expecting the minister and his department to be fully transparent on these kinds of initiatives?

As I say, our party will support the bill. This is potentially good legislation but it would be nice to know the cost.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, in the end our objectives are the same and we are very close to considering the same means of attaining the same objectives, that is reducing crime. However, in this case, we have a minimum sentence for a third offence.

I believe that the member acknowledges that there are two types of car thieves. There are those who steal for fun, such as young people who love cars and riding around in them. Then there are those who steal cars to resell them or hand them over to a criminal organization. A youth on his third joy ride needs a serious warning and a stint in jail. It is important that he realize that there is a short six-month prison sentence with the possibility of parole. That is also the role of prisons. No matter the cost, I think we should pay it.

The other type of thief is the one who works for organized crime. It is another type of crime, where the perpetrator is a hardened criminal and the car is the object of the crime. He definitely needs to serve a longer sentence and a prison term is justified in this case as well.

There are two reasons why the government does not want to calculate the sentence. First, it is very difficult to establish the parameters. For example, how many people would be deterred if they knew about the minimum sentence? I think that most, if not all, young people would be deterred. The data is inconclusive and makes it difficult to establish the sentence.

There is another reason why the government does not want to give us figures. If it starts providing figures for all the prison sentences it has established, they will be appalling and people will be discouraged by its program. That is exactly what happened in Europe. The majority of European countries talk about the cost of incarceration before imposing minimum sentences and very harsh sentences.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The hon. member makes an excellent point, Madam Speaker. His distinction between kids caught joyriding versus organized crime, chop shops and so on is a perfectly legitimate point and I agree with him completely.

With respect to organized crime initiatives, in some respects we cannot be too harsh.

He makes an additional very good point, which is that these bills are piling up. He does not know the cost, I certainly do not know the cost and, I dare say, there is no one in the chamber who actually knows the cost. Perhaps if they did know the cost they might reshape some legislation initiatives to reflect other forms of societal punishment.

However, at this point, we are operating in the dark because the government wants Parliament to be operating in the dark. It does not want to say.

I agree with the member in the sense that the cost parameters of this bill and any other bill are difficult to calculate but there is sociological and criminalogical material that does give us some working presumptions.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, basically without co-operation from Correctional Service Canada, took the material from Statistics Canada and Correctional Service Canada and used the methodology the Department of Finance uses, i.e. there will be no behavioural changes, therefore, we calculate on the basis of, I think he said, 3,800 increased prisoners.

It seems to me that unless Parliament insists on a costing no one else will insist on a costing. All we have are cheesy headlines from the government where apparently we are going to get tough on crime and the crime operates independently of all of the cheesy headlines and boring speeches put forward by the government and, in particular, the Minister of Justice.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased once again to speak to the issue of auto theft in this country. I say “once again” because I, quite frankly, do not remember how many times I have been on my feet in the House speaking to bills on auto theft. This is the third incarnation. There was Bill C-53 after the 2006 election; Bill C-26 before the 2008 election because of the prorogation at that time; and now we are on Bill S-9.

There is such a lack of credibility on the part of the government on this issue and on crime bills generally. We have been going at this for over four years. The issue actually preceded that back in the Liberal tenure because there was a bill at that time dealing with the issue of playing with VIN numbers.

With the present government, we had one prorogation and the bill went down, one election and the bill went down and then we had the spectacle of the justice committee not being able to meet because of elections and because the chair of that committee was thwarting the activities of the committee for months at a time. Those things delayed the passage of these bills. In April 2009, it finally went before the committee, which was the first time in a year the justice committee actually dealt with a bill. It sat idle a whole year because of both the actions of the chair thwarting the work of the committee and the election in 2008.

Finally, in 2009 the committee was finally working again and we were dealing with the bill before us today, which, if I have time today, I will actually get to. The committee did a lot of work and extensive evidence was taken. It then went back to the House with all party support and then on to the Senate. When we got to the end of 2009, we all know what happened. We had another prorogation. We had three prorogations, one election and dirty tactics by the chair of the justice committee.

Here we are, four-plus years later, and the bill still has not been passed, a bill that has widespread support in the House from all parties. However, it is because of, quite frankly, the indifference of the government to what is a significant issue in the country and a government much more concerned about protecting its political stature than it is about dealing realistically, effectively and efficiently with a major crime problem in the country.

We already have a backlog in the justice committee because so many other bills have been impacted exactly the same way. This bill will probably go through the House tomorrow and get to committee, which is backlogged significantly. If it is dealt with in its proper order, it is highly unlikely that this bill will get out of the justice committee in 2010. It almost certainly will not be, given the other bills before the committee. It has been my forecast for some time that we will have an election in the spring and that this bill will never become law before the next election. We need to be very clear that the responsibility for that lies entirely in the hands of the government.

All three of the opposition parties have dealt responsibly with the bill. When it was before committee, we did our proper work. We analyzed the problem, saw that the bill would work the way it should work, passed it, and then we see this again and again.

That is the reality of what we are dealing with. It is almost frustrating to say, “Why am I bothering to stand here today, because we are going to have an election before this bill becomes law?”. We will then start all over again and it will be another couple of years before we get it into the books as law.

The bill, as I see it, has only one significant problem, which is where I take some issue with what my colleague from Scarborough said. The mandatory minimum in the bill is only after a person has committed his or her third offence. As my colleague from the Bloc has raised, we are not quite sure what that would do. One of the reasons we should not be supporting mandatory minimums in some cases is that it sets the standard and judges feel compelled to work to that standard.

We can think of any number of scenarios. When a person has been convicted for the third time, six months is a ridiculously low sentence, especially if it involves individuals who are involved in organized crime in the theft of autos. Six months is a joke in those circumstances after a third offence. However, that happens because it is sometimes easier for judges who are overworked to say that the legislature has said that six months is the target after the third offence, so that is what they will invoke, when it should maybe have been two years or a penitentiary sentence, especially if it involved organized crime.

At the end of the day, my friend from Scarborough may be right, we may see an increase in the number of people incarcerated for this theft but it is also possible that we will see a reduction in the amount of time that they spend in our provincial jails.

The member has a very good point, though, in that the government does not know. Its simplistic solution is that everything can be solved by a mandatory minimum penalty. It just throws it at the problem. It has absolutely no idea what the consequences will be of that provision. Will it dramatically increase the prison population? It is building all those jails to the tune of $9 billion and there was another announcement for more jail cells. For those crimes that are not being reported, so we cannot put those people in jail because they will never get to court, we can maybe increase the population here to justify spending that $9 billion. The bottom line is that the government does not know. It has absolutely no idea what the consequences will be of that mandatory minimum in this situation.

The other point of significant concern, which came out of the work done by the justice committee, is that the bill would empower, which is necessary and we are supportive of it, the Canada Border Services Agency to take additional investigative methods to deal with the illicit importing and exporting of mostly autos and auto parts. The CBSA does not have enough jurisdiction right now and it is the agency that is on the front line.

When that was explained to us as we heard the evidence on it, we understood the necessity of it, but what was corresponding to it was that there were no plans by the government to provide the additional resources. This will be a significantly increased workload for the Border Services Agency but there were no plans in the last two budgets to provide additional funding to that agency. I am sure we will hear again, when this issue comes before the justice committee, that the government still has not planned for it. By that, I mean doing a basic business plan. How much more will we need? How many additional staff will we need? How much more equipment and investigative tools will we need? The government has no idea of that at all.

We are seeing this in terms of complaints coming back from governments at the provincial and municipal level, where these additional burdens are being put on our police officers, our prosecutors and our judiciary with no additional resources being provided by the federal government.

