Tom Lukiwski

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I withdraw the last comment.

Let me rephrase this. At committee, at one point in the not too distant past, the Minister of Justice had committed to the member for Winnipeg Centre that there would be a new access to information act presented at committee. In fact, there was no such act. There was only a discussion paper. This is one more example of how this government does not want Canadians to have access to information. We must reappoint Mr. Reid.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am on the access to information committee. Let me remind the hon. member that all opposition members of that committee unanimously endorsed the extension for Mr. Reid for one more year with a proviso that the extension could go beyond one year.

The member also states that Mr. Reid does not want this. That is absolutely not true. Mr. Reid has been consulted and has said that if asked he would gladly serve in that capacity for another year. To suggest that Mr. Reid does not want to continue in that capacity is absolutely false.

Again, I would point out to the hon. member that we have discussed this at committee extensively. Once again, for the record, all members of the committee except the Liberals agreed unanimously to extend Mr. Reid's contract by one year.

As I mentioned in my opening address, a precedent has been set, because this government, without consultation or with very little consultation, determined to extend the contract of the Governor General by one year, because, as the Liberals put it, of the political instability of the current government. They felt that having some continuity in that position would actually strengthen the confidence that all Canadians have in what might be a short term government.

Mr. Reid's purview is such that he would be the one responsible for overseeing the transition of this new act that may be coming forth. I must say, because I see the member for Winnipeg Centre entering the House, that--

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

They want a Liberal lapdog in that position.

When the new Access to Information Act is introduced in the House, the members opposite want someone appointed to that position who has no prior knowledge or experience so they can lead the new information commissioner by the nose, with a ring in the nose, and tell that person what to do and what not to do. They do not want somebody who is impartial. They do not want somebody who knows what cabinet confidentiality is all about.

How can we allow this to happen? How can any Canadian allow this to happen?

In the last year we have seen information come out of the Gomery commission that pertains to the largest political scandal in Canadian history. All I have heard from members opposite are these comments: this was a rogue group of politicians; it did not reflect on the Liberals; we want to get to the bottom of this; we are mad as hell and we will not stop until we get all of the answers. How can they say that?

How can Liberals stand in the House with any credibility and state to the Canadian public that they actually want to get to the bottom of this incident when exactly the type of legislation Mr. Reid is proposing that we introduce would prevent this from happening? They should be endorsing Mr. Reid's appointment or reappointment and yet they are not.

I see members opposite chuckling, because they know that once again they are pulling a fast one on the Canadian public. They think this is humorous. They think this is funny. This is serious business. I am absolutely offended by members who think they can get away with another one.

Eventually the Canadian public will understand what those members opposite are all about. They are about trying to suppress information rather than letting Canadians access information. This is something that all Canadians and parliamentarians in the House should absolutely reject with every fibre and ounce of strength they have.

Eventually this motion will come to the floor of the House; at least I am hoping that it will. I am convinced that all members on this side of the House and members of the New Democratic Party will endorse Mr. Reid's reappointment for one year. I can say right now without fear of retribution that we will see members opposite rejecting or attempting to reject the appointment of Mr. Reid. This is a government that has lost all credibility and should have lost all confidence of the Canadian public when it comes time to talk about things like transparency and accountability.

Let me conclude by saying that while the members have talked the talk, again they have not walked the walk. If members opposite are serious about transparency, accountability and openness in government, I invite them to stand in their places today and join with me in asking for the immediate extension for John Reid as Information Commissioner of this Parliament.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

Perhaps that is the reason, that he does his job and he does it well.

Again, we find certain members on the Liberal side of the House who oppose his extension. They oppose an individual who has served in his position with distinction and who will, if he has his way, bring procedures into the Access to Information Act that will strengthen the act.

This is a situation where once again we see members on the opposite side of the House saying one thing and doing another. All they are doing, in my opinion, is giving lip service to the fact that they want more openness and transparency in government while their actions are doing everything but that.

