Chuck Cadman

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the attorney general described the legislation as being onerous, time consuming and filled with roadblocks to the successful treatment of young offenders. Others have also complained of the complexity.

I proposed numerous amendments to simplify and reduce the delays in the process, but they were not accepted. The government has had at least six years to improve the youth justice system. Little has changed other than the rhetoric and the name of the legislation. Why?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the attorney general of Ontario held a press conference this morning on the youth criminal justice act. Ontario is just one more opponent to what has been almost universally described as ineffective and inefficient legislation.

This mess will be dropped into the laps of the provinces that must administer it. Why did the government not listen to the provinces? Why is it merely going through the motions of attempting to con Canadians into believing that something is being done to improve the youth justice system?

[Supply, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and to speak in support of the motion.

As we heard from my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia, we have heard many statistics, many studies and many comments, and those certainly have their place in the debate. It gives us some kind of an indication of the scope of the problem when we refer to numbers. Unfortunately, numbers tend to make things cold and impersonal. Human lives are reduced to numbers through statistics. We can never lose sight of the human element in the debate.

I would like to just take a bit of time to make a few comments on my personal experiences with some of these issues.

I recall back to November 4, 1992 when I was watching the evening news in B.C. There was a report about a double homicide in Cloverdale, B.C., which is a community in my city of Surrey. As the report unfolded, we knew that two women had been murdered. That developed over the next couple of days. I recall a couple of days later seeing on the news again a gentleman who was red eyed and crying. He was the father of one of the women.

Unfortunately, I and my family were recoiling at that time from a very specific traumatizing incident two weeks prior to that. I had the man's name so I took it upon myself to find his number and call him. I told him if he ever wanted to talk to let me know. It is an awful way to meet people but Bob and Pat are now among some of my closest friends.

As the story developed, those two women, and I will not name them, shared a house in Cloverdale. One lived downstairs in her basement suite with her three children and one lived upstairs by herself. A gentleman friend of the upstairs tenant paid her a visit. An argument developed over something and eventually he pulled out a knife and stabbed her. The lady in the basement, not knowing what was going on, went upstairs to see what all the ruckus was about. He stabbed her on his way out. The lady upstairs died instantly. The lady downstairs managed to make it out to the street.

The other element in this is that the lady downstairs had three children. Two of those kids were in school that day and that is where they found out what happened to their mother. The four year old was at home and saw the whole thing.

This is how this ties into the debate. When the case was investigated and was before the court, it was discovered that the gentleman friend was stoned on cocaine. He used the defence of cocaine psychosis. In other words, he said he blacked out and did not know what he was doing. Two minutes later there were two women dead as he ran out of the house.

My friend talked about our generation. There was a song by a group back in the sixties called I Got Stoned and I Missed It . I do not buy that kind of defence. We could get into a whole debate about what is an adequate or acceptable defence for killing people and whether cocaine or alcohol intoxication is valid, but that is a debate for another day.

The point is two women are dead, three children are without a mother and one of those children will be completely traumatized for the rest of his life because at four years old he saw his mother stabbed to death. All because of what? Cocaine, an illicit drug. That is part of the human side.

Members in this place have quite frequently heard me talk about how I like to ride along with the RCMP in my community of Surrey. I encourage all members to do the same, not just to have a cup of coffee with them for an hour and talk shop, but to get in the right-hand seat of a police cruiser and spend 12 or 14 hours overnight on a Friday or Saturday. These are usually pretty good nights to find out what goes on in the streets. I try to do that every couple of months with my detachment.

I have had a couple of experiences. It tends to be fairly routine most nights but every once in a while something comes along. I recall one time about a year and a half ago when we got a call very early in the evening about a shoplifter in a supermarket. When we responded to the call the security guard was holding a woman in her mid-thirties with no identification who had stolen three cans of Enfalac, baby formula, a hand puppet and a few little things.

As we questioned her we found out that her welfare cheque had not come and there was no food in the house for the baby. When the officer ran her name through police records he discovered she was on probation and was not supposed to be within 100 metres of the store. She was in breach of her probation.

What could the officer do? Where was the baby? The baby was at the drug recovery house where the mother had been living for nine months. The woman's husband was minding the baby. He was able to visit on weekends because he lived in another drug recovery house.

What could we do? Did the police officer breach her, which means take her to jail right away? No, he did not. He tried to help her and give her a break. The woman was taken to the house where the father, himself a recovering drug addict, was with the six month old child.

