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

[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.