Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be in the House tonight to speak on street racing. I will echo what the member just said about the excellent speech before hers, and her speech was also excellent. I do not know how anyone else could make such a great speech to try to convince government that something has to be done.
All I know is when I was younger, I could not afford a big car or a souped up car. Either the parents are doing something right or they are doing something wrong. I do not know how 18 and 19 year olds can have these cars unless they have lots of money. We as parents have to take some of responsibility and with responsibility comes different things in society. They are still children at 18. Although they may be outside the realm of parental guidance, as far as I am concerned we are still, as parents, responsible for their actions.
The first thing young people say is that it will not happen to them. I could tell stories. When I was younger, the big thing to find out was if a Ford could outdo a Chev or a Chev outdo a Dodge. We were young and we did not think we would have an accident or create a tragedy. We did it for fun.
The thing is when we drive a motor vehicle of any type, we always find out the unexpected usually will happen when we do not expect it. As soon as we lose control, who will be on the other end? Will we cause someone to die? I do not know if the young people realize that. Young people think that it will not happen to them, that they will not die. They think they are invincible.
Street racing does kill and it causes major injuries to many innocent people, besides those in the vehicles.
This legislation would treat street racing as an aggravated circumstance when sentencing anyone convicted of killing or seriously injuring someone with a motor vehicle if it is established that street racing was a factor at the time of the incident. Sometimes the law is not there to do what it should do. Sometimes laws should set an example to people who do things without realizing the consequences of their actions.
Just look at the young offenders act. I had a lady call me recently. She was so upset that someone had stolen her vehicle. After they caught the young person, the only thing that happened to him was a slap on the wrist. Our court system has to take things more seriously. Our court system has to ensure that the law is there for anyone who is involved with street racing, especially if someone is killed. The law should be there to ensure that the courts set an example, that they send a message to street racers that this is unacceptable.
Sometimes we have to blame the lawmakers, and the lawmaker in our country is the House of Commons. It is us, as the elected people. We are the ones who will have to try to make the difference. We are the ones who will have to ensure that we save innocent lives and the lives of the young people who street race.
Street racing has become a very popular pastime for many young people. The statistics vary from region to region. For example, in Toronto in a period of one year, 17 people were killed as a result of street racing, 17 unnecessary deaths for no reason at all. The grief caused by that is shameful. I am sure the families of the ones who have passed on because of these incidents are asking themselves why that happened to them.
These incidents are preventable. If we, as the lawmakers, are not going to do what is right by banning it, then we must accept it. If that is the case, we have to go one step further by providing a spot where people can race. Let us develop a spot for it. However, I do not think that is the answer. The answer is what we are discussing today.
More than lives of racers are at risk. Passengers and pedestrians may be killed or injured as a result of street racing. This is the unfortunate consequence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a person drives a vehicle at speeds of 160 to 170 miles an hour and gets a blowout at that speed, I can tell members that it is not a pretty picture. As a result of this, people are unnecessarily being put at high risk.
In my former profession I was a paramedic. I was always on what we called the tail end of the result of total carelessness, when we went to a scene of an accident where there had been a motor vehicle accident because people had been driving at high speeds. There was no explanation, but the answer was always “I did not think it was going to happen to me”.
Unfortunately, when people think that way, guaranteed it will come up and kick them in the behind. All of a sudden it does happen to them and as a result they realize they are in big trouble. When someone dies as a result of negligence, people pay a dear price, and that lives with them for many years down the road.
As I said, many things can go wrong, but usually accidents are caused by the inexperience of drivers, excessive speeds and the conditions of the road.
Street racing takes a number of forms. Some are very organized and involve many people. Some are based on nothing more than just two willing motorists in traffic. Sometimes common sense has to play into it. However, I spoke to some of the members. They told me some horror stories of drag racing on the main streets, with lots of traffic and lots of people. It is really frightening.
I know it does not happen in my part of the region very often. We do not have that problem as much as the bigger centres. As I said earlier in the first part of my speech, our key was to see if a Dodge could outrun a Chev or a Chev could outrun a Ford. Then there are people with souped up vehicles, which goes back to why parents would allow the young people under their control to have such vehicles. They got them for one reason and that is for high speeds for drag racing. If they want to drag race, set the perimeters for them so they can go out in the countryside where there are open areas. If they flip their vehicle, then the only ones they will hurt will be themselves and not innocent bystanders.
Penalties for street racing are at the discretion of the judge and range from a suspended sentence to life in prison. This is where it goes back to the courts having a lot of flexibility. If the courts do not send a message to people who are involved with such activities of street racing which causes death or major injury because of that, then nothing will ever change. We need to send a clear message and the courts need to send a clear message that this is unacceptable.
My son is 23 years old, and I will probably say that it will not happen to me. As soon as it happens to a person, it is a different story. Let us put ourselves in the place of someone who has been severely injured by street racing or a person who has had someone killed because of that. Then we would find out what it is all about. I am sure we can talk about all kinds of stories with the attitude that will not happen to us, but it will happen if we do not take a stand and do what is right.
It is difficult for police to catch the racers, as racers can easily outdistance police cars. Usually drivers are caught by violating regulations dealing with the vehicle and not the speed. Cars are often modified to provide the maximum amount of speed.
I will tell a quick story. When I was younger, a good friend of mine wanted to see how fast he could drive his car. He got up to 160 to 180 miles an hour. The joke was that the police car could not catch him, but the thing is nobody was killed. If somebody had been killed, it would have been a different story.
Many countries, such as the United States, New Zealand and Britain, have put provisions in place for street racing and I believe Canada should do the same.
On behalf of the PC Party I thank the member for his bill. We definitely look forward to supporting it.