In this regard specifically, this is a federal government agency and this responsibility is entirely ours. We do not have any analysis of how much it is going to cost, how many more people, how long it is going to take to get it fully staffed. Are funds going to be available to fully staff it, or are we going to dump this responsibility on the officers who will have no ability to carry it out because they are under-resourced? They are under-resourced now. If we had additional staff at the Windsor-Detroit border, we could be doing much more, for instance, in the illicit import of guns. There is no capacity to do it. Now these officers are going to be forced to do more work with no particular ability to carry it out.

I am not a great fan of making auto theft a separate offence, although there is nothing wrong with doing it. It just does not add anything to the front-line police officer who enforces the law.

I want to acknowledge the work we saw in Manitoba. It came up with a solid, practical solution that dramatically reduced auto theft rates, particularly in the city of Winnipeg. In 2007 Winnipeg was the auto theft capital of the country by a long shot, running at about 1,700 thefts a year. The next closest city was Abbotsford at just under 1,000. Montreal, which traditionally until about 2000-01 had been the auto theft capital in the country, was only at 550 thefts a year.

Those numbers have altered somewhat in the last two years, since the last study available from Juristat. Winnipeg has dropped dramatically. It is no longer the auto theft capital of the country. Abbotsford still is and Edmonton is right behind. Montreal is running fairly close.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member. When the bill returns to the House, he will have seven minutes left for his comments.

The House resumed from October 6 consideration of the motion that Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate on Bill S-9. As we already know, this bill is called An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), or the tackling auto theft and property crime act. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada moved second reading of this bill, which we have already started debating.

This bill would create offences in connection with the alteration, removal or obliteration of a vehicle identification number and would also create the offences of knowingly selling, giving, transferring, transporting, sending or delivering property that was obtained by crime. The term “knowingly” is very important, because it shows that the individual who sold, transferred or gave property—a vehicle—must know that it was obtained by crime. Lastly, the bill would create the offence of knowingly being in the possession of property that was obtained by crime, for the purpose of trafficking. The Crown would have the burden of proving that the person in possession of the vehicle knew that it had been obtained by crime for the purpose of trafficking.

This bill creates a separate offence for motor vehicle theft, proposes a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months for a third or subsequent offence and gives the Canada Border Services Agency the authority to identify stolen goods and keep them from leaving the country.

We, the Liberals, are in favour of this bill. We want it to be sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights so that we can hear from witnesses and stakeholders who have thoughts and expertise on the goal of this bill, which we agree with.

We feel that this is a good beginning, even though it is not a comprehensive solution. We believe that some witnesses will also say that it is a step in the right direction and a good start but that it is not a cure-all and it will not fix all of the issues related to vehicle theft and trafficking.

The Liberal Party has always supported legislation that aims to effectively reduce crime and make communities safer. The fact is that vehicle theft rates are going down. The Liberals did not make this up. However, vehicle theft is still a major problem in cities like Montreal and Winnipeg. I am from Montreal, and I have colleagues and family in Winnipeg. So I know what I am talking about. I also had the opportunity, as justice critic in the official-opposition Liberal caucus in 2007-08, to speak with Manitoba's justice minister about this issue as well as youth criminal justice. The minister showed me studies indicating that Winnipeg was close to becoming the vehicle-theft capital of Canada. He told me that this was a serious problem, one that led youth down a criminal path.

Bill S-9 is not perfect, but it is a good start because it updates the Criminal Code, which shows that the government is taking this issue seriously.

That being said, we will see significant reductions in crime rates only if the government invests substantial resources in evidence-based crime prevention programs.

Our party does not play political games with the Criminal Code. Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals strongly believe that we must fight crime with good laws, not with crude slogans and petty political manoeuvring.

If the government really intended to tackle auto theft and property crimes, the Prime Minister never would have killed Bill C-53, which it did by violating its own fixed election date law in 2008, nor would it have torpedoed Bill C-26 by proroguing Parliament last winter.

This is the third time the Conservative government has introduced the same bill. After the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in December 2009, it took the government five months to reintroduce exactly the same bill. The Liberals tried to speed it through the House before, and they will do so again this time.

As I said, we are pleased that the government, which torpedoed its own Bill C-26, has introduced Bill S-9, which is an exact replica of its predecessor. We are disappointed that it took the government so long—five months—to reintroduce it. There is no excuse for that.

We are pleased to see that the wording in this bill is harsher than Bill C-53, the first incarnation of this bill. The government has finally decided to add a separate offence for auto theft to the Criminal Code.

As I said, the first auto theft bill introduced by the Conservative government in 2008 did not create a new, separate offence for auto theft. At the time, Liberals, police officers, police corps and provincial governments—the Conservative government's counterparts—criticized this approach. They criticized the government for failing to create a separate Criminal Code offence for auto theft. The government has finally done so in this bill, and we are pleased that it has finally fallen into step with law enforcement in Canada.

Thus, with Bill C-26, the government created a separate offence for theft of a motor vehicle, and this offence is also included in Bill S-9. The mandatory minimum sentence for this offence is six months' incarceration for a third offence or in the case of an indictable offence.

This is important because all studies show that motor vehicle theft in certain cities is quite well organized. The evidence from various police forces, including municipal and provincial forces and our national police force, the RCMP, has clearly indicated that to be the case. When someone is on their third such offence, it becomes quite serious. The criminal justice system must therefore send a clear message that this kind of criminal behaviour is unacceptable.

The new offences provide for a broad definition of trafficking. This would cover selling, giving, transferring, transporting, importing, exporting, sending or delivering property obtained by crime or offering to do any of those things.

Thus, the new legislative provisions would target all the middlemen involved in moving stolen property, from the initial criminal act through to the ultimate consumer. That is very important. Of course it happens in other cities, but we know that in Montreal and Winnipeg in particular, most motor vehicle thefts are committed by organized crime groups. This means there is a network of individuals whose only goal and mission is to steal cars. The orders often come from outside Canada, with requests for x number of certain models, for instance, Lexus vehicles from a given year, Chevrolets from a given year, specific models and colours of BMWs from another year, and so on. The crime of motor vehicle theft is driven by the network.

So, with these offences and this definition, if the proposed Criminal Code amendment successfully passes in both houses of Parliament, this would allow our police forces to pursue not only the person who committed the actual theft, but also all the middlemen who were knowingly involved in the transaction and allowed the sale, transfer or gift of property or a stolen vehicle, when that individual knew the property or vehicle was stolen.

Let us look at the two proposed offences. Both offences carry heavier penalties than the existing offence of possession of property obtained by crime. If the value of the item trafficked exceeds $5,000, anyone convicted of this offence could face up to a maximum of 14 years in prison. If the value does not exceed $5,000, there would be what is called a hybrid offence, which would carry a maximum prison sentence of five years on indictment or six months on summary conviction.

The bill also introduces a prohibition against the importation or exportation of property obtained by crime that would trigger the administrative enforcement powers of the Canada Border Services Agency, allowing the agency to bar the cross-border movement of stolen goods. In the case of auto theft, CBSA officers would be able to investigate, identify and detain imported vehicles or vehicles about to be exported and search databases to determine whether or not the vehicles are stolen.

I would like to add a few words on the statistics and data that we have on stolen vehicles in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the number of stolen vehicles has decreased almost every year since 1996, by 20% according to 2006 data. Auto theft has major repercussions on car owners, on other victims, on law enforcement and on the insurance industry. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, auto theft costs insurance companies and the general public almost $1 billion a year. That is big bucks.

