Bill C-19 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (street racing) and to make a consequential amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create an offence of street racing based on dangerous driving and criminal negligence offences.
This enactment increases, in street racing situations, the maximum punishments for some offences and also provides for minimum prohibitions on driving that increase on a second and subsequent offence.
This enactment also makes a consequential amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Criminal Code

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first let me say that I am in support of the objectives of the bill and the purpose that has been put forward. It is similar but not identical to a previous bill that was adopted in the House, as we all know, at second reading.

The term of “street racing” and criminalizing street racing is a legislative attempt to criminalize an area of activity that had fallen below, no pun intended, the radar screen in the Criminal Code. Provincial highway traffic acts quasi-criminalize reckless driving and careless driving, but in the Criminal Code the mischievous conduct, the criminal conduct, usually begins at the low threshold that is called dangerous driving. Some forms of that may actually work their way up into criminal negligence or what used to be called motor manslaughter.

So in order to apply the Criminal Code now, we actually have to get some kind of incident, some kind of damage, some kind of bad thing happening as a result of the reckless, careless, dangerous or criminally negligent driving.

Speeding, of course, is a crime. One could ask, do our speeding laws not cover road racing? They do, but the problem with simple speeding, if I can put it that way, where there is no injury, damage or death, is that those circumstances usually require a police officer or a radar trap to be there in order to get the evidence to convict for speeding.

In a road racing scenario, generally speaking, we probably would not need radar. We might need to have a policeman or some other evidence of the race, but we would not have the need to record the actual speed. We would not need to have a police car chasing the racers. A visual observance of a street race would probably be sufficient to get us into an offence territory and into at least the laying of a charge.

I will leave the evidentiary stuff, but it is clear that police across the country have been frustrated with this kind of problem. To now push the Criminal Code down into that territory is probably going to help them enforce a bit more order on the streets where racing has been a problem. It is not necessarily a problem across the country, but it seems to pop up in regions. There have been some very serious implications as a result of the racing that does go on.

I want to move into some technical areas, having said very clearly that I support the initiative. I want to direct my attention and remarks to some technical aspects of the bill, because I think most bills, like this one, need a bit of a tweak, a bit of an adjustment, as they go through committee and the House. I am going to suggest a few areas in which the bill may be inadequate or may have a problem.

The first one has to do with the definition of “street racing”. As I read it, I note that it is really quite simple. The bill states that “street racing means operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place”.

That is okay as it stands, but as I read it, it seems to include what we would call road-rallying. There are organized sport road rallies around the country. People do this quite legally. They do not usually do this in the city, but sometimes they do. This is usually done in a rural area. These drivers use public roads and highways for the road rally. It is essentially a race. The rally drivers are released once every couple of minutes or five minutes. There is a race. It is clocked.

It seems to me that the definition we are using in the bill may criminalize an area of conduct that we just call road-rallying. There are probably hundreds or thousands of road rally enthusiasts out there across the country who may have a concern about this. The bill as it is written now does not exempt this type of organized sport rally activity and seems to criminalize it.

The second area I will call the Formula One road racing, the very highly organized sport racing that happens with professional drivers. Sometimes it happens on a track, but other times it happens on portions of streets and roads in a city or a location where streets and roads have been blocked off, closed or otherwise.

One could argue that if one blocks off the city street that is being used for the Formula One race, it is no longer a public street. It is not really a street any more as it has been blocked off and closed. I suppose I could accept that, but the definition also uses the term “or other public place”. It seems to me that the middle of a city with blocked off streets may still be a “public place”, although there may not be a street.

I think the House and the committee are going to have to look at that to make sure that very justifiable routine Canadian participation in these motor sport events is protected, be it the professional speed driving that happens on tracks or in Formula One racing or similar type sports or road rallying.

The second thing I want to discuss has already been mentioned. There is probably not a solution to this. The definition does not deal with a solo race against the clock. I do not know how often that happens. A solo race against the clock is certainly speeding, but we are back into the evidentiary issues that I referred to earlier. If there is not a race with another car or with more than two cars, this bill would not criminalize it.

