Thank you for that, Mr. Speaker.
I truly appreciate how special it is to rise on behalf of my constituents and propose legislation that we will debate, voted on and hopefully pass.
I want to talk a bit about my very large riding that takes in the beautiful Qu'Appelle Valley, with its many lakes and rivers, Big Quill Lake in the north and a large piece of the city of Regina. When one has a riding that is so diverse, it is often difficult to pick just one item to sponsor in the form of a private member's bill. There are so many different kinds of issues facing the riding, but I decided to tackle something that affects my entire riding, rural and urban alike.
For many years Regina has had the title of the car theft capital of Canada. In many years, per capita, more car thefts have occurred there than in any other city in Canada. Thanks to the hard work of the Regina police force and city officials, and I should commend our chief of police specifically and our mayor, that rate has begun to come down. However, Regina is still victim to an inordinately high number of car thefts every year.
Over the past decade the story is the same all across Canada. Vehicle theft rates have doubled in London and Hamilton, tripled in Regina and more than quadrupled in Winnipeg. This has resulted in a large increase in rates in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in particular. In 2000-01 large increases were also reported in Victoria, which was up 55%, and in Edmonton, which was up 39%. However, it is not just cities.
I will tell hon. members about a small but beautiful farming town called Abernethy. There are just 200 or so people who live in the town and on surrounding farms. I was summoned by my constituents from that town to attend a town hall meeting to discuss a crime wave this summer. A town of just 200 people an hour outside of Regina had suffered almost 20 stolen cars in a short period of time. Assuming that every household has at least one vehicle, that is a rate of somewhere between 10% and 20%, which is very shocking. Clearly this issue needs to be addressed.
My bill would do several important things for which stakeholders have been calling for years.
First, the bill would create a separate and specific criminal offence for stealing a car. Currently, the most likely charge arising from someone stealing a car is being charged with theft of over $5,000. If a car is stolen that is worth less than that, a lesser charge along with a lesser sentence, is applied.
As the Insurance Bureau of Canada has said, should it matter if it is a luxury vehicle or a 10 year old sedan? A car theft is a car theft. Should it be more of a crime to steal a car from a rich person than to steal a car from a working class family? I would venture to guess that the majority of households across Canada own a car that is probably worth less than $5,000 and often that is the car they use to take children to school, bring elderly parents to appointments, get to work on time and everything else for which we all use our vehicles. To have the vehicle stolen, it should not matter if it is a luxury Lexus, BMW, a minivan or a 10 year old sedan.
Second, my bill would establish minimum sentences for a first, second and subsequent offence. This is a very important measure and something of which I am glad to see our government doing more. On the first offence, a conviction would result in a fine of not less than $1,000, or imprisonment for a term of not less than three months, or both. On a second offence, a conviction would result in a fine of not less than $5,000, or imprisonment for a term of not less than six months, or both. On a third conviction, being charged as an indictable offence, the fine would be not less than $10,000 and imprisonment for a term of not less than two years.
Why do we need minimum sentences? Right now in Canada there are too many inconsistencies in sentencing. Repeat and dangerous offenders are getting sentences that are quite frankly, too lenient. A study that came out just over a year ago, which was consistent with previous studies, indicated that the typical auto thief was not somebody just out joyriding. Rather he was a 27 year old male, addicted to drugs, who had 10 prior criminal convictions, not charges but convictions. He stole cars to commit other crimes. This is an important fact to remember. Several studies from police groups, insurance providers and others indicate that these cars are being stolen to commit other crimes or because of involvement in organized crime.
Let us talk about organized crime involved in the matter of car thefts. I spoke with the Insurance Bureau of Canada this very afternoon and I would like to share a few of the stats that it told me.
First, the rate of recovery has been significantly lowered in Canada over the past few years. It used to be that over 90% of stolen cars were recovered by the police. Now that number is falling to closer to 70%. Stolen cars were often used for joyriding, often young people out at night, stealing a car, riding around for awhile and then ditching it, so it was easy for the police to recover the car at the end of the night or the next morning, or it was used to commit another crime, most often a break and entry.
One police officer in Regina said that it was not the luxury cars that were often targeted, but ordinary pickup trucks, as thieves, who were breaking into a home, needed a way to haul away their loot. They would steal a pickup truck, drive it to the site of the break and entry, break into the home, steal some property, drive it away and then ditch the truck.
Often that car or truck would be recovered, but nowadays, there is a prevalence in organized crime of stealing the cars to be chopped or to be sold overseas. I was told today that if a car is stolen anywhere along the St. Lawrence Seaway, there is about a 30% chance that by the end of the week, that car is on a ship going overseas. There is an interesting number. In 1996 Polish police reported the seizure of 11,000 vehicles from North America, 70% of which were Canadian, so clearly there is a market overseas for stolen cars that are obtained in Canada.
My bill would deal with this. It would address these repeat offenders and it would go a long way toward addressing the involvement of organized crime. It also contains these escalating penalties. What are the benefits of escalating penalties for an offence? It lets first-time offenders know that the treatment they receive from the criminal justice system will only get worse. It encourages them to take seriously some of the alternative measures that are available to them.
This kind of activity places a high burden on the Canadian public, not just taxpayers but also regular car owners who pay premiums. In fact, the Insurance Bureau of Canada states that in higher premiums alone, $600 million a year goes to compensate for the loss of stolen vehicles. It is closer to $1 billion when we take into account all the court time, the police time and the investigative research that is done. Often it is not the police forces themselves that conduct these investigations. It is the insurance providers, the underwriters of the insurance bureau that engage in these investigative activities. The police do not have the resources, so it is the private sector, and that is often recouped by higher premiums for car owners.