In my estimation we cannot allow this to happen. I would love to hear one good reason why Mr. Reid's contract should not be extended but the Liberals have not given one. All they are saying is that they oppose it, which is absolutely shameful.

Mr. Reid is not a Conservative by background nor is he a Bloc member or an NDP member. He is not only a Liberal but he was a former cabinet minister in the Trudeau era. He served the House and Canadians for close to 20 years as a Liberal and yet the Liberal members do not want him to remain as Information Commissioner. They have no good reason. All they want is him removed or his contract not to be extended.

To the point of belabouring this topic, let us go back to what Mr. Reid has done and why the Liberals do not want him to remain in this position. Mr. Reid has stated for the record, without equivocation, that he wants to strengthen the Access to Information Act to make it more transparent and easier for all members of the Canadian public, parliamentarians and members of the media to gain information and access to information from the government side of the House.

If there are situations that occurred that precipitated in a sponsorship scandal, Mr. Reid wants to ensure that all Canadians would be able to access the information on those transgressions as they were occurring. Right now we do not have that. Mr. Reid would like all Canadians to have access to every funding arm of government in terms of getting information. Currently they cannot do that.

How can the government members stand in the House day after day and say they believe in accountability, transparency and openness? They agree, or at least they say they agree, with the mandate of Justice Gomery when in practice they do exactly the opposite. I think that is absolutely shameful. When we say one thing, we have to act as if we mean what we say. In other words, we can talk the talk but we have to walk the walk. This government does nothing like that. I think it is absolutely shameful.

Again, I urge any member on the Liberal side to stand in the House or even at committee and make one argument for why Mr. Reid's extension should not take place. The Liberals have failed to do that. I encourage all members today to put forward that argument. I encourage them to tell me whether it was his lack of experience that prevented them from endorsing Mr. Reid's extension. Was it the fact that he did not have knowledge of the department? Of course not.

Once again, this is a man whose actions in the mid-1970s resulted in the first Access to Information Act being presented in the House in 1983 and who, upon his appointment as Information Commissioner seven years ago, has done nothing but perform his duties admirably, with distinction and, to his credit, in a non-partisan, impartial manner. That is why those Liberal members do not want to see him reappointed.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Wednesday, May 11, be concurred in.

The fifth report deals with the appointment of John Reid, who is the current Information Commissioner of Canada, and asks that his appointment be extended by an additional year, effective July 1, 2005. The recommendation would not preclude Parliament from further extending the appointment after the one year extension.

This is a very important motion and that is why I want to speak to it. Right now, as everyone in the House and probably every Canadian knows, we are experiencing a time of great political turbulence and instability and we need someone who is as experienced as Mr. Reid to continue on in his role as Information Commissioner.

Mr. Reid has served with great distinction over the past seven years in this capacity. Furthermore, it is not without precedent that we can, if we wish, extend his term of office. We have already seen that the Governor General had an extension of one year to her term. Basically, the reason for that extension was again due to the political instability in which we currently find ourselves. It is certainly appropriate that the House and Parliament at least consider the extension of Commissioner Reid in his current capacity.

I want to speak for a moment or two to the capabilities of Mr. Reid because, quite frankly, as I mentioned a few moments ago, he has served with great distinction. Mr. Reid, as most people in the House would know and I hope most Canadians recognize, has served in many capacities throughout his career. He has been a parliamentarian. He was a member of the former Trudeau cabinet. He was first elected to Parliament in 1965, stayed as an elected member of Parliament through six consecutive elections and finally left this House in 1984.

However it was during his term of office that I think it really speaks to his capabilities and qualifications as Information Commissioner.

During his time in office in the mid-seventies when he was parliamentary secretary to Privy Council, he initiated a review of information practices, such as what was acceptable and what should be extended in terms of information and access to information, that all Canadians could receive.

In fact, because of Mr. Reid's fine work, eventually in 1983 the House introduced the first Access to Information Act by Minister Francis Fox. John Reid was instrumental in bringing that legislation to the floor of the House and eventually it became the law of the land.

