Mr. Speaker, I know that my hon. colleague from Burnaby—Douglas has taken a keen interest in the debate today and has been very active.
I will address his first comment relating to charges and why in fact this needs to be changed; if already the provisions exist within the Criminal Code, why would we have to strengthen them? As I mentioned, with regard to the judgments that have been read, it is not just the current government that is calling for the changes, law enforcement officers across the country have said that there seems to be a problem with the actual judgments being handed down for those who are engaging in the activity of street racing. What can we do in essence to respond to that, to make it tougher, to give more teeth within the law to send the message?
Making this change sends a clear message, especially in the cases where people are charged with this particular behaviour, that the judgments need to be severe, that they need to be bumped up and that they need to have a mandatory minimum. That is exactly what we are trying to do by introducing Bill C-19, to strengthen those particular aspects of the mandatory minimums and to have, hopefully, judges enforce them once the change is made.
This is where the law enforcement community especially feels let down. While they go through the trouble of apprehending these offenders, the actual judgments do not reflect the type of penalties that are required in order to deter this sort of behaviour. It is not just us calling for this; it is law enforcement officers, those who are working, Constable Wynnyk, for example. We need to give them the support in the judgments after people are charged with these type of offences. This is why we have recommended that this particular provision be strengthened.
My hon. colleague raised the issue of vehicles and speed. I am not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination so I cannot get into some of the arguments of why cars are built with certain speed limits and some are not and why that sort of speed is needed. Obviously there is a significant part of the industry that is related to legal street racing and cars that legally race and train. Clearly there is a need for cars to be built with engines that can exceed certain speeds.
If the hon. member has issue with the current speed limits on current vehicles on the roads, maybe he would like to make some proposals as to what we could do to address that or perhaps he could take it up with the vehicle manufacturers directly. It might be a particular issue with which he would want to deal.