I am asked who gets 10 years. Again, sentencing is a complicated factor. Some people get five, some people get seven. Even if the offender were sentenced to a lesser amount—and I am not taking away from Bill C-219, I am just providing an example—it would add one additional year.
I have no great problem with that. I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. I think it would bring home how wrong it is to use a stolen motor vehicle in the commission of an offence. It would add that one year penalty. I would submit that in most cases there would be an additional period of time in any event.
Therefore I have no problem with the bill. It seems to me that it is simply codifying what happens in common law, except—and this is one area that I think is worthy of some discussion and some thought—it makes it a mandatory consecutive sentence, as opposed to providing the judge with the discretion to make it concurrent. Even at that I have no great problem with the bill.
However, I do have a problem with some of the motivation. I only say this because it is an ongoing debate as to whether or not increased penalties prevent crime. I appreciate where the hon. member is coming from when he says that it will teach a lesson to those who decide to steal a car in order to commit a crime. For those very few offenders who do in a premeditated and calculated way determine that they are going to steal a vehicle to commit an offence it may in fact be a deterrent. However, the vast majority of individuals who come before the court because of the commission of a criminal offence rarely plan it. In fact, they say that is why most of them get caught. It is a spur of the moment, poorly thought out action.
It is a criminal action, nonetheless. It is a serious action, nonetheless. But the very real argument that there would be general deterrence or specific deterrence by saying “Listen, buddy, when you decide you are going to steal that car to commit an offence, you had better think twice because you are going to end up serving consecutive time for the commission of the offence”, that thought process does not happen. Nine times out of ten, I would venture to guess, the vast majority of stolen vehicles are stolen on impulse and they are stolen to commit another crime that happens on impulse. The reality is that offenders do not sit down to calculate how much time they might serve for the commission of an offence.
They know they are committing an offence which is why it is wrong. They ought to be punished for it. But if members of the House think they are going to be able affect the thought process of those who commit offences, it simply is not going to happen.
Rehabilitation is an aspect of sentencing that is rarely addressed by these kinds of bills. Rehabilitation is what happens to the offender after the commission of the offence. Hopefully it teaches them not to commit that offence by addressing the root causes of the offence. Rarely in the debates on these kinds of bills are the issues of rehabilitation addressed.
There was another bill mentioned by hon. members in this debate that had to do with consecutive sentencing. I have read the speeches on that bill given by the mover. It is a different bill, so I will not address it too long. However, nowhere in his comments in the House of Commons does the mover of that bill talk about rehabilitation. Until we address that problem, simply thinking that we can scare those who would offend by increasing sentences is simply not going to solve the problem. That being said, for the victim whose car is stolen, if they are seeking some kind of retribution, I suppose the one year sentence makes sense.
For the most part, the one year sentence, whether it be six months, eight months or a year, will be calculated by the judge in determining the sentence if a motor vehicle is used.
It is a worthwhile point of discussion. It is an interesting bill. It is motivated because the hon. member has heard from his constituents and chiefs of police who support it. As a lobby group, the chiefs of police come from a particular point of view, as do other lobby groups which try to effect bills.
Hon. members say that chiefs of police come from a lobby group that protects society. They do. The John Howard Society is a group that wants to protect society in a different way. The key for parliamentarians is not to be dictated to by either lobby group, but to find the balance that reflects the will of Canadians.
I thank the hon. member for introducing the bill. It has given us some thoughtful discussion.