That was the genesis, I suppose, of Mr. Reid's involvement with access to information. Subsequent to that, he was eventually appointed Information Commissioner seven years ago. Since that time he has again served the House and Parliament extremely well. His experience and his knowledge are such that I feel it would be remiss of the House to let a man of that quality go when we know we will be bringing down changes to the Access to Information Act itself.

The Access to Information Act is now 22 years old. The justice minister has promised to table new legislation before the House. It needs to be updated and amendments to that 22 year old act are needed.

The justice minister stated that by now he would already have tabled new legislation. Unfortunately, that did not happen. He forwarded and tabled a discussion paper instead. However the justice minister continues to assure the House that he will be tabling new legislation.

If we are to take the justice minister at his word and he does introduce new legislation to amend the Access to Information Act, we will need Mr. Reid to assist in the transition. This is a 22-year-old act that is in dire need of changes. It is paramount that we update the act.

We on the access to information committee recognize that. When I say “we”, I mean all opposition members on the committee voted in favour of extending the appointment of Mr. Reid for another year. The only members of the committee who opposed the motion to extend Mr. Reid's appointment were the members of the Liberal Party of Canada.

It is fascinating to me, when a former Liberal cabinet minister, someone who served for six consecutive elections and for close to 20 years in this place with great distinction, that members of his own party would be the only ones on the access to information committee to oppose his extension for one year.

We all have to ask ourselves why the Liberal members of the committee oppose such an extension. It cannot be because of his qualifications. He has served this Parliament well for seven years. It cannot be because of lack of experience. He probably has more experience as a parliamentary officer than anyone else. In addition, he has extensive experience in the field of access to information. His lack of experience just does not hold true. It has to be something else.

The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Reid has categorically stated that what he would like to see in new access to information legislation would be the increased level of information that would be available to all Canadians upon request.

Mr. Reid has stated that if his vision of a new act comes into being, we could probably safely say that incidents, such as the sponsorship scandal, would not have happened in the first place. Individuals, whether they be members of this place, members of the media or individual Canadians, would have the ability to receive information from government departments that would have triggered the fact that the sponsorship scandal was in full bloom.

However the Liberal members of the committee have stated that they do not want to see Mr. Reid's term extended. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that the Liberals do not want more accountability and transparency. They do not want Canadians, members of the media or parliamentarians to have the ability to find out what they have been doing behind closed doors. I have to say that if that is the reason it is absolutely shameful.

We have a situation in the country right now where Canadians have been outraged, with good reason, at what they have found out during the Gomery commission about the sponsorship scandal. We should all be working on behalf of Canadians to put into place processes and procedures that prevent that type of action from ever occurring again.

With the sponsorship scandal we have seen the literal theft of taxpayer money that was ultimately put back into a political party for clearly political purposes. No Canadian and no parliamentarian should stand for that. We should, as a body of parliamentarians, come together and state what can we do to ensure this never takes place.

In fact, as we all know and every Canadian knows, Justice Gomery has been charged with the responsibility of trying to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal and then recommending processes that will prevent that type of action from ever happening again.

Every member of this House from time to time have stated that they believe in what Justice Gomery is doing and agree with his mandate. Therefore one has to wonder why, when we have an individual like John Reid, the current Information Commissioner, who wishes to put in processes to strengthen the recommendations that we will be hearing from Justice Gomery to prevent things like the sponsorship scandal from ever happening again, members of the Liberal Party of Canada on the committee are opposed to extending his appointment.

Perhaps the Liberals do not want Canadians to have access to relative information. Perhaps the Liberals do not want parliamentarians to have access to information that could perhaps stop actions, like the sponsorship program, from occurring again. Perhaps, and I think this is probably closer to the mark, the Liberals did not want ordinary Canadians to have access to information at the cabinet level. Perhaps the Liberal Party is doing things in cabinet, having discussions in cabinet and perhaps there are cabinet documents that it does not want ordinary Canadians to see.

