Debates of Oct. 2nd, 2006

Criminal Code

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question worries me without worrying me. It is a highly relevant question.

I remind hon. members that the bill does not specify what would happen if just one person raced for the fun of it. There has to be at least two cars for this bill to apply. That is debatable.

As far as the point made by the hon. member is concerned, this goes back to the debate on minimum sentences. I was wondering about that too, as I mentioned earlier in my speech. The judge needs to be given some latitude. I believe strongly in personalized justice with a case-by-case approach. The judge has the necessary knowledge for giving a ruling with a view to protecting the public and the individual's rights. In that sense, the question should be asked, especially when the hon. member gives the example of a young man who was inadvertently involved in an auto theft committed by his neighbour. The neighbour told the young man to drive the car, but failed to tell him the car was stolen. This poses a problem. The judge is in a good position to give a balanced ruling. If there is a minimum sentence, then the judge no longer has any choice.

He could even decide to acquit the accused because a five-year sentence would seem unreasonable.

The hon. member is right to ask these questions. I look forward to discussing this at greater length in committee.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour for his academic presentation on Bill C-19.

Although we are in favour of the bill and most of the parliamentarians will discuss it, the effectiveness of such legislation is uncertain since it applies to young people. Young people are not aware of the changes made to laws or are not even aware of the laws.

Could we improve the effectiveness of the bill by providing more information to young people? I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that or whether he has recommendations for publicizing this legislation in order to make it work.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know I must be brief, but I completely agree with my colleague about coercion. Such measures are needed to put a stop to these street races. However, our youth also need information, education and preventative measures, as you mentioned. They are often very amenable to such campaigns.

I think that as a follow-up to this legislation, a significant amount of public awareness must be generated using brochures and communications tools to reach youth. I would go so far as to say that we must work closely with the provinces on this and that an explanatory note should be included with licence renewals to make young people aware of the dangers of street racing.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak to C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (street racing) and to make a consequential amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Criminalizing street racing is an obvious and appropriate complement to the current provisions of the Criminal Code governing dangerous driving, as well as to the legislative efforts of certain provinces to strengthen their traffic laws. The proposed changes target serious criminal behaviour.

The Government of Canada made a clear commitment to Canadians that it would tackle this crime, as indicated in recent months by many announcements regarding the financing of municipal and provincial programs. These crime prevention programs target youth at risk with the assistance of the National Crime Prevention Centre. These local prevention programs complement our financial commitment to help assist the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in their training and recruitment efforts.

In addition to this important and tangible crime prevention effort at the local level, we should note this government's commitment to giving more bite to our criminal laws. This government has promised to get tough on crime and that is exactly what it is doing.

We proposed reforms in several areas: strengthening the laws dealing with the national DNA data bank; making it harder to be granted bail in the case of crimes involving a firearm; increased minimum sentences for this type of crime; and limited recourse to conditional sentences for serious and violent offences.

This holistic approach has been in response to renewed calls for all levels of government to reassess existing practices and responses in fighting crime. The government's response clearly reflects our understanding of the importance of keeping our streets and communities safe for all Canadians.

Bill C-19 is part of this government's overall program to tackle crime. It is in my opinion a welcome and important piece of legislation which will contribute to raising the safety and quality of life for our citizens to a level that they deserve and rightfully expect from their government.

Those who exploit and abuse their privilege to drive a motor vehicle by engaging in street racing demonstrate contempt for our laws, and more significantly, contempt for their fellow citizens. Cars can be dangerous at the best of times. When operating with such wanton recklessness and disregard for the safety of others, they too can be come lethal.

A driver's licence carries with it great responsibility. I strongly feel that drivers must be held accountable for their actions behind the wheel when, for a cheap thrill, they show no regard for that responsibility.

The streets and roads in our cities and provinces are a shared public resource, to be used and enjoyed by all of our citizens. The increasing incidence of street racing is turning the pavement into race tracks, but without all of the necessary elements that are found at all legal racing facilities. As a result, too many innocent bystanders are dying or being seriously injured.