The third thing I want to mention is that the bill quite properly sets out penalties for different levels of damage or harm done as a result of the road racing. It also creates motor vehicle licence suspension periods that escalate upward depending on the seriousness. It seems to me as I read it that it is not clear when a second offence occurs.

When someone is convicted a second or third time of this type of offence, there is an escalating penalty, but because the road racing offence is broken down into four or five different parts, it is not clear whether, if someone is convicted of one part and subsequently charged and convicted of a second part of the bill, it constitutes a second road racing offence. It is the way the offences are described in the bill. If it is our intention to have a second or third component of the same Criminal Code prohibition constitute a second offence, then I believe we are going to have to say it much more clearly.

The last thing I want to say is again fairly technical. As I mentioned earlier, the bill criminalizes simple road racing. I would describe that as being on the lower end of anti-social conduct. At times it can produce horrendous results. Speeding is simply bad. I am not saying it is ever good, but speeding recklessly, carelessly, dangerously and criminally negligently is a serious problem.

The bill begins by addressing street racing where it has not reached the threshold of criminal negligence or dangerous driving. It is conceptually not clear to me what our intent is when the road racing activity crosses into this other threshold. It is not clear to me which offence is intended to apply.

If in fact a clear dangerous driving scenario evolved out of a road racing scenario, then it is not clear to me which statute should apply when the police lay charges. In my head, I think it creates some potential double jeopardy scenarios. It might not, but I would like to be able to canvass that further.

On the assumption the bill is adopted at second reading here, I would like to address with more precision the actual legislative intent for road racing which at the same time would constitute criminally negligent driving or dangerous driving under Criminal Code offences.

Those are my remarks on the technical side.

I will close by reiterating that I do recognize, as I think all colleagues in the House do, that street racing is a very serious and potentially dangerous form of activity from place to place. It is quite appropriate for the Criminal Code to reach out, proscribe it and allow our police to do their job in reducing the instances of this right across the country.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member addressed some of the issues around definitions and the possible charges that relate to this bill. There has been some discussion this afternoon about the bill's definition of street racing. The bill defines street racing as “operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place”.

The member addressed some of the issues he saw coming out of that. I wonder if he might also address the fact that there are different kinds of street racing. I do not have the popular vernacular to describe them all. There is the sort of drag race we are all familiar with and which directly involves two vehicles, but I gather that there is also a trend to timed races, where people race to a certain location and whoever gets there first is declared the winner in this bizarre sport. There are also situations that are just time trials, where whoever gets to the location runs a certain course in a certain period.

Does he see that this definition would cover those aspects of street racing? Or is this something that is missing from the current proposal?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is the legislative intent of the drafters. I think this is the same definition that was included in the previous bill in the previous Parliament. On the face of this bill, the definition only includes a circumstance where there is at least one more car involved.

Now, what if the other car happens to leave the starting point 60 seconds later or five minutes later or starts at a location remote from where the first car is? Let us say that one car starts from the Petro-Canada service station at one end of the road and the other car starts from the beer store on the other side of town. Is that two cars racing? I am going to leave that to the hon. member, in all his wisdom, to figure out.

It might come within the ambit of the definition in that it may in fact have two cars, but it is not clear to me that police who would investigate and prosecute would be fully able to present the evidence that there were in fact two cars involved in a race if the police were in only one location. I think that is probably a subject that would warrant further discussion at committee to try to better capture the legislative intent of the bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member. It seems that every time he rises in this place to speak he is not bowing his head and reading from some pages that somebody wrote for him; he is speaking to the House based on his knowledge, experience and research. It is really helpful to have someone who has some experience, as he does, to share some of his insights.

One of the issues that has come up is that this bill's approach to the problem of street racing is to deal with it through the penal system, as it were, but it really does not add anything to the approach in terms of prevention and providing the tools to the jurisdictional authorities who have to enforce these laws under the Criminal Code.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not part of the solution here, and maybe part of any bill dealing with street racing, should in fact address the prevention measures that would be most appropriate to dealing with this as opposed to simply relying solely on deterrence measures.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes a very good point. The bill, on the face of it, does not make an attempt to go out and deal with the deterrents or public education in a direct way. There is hardly a time in my life that I cannot recall a story about one, two, three or more young people in a car, which was involved in some kind of a street race, who were not seriously injured or killed. This seems to happen every few years in a very conspicuous way at some place across the country.