I do not own a car, but some of my friends and family have been victims of auto theft. I can say that this can be quite disruptive to a person's life by the time they settle things with the insurance company, get a new car and so on.

In 2006, approximately 160, 000 cases of auto theft were reported to the police, or about 438 per day. There tend to be fewer thefts in eastern Canada than in western Canada. According to data from Statistics Canada, Prince Edward Island has the lowest incidence of auto theft, while Manitoba has the highest. The incidence of car theft in Manitoba is almost three times the national average. Montreal, however, was the Canadian city with the highest incidence of auto theft and the lowest number of recovered stolen vehicles in 2007.

I am from Montreal and although I do not own a vehicle, I do know many people who do. Some of them have had their cars stolen. There are criminal networks in Montreal that steal cars for export, filling specific orders. Such car theft is a made-to-measure business.

Here is how a number of stakeholders have responded. The Manitoba Minister of Justice, Dave Chomiak, the mayor of Winnipeg, Sam Katz, and the Winnipeg police, all of whom I have met with, are in favour of this bill. The Insurance Bureau of Canada also supports it.

Mr. Rick Linden, a professor at the University of Manitoba noted that the bill was a good step, but that significant reductions in crime would only occur if we also invest significant resources in evidence-based crime prevention programs.

The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers is against the bill because it believes it will restrict judicial discretion. The Canadian Association of Crown Counsel is also against it because it believes it will increase the workload of an already overburdened justice system. And yet, the government has failed to announce any new money for its implementation. This is a crucial point. The new offences created by this bill have long been awaited by the Liberals. We are in favour of the bill and its desired outcome. However, we realize that once these offences are passed and come into effect and the desired outcome is achieved, the government will have to allocate additional resources and funding to support the initiatives. The measures will ensure that the police and various stakeholders in our justice system can adequately deal in a court of law with those accused of having committed auto theft. Unfortunately, we have not heard the minister state clearly that the government intends to earmark new money in its next budget to cover these additional costs.

I will conclude my speech by saying that this is a good start and a step in the right direction but not the whole solution. We would like to see the government set aside more resources in order to ensure that our law enforcement system can handle these new offences and that our justice system, courts and prosecutors have the means at their disposal to deal with them.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Hochelaga for his encouragement.

I am very pleased to take part in this debate on Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime). As suggested in the short title, it will amend the Criminal Code to give it more teeth. Auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime are often related to gangs and organized crime.

Gangs in large Canadian cities such as Montreal and Toronto often make illegal, totally reprehensible profits from stolen vehicles and especially auto parts that are much sought after on illicit markets.

This bill is needed even though Statistics Canada data show that there has been a clear decline since 1996 in the number of vehicles stolen per 100,000 population. I printed out the 2006 Statistics Canada data by province on motor vehicle thefts per 100,000. There has been quite a large reduction since 1999.

The figures show that in 1999, there were 531 vehicle thefts per 100,000 population. In 2006, there were 487 thefts in Canada per 100,000. That is a major reduction. There were some regional disparities, of course. The extent of this illegal activity varies depending on the part of Canada. In Quebec, for example, there were 507 vehicle thefts per 100,000 population, while in Manitoba, there were 1,376. The regional disparity is obvious. This is related to the reasons why malicious people steal vehicles. The reasons are not the same in Montreal as in Ontario and Alberta. Some people steal cars for the money, while others want to go for joyrides, as the literature shows.

First, this bill includes targeted measures to improve the Criminal Code. It will help us get a better picture of all these illegal activities and the black market, whether in regard to exports and imports of stolen or illegally obtained goods or trafficking in them. It also imposes longer sentences. Minimum sentences are introduced in this bill, but I will get back to that later.

The Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-9. However, we should not focus simply on punishment but look at the source of the problem as well. We need to realize that the societies where crime is the lowest are often those that deal seriously with major social ills, such as poverty and inequality. Our provinces, municipalities and police forces should look at prevention as well. We need legislation and penalties, of course, but what we need most of all are preventive measures aimed at reducing inequality and poverty.

The new measures to reduce car theft have been debated in Parliament before, in 2005. At that time, the Liberal government had introduced Bill C-64 providing that altering the identification number would be an offence. The vehicle identification number, referred to as the VIN, is used to identify vehicles and their parts. It provides each vehicle with a unique identifier. I will come back to this a little later.

The purpose of Bill S-9 is to extend the reach of the Criminal Code by tackling trafficking in, exporting and importing any property obtained by crime. It also clarifies and extends the reach of the Criminal Code. It provides minimum sentences after an individual has been convicted of motor vehicle theft for the third time. So harsher punishments have been provided for these illegal activities.

Section 354 of the Criminal Code already provided punishments for possession of property obtained by crime, but Bill S-9 clarifies those crimes. It creates an offence for trafficking in property obtained by crime, but it also provides a maximum sentence of 14 years. So this adds to the sentences available for these criminal activities.

But it must be understood that the reasons why individuals steal vehicles are not all the same, from one place to another and one province to another. There are regional disparities in the reasons why an individual steals a vehicle belonging to someone in Quebec or someone in Alberta. In Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the reasons for theft are described as “joyriding”. A vehicle is stolen there for amusement, while the situation is different in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Quebec and Ontario, in particular, have become criminal hubs for stolen vehicles, because people want to profit from property obtained by crime in these cases.

We have seen organized rings becoming real hubs of organized crime. The indicator that enables us to identify these various types of theft is what is called the stolen vehicle recovery rate. The ability of the authorities to locate stolen vehicles varies enormously from one province to another. For example, the stolen vehicle recovery rate in Toronto is 75%.

When we come to cities like Montreal, part of which I represent in the House of Commons, we see that the stolen vehicle recovery rate is 56%. Obviously, the authorities are clearly having trouble locating stolen vehicles in Montreal, as compared to Toronto. The reasons are different. Why is it harder? Quite simply because these cities have in fact become organized crime hubs, as I was saying. These stolen vehicles are used for trafficking and exporting. We can see that there are various ways these individuals, acting with malice aforethought, decide to steal vehicles that belong to members of the public.

First, what does the thief do? They start by identifying the vehicle, based on where it is, whether in a private or public parking lot. Then, they steal the vehicle in a very short timeframe. The statistics tell us that the thief manages to steal the vehicle in 30 seconds to three minutes, depending on whether the vehicle has an auto start system and some kind of protection, whether an alarm or something else.

In a trafficking scheme with crime hubs, where does the vehicle go? There are three activities that organized crime groups do to get rid of a vehicle and make huge profits. The first is that the vehicle is chopped, or stripped for parts. Much as a butcher would do, these organized crime groups dismantle the vehicle to take the most important parts. These parts are identified. They know exactly which parts to take from certain vehicles. They know which parts are worth a lot on the market, and this is determined by supply and demand. So, they strip the vehicle for the most important parts. Next, they immediately export the parts after stripping them, because the vehicle is often sent to underground shops, where mechanics strip the vehicles and identify the valuable parts. Then, the vehicles are exported.

Why are the recovery rates lower in areas like Montreal? Simply because Montreal and Toronto are prime strategic locations for organized crime groups that traffic in vehicles or vehicle parts, for two reasons. First, Montreal and Toronto, and particularly Montreal, are right on the border. As a result, it is a strategic location for organized crime groups to export stolen vehicle parts to the United States. In addition, Montreal and Toronto are near waterways. Second, in terms of strategy, as I said earlier, unlike in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, it is clear that cars stolen in Montreal and Toronto are not stolen for the purposes of joyriding; they are stolen to be resold.

