Mr. Speaker, I just love it when Liberal members hand me gifts like that.
The member for Scarborough—Rouge River knows that Mr. Cadman's intention was that anyone who wholly or in part alters, removes or obliterates a vehicle ID number without lawful excuse is committing an offence, when it is proven that the person has done it, period. That is the offence. That makes it very easy for the crown in any court in this country to convict a person on the act of removing or defacing wholly or in part the VIN of a vehicle. That is the criminal offence Mr. Cadman wanted in his bill.
The government said that would make it too easy for any crown attorney to put someone in jail, so the government added “and under circumstances that give rise to a reasonable inference that the person did so to conceal the identity of the motor vehicle”. The crown now has to tell the judge that the case has been proven and the person charged did indeed destroy or remove the VIN.
Because the Liberal government added that obligation, it now has to be proven that the individual did it to hide the identity of the vehicle. More time will be needed because this addition in Bill C-64 to section 377.1 of the Criminal Code makes it necessary to prove the person did it because he wanted to hide the vehicle's identification. His lawyer could be right and say he was doing it just because it was fun. The crown has to prove that he really wanted to hide the vehicle's identification number.
That is the part of the bill that the Conservative Party has a problem with. The government has provided a loophole to people who destroy vehicle identification numbers on vehicles. I hope that is clear.