I do not have enough information to answer the member's question properly. The member has raised the point about whether this new law allow police to intervene in a more robust way in communities across the country. Will the bill encourage cities, towns and councillors to perhaps make some place available for racing automobiles, such as an automobile track?

I am assuming that most of the people driving quickly in these road racing scenarios are people under 30 years of age. There could be some older gents and ladies involved as well. The government is trying to send a message to the people, who would drive in this fashion, to look for ways to cause them to rethink their ways and find safer ways to carry on their driving competitions.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at committee, I know the member looks at how legislation has or has not been enacted. He certainly comes from a background where he can see the unintended consequences perhaps of any legislation.

The member described some of the concerns he had about how the bill might be interpreted. Beyond what the government perceives the bill as being, which is something that will deal with the concerns around street racing, does the member see another way of dealing with it? We have talked about prevention, and that is fine. Are there other mechanisms that he can see available to us as legislators to confront the whole issue of street racing? I am sure he has pondered some ideas, and I am interested in hearing some.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the business of preventing crime lies with the federal government. In many areas involving social legislation such as health and welfare, the provinces have a role to play and it interfaces with our education system.

I know that Health Canada, from the federal jurisdiction, invests Canadian taxpayer money in dealing with the war against drugs. Anti-smoking campaigns were very visible, and still are, with I believe a fair bit of federal money involved.

Licensing of driving is very much a provincial matter as is education. Many of the drivers testing the limits of their automobiles seem to be young, but they are not the only offenders, and I understand that. If the bill is passed, and I hope it is, collaboration between the federal government, the National Crime Prevention Council and provincial authorities, which have an interest in educating young people about the real world, the risk of death and injury to themselves and others, I hope might take place and it might produce some salutary benefits.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, would the member comment on the role of popular culture in all of this and of the culture of speed that we have developed around the automobile? We see it in a number of places. We certainly see it in advertising. One current campaign features a young boy saying “zoom, zoom, zoom” as his car speeds by. This is one aspect of that kind of advertising.

I think the advertisers have also seen the concern about the kind of culture they are displaying in their ads. They now put a disclaimer on the screen that these activities are happening on a closed circuit. Clearly, the idea of liability is occurring to them in terms of the kind of speed they are promoting. However, we also see it in movies, in car chases, in the kinds of video games we have and in the whole culture of extreme sports, where risk taking seems to have an extra heavy round of glorification these days.

How does he see street racing fitting into that and how do we address those kinds of cultural aspects of street racing, which are not really addressed in this legislation?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, those are excellent comments. I recently viewed a commercial to which I took some offence. It involved what I regard as if not reckless, very fast driving of an automobile in a situation that did not warrant it. That was an automobile manufacturer.

I am saying this a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but if we are thinking about putting warning labels on alcoholic beverage containers, maybe we should have warning labels on speedometers of automobiles. There are a lot of perky, fast automobiles out there that are quite capable of killing someone very quickly.

As the member is alluding to, the sooner we get to that issue we will all be better off, and I think the automobile manufacturers may have a role to play in that.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-19 on street racing.

Bill C-19, in its current form, had a very strong supporter in one of our colleagues, Chuck Cadman, who unfortunately passed away. He sat in our caucus when I first came here. He was quite a bolster for issues concerning youth justice and was very passionate about many of those issues. I know he had tried on previous occasions to bring forward bills regarding street racing, but due to concerns of the previous government with some provisions in the bill, it never came to pass in the form of a private member's bill.

However, it is a great to see the issue of street racing finally being addressed by an amendment to the Criminal Code. It deserves significant attention. Finally, we have the chance for some serious debate. Hopefully, it will receive a speedy passage, especially in the memory of Mr. Cadman as well as us doing something in this place to protect our youth and deter this kind of activity as well.