The police officer wrote her up and made her promise to appear at the police station the following morning and to appear in court about a month later. He lectured her. I gave her a piece of my mind and told her she was not doing her baby any good. I told her that people were trying to help her. The police officer could have taken her straight to jail but he did not.

I came back to Ottawa. About a month later I received a call from the police officer. The woman had never showed up at the police station and never showed up at court. There is now a double warrant for her arrest. What will happen to the child? That is my concern. Another young child will now go into foster care as a ward of the state. The whole vicious cycle will start over again because of drugs.

What should be done? I could take a hard line against the mother and say we should refuse to help such people. I could say that we give them all the help in the world but they do not want to take it and we should finally say enough is enough. However I am more concerned about the child because we have started the cycle all over again.

It is all too easy to make such judgments, especially if one has never seen how it is on the street. People here should look at the downtown east side of Vancouver or the core of Whalley in Surrey and see the junkies. They are called junkies and losers. I can tell hon. members that they are not. They have problems.

I was on a call one night, again on a ride along, to a house where a man had found his brother dead on the kitchen floor with a syringe beside him. He was in terrible shape. He was skinny, scrawny and dirty. I stood and looked at him and knew he was someone's son. It was the brother who called us. Let us never lose sight of that. We are not dealing with losers. We are dealing with people who have problems and we must do what we can to help them. Some want to be helped and will be helped. Others do not and we must deal with them too. They are all someone's kids.

I have kids of my own. The most traumatic incident in my life was the murder of my son. It was drug related. My son was not involved in drugs but the six people who attacked him and his friends that night were stoned. They had been doing drugs all day long. That is the human side of the issue.

I sense in this place a real mood of co-operation to do something about this issue. We all have different ideas, philosophies and approaches as to what should be done. However it is high time to bring those differences to the table, talk them out and do something. The country cannot take it any more.

[Supply, May 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his remarks. I know that this is something that is very dear to him.

He made a comment about the marijuana problem being infinitesimal, that it was a trivial part of this whole issue. I am not sure if he was referring to the medicinal use of marijuana or the recreational use.

If he was to make a trip out to my part of the country on the west coast he could take a look at the grow ops. We have one grow op pop up every day in my city of Surrey alone. One pound of marijuana goes south across the border and comes back as a pound of cocaine. Marijuana is a monstrous issue out there because of the involvement of organized crime. The cash involved fuels organized crime. It is anything but a trivial issue when it comes to that.

Would he care to clarify his comments?

[Justice, May 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the present Young Offenders Act already provides for discretionary sharing of information in these cases but that process has failed. The new bill simply reintroduces past failures.

The Canadian School Boards Association is supported by its provincial counterparts. Why will the minister not listen to reasonable people from across Canada, people who simply wish to provide every possible support to students and parents who are asking for help?

[Justice, May 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister could answer this question. The Canadian School Boards Association has passed a resolution asking parliament to amend the youth criminal justice act such that justice officials would be compelled to notify school authorities about dangerous young offenders in classrooms.

This amendment would provide for safer learning environments. It would also enable schools to direct necessary assistance to those young persons. Will the Minister of Justice take the step to help school officials provide a safe learning environment in our schools?

[Police Officer Of The Year Award, May 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, May 1 marked the 50th anniversary of the RCMP in Surrey. Many of the detachment's original members attended the ceremonies. On May 1, 1951, there was only one traffic light in Surrey. The detachment now numbers nearly 400 serving a population approaching 350,000.

Last Wednesday the Surrey chamber of commerce hosted the fifth annual Police Officer of the Year awards dinner. Award recipients were: the Arnold Silzer Community Policing Initiative Award to the Surrey Minor Hockey Association; the Police and Business Partnership Award to the Lark Group; the Policing Volunteer of the Year Award to Bill Brand; the Police Municipal Employee of the Year Award to Vivian Thompson; the Police Officer of the Year Award, as nominated by members, employees and volunteers of the Surrey detachment, to Corporal Al Bouchard; and the Police Office of the Year Award, as nominated by the community at large, to Corporal Greg Roche.

Congratulations to this year's award recipients and a sincere thanks to those who have served Surrey with distinction over the past half century.

[Justice, May 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have been woefully deprived of initiative from the Minister of Justice.

As the country's chief attorney general and legal counsel, it is her duty to ensure that the government's actions are above board and compliant with laws and policies. She was noticeably quiet on the Shawinigan affair.

She has failed to bring forth effective youth criminal justice legislation. She has merely off-loaded the problem on to the provinces. It is complicated and riddled with loopholes.

