Mr. Speaker, I sat with members from all parties on the justice committee and in a sense worked with the bill that the hon. member has moved here in the House. This is a bill whose time has come.
I want to address one thing in my remarks which I do not think has been mentioned here tonight and that is that the existence of a separate theft offence will now allow the development of a separate and more focused jurisprudence with respect to the offence of auto theft.
In other words, prosecutors, judges, insurance industry executives, and offenders will be able to observe a specific pattern of sentencing, of procedure, to charge and convict based on certain protocols or understandings in different provinces and different cities with respect to the concept of the second offence.
It is a healthy thing to allow communities to deal with the cause of crime and to try and impose some sense of deterrence, keeping in mind that deterrence for the most part, and I may be disagreeing with my colleague here to some degree, is not based on the seriousness of the penalty attached to the offence. Deterrence is actually more a function of the likelihood to be caught and charged, so that is a police enforcement issue.
I feel that this new section dealing specifically with auto theft would allow for improved mechanisms of enforcement and some of those have already been mentioned in debate here.
I congratulate the member and also indicate my support for the bill.