We have heard some different questions. A Liberal member asked about community initiatives and what our government was doing to support these initiatives. I will share an example of an initiative in Edmonton. It has been an incredibly successful program. However, first I will give an overview, as many of my colleagues have done, of the bill.

Bill C-19 would amend the Criminal Code to create a new offence of street racing, which would be defined to mean “operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place”.

The proposed offence of street racing would reference the existing offences of dangerous driving and criminal negligence, including cases of dangerous driving and criminal negligence causing bodily harm or death. In practical terms, this means that there will be unique penalties for those convicted of dangerous driving or criminal negligence offences in street racing situations.

I believe the creation of a specific street racing offence in this manner is a balanced and measured response, which will serve as a strong deterrent to a senseless and disturbing crime. One of the key things we have to remember, in creating this change to the Criminal Code, is that it sends a clear message, something that has been missing in the Criminal Code with regard to this problem, to street racers that this is not a glamorous game, but a serious crime with serious consequences.

Bill C-19 would amend the Criminal Code to include tougher penalties for those convicted of street racing crimes. Currently those convicted of dangerous driving causing bodily harm are subject to a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. Those convicted of dangerous driving causing death face a maximum of 14 years in prison. Bill C-19 proposes key reforms in this area by increasing the penalties available for these offences in street racing situations to 14 years and life imprisonment respectively.

Bill C-19 also proposes important reforms to ensure that those who would abuse the privilege of operating a motor vehicle are prohibited from getting back behind the wheel for a longer period of time. Canadians do not want those convicted of street racing crimes to be able to simply get back behind the wheel and thereby place more innocent people at risk.

Mandatory driving prohibitions are an appropriate deterrent to this type of crime. A mandatory minimum driving prohibition of one year would exist for those convicted of a street racing crime and in instances where the person has been previously convicted of a street racing offence, the mandatory minimums would go up.

Those are some of the key reforms and the thrust of the changes to the Criminal Code. I have had nothing but positive correspondence on the change to the Criminal Code from groups across the country that are working with youth and law enforcement officials. Many people have said this is long overdue.

I will share, in particular, a program that is in place in Edmonton. The constable who is in charge of the program has shared his thoughts and has said that we are basically on the right track in finally dealing with this problem.

Like many communities across Canada, Edmonton has also been affected by this trend. One of the central challenges with this problem is that kids think racing is cool. Who can blame them? It involves fast cars and an interesting lifestyle. They watch races on TV often as a sport. It is an attractive thing to many. The difference is that drag racers also know that racing on the streets is not only illegal, it is dangerous.

So the challenge becomes getting young people to listen. How do we get them to change their minds on this? Edmonton has demonstrated impressive leadership in responding to the problem.

I would like to reference Constable Mike Wynnyk and his team of other police officers in Edmonton who recognized the danger of this particular problem and started doing something about it almost 10 years ago. They developed an impressive local program through the Edmonton police service to reach out to youth not only to educate and inform them about the dangers of illegal street racing but also to provide them with legal alternatives.

Harnessing his love of racing and his own experience of totalling cars unfortunately in dangerous accidents before joining the police force, Constable Wynnyk assembled Edmonton's street legal project to build and tour police race cars to local schools, trade shows, conventions, shopping malls, community events, and motor sport events to show kids that a love of racing should not mean street racing.

With the generous support of industry partners who donated parts and vehicles, Constable Wynnyk and the Edmonton street legal team have assembled an impressive police racer that they use for demonstrations across the city. The vehicles and Wynnyk's own passion for racing immediately capture the attention of youth at risk of participating in illegal street racing.

By building a credible relationship with young people, he and the rest of the street legal team enhance traffic safety by encouraging responsible motoring among young drivers, which is something crucial in trying to prevent this problem. They motivate youth to stay in school by providing a practical application for math and science education through legal drag racing. He said it was very exciting to watch the students get excited about practical math problems in calculating certain speeds for racing. It has a positive effect on their education.