The minister will be responsible for at least doubling law faculties with the increased demand for lawyers to handle all the legal arguments she will cause in our courts. All Canadians will get is new legislation together with a whole host of new problems and difficulties.

The minister was virtually invisible when we discussed the need for a national sex offender registry. It is her department that would devise the scheme, but she has hidden behind the solicitor general, who continues to stick his head in the sand and maintain that CPIC will do the job. How ridiculous.

Then there is the child custody issue. In spite of an extensive subcommittee review and report, she seems afraid to do anything. She wants to study it more.

Perhaps it is time for the minister to move on.

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated at the beginning of the debate, the standing committee in its infinite wisdom decided to deem the bill as not votable.

What we are doing today is placing the issue on the political agenda. Hopefully in some not too distant future, the government would change and realize the importance of amending the criminal code to address the shortcomings of the sentencing provisions concerning auto theft.

The Minister of Justice is on record as recognizing the issue. In 1999 she stated “The public has a very strong interest in dealing with auto theft. It is a growing crime in terms of the number of people whose property is being stolen”. However, rather than deal with the criminals who are creating this strong interest and concern over property, she put some money toward educating Canadians on how not to leave their keys in the ignition. I wonder if the minister is aware of the term punched ignition switch.

It seems to be the way of the government, spend tax dollars to make it appear that something is being done. Heaven forbid that we should try to hold criminals accountable for their actions.

Earlier I deliberately avoided mentioning youth involvement in the auto theft industry. Whenever I bring up youth crime I am criticized and characterized as wanting to gang up on our youth by locking them up and throwing away the key. Those who know me know differently.

However according to police statistics, about 40% of the cars in Canada are stolen by youths between the ages of 12 and 17, and only 12% are ever caught. What does that teach impressionable youth? It teaches them that they can steal cars and get away with it. Who do organized crime recruiters seek out? I suggest that young car thieves with successful and profitable track records appear quite attractive to organized crime recruiters.

We need to address youthful criminality early. We should not and cannot wait until it is too late and they develop into more professional and experienced criminals. We are doing an injustice to those youth by allowing them to get away with the crime at an early age. We are doing an injustice to our society by permitting the initial training ground in crime to flourish and mature into more sophisticated activity.

For those who think that car theft is not really a danger to our society, I wish to relate the instance of the 13 year old driver of a stolen car who was involved in a crash that killed 16 year old Sarah Machado in Vancouver. The 13 year old driver was linked to an organized ring of juvenile thieves, many too young to drive legally. According to evidence obtained by the police the 13 year old driver was being followed by friends in two stolen Jeep Cherokees. As they were not involved in the crash, they escaped.

Let us think about that for a moment. An organized ring of offenders as young as 13 and 14 involved in stealing motor vehicles. Why? It is because it does not seem like much of a concern to the government.

If we refuse to address these crimes within Canada I ask that we think about what we are doing to foreign countries. As I have said, an increasing number of stolen vehicles are making their way into sealed shipping containers. They make their way to the docks in Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax and are shipped overseas. It has been described as our fastest growing export business. I do not think this is what the Minister for International Trade has in mind when he promotes exports. When these illegal exports reach other countries I do not think it is a legitimate businessman who takes ultimate possession of the vehicle.

We are helping corrupt those other countries by assisting their own illegal organizations and by inducing individuals to become involved in the questionable activity of buying hot motor vehicles.

Some might think I am exaggerating the problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates that the ordinary thief who steals a Jeep Grand Cherokee earns a tax free $150 to $500 upon delivery. The ringleader of the organized crime enterprise pays about $2,500 for the Jeep to be packed in a container and shipped abroad. When the Jeep arrives at its destination it is sold for twice the Canadian market value, in the neighbourhood of $100,000, a nice tidy profit to the crime boss of about $97,000 for just one motor vehicle.

Surely we should have more serious punishment for multiple car thieves. We need to discourage the activity to a far greater degree than we are at present.

In my home town of Surrey it is said that there is a motor vehicle theft every 90 minutes. Last year Surrey RCMP had three officers in its stolen auto unit. They have little hope of keeping pace with the crime. As parliamentarians we must do our utmost to provide them with the tools to control this illegal and mushrooming activity. The bill would have been a step in the right direction.

The parliamentary secretary said the statistics are going down. A few years ago I was returning home from playing a recreational hockey game. When I rounded a corner with my wife on our final six blocks home I saw flashing red lights in the distance and knew there had been a serious car accident.