The second way organized crime groups move a vehicle is to export it to where there is a clearly targeted market. Where are these markets, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada? Essentially, these markets are in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, South America and Africa.

Resellers export car parts that are in very high demand to these markets by ocean freight. It is estimated that the sale of a Jeep Cherokee can directly generate $97,000 for organized crime. For some organized groups, it pays to sell stolen vehicles. That has to be taken into consideration.

It is often thought that luxury vehicles are in demand in these markets. However, that is not the case. Quite often, the vehicles or parts in demand are not high-end but have a high resale value. In 2006, the 10 most stolen cars in Canada were the 1999 Honda Civic SiR two-door, the 2000 Honda Civic SiR two-door, Subarus, Acuras, Dodge Caravans, Dodge Grand Caravans, Audis and Dodge Shadows. Luxury vehicles are not necessarily the most frequently stolen. The two most stolen automobiles are plain Honda Civics because their parts have a resale value on the black market.

There are three types of operations: chopping for parts, exporting, and changing identification numbers of parts and vehicles. In addition, parts and vehicles are cloned. How is the identification changed? Organized groups find vehicles involved in accidents, obtain their vehicle identification number or VIN, and copy it onto a stolen vehicle. The identification is changed in the third step in the process, which is also when cloning takes place, once again using the VIN. For example, thieves will go to a shopping centre parking lot, obtain a VIN, and copy it onto a stolen vehicle.

That is how organized crime works and why the VIN is important and central to Bill S-9. We cannot simply create an offence for the possession of property obtained by crime, which has been covered so far by section 354 of the Criminal Code. We have to have provisions covering the VIN. When the vehicle identification number has been altered, there must be better regulation and offences with minimum sentences. That is why we are supporting Bill S-9.

Cars are stolen for two reasons. The first is that there is a black market with well-targeted operations. The Criminal Code must have more teeth and prohibit tampering with the VIN. This would be one measure among others to reduce auto theft and fight this problem.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. In the spirit of that, I just want to go to one particular item and see how he feels about it, and that is the mandatory minimum sentence for a third offence on automobile theft. Does the member think this part of the bill is really necessary?

Certainly, as he is pointing out, when we differentiate the type of theft taking place, such as a joyriding offence, it may have some extenuating circumstances. It may be that in the crowd of people that young people are sometimes in, these offences could be taken a bit differently.

When the judge is looking at an offender who has stolen a vehicle for the third time for profit, would we not expect that the judicial system could come up with a decent sentence for that person?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. In fact, I considered that issue before giving my speech in the House. As everyone knows, the Bloc has always been opposed to minimum sentences. We have always opposed them on principle.

The bill includes minimum sentences, but only after a third offence, not a first or second offence. At a certain point in time, we have to realize what is going on. There is a difference between stealing a car to go joyriding and stealing a car for other illegal purposes. If this bill included minimum sentences for a first or second offence, the Bloc would not support it. Because minimum sentences will apply only to a third offence, the Bloc can support this bill.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge some of the points that the member brought up, but I am going to raise a particular provincial issue.

The former member for Winnipeg North, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, consistently raised issues in the House around the impact of federal legislation on provinces. In the province of Manitoba, the issue of auto theft was raised as a result of the good work of Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Winnipeg, at one time, was the leading car theft capital of Canada. In 2007, about 1,700 auto thefts occurred there. Manitoba did not wait for the federal government to act. It put a plan in place that has substantially reduced the number of auto thefts in the province.

One of the big challenges for many provinces is federal legislation that impacts provincial governments. There is little consultation with provincial governments, nor are there resources for them to implement some of the legislation, such as police officers, prisons and what not.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on what he sees as a potential impact on provincial governments with this kind of legislation.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. The answer is in the explanations I gave in my speech on the motives that compel someone to commit this crime. In the province the member referred to, these offences are not associated with a specific illegal act or organized crime group, but rather with delinquency. The provinces have certain obligations when it comes to health services and social services.

As I mentioned earlier, in Quebec, this activity and offence is not related to joyriding, in other words, young people deciding to steal a vehicle for a day or an evening simply for fun. In Montreal, motor vehicle theft is directly related to organized crime. Thus, the federal government is responsible through the Criminal Code. Young people going through a delinquent phase must not be subject to the Criminal Code, quite simply because they are not planning to sell stolen car parts outside the country, in the Middle East or Africa, for example.

I believe it is important to distinguish between the two offences. One of them is often committed by young people for various reasons, and the other is usually committed by an organized network of criminals. In the first instance, the provinces have an important obligation in terms of supervision and reducing juvenile delinquency, particularly in cities like Winnipeg.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise two concerns with the member. The first one is probably more a commentary than a question.

The government sitting across the way continually tells the House that it is tough on crime and that it is getting down to serious work, yet if we look at the history of this bill, the first time we saw it was in 2006. We saw it again in 2008. Then we had prorogation and we had to start all over again.

People in my community of Hamilton Mountain were upset about the prorogation for a whole host of reasons, but one of them was that we keep repeating the same work, over and over again, instead of finding the time to deal with the real economic issues that are so hurting our communities. We should be talking about job creation. We should be talking about how to stop foreign takeovers. Yet what are we doing? We are debating the same bill for the third time.

Let me get to the question that I want to pose to the member.

I find the provisions in this bill with respect to mandatory minimum sentences troubling, and in particular, the fact that they would not kick in until after the third offence. I think we can think of a number of scenarios. When a person has been convicted for the third time, six months might be the mandatory minimum sentence. That is a ridiculously low sentence, especially if it involves individuals who are involved in organized crime and the theft of autos.

I wonder if the member could elaborate on his views both with respect to mandatory minimums in this bill and mandatory minimums in general.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we reject outright the principle of minimum sentences. However, in the bill, a minimum sentence of six months' imprisonment applies in the case of a third offence. A minimum sentence applies for a third offence because there are two reasons for committing such an offence. It may be committed by an organized crime ring for the purpose of selling parts abroad. Or a car may be stolen by 18- or 19-year-olds who want to go joyriding one evening.

The penalty and the sentence must fit the crime. The same six-month sentence cannot be handed down for an 18-year-old who decides to steal a car and for someone found guilty of trafficking cars. The sentences must be fair. The Bloc Québécois has always opposed the principle of minimum sentences because it wants judges to assess the situation of the accused who is brought to trial and sentenced.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening closely to the member from Hamilton Mountain and I would like some clarification, although I am sure she might give some later on. She must have been telling the Minister of Justice and Attorney General that she was advocating the three strikes and you are out policy. If that is the case, then I am wondering why her party has not supported the crime and justice legislation in the past like we have. When we are trying to make amendments, make things tighter and respond to the call of Canadians on various issue, all of a sudden I hear this and it kind of shocks me.

I will now move on to speak to Bill S-9. I listened earlier to my Liberal colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and her perspective on this legislation. I also listened very carefully to what the Bloc Québécois member from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie had to say. Some of the comments I heard from the Liberal speaker and the Bloc speaker were very constructive. However, some of the comments from the NDP puzzled and shocked me as to where it was coming from.

Bill S-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), is important. I agree with the comments that were made earlier that this type of initiative was before the House back in 2006. Why it took so long is beyond us, but, of course, we did have prorogation and we did have elections that the Prime Minsiter called prematurely.

I and I know my constituents would have thought that one of the first pieces of legislation, along with so many other important pieces of legislation, would have been this type of legislation, seeing what the numbers are out there. We heard some of the numbers earlier today. When we discuss these numbers, it is very difficult to talk about where the numbers in auto theft are higher. I think every member who sits in this honourable House has great respect, whether it is in the provinces of Manitoba, Quebec, P.E.I., Ontario, or in my lovely city of Toronto, but at the same time we need to talk about these statistics, where they come from and where they are accumulated so that the resources could be attached to them as legislation will be applied.

