Evidence of meeting #6 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was car.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Chairman, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association
What I'm specifically referring to is that the vehicles that are stolen from auto dealers are very specific, targeted vehicles.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I'm trying to clarify what 14% referred to; was it the recovery rate, the clearance rate, the charge rate...?
11:50 a.m.
Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association
I think you were referring to the 13% solved rate.
11:55 a.m.
Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association
Yes, the solved rate. I believe that's from.... I'll find the exact reference for you and send it to the committee so that you have it.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
That's a very slow solved rate, and if you can't solve it, you never get into court in the first place; these new provisions would never kick in. So we have to look for some other solutions here besides a new Criminal Code offence, but—
11:55 a.m.
Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association
Let me add to this that one of the messages we'd like to get through to the committee is that while this bill does start to highlight the problem, there have to be broader solutions. We're not the private sector purporting that overnight this is going to solve the problem.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
We all agree on that.
The other piece I want to clarify—and I think it came from Mr. Mills—had to do with the age of the offender. There was a “14-year-old” reference. Maybe it was Mr. Donnelly's comments, but it had to do with the average age or something being 14 years. I didn't quite grasp that.
Could you restate that or clarify that for me, because I was quite shocked, if that was an average age.
11:55 a.m.
Unit Commander, Provincial Auto Theft Team, Organized Crime Section, Ontario Provincial Police
Detective Staff Sergeant Scott Mills
It was from me, and it was in reference to the amateur auto thieves in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Their average age is 14, while our average age in Ontario is 34.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Okay. It's just those two provinces that you're referring to? That's a different breed of cat, then, that we're dealing with from organized crime.
Thank you very much for the clarification.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Good morning, gentlemen. This new bill poses a problem for me, and I'd like you to give me a little more information and some explanation.
According to your respective presentations and the documentation that was sent to us, 170,000 motor vehicles are stolen, and one-fifth of those motor vehicles are stolen by organized crime. It is imagined that the remaining four-fifths are crimes committed by persons not belonging to organized crime. That means that, of the 170,000 stolen motor vehicles, 34,000 were stolen by an organized crime member and that the other 136,000 were stolen by individuals who were not members of a criminal gang.
According to another statistic that you presented to us, 40% of the thieves are between 12 and 17 years of age. I heard other witnesses say that this week. You're telling us that the average age is 14.
This bill on motor vehicle theft is aimed at criminals who belong to organized crime and youths who do not belong to organized crime who are out thrill-seeking one evening. The aim is to impose quite harsh minimum sentences and restrictions.
I wonder whether the statutory measures we are setting up address the problem that you have.
11:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
My position would be that there's such a high proportion of these kids because it's the opportunistic stuff. The problem is, you have this offence in which there are these hard-core people—a small proportion of them hard-core organized crime selling these cars overseas, and so on—and this other group. They're two very different kinds of offenders, and to level the same shotgun at both I think is a mistake.
I would have thought that a sentencing court would be able to impose a sentence that was appropriate, and the court would determine that “this is not your opportunistic offender who's before me today; this is an organized criminal”, so that the sentence would be significantly more severe, to return to the “aggravating circumstance” that I mentioned earlier on.
I think a court could make that distinction, but the legislation doesn't.
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
So you're suggesting that we move an amendment that would complicate the situation if the person who has stolen belongs to organized crime.
11:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
You could do that, but as I say, you're then just doing what the code already does. If you commit a crime pursuant to a criminal organization, the sentence should be more severe. Certainly I wouldn't want the minimum penalty to be imposed on these young people who aren't organized criminals.
Noon
Professor, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
I still wouldn't want the minimum penalty anyway, but it would be much better if it somehow focused upon the organized criminals who are responsible for the massive loss--the stealing of the cars, the exporting of them, and so on.
Noon
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
All right.
There's a lot of talk of restrictive statutory measures that imprison people who have committed this kind of crime. Yesterday we met with people from the Insurance Bureau of Canada, IBC. We're trying to see how we could reduce the number of thefts. An automatic shut-down mechanism has been mandatory in motor vehicles since September of this year, which may perhaps reduce the number of motor vehicle thefts.
Why do motor vehicles transit through ports? These aren't matchboxes or pencils that are leaving the country. One ring forwards cars to New Jersey, another to Asia or the Middle East. The cars circulate on board trains and boats. Wouldn't there be some way of somewhat tightening up surveillance in this area? You know that's where they go through since they have to be taken out of the country. One ring sends them to Africa. We were told that yesterday. The motor vehicles leave Canada to go to New Jersey. They pass through Montreal, Toronto and New Jersey. The itinerary is nevertheless quite simple. It's not the passage to India or the silk roads: it's a clearly known and recognized circuit.
What measures are being taken to dismantle this ring or to tighten surveillance? Are measures being taken, as far as you know?
Noon
Investigator, Provincial Auto Theft Team, North American Export Committee
Thank you.
To explain part of the question, what we're seeing for the most part in terms of vehicles leaving Canada is that we're losing over 20,000 a year out of Canada through the ports. The U.S. has a rate of over 200,000.
In Canada, for the most part, we're seeing high-end vehicles being put into ocean-going containers. They normally use a 20-foot or a 40-foot container to export these vehicles. A 40-foot container will hold normally two, bumper to bumper, but we've seen anywhere from four to five, and in some cases six, going to Africa. They'll chain them to the roof of these containers and ship them out.
Noon
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Mr. Jillett, that would let you do that.
When I go through customs at the post where we are, they open the car, they ask me whether I have any lemons, if I have any things; they take out my clothes to see if I've bought a bottle of wine and they ask me for my identity card and my passport. I'm just going there for two hours. When a car goes through, when a truck goes through, is there some kind of measure for checking? Perhaps we should establish some tools.
December 6th, 2007 / noon
Investigator, Provincial Auto Theft Team, North American Export Committee
Exporters have to fill out a customs declaration form called a B13A. What we see for the most part is that the declarations that are filled out are false. They'll say that household effects, used furniture, or whatever is going off to Africa in these containers.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Madame Freeman, your time is up. I'm sorry, but our schedule is pretty tight.
Please finish up quickly, Mr. Jillett.