Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
Just for public awareness and to my colleagues, I will be tabling a motion, not for debate for today but for a subsequent meeting, and looking for feedback and whether there are amendments. It says:
That pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), the committee send for, from the auto manufacturers Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited, General Motors of Canada Company, and Stellantis (FCA Canada Inc.), BMW Group Canada Inc., Honda Canada Inc., Hyundai Auto Canada Corp., Jaguar Land Rover Canada ULC, Kia Canada Inc., Maserati Canada Inc., Mazda Canada Inc., Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc., Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada, Inc., Nissan Canada Inc., Porsche Cars Canada Ltd., Subaru Canada, Inc., Toyota Canada Inc., Volkswagen Group Canada Inc. and Volvo Car Canada Ltd., a comprehensive report on their strategies and initiatives taken to date and on further actions aimed at improving security features to address auto theft in Canada; and that the documents be submitted to the committee within five working days.
We have done this before at this committee. The reason I'm suggesting we do it is that I don't want to turn this entirely over to Public Safety or Transport because of the amount of money that's going through this file to the auto industry. It won't take committee time, but we'll be able to figure out whether or not we might want to have a more comprehensive study about that issue in the future.
I'm looking forward to seeing if any of our colleagues have amendments to that. It will be in your mailboxes tomorrow morning.
The first thing I want to ask relates to an issue we have here: Either we trust the bill through regulation and a bit of vagueness, or we trust the industry by not having any legislation. That could mean upwards of five years, quite potentially...depending upon Parliament and how long it lasts. Even if it doesn't last, to get something through would take a lot of time, so we have a decision to make.
Ms. Curran, you mentioned that you were in public policy before. I think you worked for Prime Minister Harper, if my memory is correct, as director of policy. In July 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission imposed a record $5-billion fine against Facebook for deceiving users in their ability to control the privacy of their personal data. First, in that case—and I don't know—were Canadians having the same problems that Americans were? Second, why would we just trust that no public policy would be the best policy at the moment versus the bill?