For example, the member from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie gave us some statistics about the recovery percentages in Ontario as opposed to Quebec and how they were much higher in Ontario. Also, auto theft as a whole in Ontario is quite less than most other provinces. That just goes to take away the notion that Toronto has high crime rates. That is not the case in auto theft crimes and I want to put that on record.

Nevertheless, as we talk about crime in general, one crime is one too many, which is why, as my Liberal colleague said earlier, we want to support this legislation. I, for one, on behalf of my constituents in Scarborough Centre, in the city of Toronto and in the province, want to support this legislation. We want to see it go to committee because we believe some good work and good suggestions could be made in committee to fine-tune this bill so that we can finally get a bill out there to do the work that Canadians have asked us to do, which is to tighten up the Criminal Code.

I would like to point out what I think are faults with some of the suggestions in this bill.

The bill would make it a crime to alter, destroy or remove a VIN, vehicle identification number. The member spoke earlier of the significance of it, the role that it plays and how important it is. It would also make it a crime to knowingly sell, give, transfer, transport, send or deliver goods that have been acquired criminally.

We heard earlier today from other speakers about how people steal a car, take it apart and sell different parts or put a car in a crate and ship it abroad. They also can change the vehicle identification number with what was described as a makeover. The member talked about three specific areas: chopping, exporting and the makeover. The bill addresses those specific areas.

The bill would make it a crime to possess property known to be obtained through crime for the purpose of trafficking. For example, if people who need a door, a bumper or an auto part goes to an autobody shop to buy a door for x amount of dollars, knowing very well what the market price is, the moment they pay 30% to 50% less their antenna should go up. They should ask themselves why, if they go to the depot and pay so much, this person is charging so little. Those people should immediately step away from that transaction because they will also be subject to a criminal charge if this legislation is passed.

If everyone who engages in that type of exchange avoids it, then hopefully there will be no market for it. In the early nineties, there was a huge underground cigarette economy. Revenue for the country was down because of loss of taxes and there was a free fall for everyone. I say quite proudly that when we took office we lowered the federal taxes on cigarettes and all of a sudden we eliminated that underground economy. How can we eliminate the selling or chopping of parts? We can do it through legislation and the notification to purchasers of said parts. If they know they could be fined and imprisoned, they will avoid buying, which means it would eliminate a market for that area.

The Canada Border Services has a very important role to play. We have seen documentaries where a car is put in a container on a boat and then shipped somewhere across the ocean. We need to be able to provide Canada Border Services with the right type of technology so it can monitor the containers. However, we must remember that not all cars in containers are put there illegally. Some Canadians may decide to get employment outside the country and they put their cars in containers and ship them to wherever their new job is.

However, along the way I think there is technology today that can help Canada Border Services do a better job in pre-screening to ensure that stolen autos leaving the country is addressed as well.

The Liberal Party has always supported legislation to effectively reduce any type of crime. This is one type of crime. My colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine has often talked about what is unacceptable and hurting, if I may say, is that when legislation comes forward on crime and justice issues, sometimes the Conservatives say that we Liberals stand for the criminals. That is not true.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

And they know it.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Of course they know it.

My colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, who spoke earlier today, stood and, over and over again, said that we must punish where punishment is warranted and we must protect when protection is warranted, but that we need to do it in the Canadian way, in a fair way. That is why, with the member's suggestion as the critic, and I agree, the bill must go to committee. I am confident some good ideas will come forward to make some changes.

Our caucus will not play politics with this type of legislation. We will move forward and support it but we will not stand for any slogans. For example, I remember the member for Portage—Lisgar on the gun issue. The other day we heard personal attacks on our colleagues who did not support the gun legislation.

Last night I was watching a documentary on Lee Atwater and some of the tactics that he used during the Bush senior campaign when he talked against Dukakis and about how all criminals vote for Democrats and all good Americans vote for Republicans.

The one thing that hurt me a lot in the most recent debates on the gun legislation was that criminals vote for Liberals and police officers vote for Conservatives. That is just nasty, untrue and uncalled for. When we want to move forward to protect the nation, it is unnecessary.

We sit in committee to do the good work that we know we can do and that we are paid to do and should do for the good of Canadians.

I am glad this has created a separate offence within the Criminal Code. It was long overdue and it is necessary.

What I sometime find unacceptable is the people they use to sell or to participate in car theft, for example, young delinquents, young offenders as we might describe them. I might ask the committee to look into that because criminals could be stealing these cars, chopping them, trying to sell them or export them and the middle person, as he or she is often referred to, could be a young man who may be going through some difficulty in life and all of a sudden a few quick dollars are flashed in front of him and he is told to drive the car or chop off the VIN number and so on. We know very well what the Criminal Code is in reference to young offenders, and I am concerned. I am putting this on the table so that when the bill goes to committee it could possibly look into that as well.

I am pleased that since 2006, when the last data was brought forward, it showed that auto theft was on a decline, as overall crime stats were in a decline.

I remember very well in 1991-92, when I sought the nomination and won in the election of 1993, that one of the key issues was that we needed to address the crime issue and we needed to make our streets safer. I made a commitment to my constituents, and I am pleased to say that I have upheld that promise to this very day, that we would do whatever we could. We did make changes to section 745 of the Criminal Code.

Today, when an impact statement is allowed in the Williams case, that is because Liberal governments brought it forward. When there is an opportunity for a declaration of a dangerous offender, that was a Liberal initiative that brought it forward. Long term offender was also a Liberal initiative.

Do we know everything? I would say no. Does the Conservative Party have a monopoly on crime legislation? No. We all, in our own conscience, want to do the right thing. That is why I said earlier and our critic also said that we will support the bill and send it committee where some good work will be done.

I am pleased that under our tenure, under a Liberal government between 1993 to 2006, the crime stats as a whole were coming down. However, I am sad that in areas such as Manitoba and Montreal the car theft stats are up. However, I want to assure Canadians in Manitoba and in Montreal that we want to work together to address this issue and solve it, as the member from Bloc Québécois said earlier.

The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers is opposed to the bill as it believes it would limit judicial discretion. Quite frankly, I do not know. That puzzles me in some way. I need more clarification on what it means by that. I am not a lawyer, by education, so I will not pretend to know as much as the lawyers. However, I do know one thing. The average Canadian wants it in a very simple way. Maybe the council could explain, in a simple way, what it means by that so we can address its concerns.

The Canadian Association of Crown Counsel is also opposed to the bill. It believes it would add more work to an already overwrought system, without any mention or apparent intention to add resources to support the legislation. That was brought up earlier.

I also have that concern. Legislation is good. I will point out two things. It is good provided we enforce it and we provide the tools, but then we ask the judiciary, for example, to enforce the legislation. In order to enforce the legislation, we need the resources to do so.

Today, unfortunately, we are strapped with a $56 billion deficit, but as high a record deficit as it is, it will go higher. The economy has not yet really kicked in to try to generate jobs, wealth creation and security. If we have a healthy economy, then people are occupied or preoccupied with work as opposed to committing criminal acts, such as auto theft, for example.

Yes, the deficits are going up. Yes, it is a burden. Yes, it is a cost. However, at the end of the day, we, as a civil society, have to find that money because we are trying to keep our streets, our communities and our cities safe. How much is that worth? In my humble opinion, we really cannot put a value on that. Part of this whole process of funds is also rehabilitation. It is not just charging people who committed auto theft or burglary. It is also taking them at the early stages and working with them.