In their program, they encourage self-respect and leadership among youth through team work and a positive relationship with police officers. That is something that should be commended. Those type of officers not only do law enforcement as their job but they are getting out in the community and building trust with our youth who often are a little skeptical of law enforcement.

By encouraging youth to learn about the dangers of illegal street racing and holding illegal demonstrations at local racetracks, the Edmonton police force has built a credible working relationship with young people interested in racing.

The result has been a resounding success. Constable Wynnyk and the Edmonton street legal team have a positive relationship with local racing groups like Edmonton's 780 Tuners who openly denounce street racing and encourage their members to work with local police to ensure safe racing at the tracks.

One of the members asked what sort of support the government has received for these sort of programs, or what sort of initiatives exist. Our government has committed $20 million to crime prevention initiatives, so that the causes of crime are addressed, particularly among our youth. Obviously, we need to support initiatives by Constable Wynnyk and his team in Edmonton who have had a profound effect on youth in deterring this sort of activity.

Interestingly enough, when talking with Constable Wynnyk, he expressed how ecstatic he was that the government was finally doing something to beef up the problem that existed in the Criminal Code and that the government was supporting the work that he and his team are doing on the ground. It is a great relief to him and others who have been working so hard that the government has recognized the need to beef up the Criminal Code to more than dangerous driving that currently exists in the Criminal Code.

This is what we have done in Bill C-19 with the changes that we have proposed. This bill would beef up those types of provisions in the Criminal Code to deter this sort of activity.

That way we can support the efforts of our law enforcement personnel, those who sacrifice on a daily basis their time, their energy, and their effort not only to enforce the law but to work with those groups who are often unfortunately attracted to this type of behaviour and unfortunately this sort of conduct of street racing.

It is abundantly clear to those who have been working on these particular issues, and I know many of our colleagues in the House have been working on issues of improving current criminal justice provisions and helping those to do their job on the streets, that this is long overdue. It needs to have speedy passage through the House, so that we all can finally support the work of those in the communities and to put serious teeth, as Constable Wynnyk mentioned, by beefing up the Criminal Code.

In this manner we can in fact deter the activity of youth who are attracted to this and obviously encourage them to look at the legal means to get involved with racing which would be on tracks rather than on our streets where they pose a threat not only to themselves but to innocent Canadians and many others who unfortunately can get affected by dangerous and reckless driving.

I encourage all members to think about this very seriously, to do the right thing, and support the changes that we are proposing in Bill C-19. As I mentioned, hopefully we can give the support to those like Constable Wynnyk who are doing such a tremendous job on behalf of Canadians and law enforcement to work with youth to deter them from that sort of behaviour.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for raising for the information of the House a range of measures that the enforcement agencies can take from the standpoint of prevention and education which is a very big part. It seems to me that the solution to any of our social ills always involves public education, so I thank him for raising that.

However, the bill itself does not deal with public education and it does not deal with prevention. It deals with the Criminal Code and to add into it new offences which may very well have progressive penalties as a result of repeat activity.

As I think the parliamentary secretary advised the House earlier, the courts already take into account aggravating circumstances when we look at the current offences under the Criminal Code. They are: dangerous operation causing bodily harm, dangerous operation causing death, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, and criminal negligence causing death.

The bill is basically saying that the courts do not take into account the aggravating factor of being not only a violation of the Criminal Code but an aggravating factor of in fact being involved in street racing.

Does he believe that maybe the bill should have provided for greater resources for the kinds of activities that he relayed in his speech on the preventative side?

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member often gives a lot of thought to these sorts of issues and pieces of legislation.

He raises an important point that I tried to make clear in my presentation. When it comes to the actual issue of prevention and education, it may not in fact be part of this bill. This bill tries to support those in the field, and I tried to clarify that, who are engaged in prevention and education. It would give them the teeth to actually continue on with their work on the legal side.

The member appropriately quoted the current Criminal Code where there are obviously separate offences relating to dangerous driving. The concern was and we felt we had to beef up the provisions to create a separate Criminal Code offence specifically for street racing. The legal community itself has called for the beefing up of this provision.

