That is what the concern is. It is one that needs to be addressed, so I raise it at this point to do that.
With regard to the bill itself, as it is so often with bills coming from the Conservatives on crime, it comes forward well intentioned but then takes it to an extreme. It takes it over the top. That is certainly what this bill does.
This being a private member's bill, of course I am speaking only on my behalf, but I could not support this bill on second reading, even to send it to committee, because quite frankly the parts of the bill that need to be amended out of the bill would almost certainly be ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the principle and scope of the bill. I cannot support the bill. The rest of my caucus will be making their decision on their own as to what they are going to do.
We can recognize that auto theft is of serious concern, although I have to say that in a number of areas, particularly in British Columbia where this had been a rampant crime, the numbers in the last two years in fact have been dropping. I have not seen any numbers for the latter part of 2006, but in the last couple of years before that, the crime rate was actually dropping.
Setting that aside, because it is still a serious problem, the reason I cannot support the bill is that to introduce these mandatory minimums, both in terms of the fines and incarceration, is a response that, in my opinion, is going to have no impact. All the research that I have read on mandatory minimums would confirm that.
More importantly, from my perspective and perhaps from the perspective we want the community to have of this crime, it deludes our society into believing that this bill will have a positive effect in reducing the crime of auto theft. In fact, I do not believe it will have that impact because it also misses the real target we should be going after.
We know from a good deal of information that we are getting from our police services that the increase in auto theft has been driven, to a significant degree, by organized crime, both the traditional organized crime gangs and the bikers and now the street gangs. This is organized crime across that whole spectrum.
The bill does really very little to address that target group. I do not believe it does anything. Those in the target group are the ones we should be going after.
I have to say that if we look at some of the communities that have been successful, that is what they did. They used a dummy car to catch people. They have done a number of interesting and effective mechanisms, which they had already within their investigative tools, to catch the criminals. They have specifically tried to target the gangs. When they have done that, they have driven down the occurrence rate quite significantly.
I know from your signal, Mr. Speaker, that my time is up. Again I want to reiterate that, although well intentioned, this bill does not accomplish at all what it is intended to do. I would be voting against the bill on second reading.