Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on Bill C-343. This bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code to increase minimum penalties for motor vehicle theft.
A similar bill, Bill C-293, was defeated at second reading during the last Parliament. At the time, the Bloc Québécois voted against it, and today, we will vote against it again. The only difference between the two bills is that Bill C-343 establishes a two-year minimum sentence for a third car theft offence instead of a one-year sentence.
Currently, the Criminal Code treats car theft like any other theft, that is, as a crime against property punishable by different penalties according to the value of the stolen goods. When an individual steals a motor vehicle whose value exceeds $5,000, the offence is punishable by a maximum prison term of 10 years. If the value of the vehicle is less than $5,000, the offence is punishable by up to two years in prison. As we are all aware, most of the time, shorter sentences are given. I would note that a vehicle worth less than $5,000 is becoming a rare thing these days. At any rate, thieves generally steal vehicles that they think have a certain cash value.
The bill before us seeks to amend the Criminal Code to impose minimum prison sentences for motor vehicle theft. It sets out different sentences for first offences and repeat offences. As I said, we are against this bill. We believe its purpose is not really to solve this problem but to create the illusion of doing so. I mentioned earlier that we voted against a nearly identical bill on September 28, 2005.
Minimum penalties are at the heart of this bill. We know that, in the vast majority of cases, the concept of minimum penalties is an ineffective deterrent to crime. In our society, most people readily obey the law. Any reasonable person obeys the law and they do so not because they worry about the repercussions, but because they are reasonable and they simply respect society. Those who do not obey the law do not have that good sense. In the majority of cases, in almost all cases, these people think they will not be caught. So the severity of the punishment is not much of a deterrent to criminals. When the legislator determines the length of a maximum term of imprisonment, they are far more concerned with establishing the relative seriousness of a crime in relation to others than with the deterrent it would provide.
So, to think that because a thief is familiar with the Criminal Code and knows that there is a minimum penalty, he will be deterred from stealing a car is wrong in most cases.
I would like to provide some international statistics that prove that imprisonment is not an effective measure for crime prevention. Canada imprisons 101 persons out of every 100,000 inhabitants. In the European Community, it is 87 out of every 100,000. In France, the number is 77. I do not think anyone believes that countries in the European Community or that France are less safe than our country. In Japan, one of the countries which has the lowest number of cars stolen, 50 out of every 100,000 inhabitants are imprisoned. In fact, the places in the western world where crime rates are the highest include the United States, where 689 out of every 100,000 inhabitants are imprisoned. The United States even surpasses Russia, where that number is 673.
Contrary to the Conservatives' worn-out rhetoric about law and order and getting tough on crime, the numbers show that this does not work. Putting people in jail does not prevent crime. We put people in jail to punish them once they have already committed crimes. We have to get to the root of the problem and work on preventing crime.
The members of the Bloc Québécois do not like the idea of minimum penalties because we do not want judges' hands to be tied unnecessarily. In some cases, this can produce undesirable results because judges may be inclined to acquit a person rather than impose a penalty they consider unreasonable. If the application of this legislation results in people who would otherwise have been given less severe penalties being acquitted because judges cannot bring themselves to apply such draconian penalties, we will be no further ahead. How paradoxical that this bill should have come from the Conservative Party, because in the past, the Conservatives criticized political activism on the part of judges and accused them of making or amending legislation. They said this was the prerogative of elected representatives, that it was up to the House to vote on legislation, and that the judges had no business getting involved.
It is rather ironic to see the Conservatives denounce a so-called intrusion by judges in our work while, at the same time, they are proposing a bill that interferes in the work of judges. Personally, I believe it would be best to maintain the traditional division of power. We are here, as legislators, to enact legislation and determine the relative seriousness of offences. We must leave it up to the judges to impose the most appropriate penalties after taking into account any aggravating or mitigating factors that may come up in a given case. As legislators, we will never be able to incorporate that into a bill.
It is even more ironic that this bill would lower the maximum penalty for a first offence. As I was saying earlier, the current sentence is 10 years, but that would be decreased to five years in the case of a first offence. If, as legislators, we pass this legislation, it could be construed as belittling the seriousness of the offence, which seems rather illogical. That was probably not the intention of the sponsor of the bill, but there is a clear incongruity here.
Another problem arises from the fact that the $10,000 fine provided for in the bill would not have the same impact on everyone, depending on the offender's financial situation. Motor vehicle theft is often the work of organized groups. These groups are often very wealthy, and a $10,000 fine would not be a much of a problem, given the profits earned from the sale of stolen cars. However, for certain isolated young people who spontaneously commit a one-time indiscretion, this would be a very serious penalty. For these reasons, it seems to me that this bill completely misses the mark. The Conservative government and the Conservatives would be much wiser to leave the firearms registry alone, which would help prevent crime.
As we all know, throughout Quebec and Canada, crime prevention programs and subsidies are being cut by the government. That is where we must act, to prevent crime before it happens.