As a taxpayer, I believe money spent on prisons is money well spent. When we look at what governments spend money on, whether it is bureaucratic waste, corporate welfare or nanny state programs, which provide little to no return on the investment of taxpayers, and compare that to money spent on locking up dangerous offenders and keeping our streets safe, I think most Canadians would agree with me.
Many hon. colleagues will tell me that putting more criminals in jail will cost money, and that is true. However, as I mentioned, it is money well spent. The question becomes this. Is there a more cost effective way to deal with these criminals?
Some will say that more money for social programming will have the same effect in reducing crimes for less money and fewer people facing incarceration. I agree that this may be true for young people or for first-time criminals, but once a criminal steals his third, fourth or even tenth car, he is no longer troubled or at risk. He is a car thief. As well, one has to consider the substantial savings from the insurance premiums, from the court costs and from the policing costs and that any new money that might have to go into prisons or capacity in jails will largely be offset by those savings.
Members should also consider the benefits of the deterrent effect of these tougher sentences. If criminals know they will be dealt with harshly, they will be less likely to steal cars and therefore will not be charged and will not go to jail.
In 2001 Statistics Canada reported that in the year 2000 the per capita rate of auto theft was 26% higher in Canada than it was in the United States and that Canada's rate had surpassed the level of the United States for the previous five years. Moreover police reported that rates of motor vehicle theft were higher among Canadian urban centres with populations over 500,000 than among American cities with populations exceeding 500,000. Canada has recently ranked fifth out of seventeen countries for the highest rate of auto theft, and it is easy to see why.
In the U.S. many states have very tough penalties. They have a specific offence for the theft of a motor vehicle and they have correspondingly high sentences for that. As we can see from these statistics, one of the factors has resulted in a lower rate of car theft in the U.S. than in Canada.
Having that lower rate of incidents would save taxpayers' money and would dramatically increase the personal security of Canadians. I think that is a huge priority for this government and something which every member of the House would want to work toward.
Our government has taken some very real steps toward improving the safety of our streets. We have cracked down on criminals who use guns. We have eliminated house arrest for a large number of criminals. We have brought in tough three strikes legislation for dangerous offenders. My bill follows in that vein. It establishes three strikes guaranteed prison time. I believe all members should find something in this bill to support.
In the last Parliament my colleague from Langley introduced a similar bill. At the time, the Liberal parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice said this:
What sort of messaging is being sent when his [meaning an offender] conviction by indictment would have a maximum penalty of five years, in other words, cutting the maximum penalty in half?
My hon. colleague felt that the previous version of the bill was flawed because the maximum penalty was only five years. I have remedied that situation. I can inform all hon. members that my bill contains a maximum penalty on indictment of 10 years for the third or subsequent offence.
The then parliamentary secretary went on to say:
Therefore, the use of mandatory minimum sentences, as found in Bill C-293, could be contrary to the established Canadian sentencing principles, such as proportionality and restraint in the use of imprisonment.
I believe that too often it is the restraint in the use of imprisonment by judges that leads to spikes in criminal activity. If repeat offenders were dealt more prison time, they would be out on the streets less and therefore would have less ability to commit crimes. As I mentioned before, the average car thief has 10 prior convictions.
As well, my bill contains a mandatory minimum sentence of two years only on the third offence. This fits in with the principle of proportionality, dealing with someone who has already established a pattern of offending. We can look at all kinds of offences such as violent assaults, rapes and child molestations that are being committed by offenders who are either out on probation or who have served their complete sentence because their sentence was too light to begin with.
Repeat offenders are better off in jail than in our communities. Once an offender commits a second, third, or fourth crime, he is declaring himself unfit for life in society and is showing his need to be removed. He has forfeited his rights to personal freedom and personal liberty.
I am a big believer in rehabilitation. I do believe that many criminals can be saved, or at risk people can be saved before they commit crimes, with preventive measures like work training, drug and alcohol treatment and anger management. But at what point does society say that enough is enough, and we are not going to subject ourselves to yet another offence by the same person, and put that person in jail? I think three strikes is a fair proposal.
I do want to tell my hon. colleagues that I am open to their suggestions on how to make this bill better. I am eager to work in a constructive way to get this bill passed, and I am open to any amendments that would help make that happen. However, the main thrust of the bill, guaranteed prison time for repeat offenders, is crucial. It is Parliament's job to set the parameters for sentencing for the courts. It is within our rights as legislators to instruct the courts on this matter.
I did not arrive at this conclusion in isolation. Many organizations across Canada are asking for this type of legislation. Richard Duben, the vice-president of investigative services at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said, “This is a serious, often violent crime”--meaning car thefts--“that is putting the safety and security of our communities at risk. We desperately need stronger laws to curb auto theft, particularly for the repeat offenders causing so much of the problem. We are delighted to see the member for Regina--Qu'Appelle taking the initiative on this important public safety issue and we hope to see his bill passed into law”.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police passed a resolution specifically asking for a separate criminal offence for vehicle theft. The association passed a resolution calling on the government to do just that. My bill accomplishes this goal in setting aside a specific offence in the Criminal Code for theft of a motor vehicle. As I mentioned, the three strikes guaranteed prison time is also a key matter.
I would ask all hon. colleagues to go home during the two break weeks in March and randomly pick some constituents' names out of the phone book, call them, and ask them if they think someone who has been convicted of car theft for the third time should be sentenced to at least two years in jail. I predict that the majority of people will ask why it is only for two years. I offer two years as a starting point for debate. I understand we are in a minority Parliament and there are parties with different priorities. A sentence longer than two years might even be worth it. I urge my colleagues to ask their constituents if they think a sentence of two years for a third conviction for stealing someone's car is too harsh. I predict that most, if not all, members will come back here with the majority saying it is not long enough.