When it comes to resources that were identified by the Crown counsel, I agree with them, and I am going to ask the government to try to find the means and the ways to address the financial needs.

Various mayors and other people who have supported the bill were mentioned earlier such as the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Another burden is the insurance costs. A young man or a young woman graduating from college or university needs a car to get to work and the insurance costs are high. Why are they high? Simply because of some of these thefts, for example, that impede the system, the recovery process and whatnot.

I am thankful for the legislation and any legislation that will help keep our streets safe. Issues such as these are not a monopoly to any specific party or any specific person. I always have believed, and will continue to believe, that these issues are important to each and every one of us, no matter from what part of the country we come. If one part of the country is having some difficulties, as was mentioned earlier today, Manitoba, Quebec, or Montreal, we have an obligation to step in and do what we can.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, am pleased to be speaking about Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime). As my colleague, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, so clearly stated just moments ago, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. Bill S-9, just like Bill C-26, which went down the drain because of prorogation, and Bill C-53, which went down the drain because of the election, has the very specific goal of reducing vehicle theft. The bill's main measure, which is to create an offence for tampering with an identification number—which is also known as a serial number, just to clarify—is not new. In fact, it was lifted from Bill C-64, which was introduced by the Liberal government in September 2005.

However, Bill S-9 is broader in scope. It also targets the trafficking, export and import of any property obtained by crime and proposes a minimum six-month sentence for a person convicted of vehicle theft for the third time. My colleague, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, explained the Bloc Québécois' position well. Generally, we are against minimum sentences in justice bills because they tie the judge's hands and mean that no matter what happened and despite any exacerbating or mitigating factors, a minimum sentence of x number of months or years must be handed down to the person who committed the crime. This means that one person could receive the same sentence as another even though the crime they committed was not nearly as serious or they played a smaller role in the crime than the second person. The Bloc Québécois feels that is a problem.

However, it is said that when there is recidivism, organized crime is more likely to be involved. When teenagers steal a car and take it for a joyride, the hope is that there is not too much damage, because accidents can be caused by excessive speed. I imagine a person who commits this type of offence already has the makings of a criminal. However, in that case, there is not necessarily recidivism. Criminal groups make money by stealing cars, altering them, chopping them up to sell the parts, or shipping them overseas. If these people are caught more than once, they could receive a minimum sentence. The Bloc Québécois does not really have a problem with that in this particular case because of the way the legislation is drafted.

Bill S-9 is in all respects the same as Bill C-26 as passed, with support from the Bloc Québécois, by the House of Commons during the last session. Furthermore, Bill C-26, which the Bloc Québécois supported at third reading, was practically identical to the version introduced at first reading, which itself was similar to Bill C-53, introduced previously. We are in favour of sending Bill S-9 to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Unfortunately, as some hon. members have said and as my colleague, the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, said during a speech on the same subject earlier this year, this committee is overwhelmed because the Minister of Justice has piled on the bills.

Although we may be in favour of some of these bills, we must still study them carefully. We cannot pass a bill without having studied it and heard from witnesses. Sometimes everyone in the House will agree on a bill, because it is clear and well written and we know its purpose and all the ins and outs. In this case, the bill may be fast-tracked, or passed very quickly. However, in most cases, we must study bills in much more detail and send them to committee to ensure that there is nothing fishy going on, and that we are on the right track.

The problem is that there is a lot of jostling in committee. There are bills that everyone agrees on, but members would like to hear from the witnesses. Some political parties want further information, and want to propose amendments. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is very busy right now. So it will be difficult for anything to happen with this bill. I do not know whether the House is unanimous on this bill, but based on what I have heard from the various parties, it seems that we will not have any trouble moving it through. The government needs the support of one party, and the Bloc is in favour of this bill.

A little later, I will give some interesting statistics. According to what I have read on this subject, the number of car thefts has been going down since 1996. Nevertheless, now is the time to act, because it still happens too frequently.

The social and economic consequences of these thefts are a heavy burden, both for individuals and society as a whole. Just think about the insurance companies that are faced with this problem. Insurance companies are no different from other businesses. When they incur costs by compensating people who have had their vehicle stolen, it is the consumer who foots the bill at the end of the day. That is the way things work. It is true that vehicle thefts affect everyone.

The cost of automobile insurance varies based on how often you use the vehicle and where you live. Central Quebec is known as a region with high rates of vehicle theft and possession of stolen vehicles. It is possible that insurance there costs a little bit more. Without repeating what was said earlier, I would say that Winnipeg is, unfortunately, Canada's vehicle theft capital. I am sure that people pay much more to insure a vehicle in Winnipeg than in other municipalities in Canada. Montreal and Toronto also have a high number of vehicle thefts because of the large number of vehicles registered there.

Back when I was a local radio reporter in my region, I witnessed several vehicle seizures. Unfortunately, a number of criminal gangs had chosen Victoriaville and the surrounding area as a location for their illegal activities. Even some very modern garages that sold nice cars were raided, and police seized several vehicles. Charges were laid, and people were sentenced to jail for possession of stolen goods. I sometimes covered these events. Today, there are fewer such garages, no doubt because of those seizures. They may have set up shop elsewhere, or they may be more discreet. Still, we cannot bury our heads in the sand. The scourge persists in my region and all across Canada.

The Bloc Québécois agrees with the new trafficking offence set out in Bill S-9. The purpose of this provision is to curb trafficking in cars and car parts. Organized crime groups get rich by quickly dismantling cars and selling the parts. Some stolen cars immediately leave the country for sale elsewhere, but in general, cars are stolen for parts, so vehicles are stripped right away.

Judging by the list of most frequently stolen cars, thieves are not always after very costly or luxurious vehicles. Some groups put in orders for particular makes of vehicles.

I do not need to list those makes, but I can say that the most popular cars are the ones most frequently stolen. Many of them are compact cars that cost between $20,000 and $25,000. There are so many of these cars on the market that parts are in high demand. That is where possession of stolen goods comes into play. Fenders, engine parts, mufflers, wheels, everything goes. Everything gets recycled and sent to shady dealers for resale. Worst of all, these parts are not necessarily resold for a better price. Consumers who have been in accidents or who have defective parts in their cars buy these parts in good faith, not knowing that they are buying stolen parts. This is a very lucrative market for gang members.

This bill also tackles another problem: vehicle theft for the purpose of joyriding. I am not sure what the correct word for that is in French. Most thefts of this type are committed by young people.

For instance, this happens when someone stops their car in front of a convenience store and unfortunately leaves the keys in the ignition, perhaps even leaving the car running. Sometimes in the winter, people might leave their cars running while they run in to buy some milk. They get out of the car without locking the doors. Someone can walk by more or less by chance and steal the vehicle to go for a joyride. A friend of mine was the victim of this kind of theft and the police found his car in a ditch a few kilometres from where it had been stolen. The young people had simply abandoned the vehicle there, unfortunately with some damage, because they had gone for a joyride in a field. Not everyone commits this kind of vehicle theft for the same reason.

I mentioned statistics earlier. According to the most recent statistics from the insurer's organization, Groupement des assureurs automobiles, there were more than 38,800—that is nearly 40,000—vehicle thefts in Quebec in 2006. That is the equivalent of one motor vehicle theft every 14 minutes. That is a lot of theft. Insurance companies had to pay out $300 million, which has a direct impact on all insurance premiums. Despite those high numbers, Quebec is far from the worst. In fact, per capita, the figures are far lower in Quebec than in the western provinces.