In essence, we are extending the measure to give it more teeth specifically with street racing. As I mentioned, there was the example of Constable Wynnyk and the work that he and others are doing. This in fact helps to extend the education and prevention work that they are doing by giving it more teeth. This is why it was requested.

The member also mentioned the issue of funding. I cited the $20 million in our budget to look at supporting these sorts of initiatives for crime prevention in our community. It will not be in this bill because obviously it is a change to the Criminal Code, but on the fiscal side in the budget we had attributed some extra money for this sort of initiative.

He asked whether we had faith in judges to come up with stiffer sentences resulting from people who are charged with street racing. All this does, in essence, is send a clear message, especially from our legislators, as I said, in support of the law enforcement community. The maximum punishments for dangerous driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm would remove the current requirement of 10 to 14 years under that previous dangerous driving causing death provision to 14 years to life. This proposal also provides minimum driving prohibitions, as I mentioned already, that increase on a subsequent offence.

All it does is give more teeth to our law enforcement in sending the message that this is not acceptable and makes it clear as well for judges when they are giving out the particular sentences. When reading judgments, it makes it very specific and clear as to what type of punishments should be available for those who street race.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take issue with what the member said. He talked about the new legislation that we are debating today and saying we are putting teeth into the Criminal Code. I think the teeth are already there.

The Minister of Justice, at the beginning of the debate, talked about the five charges that are already in the Criminal Code that can be applied to street racing. There are five very serious charges that carry very serious penalties, from 10 to 14 years maximum penalties, even a life maximum penalty.

There is also the possibility of driving prohibitions from three to five years to a lifetime driving prohibition. Those provisions are already there. Maybe the member could comment on why the enforcement has not happened? What is it that has prevented law enforcement officials from actually charging people and getting them through the court system on the kinds of serious charges that are already in the Criminal Code? I would appreciate hearing his comment on that.

I also want to ask him a question about why manufacturers continue to build cars that can travel at speeds of 180 to 200 kilometres an hour, probably double the highest speed limit on any Canadian highway? Does he think there should be measures taken to ensure that vehicles are not capable of reaching those speeds and still meeting the needs of Canadians who need to travel by car? I wonder if he could comment on both of those important issues.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my hon. colleague from Burnaby—Douglas has taken a keen interest in the debate today and has been very active.

I will address his first comment relating to charges and why in fact this needs to be changed; if already the provisions exist within the Criminal Code, why would we have to strengthen them? As I mentioned, with regard to the judgments that have been read, it is not just the current government that is calling for the changes, law enforcement officers across the country have said that there seems to be a problem with the actual judgments being handed down for those who are engaging in the activity of street racing. What can we do in essence to respond to that, to make it tougher, to give more teeth within the law to send the message?

Making this change sends a clear message, especially in the cases where people are charged with this particular behaviour, that the judgments need to be severe, that they need to be bumped up and that they need to have a mandatory minimum. That is exactly what we are trying to do by introducing Bill C-19, to strengthen those particular aspects of the mandatory minimums and to have, hopefully, judges enforce them once the change is made.

This is where the law enforcement community especially feels let down. While they go through the trouble of apprehending these offenders, the actual judgments do not reflect the type of penalties that are required in order to deter this sort of behaviour. It is not just us calling for this; it is law enforcement officers, those who are working, Constable Wynnyk, for example. We need to give them the support in the judgments after people are charged with these type of offences. This is why we have recommended that this particular provision be strengthened.

My hon. colleague raised the issue of vehicles and speed. I am not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination so I cannot get into some of the arguments of why cars are built with certain speed limits and some are not and why that sort of speed is needed. Obviously there is a significant part of the industry that is related to legal street racing and cars that legally race and train. Clearly there is a need for cars to be built with engines that can exceed certain speeds.