Although we do not yet have any comprehensive statistics on the prevalence of street racing in Canada, or on the exact number of related deaths or injuries, there is sufficient evidence to confirm the seriousness of the situation. Such incidents causing death or serious injury are happening across the country. Just in the past three months, for example, we have read:

In June near Campbell River, British Columbia, two 18-year-old girls were allegedly involved in a street race which ended in the death of one of the drivers and serious injuries to two of her passengers.

Also in June in Merritt, British Columbia, two 24-year-old men died and two innocent motorists were seriously injured in what is a suspected case of street racing.

In July in Winnipeg, Manitoba, two drivers were charged with street racing and had their vehicles impounded when they were caught racing at speeds of more than 165 kilometres per hour.

Just a few weeks ago in Mississauga, Ontario, a foreign exchange student was killed when the vehicle he was driving careened into a hydro pole after it was hit from behind, allegedly as a direct result of street racing.

Those are only some of the most recent examples. Innocent victims who have died as a result of street racing in the past several years include a couple strolling on the sidewalk after celebrating their wedding anniversary, an RCMP constable on patrol, a 29-year-old mother out driving, and an immigrant taxi driver just days away from his citizenship ceremony.

I for one am saddened and outraged by these incidents, the reckless trend that is behind them and the frightening prospect of more to come. These senseless tragic deaths and serious injuries were all preventable and together make clear the call for a tough response. We simply cannot allow such carnage to continue.

These crimes continue to occur and the current government is determined to give more leverage to those responsible for law enforcement in order that they may respond to this crime effectively. The provinces have sentences in their jurisdictions, including fines, licence suspensions and impounding vehicles, which hit the wallets of the offenders. Nonetheless, when money is not a driving force, such measures do little to deter street racers from adopting this irresponsible and often deadly behaviour.

I think it is important to send a strong message about the seriousness of this offence, by criminalizing such behaviour and creating serious consequences for the crime. The consequences in this bill establish a system for determining a fair and appropriate sentence based on the seriousness of these crimes, namely a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison for bodily harm and a maximum of life in prison for causing death.

This sentencing system is enhanced in an appropriate manner by gradually increased mandatory driving suspensions, starting with a minimum suspension of one year for a first offence up to a life suspension for three convictions for street racing not resulting in death or bodily harm.

I believe that these measures are necessary given the frequency and serious outcome of tragic accidents that could be avoided and too often are the result of street racing. Enhancing and protecting public safety are among the most important responsibilities of government. Bill C-19 is about enhancing public safety. It sends a clear and strong message to those who wish to engage in street racing by establishing appropriate and proportional sentences for individuals who use our streets as their personal race courses, without any regard for their own safety or that of others.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, as well as other government initiatives to tackle crime, will improve the safety of our streets by putting citizens more at ease when exercising their right to use our public spaces without fear of bodily harm or death caused by behaviour completely lacking in common sense.

In closing, street racing kills. Bill C-19 is important and will make our streets safer. I urge the honourable members to join me in supporting Bill C-19 and ensuring that it is passed quickly.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have some concerns about the bill, one being how we deal with things in an evidence-based manner, that is, proving and showing to us as legislators that this is the way to deal with this problem exclusively. If not, what are some of the other things that can be done?

Some of the debate today has been around the fact that we have not looked at the full scope of how to attack the problem of street racing. I mentioned my concern about advertising, which is a concern shared by some of my colleagues. What are we doing vis-à-vis advertising? The response I received to that question was that we could not legislate what goes into Hollywood movies. I simply was pointing to the fact that some of the movies glorify street racing and that is something we should probably address. We cannot ban or censor movies but we can acknowledge the fact that they are a factor in street racing.

Something we can do and something that should be looked at is regulating advertising. We do have standards for advertising and we should look at those standards. As a member who is concerned about this issue, I would like to know what the member's feelings are about prevention. What can we do beyond this bill? I think most people would acknowledge that a law does not change behaviour in and of itself. We know other things can be done.

