House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 46% of the vote.
Petitions June 17th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition regarding the situation in Sri Lanka.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to use every means possible to end the violence in Sri Lanka and begin the process of working towards lasting peace and reconciliation between the government and the Tamil Tigers that would see full respect of the human rights of all Sri Lankans.
Transcona, Manitoba June 17th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, June 6, I had the pleasure of attending the Transcona Hi Neighbour Festival. The festival is the celebration of Transcona's rich culture and proud history. Thousands gathered to watch the Hi Neighbour parade, which included floats from businesses and non-profits across Transcona.
That same week, I had the deep honour to attend the Transcona Legion No. 7 for its celebration and remembrance of the 65th anniversary of D-Day. I stood with Paul Martin, a D-Day veteran and former mayor of Transcona, one of hundreds of brave Transcona residents to defend Canada and the world on the beaches of Normandy.
As part of the occasion I was able to lay a wreath at the Transcona cenotaph. My wreath, along with that of Daryl Reid, MLA for Transcona, and Russ Wyatt, councillor for Transcona ward, represented all levels of government coming together to honour Transcona's heroes and Canada's heroes.
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I simply mentioned it to illustrate that the changes in technology issue has been a long time coming. Ten years ago, the Conservative Government of Ontario was looking at a smart card proposition. It was going to do that in conjunction with the banks, which were bringing out a smart banking card.
I believe that certainly half the problem is getting rid of the cards we have right now, which are the cause of a lot of the problems.
In any event, I would like to ask the member whether he agrees with that or whether he has any observations about where the smart card program is going to take us.
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, like auto theft, identity theft requires a multi-pronged approach. We need strong criminal laws, which we are dealing with in this bill and which are long overdue. We need resourced police investigators. As I indicated before, we have examples in Winnipeg where people complain about credit card fraud and they are told to take a number with the 30 other people in line and to consider it a civil matter because the police do not have either the resources or the legislative power to deal with it.
The member mentioned that a more alert, more informed consumer is very important. However, we also need to deal with more technology, more secure smart cards. This has been an issue for quite a number of years.
As a matter of fact, the first smart cards were looked at by the Bob Rae government back in 1990, when it was looking at how many Americans--
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's speech was good as usual, although this time I have some differences to take up with him on some of his points.
When people are victims of identity theft or credit card abuses, they are already under a lot of stress when they find out about this issue. Then when they go to the police, they are told that it is a civil matter, that they need to take a number and they will be dealt with at some point.
When the member suggests perhaps there is some body of evidence out there that perhaps civil courts could handle issues like this, in real terms people will not be encouraged or happy to be told that. They will have to take someone to small claims court, but if it is an identity theft situation, they may not even know the person who stole the identity in the first place.
Another issue is the credit card companies do not want to tell people what happened with their cases. They put the cone of silence around the situation and do not report back to them, so they may never know who used their cards. We should require credit card companies to report back to people and let them know who did what and give a resolution of the case.
It is very important we have this federal legislation so the police forces cannot step aside—
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I noticed one very important point that I thought should be brought to our attention. The RCMP normally takes the view that this is a civil matter. I have lots of examples of credit card theft. The person goes to the RCMP, is told to take a number, that 20 people have been in before the individual and it will get around to it when it gets around to it because it is a civil matter.
To the extent that this bill would give the RCMP more powers to get involved in this kind of activity is a very good thing and we should proceed with it as quickly as possible. When people who do this kind of stuff realize there are really no consequences, they will repeat what worked for them the first time.
Could the member further his comments on that?
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the member made an excellent presentation.
I would like to ask him a question, but I am not sure that he has the answer. The question has to do with lawyers who are increasingly having problems with clients who present a false identity to get mortgage loans. I would like to know whether or not the mortgage loans aspect is part of the scope of this bill. Does he know the answer?
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the member to get the insurance corporation in B.C., which is a huge corporation, to follow what Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation has done and offer free immobilizers to the most at risk cars and solve the problem that way.
I personally have no problem with the bait car program. If the member wants to drive one out to Manitoba and make the thing work at 40° below zero in January, I will be there with him to watch him do it.
In terms of the mandatory minimums, I have already told him that we support the bill as written. We say that the government should have brought in the legislation last year. We would have supported it then.
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. It baffles me that the Insurance Bureau of Canada would not be taking the Manitoba experience and basically advocating to all of its hundred members, the private insurance companies of Canada, to bring in a similar program.
What we did was provide free immobilizer installation and an insurance discount on top of that. Perhaps the insurance companies think that it is going to be a difficult program for them to administer, or it is going to cost them some short-term money. Obviously they are having some investment problems at the moment, with their investments being cut by the recession. If they had a sincere interest in trying to reduce auto theft and auto theft insurance losses in as dramatic a fashion as we have in Manitoba, then yes indeed, they would be doing the same thing. It is a mystery to me why they have not followed suit and tried to encourage their members to do the same thing.
I am not even sure if the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which is a publicly owned system, has copied Manitoba's system and provided free immobilizers to the drivers in British Columbia, but it ought to try. It could add that to its bait car program and maybe they would get an even bigger bang for their buck.
Criminal Code June 16th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, certainly the member is correct that in Montreal, the car theft rate is very high and there is only a 30% recovery, which means that cars are being stolen by people driving tow trucks, who pick up the cars and drive them away. We are not going to be able to solve that with immobilizers.
The whole idea behind the immobilizer is that the car cannot start without a key. In the old days and with older vehicles, people hot-wired cars from the ignitions. The old Chryslers from 15 years ago were easy to do. Any of us here could probably learn how to do it in a matter of minutes. All we have done is we have made certain that the systems to start the car are disabled and they can only be started with a particular key.
The problem is that there are some unapproved immobilizers that housed the deactivation system in the steering wheel column. There were also some systems that only disabled two of the systems on the vehicle. The type that we say one has to have is based on the national standard of Canada, the ULC-S338/98, which says that it has to immobilize all three of the systems in the car to be eligible for the insurance discount and for the vehicle to be registered.
There is a certain amount of confusion in the market when people say, “I have an immobilizer. I was told there was one when I bought the car”, and then we find out that it is not the one that qualifies for the discount because no one has stolen a car with that system in it and driven away. They may steal the whole car with that system, as they do in Montreal, but in Manitoba they have not stolen one yet that they have been able to drive away.