My daughter and her friend had left the arena about a half hour before us and this was directly on our way home. As hon. members can imagine, my heart went into my throat. Fortunately it was not my daughter or her friend. I found out from friends on the police force that it was a 34 year old lady who had been on her way home from a church meeting, travelling along 88th Avenue through a green light.

Another fellow going north on 144th Street, a young man with a serious lengthy record of multiple auto theft and well known to police, was driving past the police and giving them the finger, yelling at them and not paying any attention. He ran through a red light and T-boned the lady's car and killed her. He drove her right across the street, through a fence and into a yard and killed her instantly.

When dealing with these kinds of things let us forget about statistics. I do not care if the statistics are coming down. This was a person involved in multiple repeat auto thefts.

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2001]

moved that Bill C-250, an act to amend the Criminal Code (theft of a motor vehicle), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to again rise to speak about one of my private member's initiatives. Once again the Liberal majority on the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has decided, for whatever reason, to make this initiative a non-votable matter.

I will not go into a rant about that, but suffice it to say I have to wonder why a select few members of this place are able to control all private members' business to the extent that they and only they decide which issues have even a modicum of opportunity to become law within the country.

It is no secret that many members from all sides of the House have become frustrated and disenchanted with the present scheme, but it will never change unless the government backbenchers forget about the carrots at the end of the stick the Prime Minister continues to hold out for them. Members of this place should be doing what is right for the country. I said I would not get into a rant, so I will move on to Bill C-250.

Bill C-250 is a relatively simple bill. Its purpose is to ensure that a person who is convicted of more than one theft of a motor vehicle receives a minimum of four years' imprisonment for every conviction following the first conviction.

The bill is aimed at the repeat car thief. Before those on the other side and perhaps the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert attack me once again for being too tough on our poor misguided criminal offenders, I will point out that I am specifically aiming the legislation at the professional car thief.

As most of us know, professional car thievery is more and more attributable to organized crime. I will illustrate the affiliation between repeat car thieves and organized crime in a few moments.

It would not be entirely correct to claim that this proposal is only aimed at organized criminals in the normal definition of that term. We have a number of criminal organizations that have developed a specialty of stealing motor vehicles just as a form of illegal activity. They might just be a couple of individuals who want to supplement their annual income or they may in fact live for the benefits of their illegal enterprise.

In any case, auto theft is and should be of great concern to the Canadian public. We are all well aware of our increased auto insurance rates due to the escalation in motor theft. From 1986 to 1997, auto thefts in Canada increased by 94%. In 1997, 187,500 vehicles were reported stolen. The problem costs the insurance industry approximately $600 million annually. It only stands to reason that most if not all of that $600 million cost of motor vehicle theft is passed on from insurance companies to those of us who have to insure our vehicles.

Why has motor vehicle theft become such a growth industry? There are a number of factors.

First, with the sophistication of these professional offenders, there is relatively low risk. Most of us have to leave our vehicles outside at some point during the day: when we go shopping, when we drive them to work, when we leave them at the local transit parking lot, or even overnight while we are sleeping. Motor vehicles are often left unattended for minutes or hours at a time and are so common that thieves can approach them with little fear of attracting attention.

Second, there is a high return. With motor vehicle prices rising toward a common value of $30,000 and beyond, it becomes very profitable for crooks to specialize in auto theft.

Third, there is an avoidance of income taxes. Regardless of what the Minister of Finance says, income taxes are particularly burdensome to most of our citizens. One of the exceptions to the cumbersome weight of taxes is the criminal element. Auto thieves avoid paying high taxes or any taxes at all by chopping or disassembling motor vehicles and selling the parts to the parts industry. They also obtain vehicle identification numbers from wrecks, reattach those numbers to stolen vehicles and essentially put a new and improved auto back onto the streets.

I will divert myself for just a moment to give the House just one example of how devastating this practice of switching vehicle identification numbers, or VINs, can be to the unsuspecting buyer. Just last week it was reported how Tammy Mulvey of Ottawa was victimized by this scheme. She is a 22 year old who works for a mobile canteen company. I can just imagine how proud she was when she purchased her first car for $8,000, a 1993 Honda Civic. I do not know that I can imagine how she felt when the police helped a tow truck driver take it away. It was stolen.

Tammy had little protection. She bought the vehicle with a VIN that was free and clear from problems or legal claims. Unfortunately, that VIN did not belong to the car she bought. It was identified by the police as part of a $10 million international motor vehicle theft ring. Tammy was the loser, a victim because that car actually belonged to someone else. A loss of $8,000 at the age of 22 is a nasty life experience for someone just starting out.