If the hon. member has issue with the current speed limits on current vehicles on the roads, maybe he would like to make some proposals as to what we could do to address that or perhaps he could take it up with the vehicle manufacturers directly. It might be a particular issue with which he would want to deal.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, street racing is an issue in my community of Surrey North and in hundreds of other communities across the country. It is a concern everywhere. It is of particular concern in those communities that have seen a number of deaths as a result of street racing in the last two or three years. Certainly it is a concern in the lower mainland of British Columbia. It is important that we are having this debate today, to raise questions about what is appropriate and how we can end the pain and suffering that we see throughout the country.

In the lower mainland, there are two families that I know well who have family members who have died because of street racing. The family member was not behind the wheel of a car that was street racing, but was killed while crossing the road on foot or was in another car which was hit by another car that was street racing.

It is interesting that I have heard people say about street racing, “Well, there are a lot of hormones in young men and young women and everybody likes speed and the impulse takes over”. If they were speeding maybe, but street racing is planned. In most of the situations in the lower mainland people had actually planned the street race. They called each other and set up a time and a place. It is not simply happenstance. I do worry about it.

I worry also about this as an individual bill. Many people have been saying for quite some time that the Criminal Code in general needs an overhaul. This one aspect on street racing has been singled out and put in a bill. I would suggest that probably many more people are killed as a result of dangerous driving, by one car speeding, not racing, but we have not lifted that item out and said that we would deal with it differently. I would feel more comfortable if this were coming forward in a different context, in a more omnibus approach to changing the Criminal Code and updating a number of aspects that need to be addressed.

I thought about the purpose. I understand the purpose as the bill is written. Some people would suggest it is a deterrent, maybe an educational one. Or is it a singular response to one issue that would be better dealt with in a larger way, say with all actions that have to do with the dangerous operation of a car? Street racing is only one of many.

This piece of legislation reminds me of when a particular province passed a piece of legislation on stalking either women or men; there were more women being stalked at that time, but it had to do with stalking, period. Stalking could have been dealt with legislation that was already in existence, but because the issue of stalking was very much on people's minds, it was dealt with as a single piece of legislation, knowing there was already in legislation ways to deal with that kind of a crime.

One of my colleagues asked the question, and it is one which I am asking myself, if there is already legislation in place, why are judges not using it? We asked that about stalking as well. I truly do not understand. Judges have a fairly wide range of choices when someone charged with street racing comes before them. Many of the choices can be very restrictive. If that is the case, then why are we hearing so much about street racers receiving ankle bracelets and house arrest? We hear that they can leave to go to school and then return home, et cetera. I am very puzzled as to why that legislation is not being used.

There are some things we need to consider in the debate around this legislation. One of them certainly is the issue of resources. In Richmond, B.C. there are tracts of highway, at least in the Lower Mainland, that are more likely to be used for street racing than others. In Richmond there is a very long straight stretch of highway. We have had a number of street racing tragedies in Richmond.

I have also heard the Richmond, B.C. chief of police say that he thinks they are getting at that, but while they are addressing that problem, the police are not answering other calls. They do not have enough resources to place officers along that stretch of road where street racing occurs and to answer the other calls that come in from people who need police attention. The issue of resources is a very critical one.

In my community of Surrey the police are already stretched beyond what they are able to do. It always becomes a choice of which crime is more important, which call is the more important one. I would not want to be the person who has to make that decision. I may make the wrong decision and someone's life may be lost. The resource issue is a very important one.

In some ways Bill C-19 is limited in terms of what it addresses. I am not arguing that street racing is not a very serious crime and has not been treated as a very serious crime. Absolutely, but I would refer to some of the things that people raised earlier. It is important for me to acknowledge that drinking and driving still happens. It happens less, but it still happens.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, except it is mothers, fathers and all kinds of people, but MADD has had an extremely successful impact in its approach to reduce drunk driving and make sure that people are dealt with differently and are more aware of what could happen.

Around the issue of driving too quickly and drunk driving, there is a hospital in Cranbrook where high school students visit the hospital morgue. It is scary, but the students are not necessarily there when something is going on. The students are not there to see an autopsy. They are fairly young high school students. Simply being in a morgue after what is seen on television is a pretty scary experience.

