Mr. Speaker, in Vancouver street racing is a very serious issue. The member mentioned a number of incidents of street racing in the Vancouver area. One resulted in the death of Constable Jimmy Ng, who was hit broadside and killed at the side of the road by street racers.
There was another incident among many involving street racing in Vancouver where two men were convicted of killing a pedestrian, Irene Thorpe. My colleague mentioned that. These two young men, 23 and 20 years old, were doing about 120 kilometres an hour in a 50 kilometre zone when one of them lost control and slammed into Irene Thorpe as she walked along the street.
The sentence was considered an outrage. The CBC news headline was “Slap on the hand sentence for killer street racers causes an outrage”. They were put on probation for three years and their driver's licences were revoked for five years. What kind of response is that for Irene Thorpe, who is dead, and her family?
My colleague spoke a few minutes ago about elderly people who are afraid to open their doors because of crime and because of elders being abused. There was a question asked today by my colleague from Surrey about the Vancouver Board of Trade saying that crime is out of control in that city, the largest city in British Columbia. The city proper has a population of about 570,000 and there are 10,000 break-ins a year. How are citizens supposed to feel safe, with this kind of response? There are 6,000 car thefts and 10,000 thefts from cars. That is from the study of Vancouver proper itself. Surrey next door leads all of Canada for car theft. That is the response to the kind of legislation that this government continues to bring forward with no teeth in it. Constituents are upset about it.
I wonder if my colleague, who comes from the Lower Mainland, would care to comment. I know he is taking the pulse of the community and that justice issues are very much on his mind. I wonder if he would care to comment on the atmosphere in Vancouver, as well as in many other Canadian cities, where crime is very much out of control.