Comparing the number of vehicle thefts in 2006, Quebec had 507 per 100,000 inhabitants and Alberta had 725. The worst rate—and I think some of my colleagues have mentioned this—is in Manitoba. Earlier we heard that Winnipeg was the car theft capital of Canada. In fact, Manitoba had 1,376 thefts per 100,000 inhabitants. This is rather frightening, especially if we compare it to the average across Canada, which is 487 per 100,000 people. In all of Canada, approximately 160,000 vehicles were stolen in 2006. As I said earlier, the rate has been going down since 1996, but the statistics show that we are still facing a very serious problem.

The situations in Quebec and the western provinces are different. In Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the majority of the cars are stolen for joyrides, simply for the fun of stealing a car and going for a ride. Sometimes cars are used during the commission of another crime. People steal a car to commit a holdup and then abandon the car shortly thereafter. In western Canada, auto thefts are committed by people who are not necessarily seeking monetary gain from this larceny. The purpose is a joyride. These thefts are committed for fun, on a dare, or to get a car to commit another crime.

In Quebec and in Ontario, even though people steal cars for joyriding in those provinces as well, most of the auto thefts are linked to trafficking in and possession of stolen vehicles.

The most commonly stolen vehicles are not the ones we might think. They are not just luxury vehicles with high resale values. The most popular vehicles are stolen for their parts. I have a list from 2006, but most of the media provide a list every year of the 10 most stolen vehicles in Canada. The list is even broken down by most stolen vehicle per province.

For the most part, we are talking about small cars such as the Honda Civic, Subaru Impreza and Acura Integra. The Acura Integra no longer exists, but people modify it. They like that model because it is a high performance vehicle and the parts are traded on the market rather easily. These are highly sought after parts. That kind of car is very popular. There are also the minivans used by small families; we see a lot of them on the road. Vehicles are stolen for their parts and not necessarily for their value.

The Library of Parliament put together a very interesting document for the committee to use during its study of this bill. I remember some of the facts that were in it. The Insurance Bureau of Canada, or IBC, estimates that auto theft creates a financial burden in excess of a billion dollars a year. This estimate includes the theft of uninsured vehicles, costs related to health care, court proceedings, police services and legal services, and personal expenses incurred by owners.

Thus, vehicle theft costs our society about a billion dollars a year. There is a direct financial impact on consumers. Auto insurers figure out how much money they lose because of auto theft, and then they pass the cost on to drivers and vehicle owners. These costs also depend on where the vehicle is located and how it is used. For example, members of Parliament who use their cars a lot for work are more likely to have their cars stolen because they travel a lot and park in many places. Their cars are not sitting in garages. They put a lot of kilometres on their cars and are at greater risk of having their cars stolen.

In Canada, the number of motor vehicle thefts per 1,000 inhabitants dropped 15% in 2008, continuing the general decline we have seen since 1997. This drop is due to the fact that we opened our eyes and adopted certain measures. Since September 2007, Canadian auto manufacturers have had to install electronic immobilizers in new vehicles, which makes them more difficult to steal.

Insurance companies are also trying to reduce theft by offering better deals to owners of vehicles equipped with anti-theft devices. This may not necessarily be an alarm system; it could be a device with an intelligent key, which makes it more difficult for a thief to start the vehicle.

Luxury vehicles stolen and shipped overseas in containers to Russia, Africa and the Middle East, where they are in demand, as my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie mentioned, are often equipped with a GPS, which makes it easy to locate them.

I would be remiss if I did not mention certain municipal bylaws. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of theft in my region. In Victoriaville, there is now a municipal bylaw prohibiting drivers from leaving their cars running if they are not in them. Another bylaw provides for a fine if a vehicle's doors are left unlocked. If a vehicle is parked in the driveway and the doors are not locked, a police officer can give the owner a ticket. People are increasingly being made aware of the problem of auto theft. Studying this bill in committee will allow us to tackle the problem of auto theft.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his very interesting and informative speech.

I wonder if he could share his opinion on this kind of bill. This is the third time such a bill has been introduced. First, Bill C-53 was introduced shortly after the 2006 election. Then Bill C-26 was introduced before the 2008 election, when the House was prorogued. Now we are talking about Bill S-9.

Does the member think the Conservatives are simply trying to delay these bills? If the government had really wanted to, we could have passed this bill a long time ago. In his opinion, why has the government not yet addressed this matter?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very pertinent question.

It is odd; not too long ago, I was one of the MPs who supported the anti-spam bill. The government was responsible for delaying that bill. Several years later, we are still discussing it, even though this bill appeared to have unanimous support and would have had no difficulty being passed by the House of Commons.

It is the same thing with auto theft. The bills that came before Bill S-9, which my colleague mentioned, were exactly the same. Unfortunately, Parliament was prorogued. The government itself shut down the House of Commons, which meant that the bill died on the order paper.

Another time, we were looking at a bill to bring in fixed election dates, but the Prime Minister decided that he wanted to call an election, which meant that that bill also died on the order paper. This has been going on for years. I get the feeling that the ministers will tell the public that they have come up with a bill to reduce the number of car thefts. We hear that every time, but it is always the same bill. We must adopt it as quickly as possible, and agree to move on to something else. There would be no problem with adopting Bill S-9 quickly.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill S-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime).

All of us here know of constituents who, or we ourselves, have been victims of individuals who have stolen cars. It is traumatic for the victims and their families. It is costly for insurance companies. Above all else, it is an incredible violation for those whose cars have been stolen.

We support the government bill. We want to work with the government to make sure it is an effective bill in the public interest, to ensure there is a continued decline in auto theft. What is interesting, along with most other crime in Canada, is that there has been a decline in auto theft. In 2006 there were some 430 vehicles stolen per day, which is a very large number, but the number of vehicles stolen continues to decline.

The Liberal Party will continue to support legislation that is effective and improves public safety. At one time the government had 16 bills on the order paper that were related to crime. We said that we would support 11 of the 16 bills immediately, but the government said that if we did not support all of the bills, it would not agree to 11 of its bills being supported in one block. That is unfortunate because this bill has been introduced several times in the past, due in large part to the Prime Minister's continual proroguing of Parliament. In doing that he has put the government's legislation back at square one. That is not in the interest of the public and is not a good use of taxpayers' money. It certainly makes this place work less effectively than any of us would like to see.

We certainly encourage the Prime Minister to work with us to ensure that the bills he is putting forward are good ones. We will work with him to ensure they are passed as quickly as possible. If a bill is not good legislation, we want to ensure that we can change it to make sure it works in the public interest.

This bill proposes to do three things. It makes it a crime to alter, destroy or remove a vehicle identification number. It makes it a crime to knowingly sell, give, transfer, or transport, send or deliver goods acquired criminally. It makes it a crime to possess property known to be obtained through crime for the purpose of trafficking.

In the past, my party put forth a number of bills relating to protecting children, to eradicate child pornography, to reduce violent crimes, to implementing minimum sentences for using a gun in the commission of a crime. We would certainly like to continue supporting good bills.

Auto theft is a national problem. It is particularly problematic in Montreal and Winnipeg. It has been endemic in those cities for a very long time. If the government wants to apply significant resources, it should do that in an evidence-based fashion. Rather than putting forth legislation that sounds good on the surface, we have to make sure that the legislation will make the public safer and will not waste the taxpayers' money.

The government has had a number of bills that will be exceptionally costly. If one sums up the cost of the government's justice bills, they will cost the taxpayer $11 billion. We would support that if that $11 billion was well spent, but the government is putting out a wide net that will capture people who should be in jail as well as individuals who perhaps have medical problems and should not be.