What is the role of those who change cars from being regular vehicles that take us from a to b to being street racing cars? This might be an underground business but we know we can find places that will soup up a car in an afternoon. How do we deal with this kind of thing? Is there something we can do as legislators in that area?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are not saying that the bill is the complete solution to street racing. There is education and advertising. We need to send a message to the public that street racing is not acceptable, both from a legal perspective and from society's perspective.

The bill outlines that we want street racing to be a criminal act. I would ask people to picture in their mind what might be going on before a street race actually takes place. People might be milling around. Two cars might be on the street. The drivers themselves are probably thinking they can handle the speeding ticket and the demerits. They certainly do not intend to wound or kill anybody. In their mind they do not see the penalties being that grave. They think they can deal with the penalties should they happen to be caught.

That is one of the reasons that we want to break street racing out on its own. We want to tell people that it is a criminal activity. We want to let them know by advertising, by education and with the passing of this bill into law that it is a criminal activity. It is our hope that this will pass through their minds and dissuade them from street racing.

I also believe the bill would give our police an additional tool with which to act against people who are street racing. I believe our police officers need this sort of law to help them protect public safety.

As part of the bill, our government is committed to hiring more RCMP and police officers and working with communities. We want to ensure there are more police officers on the ground to help enforce a law such as this.

Business of the House

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties concerning tomorrow evening's take note debate on Government Business No. 10 and I believe you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That during the debate on Government Business No. 10 scheduled for Tuesday, October 3, under the provisions of Standing Order 53.1, members may be permitted to split their time by so indicating with the Chair.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to put the motion to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (street racing) and to make a consequential amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Justice spoke earlier this afternoon, he outlined the current provisions in the Criminal Code that deal with street racing. These are very serious charges. They deal with things like criminal negligence causing death, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. All of them carry very serious penalties, 10 to 14 years or life is a possibility as well. There is also the possibility of a driving prohibition from 3 years up to 10 years and even a lifetime driving prohibition.

It seems to me that the Criminal Code already has some serious provisions that deal with street racing which are available to the law enforcement agencies to deal with the question of street racing. I do not know why they have not been enforced. Maybe the member could explain to me why these provisions are not working. They are very serious provisions and it seems to me that if we would enforce what is already there we would be making a dent in the problem of street racing.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct in that right now there are laws, not necessarily against street racing, but against reckless driving or dangerous driving. The difficulty is that there is no distinction between street racing and other forms of dangerous driving or criminal negligence. We want to create a separate offence in the Criminal Code that will specifically denounce street racing.

Street racing is a very defined activity. Reckless driving can occur but then there is street racing. In street racing one decides to participate in a street race. One decides that one will drive one's car as fast as possible in order to win whatever might be on the table. We want to basically separate this out from other dangerous driving type of offences in order to protect the public.

During my speech I listed some instances that have occurred recently and in past years where Canadian citizens have either been very gravely wounded or have actually died from street racing or alleged incidents of street racing. One of the reasons we want to protect Canadians from street racing is that it is a definable activity that is actually taking place on Canadian streets today. Having this activity hidden in among dangerous driving charges is not protecting Canadian citizens.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I ask the question I would like to make it clear that the House, I think, is absolutely unanimous that these forms of absolutely preposterous activities taking place on our streets are totally unacceptable. We have seen very tragic results that have come about as a result of this kind of negligent and dangerous behaviour.

My question is on the preventive side. Throughout time, young people and people of all ages have been interested in tuning vehicles and in altering them in engineering terms. Some of us have gone and seen with great pride what people are capable of doing in terms of their innovative engineering capacities. Those are positive things but the outlet they have to then demonstrate what that capability is, is almost non-existent.

Law enforcement agencies are working, for example, around Mosport, and they are providing opportunities now for these young people, in a positive way, to go off the street onto the track to demonstrate their capabilities.