I do not know how many people have ever been to a morgue but, as someone who comes from a nursing background, just being in an empty morgue is pretty chilling. Because of this program in Cranbrook, the community has seen a decrease in the number of teenagers who are drinking and driving, as well as speeding they think. It is not the same as street racing, but it does talk about the importance of the educative factor with young teens.

The health community and the education community are working together to solve a problem that is killing or maiming the future of our communities. They did not wait for the police or someone else to solve the problem. They looked for partners and actually found corporate partners to provide written materials and other materials around this to start educating teenagers in the same way we have tried to do around smoking and other things that are negatively affecting young people.

Education, obviously, needs to include the police force. I think teenagers, in particular, hear things differently from the police than from a doctor or nurse or someone in the school system. By putting those partners together who are willing to do this education means we can pick the right people for the right audience.

I guess there is the strategy to having young women or young men who have been caught street racing going into high schools and talking to students. I do not know a lot of street racers. I have only met the ones involved in programs. However, the ones whose friends were killed while they were street racing had a very important message and they were sincere in their message. They were not doing it as part of community hours or whatever. They were doing it because they wanted the 13 to 17 year olds to personally know the effect this has had, not just on them but on their friend's mom, dad, aunt, uncle, nana, grandad and a circle of friends. When one person dies in this kind of incident sometimes 20, 30 or 40 people are pretty directly impacted by it.

I would like to see the time where we do not have to debate a bill like this and I think that will happen with the kind of education that happens in communities. I do not mean that we should not be debating it today but I would like to look at the root cause, not just the crime, so we can reduce and, hopefully, eliminate street racing. I do not want us to be dealing with this again in five years time because we were not able to reach our younger people and stop them from getting into this position in the first place.

I want to mention my grandson who I usually manage to mention in some speech. He is 11 years old now. Every time he came to stay with me when he was younger, his mom would send along a long list of things he could not watch. She listed 10, 20, whatever it was, things. I understand the effect television, movies and video games have on young people. They see car races as fun. Some video games have car races where the kids get 20 points if they knock the other car into the ditch because they went faster or they were able to cut them off. I cannot believe that does not have an impact on the actions of a six or seven year old when they are older.

I heard others ask about car manufacturers and advertising. If we look at car advertising, it says that if we buy this car it will go from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds or whatever and that is really cool. It is always a nice silver, sporty looking car and it is played as a positive to get there that quickly. If that is what we continue to see then we need to have an affect on advertisers as well because that is what our children see. Even if they are watching a perfectly acceptable television program, not everybody mutes the advertising or puts their hands over the eyes of their young children while the car manufacturers brag about how fast their cars go.

The other important question was whether we need cars to go that fast. Police cars, yes, but does every car we buy need to go 200 kilometres an hour? Given that the speed range in our province is 100 kilometres an hour, and it varies from province to province, I do not know if I need to buy a car that goes 200 kilometres an hour.

This is an important bill to be debating and it is an important time to be doing it. Many people who have had sons or daughters die, either as passengers in the car, as drivers or as someone who has been hit by a car, are watching very carefully. They are suffering pain and they have made their voices heard. If they had not been heard, we would not be here debating it.

What is the best solution? I am sure the solution is multiple but we need to know what the best actions are to take.

I am interested in the debate that is going on currently and will continue to go on. I am glad that my son could only afford a car that was 15 years old and did not go very fast. He did not get the graduation present that others did. A lot of young people who graduate receive fancy new cars that look like they were made to be driven quickly. Maybe parents need to think a little bit when they buy these types of cars.

This is a real issue in the Lower Mainland in British Columbia. Many people know someone who has been involved in just such an event.

I would encourage us to think about whether there are other bills that we should also be looking at to make a more omnibus change to the Criminal Code, which people have been calling for, and to think about the community partners that must be involved in supporting this in order to have a reduction in the community, not only to have legislation but to encourage our community partners to come forward, the health system, the education system, the police system, and work with us as a group, not on individual initiatives, although those are fine too, but in a group to see what we can do so that we are not standing here debating exactly this bill in five years' time, that we will have reached those young people, as we have with alcohol and smoking, and be able to reduce that.