With this broad net, it sounds good for the government to puff up its chest and say that it supports the protection of Canadian citizens. Everybody in the House wants to protect Canadians. We are also interested in ensuring that those people who are inveterate criminals, repeat offenders and those who have committed violent crimes do pay the price and spend time in jail. However, the government has failed to look at both sides of the equation.

When I was putting myself through school, I worked for a while as a guard in a maximum security prison. I used to work there as a physician too. What I found, and this is the fact, is that 50% to 60% of people in jail have a combination of things. They could have fetal alcohol syndrome, now known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. A good chunk of them have had brain injuries. Many of them have what we call a dual diagnosis, a combination of both psychiatric problems and drug problems.

The problem is there is not a coherent way to address this. There are ways we can prevent those problems from happening. It would make more sense to work with the provinces, which are the managers of the provincial institutions where people serve sentences of two years less a day.

In one of the jails in my riding, and this is a standard practice for provincial institutions, there is a huge lack of ability to treat people with problems such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which is the most common cause of preventable brain damage at birth, those who have substance abuse and psychiatric problems, and people who have brain injuries as a result of falls or other accidents. The jails are littered with these individuals. Would it not make more sense for the federal government to work with the provinces to ensure that people get the treatment they require?

Right now we see a revolving door syndrome within the provincial institutions. The police and the public are exceptionally frustrated because many people go on to reoffend. They become part of the revolving door syndrome. There are people in my community of Victoria whose houses have been broken into dozens of times. In Victoria proper more than 1,500 people are living on the streets. Sixty per cent of those people have dual diagnoses. They have a combination of psychiatric problems and substance abuse problems. Those problems cannot be shrugged off. They are medical problems that require medical intervention. The good thing about this is that there are programs that are effective in dealing with these problems. Let me give one example.

Dr. Evan Wood and Dr. Julio Montaner at the centre of excellence at the University of British Columbia have put forth programs such as NAOMI, the North American opiate medication initiative. This is a drug program for those who have intravenous injection drug problems, particularly with respect to narcotics. A group of people were given narcotics. Those people who had been committing crimes, stealing cars, doing break and enters and other actions to pay for their drug habits were given narcotics by a medical professional. Those people were brought into the medical system. The result was that a majority of those people moved away from engaging in criminality. They got the care they required. They were able to get skills training. They were able to get off the drugs, get back with their families and get their lives back on track.

It is a much less expensive intervention than throwing somebody in jail.

Members and viewers might be interested to know what it costs to keep one person in jail. For a federal maximum security institution, it costs $240,000 a year for a man, and for a woman, it costs $330,000 a year. In a medium security institution, it costs $140,000 a year. Most Canadians could not hope to earn that amount of money in a year, yet it is taxpayers' money which pays to keep people behind bars.

By all means, inveterate criminals and people who commit violent acts need to be behind bars; that is in the public interest. However, there has to be a way to break the cycle of criminality and there are ways to make this happen.

I mentioned NAOMI. Why is every single city in Canada that has an intravenous drug problem with some of its citizens and wants a North American opiate medication initiative not allowed to have one? Why does the federal government not work with its provincial counterparts to enable people to get the drug rehabilitation and psychiatric services they need in provincial institutions?

Only by doing this, along with the skills training, will we be able to break the cycle of criminality. People will leave the provincial institutions and one day they are going to be convicted but they will not get sentences of two years less a day. They will get sentences that are longer than that. They will end up in a federal institution which means the federal government will be paying for that with taxpayers' money.

It is completely illogical and shortsighted for the feds only to look at the punitive aspects of criminality rather than to ask: Can this be prevented? Can some of these people be treated? Can the cycle of criminality be broken? Can our streets be made safer? Can the cost to the taxpayer be reduced? Can the judicial system be more effective? The answer to all of those questions is yes. Is the federal government doing that? No.

I would implore the federal government to pursue getting the justice minister and other senior ministers, such as the health minister and others together with their provincial counterparts to implement these solutions. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. The solutions are there.

There is a program which the current federal government axed. The program was put forward by a Liberal government. If an initiative reduced youth crime by 50% to 60% and saved the taxpayer $7 for every $1 invested, would that not be a good thing? Would that not be something to embrace? It would be a great investment. That initiative exists.

The early learning head start program has been assessed. Peer reviewed studies have shown very clearly that in the first eight years of life early learning head start programs have a host of social benefits from reducing youth crime by 50% to 60%, to keeping kids in school longer, to better educational outcomes, to more money earned and less dependence on social programs. All of those are winners. That program could be integrated in our schools if the federal government would simply take it upon itself to work with the provincial governments to adopt this.

When we were in government from 2004-06 a member of Parliament from Toronto, one of our hockey heroes, negotiated this with the provinces. All of the provinces signed on to it. They did not sign on because it did not work, they signed on because they knew it would work. Today, four years later, there is more evidence to show that this initiative works to reduce youth crime by 50% to 60%, saving the taxpayer $7 for every $1 invested. We know it works because we can peer into the developing brain. We know how the brain does and does not work. We know what bad things do to the development of a child's brain. We know how that changes the trajectory of the child making the child more prone to leading a life of crime, to taking up substance abuse and to engaging in an array of activities that are not in the interests of society and certainly not in the interests of the individual as the child grows into adulthood.

I have been speaking about this initiative for 17 years. This is the 17th anniversary for those of us who were elected on October 25, 1993. Sometimes it feels as though I am talking into the desert breeze. This program actually works. I implore the ministers to look at this program. The evidence is compelling and exciting. It works.

Initiatives such as the North American opiate medication initiative, the head start program for children, and initiatives that reduce the incidence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder all work in the public interest and at a much lower cost for the taxpayer. That is something the government ought to be looking at.

For the interests of our police officers, I would implore the government to look at the McNeil decision that came down through the courts. That decision needs to be reversed. The decision is tying the hands of our police officers when it comes to prosecuting those who have been charged. Rather than putting the accused on trial, it actually puts police officers on trial. I would ask the government to review the McNeil decision. It is a very serious decision that is hindering the ability of the police forces across the country to do their job.

I would also ask that the federal government look at ways to ensure that our police have the resources they need.

When we were in government, we put forth a number of initiatives to enable us to have a much larger police force. We have an aging police force. There is a competition for police officers and for various jobs. Right now, police officers in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, our RCMP, are having a difficult time policing remote areas that have had some serious crime problems. The public is not served well by this. Our police officers are not served well by this.

I would ask the government to look at some of the work we did, to work with us to ensure that we have enough police officers. We need to deal with the current deficit in police forces across our country.

There is also the matter of how our police officers are treated, particularly the RCMP. There are some significant human resources issues surrounding how the RCMP officers and their families are treated. I would implore the government to work with the RCMP to ensure that this is being addressed.

A last thing I want to mention has to do with victims' benefits. When we were in government, we worked very hard with victims' groups to ensure that they had the resources they needed for the care and treatment of victims. This is a crucial issue in the execution of justice in Canada.

I see that the government has not used the resources set aside for victims. I would strongly recommend that it take a look at this and ensure that those citizens who are victimized in our country, particularly those who have been subjected to violent offences, receive the care they need. I think everybody in this House realizes that abandoning victims would be immoral. The government ought to ensure that there are enough resources to provide victims of violent offences with the care and treatment they require.

In closing, I want to say that we support this bill. We would like to work with the government to ensure that this an effective bill. We want car thefts to continue to decline. We want the government to work with us, not only on this bill but also on its other judicial bills, to ensure that our laws are in the public interest, that the moneys are spent wisely, and that we have safer streets for all.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)