What are some of the other factors that ensure that motor vehicle theft is a growth industry? As the example illustrates, organized crime finds it quite profitable. Organized crime also finds many other uses for its ill-gotten gains. Police are convinced that many, if not most, of the biker gangs drive stolen vehicles and motorcycles. With motorcycles it is relatively easy to have three or four individuals pick up a Harley off the street and throw it into the back of a pickup.

We have all heard stories about how criminals use stolen vehicles to commit crimes, crimes like drug trafficking and armed robbery just to mention a couple. A car is stolen. It is used in the offence and is then dumped through various means.

Stolen vehicles with fraudulent paperwork can become a currency within organized crime activity. These vehicles are traded for other items of value. Stolen vehicles have been bartered for drugs from foreign countries. Apparently it is quite simple to ship motor vehicles in those sealed international shipping containers we have all seen travelling across the world on ships, trains and trucks. Many North American vehicles are worth double their value in many foreign countries.

It has become very profitable for organized criminals to steal a luxury vehicle, put it in a shipping container, put it on a ship and sell it to a wealthy buyer, with no questions asked and no international vehicle tracking system in place. We should recognize that many countries have few car dealerships and high tariffs on imported vehicles. These criminals are filling a void that cries out for this form of activity.

The last thing I will discuss about the causes of auto theft as a growth industry has to do with the little risk of jail time for the offence. We have enough difficulty convincing the Liberal government to impose jail time for violent offences. Auto theft is not a violent offence. Our courts often look at auto theft as being protected by car insurance. We all lose a bit but no one suffers a great deal. That is absolutely wrong headed.

Why should we be sponsoring criminals who refuse to abide by the norms of society and who sponge on all law-abiding citizens? Why should we be permitting organized criminals to expand their enterprises, to expand their influence and to increase the threat to society when it is so easy to address just one aspect of their operations? The bill would impose a mandatory minimum sentence of four years on professional vehicle thieves.

I will now provide some anecdotal support for what I have been saying. An RCMP intelligence report dealing with a multimillion dollar organized crime ring whereby luxury cars were stolen and shipped overseas stated:

These groups, motivated by the low risk, huge profits and light penalties associated with auto theft, are operating virtual stolen-car pipelines.

The ring then funnelled hundreds of thousands of dollars to a terrorist organization, according to the RCMP report. We can see how profits from the theft of motor vehicles generates far more serious and dangerous criminal activities. The director of RCMP criminal intelligence said:

There has also been increasing use of violence, including car-jackings and home invasions, to obtain cars.

The president of the Canadian Police Association listed auto theft as one of the major activities of organized crime. Constable Jim Messner of the RCMP auto theft squad in Calgary says that his city has become a shipping hub for stolen high priced vehicles for organized crime rings. He said:

There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of unrecovered stolen vehicles is a result of organized crime. We know organized crime groups have stolen vehicles for a number of things, including transporting contraband.

In one weekend last year, 31 vehicles were stolen in Burnaby, B.C. I do not have the figure for how many were stolen that particular weekend for Vancouver, Surrey, New Westminster or North Vancouver, but 31 vehicles for the Burnaby portion of the lower mainland is a symptom of a major problem. In one seven day period last year, 128 vehicles were reported stolen from the streets of Ottawa. According to Statistics Canada about 450 vehicles are stolen every day in Canada.

All these statistics are in spite of car owners having to ensure their vehicles are locked each and every time they are left alone, and in spite of anti-theft devices and car alarms. Motor vehicle theft is a matter of significant public interest. Unfortunately it does not seem to be of any significant government interest as it has decided not to make the bill votable.

In a recent operation against organized crime police from Canada and the United States were able to lay 270 charges and recover close to $10 million in stolen vehicles. Some 193 vehicles were recovered from as diverse a distribution as Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, Texas, Florida and Panama.

For any of those listening who do the math most of the vehicles recovered were from the high end of the motor vehicle industry. Lincoln Navigators, Volvos and Mercedes were particularly attractive to these individuals. Twenty-five people were arrested and at that time the police had warrants for twenty-four others.

It is most unfortunate that many will get a slap on the wrist for stealing vehicles. The authorities will only be able to guess how many vehicles passed through this organization successfully while our police were forced to expend scarce resources on their enterprise. More than 150 officers were involved in this takedown.

It is obviously time to change the law. It is not right that we merely warehouse these individuals for a few months. For them it is merely an opportunity to rest up before returning to our communities to pick up where they left off. For them these lenient sentences are nothing more than a cost of doing business. We must show that as parliamentarians we are very serious about addressing this form of crime.