Justice Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Actually, there was an increase. But it would useful to check it.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Is there any time left?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I would like to hand over the rest of my time to my colleague.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

One and a half minutes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Ms. Xavier, your testimony interests me a great deal and perhaps I will have the chance to come back to it in the second round.

At the moment, according to what you say, you have no way of getting access to a car that may have been stolen, correct?

[Caroline Xavier]

We could get access to a vehicle if, by chance, when we are looking at an export declaration, we see that the declaration is inaccurate in some administrative way.

If the declaration says that a car is in the container and we find a car in the container with a serial number that corresponds to the number on the declaration, everything is legal.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Fine, but what would this bill do for you most?

[Caroline Xavier]

Do you mean if we suspect theft?

If I am told that the container has oranges in it, not a car, and when I examine it, I find a car, then I am suspicious.Then I have to call the local police or the RCMP and tell them that I think I have found a stolen vehicle. At that point, I have to ask for an investigation.

That is all I can do. But the bill lets me at least consult police databases to check if the vehicle really has been stolen. At that moment, I do not have the power to do that.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Merci.

We'll move on to Mr. Comartin, for seven minutes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for being here.

Ms. McAuley, if I can, I'll start with you. In terms of these stats that you gave us today, does this include pickups and small trucks, as well as passenger automobiles?

[Julie McAuley]

Yes, it does.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Does it include heavy equipment, construction equipment, front-end loaders and that kind of thing?

[Julie McAuley]

We look at land-based motor vehicle theft, which includes cars, trucks, vans, sport utility vehicles, motorcycles, buses, snowmobiles, things like that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

No front-end loaders, no forklifts, none of that kind of equipment?

[Mia Dauvergne, Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada]

Yes, they are included.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

They are included. Okay.

You haven't separated them out in any way?

[Julie McAuley]

We can separate them out and supply that to the committee, if you would like.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Would you do that? Heavy equipment that's used in the construction trade is what I'm looking for. In particular, what I'm looking for, Ms. McAuley, is to see.... My understanding is this is the one area where there in fact has been a substantial increase in thefts, so I would want to see this over maybe the last five years. If you could, would you just pass that on to the clerk of the committee?

[Mia Dauvergne]

I'm not sure we can splice out specifically the heavy equipment, but we would be able to separate out the trucks and the cars and the smaller vehicles—

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Recreational vehicles?

[Mia Dauvergne]

Right. What we can do is give you all the categories that we're able to drill down to, but it may not specifically be heavy equipment.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

How do you categorize the heavy equipment?

[Mia Dauvergne]

We would have a catch-all category of other types of vehicles, because it would be so small.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Can you tell us what the other vehicles are in that category?