Why is there this need for secrecy? I think Canadians can draw their own conclusions but I would have to say that any parliamentarian who is fearful of Canadians, members of the media or some of his or her colleagues examining what he or she has done in the House or behind closed doors, he or she must have something to hide.

If the government is absolutely committed to what it says about openness and transparency in government, then it should be welcoming the extension of Mr. Reid's appointment. The Liberals should be encouraging all parliamentarians on their side of the House to extend Mr. Reid's contract for at least one more year but that is not the case. All we see from the Liberal side of the committee room is the rejection of Mr. Reid with no apparent reason.

[Supply, June 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in favour of the motion today to develop a national strategy for major chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and mental illness.

Some of these diseases have touched my family on a great many levels. About 40 years ago when I was just a very young man, my mother was stricken with cancer and after a valiant battle of about a year she passed away. That was my first experience with what cancer can do to an individual, to a body. It is without question one of the most insidious diseases known to mankind. It literally eats away at a person's body. To think that 40 years later we still have no real grasp as to what causes cancer and how to prevent it. It is something that is unfathomable to me.

I should say at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

That was my first experience with cancer itself. Two decades later, we had another incident in my family. My father, over a period of about two or three years, suffered two heart attacks, eventually came down with a stroke, which of course as everyone knows or should know is a form of cardiovascular disease. Ultimately he passed on after being incapacitated in a hospital for about two years. I saw his quality of life erode. He was an extremely active man. Both my parents were active.

To see the effects of these diseases on two vibrant individuals and to know that I was relatively powerless to do something to ease their pain is something that will never leave my memory. It is something that I feel strongly about. We need to be doing something to prevent these major diseases in every capacity.

My brother, who is only 13 months older than me, suffered a stroke about four or five years ago. It was a minor stroke luckily. He has basically fully recovered, but again this is something that stems from family history. One of the things we need to be looking at in our overall strategy to prevent these major diseases is the cause of some of the diseases. None of my family had all of the typical indicators of either heart disease or strokes. None of my family members were smokers, had high cholesterol or were overweight, all of which are typical indicators of people who may be ripe candidates for a heart attack. We did not have that.

The most personal, I suppose, and most closely related impact that heart disease had on my life was on January 12 of this year when I suffered a heart attack. It was one that was certainly unforeseen by me. I spent five days in the hospital. I am on medication now that probably will maintain my hopefully healthy and long lifestyle over the course of the next 30 or 40 years, but again, it was something that happened to me that was totally unexpected. I had no cholesterol problems to speak of and I certainly did not have a weight problem. My blood pressure, according to my cardiologist at least, was equal to that of a 16 year old well-conditioned athlete. Yet no one could possibly have predicted it other than the fact that I had a family history of heart disease.

I understand the effects that these diseases have on people's lives. I should add one humorous aside so people do not think my life is filled with tragedy. After my heart attack on January 12, it happened to be the same day that the leader of our party was coming to Regina. I actually met him at the airport around noon. He went on to one of his first events. I told him at that time I was supposed to go with him but I said that I would catch up with him later because I had to do something.

I checked myself into the hospital at which time I was told that I was right in the middle of a heart attack. I was taken up for surgery. I give great credit to all of the nurses and doctors, and my cardiologist who worked on me. In 14 minutes they had done an angioplasty and put a stent in my heart. It was an amazing procedure, but the humorous part of all of this was that the leader did not know anything about this until he found out later in the day that I had suffered a heart attack.

The humorous part was that the next morning the newspaper reported that the leader of the PC Party was visiting Regina and a local member suffered a heart attack. I am not sure whether the media truly grasped the enormity of his visit or the enormity of my disease but, in any event, we both had a good laugh about that.

Because of the closeness of some of the diseases that have struck my family, I believe very strongly that we need to develop a national strategy for major diseases. That is what this motion calls for.

There has been proof around the world that if one develops a comprehensive national strategy, it works. We see examples in the U.K., Austria, Australia and Finland where those countries that have employed and created national preventative strategies for major chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, the rate of incidents in those countries for these major diseases has gone down dramatically.