Does the member see that as a positive way of managing what has become a very serious issue? Is the government looking at any kinds of programs in cooperation with law enforcement agencies, service organizations and others that are now attempting to bridge a very profound social problem with some positive outlets that in fact would be even more than a deterrent? They would take those young people and get them into very positive endeavours around a sport that has been recognized over time.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-19 in no way precludes the positive steps of education and advertising. In fact, they are key supplements to what we are trying to accomplish here in the House. We are trying to put in place a law that will make street racing illegal and that will carry fairly serious penalties for those who engage in it, not just once but several times, because if they are repeat offenders then there is definitely a problem.

In my mind, there is no sense having the law if we are not going to allow Canadians to know there is such a law. That ties into advertising, into messaging and into communicating with the Canadian public, especially with our youth, about what it is we are trying to accomplish and why we are trying to accomplish it.

This is a legal type of approach but it is not the only approach and I do not think we have ever said that it is. We want to tie it in to what the hon. member is suggesting. We want to tie it into a communications strategy. We want to explain the bill, explain why we have the bill in place, explain the consequences for street racing, not just legally but to the individual should he or she happen to seriously injure or kill someone, and explain the impact on the victims.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first let me say that I am in support of the objectives of the bill and the purpose that has been put forward. It is similar but not identical to a previous bill that was adopted in the House, as we all know, at second reading.

The term of “street racing” and criminalizing street racing is a legislative attempt to criminalize an area of activity that had fallen below, no pun intended, the radar screen in the Criminal Code. Provincial highway traffic acts quasi-criminalize reckless driving and careless driving, but in the Criminal Code the mischievous conduct, the criminal conduct, usually begins at the low threshold that is called dangerous driving. Some forms of that may actually work their way up into criminal negligence or what used to be called motor manslaughter.

So in order to apply the Criminal Code now, we actually have to get some kind of incident, some kind of damage, some kind of bad thing happening as a result of the reckless, careless, dangerous or criminally negligent driving.

Speeding, of course, is a crime. One could ask, do our speeding laws not cover road racing? They do, but the problem with simple speeding, if I can put it that way, where there is no injury, damage or death, is that those circumstances usually require a police officer or a radar trap to be there in order to get the evidence to convict for speeding.

In a road racing scenario, generally speaking, we probably would not need radar. We might need to have a policeman or some other evidence of the race, but we would not have the need to record the actual speed. We would not need to have a police car chasing the racers. A visual observance of a street race would probably be sufficient to get us into an offence territory and into at least the laying of a charge.

I will leave the evidentiary stuff, but it is clear that police across the country have been frustrated with this kind of problem. To now push the Criminal Code down into that territory is probably going to help them enforce a bit more order on the streets where racing has been a problem. It is not necessarily a problem across the country, but it seems to pop up in regions. There have been some very serious implications as a result of the racing that does go on.

I want to move into some technical areas, having said very clearly that I support the initiative. I want to direct my attention and remarks to some technical aspects of the bill, because I think most bills, like this one, need a bit of a tweak, a bit of an adjustment, as they go through committee and the House. I am going to suggest a few areas in which the bill may be inadequate or may have a problem.

The first one has to do with the definition of “street racing”. As I read it, I note that it is really quite simple. The bill states that “street racing means operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place”.

That is okay as it stands, but as I read it, it seems to include what we would call road-rallying. There are organized sport road rallies around the country. People do this quite legally. They do not usually do this in the city, but sometimes they do. This is usually done in a rural area. These drivers use public roads and highways for the road rally. It is essentially a race. The rally drivers are released once every couple of minutes or five minutes. There is a race. It is clocked.

It seems to me that the definition we are using in the bill may criminalize an area of conduct that we just call road-rallying. There are probably hundreds or thousands of road rally enthusiasts out there across the country who may have a concern about this. The bill as it is written now does not exempt this type of organized sport rally activity and seems to criminalize it.

