Justice Committee on June 3rd, 2009

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

The answer is no.

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

That's fine. It's clear now.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I appreciate that the Criminal Code applies when you're dealing with young people, but their conviction is under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. That's something separate and different.

So in the case you're talking about, if a young person gets convicted on five different occasions, for instance, of auto theft, that still doesn't qualify for what we're talking about here today with a third offence. You see, when the individual turns 18, in a sense they start over again.

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

That is what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

But hopefully they don't. Hopefully, in my example, the guy who has stolen five cars has decided this is not a good way to keep on going. So that's what it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Mr. Rathgeber, you have five minutes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Minister, and your officials for your attendance here today.

I'd certainly like to commend the Department of Justice and you, Mr. Minister, for all of the hard work you've done with respect to safe streets and safe communities. You've had a busy legislative session, as has the committee.

As you know, the committee has undertaken to study organized crime, and we've travelled to Vancouver. Based on Mr. Ménard's motion, we are studying the prospect of identifying certain organized criminal enterprises and naming them, and the possibility of therefore not making the crown go through the step of having to prove they are performing a criminal activity in order to get convictions. So I commend you. We're working hard to try to take the bite out of organized crime.

What we heard when we were in Vancouver and what we continue to hear from police and from other experts is that we need to take the enterprise out of the enterprise. We need to take the profit motive out of organized crime if we're going to get to the bottom of it.

I forget which one of my colleagues asked the question, but in your answer you referred to the fact that there is a separate offence for theft of a cow but not for theft of an automobile. Of course we have offences for theft over and under $5,000 currently. I want to know how specifically that this offence, theft of an automobile--and I understand there will be increased sentences--will help law enforcement in their continued struggle against organized crime.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Well, you touched on one way. First of all, the penalties will be greater if you're charged under the section concerning the theft of an automobile. That's one part of it. But you're also providing the crown attorney with the information they need in order to know who they're dealing with. If it's just theft of a general nature, they're not quite sure what they're up against. What they have told me in a number of Canadian cities that I have visited is that the people who are in the business of repeatedly stealing cars are a major problem. They threaten the communities. Quite apart from the property damage is the possibility that you might be killed by one of these individuals or you might be an innocent bystander.

We want the crown to have the information at their fingertips so they know who and what it is they're dealing with. I think this is appropriate, and I think it sends out a proper message that if you have an individual, an adult, who is repeatedly stealing cars and getting convicted of that, that the option then is open for the crown to proceed by indictment on third and subsequent convictions and get this person off the street and break up this criminal behaviour. I think it's appropriate.

Again, in answer to an earlier question, we have combined the elements of Andrew Scheer's separate auto theft bill. We've put that in with the government legislation that did not get passed in previous parliaments. So it's one complete package, and I'm urging this committee to move forward on this quickly and to get this reported to the House and get it passed.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I'm happy to see that the Bloc Québécois is in favour, and I suspect the NDP is. So I too look forward to rapid progress on this bill through the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We do have a little bit of time for additional questions. Monsieur Petit had one question. Does anybody on this side? No.

We'll hear from Monsieur Petit, and then we'll wind it up.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Good afternoon, Mr. Minister.

You referred to the province of Quebec where there were particular issues. About a month or a month and a half ago, there were raids by the police in chop shops where entire cars were dismantled. It was difficult to prosecute because all vehicles were disassembled. Parts were even sold to legal auto shops.

You brought an amendment targeting criminals who steal automobiles, disassemble them and remove all form of identification. In the past, it was almost impossible to pursue such offences in the courts because the law failed to be as clear as your proposed bill. Even if the law existed in the past, this bill is much more precise and signifies an important change.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Monsieur Petit, thank you very much for your question on this.

I view this bill as just updating the Criminal Code, just bringing it into the 21st century. The situation is how many people are possessing the stolen goods? This is one of the main vehicles to get at these people. Are you possessing stolen goods? Well, you might have 30 people involved with this operation. How many people are possessing it? They say, “Oh, try to pin it on that guy.” Then he says, ”Well, it wasn't me, it was the guy farther down the line. It was the guy outside--he possessed it.” It's all very difficult.

All police agencies have been telling me the same thing, that it's very difficult under existing laws to sort of break up these operations. So what we have done and what previous bills have done to try to get this is to get all the activity, so you get everybody all the way along that has been participating in this organized crime, this gang-related activity, and this is why we have this part of it. Again, I don't have direct responsibility for Canada Border Services Agency, but giving them the ability to get involved with this, to break up this activity is just what we need.

This is the challenge we have, Mr. Chairman, and I've said this before. We have a Criminal Code in this country that was compiled in 1892. As I say to people, it's not as though it was brand new in 1892. They were compiling various statutes. Some of the sections I've talked about on another bill--on prize fighting I think--came from the 1700s. So the challenge we have is to try to make these laws fit what's happening today. We have changes in technology. We have people who are becoming sophisticated in this, and again, that's the challenge we all have--to try to meet the needs of law-abiding Canadians, and this is what we are trying to do with this bill and indeed all the bills we have before Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you, Minister, Mr. Bartlett, and Ms. Clarke for attending.

I have a suggestion for the committee. Typically we would have dealt with committee business already and worked through our calendar. I think we're going to be out of time. The one suggestion I would make is this. We couldn't do our impaired driving report today as we had scheduled to do, so we need to find another spot to plug that in. I've noticed in our discussion around this table on Bill C-26 that there appears to be a general consensus on the bill. We had scheduled two more hours of witnesses. We have had requests from two witnesses to attend. One is the Integrated Municipal-Provincial Auto-Crime Team, and the second is the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association. Mr. Comartin suggested Juristat, so we're going to be following up on that, and then the government has suggested the Insurance Bureau of Canada. That makes four witnesses. We could probably accommodate them in one hour, which allows us to move clause-by-clause forward and stick our impaired driving report in where clause-by-clause was.

Is that something you would support?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

What date are you referring to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

On the 8th we're doing Bill C-26 and Bill C-268. So on Bill C-26, we could actually dispose of the four witnesses we've requested.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Next Monday?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Yes.

We have the criminal organization meeting on the 9th, which we've scheduled as an extra meeting. Then on the 10th we were going to have further witnesses on auto theft, but it seems to me that we can dispose of them all in that first hour, so then we can deal with clause-by-clause, which leaves us an extra one-hour time slot to deal with the impaired driving study.

Is that okay?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

All right.

We'll move forward on that basis.

I have circulated the steering committee notes to you. Could you review those by the next meeting so that we can approve those?

The other thing I wanted to mention was that we may not get an opportunity to deal with the supplementary estimates, given the fact that we may have one or two more bills, plus we're still dealing with the Hells Angels study, and we're dealing with Bill C-232 as well, which is the one on the Supreme Court Act. I just want you to be aware of that.

If you feel that the supplementary estimates are of great importance, let me know and we'll have to schedule them in somewhere. We may have to move something else around.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chair, has it been decided with our leaders if the Anti-terrorism Act and the Sexual Offenders Act will be referred to our Committee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

No, I received wrong information. I'm told that the Anti-terrorism Act is not going to be coming to this committee, so we don't have to worry about that.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

And for sexual offenders? Will it be referred to this Committee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

No, that would be public safety.

I haven't heard yet whether that other bill--I think it's Bill C-31--which is sort of an omnibus bill, is going to come to this committee or to a special committee, a legislative committee. That I don't know yet, so we'll have to deal with that once we know for sure.

Are there any other questions?

[Some hon. members]

No.