Yet, Canada has no such strategy. We have talked about it for years, but we have done nothing. I think that is, quite frankly, shameful. For this country, the greatest country in the world in my estimation, which is losing so many people every year to heart disease, cancer, to sit back and do nothing about taking positive steps that have been proven worldwide to be effective and that work, is shameful.

However, I take this opportunity to suggest that now we have an opportunity to put some funding, some real money into a national strategy that would work, that would prevent disease and treat those who have incurred disease in order to save lives. That is the bottom line. This strategy would have the effect of saving lives. I do not think that anyone could put an adequate dollar value on what it means to save Canadian lives. This is not something that we should be debating. This is something we should have done years ago.

Although it may be too late to save those people like my father and mother, it is not too late to save people in future generations. I do not want this for my own health, although that is very important to me, I want this for my sons. We have a family history of heart disease and cancer. I want my sons to live in an environment where they have a fighting chance to prevent those diseases before they impact and affect my sons, and my grandsons and granddaughters.

We do not know enough about cancer and we certainly do not know enough about heart disease to determine what causes these major diseases.

Everyone always thought that it was the indicators I had mentioned previously that caused things like heart disease, for example, if a person was overweight or had high cholesterol. Well, certainly, those are indicators. If people were smokers, that would cause them, in many respects, to have heart attacks and develop heart disease. However, those are not the only indicators. I had none of those. My family had none of those indicators. Yet, we still developed these major diseases. Why? No one can tell me that.

We need to develop a strategy that would bring together all the major stakeholders and organizations like the Canadian Cancer Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. We need to get them, in a coordinated fashion, to share information in order to develop ideas that would be communicated to Canadians across this country. We need this group to tell Canadians some of the things that they perhaps could be doing to prevent heart disease and cancer, and also to develop a research environment to answer the questions that we have long been asking. What causes cancer? What causes chronic heart disease?

This is not something that we should be sitting here and debating. We should all be coming together as parliamentarians and saying that it has to be done. Let us get it done. Let us put the funding forward. Let us not argue. Let us not debate. This is not a political issue. This is a matter of life and death.

[Member for Newton--North Delta, June 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows, every member of the House knows, and every Canadian who has been paying attention to the story knows that the intent of the meeting between the Prime Minister's chief of staff, the Minister of Health and the member for Newton--North Delta was to try to buy votes.

The refusal by the Prime Minister to ask for their resignations is at best unconscionable and at worst condoning potential criminal activity. Will the Prime Minister simply do what is right and call for the resignations of his chief of staff and the Minister of health?

[Member for Newton--North Delta, June 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, tradition suggests that when a minister of the Crown is under suspicion for potential criminal activity, that minister should step down. The tapes clearly indicate that the conversation between the Minister of Health and the member for Newton--North Delta was done for one purpose and that was to try to buy votes.

Will the Prime Minister simply do what is right, uphold the tradition of this House, and call upon the resignation of the Minister of Health?

[Member for Newton--North Delta, June 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect members of Parliament to act with integrity and to uphold parliamentary tradition.

[Criminal Code, May 17th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned earlier this morning when I was speaking to Bill C-43, I understand this is a very slow news day so I am glad to give that political fix to every Canadian who has not been able to find political news today and who might be tuning in to CPAC to find something of interest. This is it.

I am very pleased to speak to this bill. Quite frankly it is a bill we should be supporting. I certainly will. As I mentioned earlier in one of my questions or comments, I am from Regina, Saskatchewan, which per capita has the highest rate of auto theft in Canada and has had the highest rate for several years. In the last three or four years there have been between 2,500 and 3,000 car thefts per year. It is a serious problem that we need to address.

The problem I have with the current system, as the hon. member for Langley pointed out when he introduced this bill, is that the penalties are ridiculous. Young men and women who steal cars are getting away with nothing but a slap on the wrist. We have seen repeat offenders time and time again when it comes to car theft. Why are they repeating the offence? They are repeating the offence because there are no penalties to deter them from stealing automobiles.