The second area I will call the Formula One road racing, the very highly organized sport racing that happens with professional drivers. Sometimes it happens on a track, but other times it happens on portions of streets and roads in a city or a location where streets and roads have been blocked off, closed or otherwise.

One could argue that if one blocks off the city street that is being used for the Formula One race, it is no longer a public street. It is not really a street any more as it has been blocked off and closed. I suppose I could accept that, but the definition also uses the term “or other public place”. It seems to me that the middle of a city with blocked off streets may still be a “public place”, although there may not be a street.

I think the House and the committee are going to have to look at that to make sure that very justifiable routine Canadian participation in these motor sport events is protected, be it the professional speed driving that happens on tracks or in Formula One racing or similar type sports or road rallying.

The second thing I want to discuss has already been mentioned. There is probably not a solution to this. The definition does not deal with a solo race against the clock. I do not know how often that happens. A solo race against the clock is certainly speeding, but we are back into the evidentiary issues that I referred to earlier. If there is not a race with another car or with more than two cars, this bill would not criminalize it.

The third thing I want to mention is that the bill quite properly sets out penalties for different levels of damage or harm done as a result of the road racing. It also creates motor vehicle licence suspension periods that escalate upward depending on the seriousness. It seems to me as I read it that it is not clear when a second offence occurs.

When someone is convicted a second or third time of this type of offence, there is an escalating penalty, but because the road racing offence is broken down into four or five different parts, it is not clear whether, if someone is convicted of one part and subsequently charged and convicted of a second part of the bill, it constitutes a second road racing offence. It is the way the offences are described in the bill. If it is our intention to have a second or third component of the same Criminal Code prohibition constitute a second offence, then I believe we are going to have to say it much more clearly.

The last thing I want to say is again fairly technical. As I mentioned earlier, the bill criminalizes simple road racing. I would describe that as being on the lower end of anti-social conduct. At times it can produce horrendous results. Speeding is simply bad. I am not saying it is ever good, but speeding recklessly, carelessly, dangerously and criminally negligently is a serious problem.

The bill begins by addressing street racing where it has not reached the threshold of criminal negligence or dangerous driving. It is conceptually not clear to me what our intent is when the road racing activity crosses into this other threshold. It is not clear to me which offence is intended to apply.

If in fact a clear dangerous driving scenario evolved out of a road racing scenario, then it is not clear to me which statute should apply when the police lay charges. In my head, I think it creates some potential double jeopardy scenarios. It might not, but I would like to be able to canvass that further.

On the assumption the bill is adopted at second reading here, I would like to address with more precision the actual legislative intent for road racing which at the same time would constitute criminally negligent driving or dangerous driving under Criminal Code offences.

Those are my remarks on the technical side.

I will close by reiterating that I do recognize, as I think all colleagues in the House do, that street racing is a very serious and potentially dangerous form of activity from place to place. It is quite appropriate for the Criminal Code to reach out, proscribe it and allow our police to do their job in reducing the instances of this right across the country.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member addressed some of the issues around definitions and the possible charges that relate to this bill. There has been some discussion this afternoon about the bill's definition of street racing. The bill defines street racing as “operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place”.

The member addressed some of the issues he saw coming out of that. I wonder if he might also address the fact that there are different kinds of street racing. I do not have the popular vernacular to describe them all. There is the sort of drag race we are all familiar with and which directly involves two vehicles, but I gather that there is also a trend to timed races, where people race to a certain location and whoever gets there first is declared the winner in this bizarre sport. There are also situations that are just time trials, where whoever gets to the location runs a certain course in a certain period.

Does he see that this definition would cover those aspects of street racing? Or is this something that is missing from the current proposal?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is the legislative intent of the drafters. I think this is the same definition that was included in the previous bill in the previous Parliament. On the face of this bill, the definition only includes a circumstance where there is at least one more car involved.

Now, what if the other car happens to leave the starting point 60 seconds later or five minutes later or starts at a location remote from where the first car is? Let us say that one car starts from the Petro-Canada service station at one end of the road and the other car starts from the beer store on the other side of town. Is that two cars racing? I am going to leave that to the hon. member, in all his wisdom, to figure out.

It might come within the ambit of the definition in that it may in fact have two cars, but it is not clear to me that police who would investigate and prosecute would be fully able to present the evidence that there were in fact two cars involved in a race if the police were in only one location. I think that is probably a subject that would warrant further discussion at committee to try to better capture the legislative intent of the bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member. It seems that every time he rises in this place to speak he is not bowing his head and reading from some pages that somebody wrote for him; he is speaking to the House based on his knowledge, experience and research. It is really helpful to have someone who has some experience, as he does, to share some of his insights.

One of the issues that has come up is that this bill's approach to the problem of street racing is to deal with it through the penal system, as it were, but it really does not add anything to the approach in terms of prevention and providing the tools to the jurisdictional authorities who have to enforce these laws under the Criminal Code.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not part of the solution here, and maybe part of any bill dealing with street racing, should in fact address the prevention measures that would be most appropriate to dealing with this as opposed to simply relying solely on deterrence measures.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes a very good point. The bill, on the face of it, does not make an attempt to go out and deal with the deterrents or public education in a direct way. There is hardly a time in my life that I cannot recall a story about one, two, three or more young people in a car, which was involved in some kind of a street race, who were not seriously injured or killed. This seems to happen every few years in a very conspicuous way at some place across the country.

I do not have enough information to answer the member's question properly. The member has raised the point about whether this new law allow police to intervene in a more robust way in communities across the country. Will the bill encourage cities, towns and councillors to perhaps make some place available for racing automobiles, such as an automobile track?

I am assuming that most of the people driving quickly in these road racing scenarios are people under 30 years of age. There could be some older gents and ladies involved as well. The government is trying to send a message to the people, who would drive in this fashion, to look for ways to cause them to rethink their ways and find safer ways to carry on their driving competitions.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at committee, I know the member looks at how legislation has or has not been enacted. He certainly comes from a background where he can see the unintended consequences perhaps of any legislation.

The member described some of the concerns he had about how the bill might be interpreted. Beyond what the government perceives the bill as being, which is something that will deal with the concerns around street racing, does the member see another way of dealing with it? We have talked about prevention, and that is fine. Are there other mechanisms that he can see available to us as legislators to confront the whole issue of street racing? I am sure he has pondered some ideas, and I am interested in hearing some.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the business of preventing crime lies with the federal government. In many areas involving social legislation such as health and welfare, the provinces have a role to play and it interfaces with our education system.

I know that Health Canada, from the federal jurisdiction, invests Canadian taxpayer money in dealing with the war against drugs. Anti-smoking campaigns were very visible, and still are, with I believe a fair bit of federal money involved.

Licensing of driving is very much a provincial matter as is education. Many of the drivers testing the limits of their automobiles seem to be young, but they are not the only offenders, and I understand that. If the bill is passed, and I hope it is, collaboration between the federal government, the National Crime Prevention Council and provincial authorities, which have an interest in educating young people about the real world, the risk of death and injury to themselves and others, I hope might take place and it might produce some salutary benefits.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, would the member comment on the role of popular culture in all of this and of the culture of speed that we have developed around the automobile? We see it in a number of places. We certainly see it in advertising. One current campaign features a young boy saying “zoom, zoom, zoom” as his car speeds by. This is one aspect of that kind of advertising.

I think the advertisers have also seen the concern about the kind of culture they are displaying in their ads. They now put a disclaimer on the screen that these activities are happening on a closed circuit. Clearly, the idea of liability is occurring to them in terms of the kind of speed they are promoting. However, we also see it in movies, in car chases, in the kinds of video games we have and in the whole culture of extreme sports, where risk taking seems to have an extra heavy round of glorification these days.

How does he see street racing fitting into that and how do we address those kinds of cultural aspects of street racing, which are not really addressed in this legislation?