I am an absolute firm believer in deterrents for any crime. I can tell everyone from experience that in Regina the rate of thefts would absolutely go down if we had some serious deterrents which would cause people who are stealing automobiles to think twice before doing it.

My hon. friend from the New Democratic Party said just a few moments ago that crime across Canada is going down. I put forward a private member's bill to include identity theft in the Criminal Code. Identity theft is the fastest rising crime in North America. By way of example, I would point out the contradiction in what my hon. friend from the New Democratic Party was saying.

To suggest that minimum sentences are not a deterrent and that we do nothing to try to address auto theft is absolutely irresponsible. We have an obligation as parliamentarians to address some of these serious crimes. If I understand the hon. member correctly, he was basically saying that minimum sentences do not work, are not a deterrent and we should not do anything.

He said we should increase the level of police officers across Canada. I would love to see that done as well, but thanks to our friends on the government side of the House, we do not have enough funds for municipalities to get more police officers out on the street, whether they be at the RCMP level, the municipal level, the city level. This is a serious problem.

We need to play the cards that we are dealt. Right now we have been dealt a hand that says car thefts are increasing. I can tell everyone from personal experience in talking to the city police in Regina and Saskatoon that in Saskatchewan car thefts are the biggest source of complaints police have to deal with on a daily basis.

The real problem is not that kids are stealing cars and going for joy rides. If it were just that it would be a problem that we would have to address, in my view, by putting deterrents into the Criminal Code to make sure those kids would think twice about it before going for a joy ride. It is not just about young people taking cars for joy rides. Statistics have demonstrated quite clearly that the vast majority of individuals who are stealing cars are doing so to commit another crime.

I went on a ride-along with two city police officers in Regina a couple of weeks ago during the break. They were working in the worst section of Regina, the northwest central section, where 25% of all crimes in the city are committed. Those police officers told me that without question the biggest problem they have is car theft, bar none.

I went out with them on a Friday night, which was particularly bad because there was a full moon and it was payday. We saw a lot of action, but car theft was the number one concern the policemen had. It was not that people were stealing cars just to go on a joy ride and then to dump the car off at an abandoned warehouse or to take it out on the highway and drop it off in a field somewhere. People were stealing cars because they were prepared to commit a crime.

Many of the people who steal cars take them because they are going to a drug buy. They purchase the drugs, discard the car and off they go to sell the drugs on the street. Many people steal cars because they are going to commit a B and E.

The point is that people have a purpose for stealing these cars. It is not just the 1950s Happy Days version of a couple of crazy kids taking a car for a ride, having some fun and then dropping it off in the same condition as they stole it. That is not true. People usually take vehicles to commit another crime. Some are misdemeanours at the very least but in Regina it is a far more serious crime.

We need to set up a series of deterrents that criminals and potential car thefts would have to take a look at. When someone has been caught red-handed steeling a vehicle and then appears before a judge I find it absolutely irresponsible and unconscionable when the judge gives them a slap on the wrist, probation and a warning not to do it again. When that same individual appears back in court, whether it is a week, a month or a year later, having committed the same offence they again get probation.

Anyone who says that deterrents are not effective are dreaming in Technicolor. They are effective. I will give the House one example which I used earlier in a comment or question for one of the other speakers.

The Saskatchewan government insurance, when possible, puts a deterrent on car thieves. If a person is convicted of theft of a vehicle, the insurance company will assign the deductible of the victim to the perpetrator's next purchase of his licence or registration. The insurance company cannot do this every time, but when it can, it will. Since it started the number of car thefts has actually gone down.

We have another community based program in Regina called HEAT, Help Eliminate Auto Theft. This program basically deals with a deterrent based course of action to stop young people, criminals of all kind, from stealing vehicles, and it has also proven to be effective.

For anyone, whether it be my hon. colleague from the NDP or any other member in this assembly who says that deterrents do not work, I say they are absolutely dreaming in Technicolor.

What is an effective deterrent? Quite frankly, I think the member for Langley has put some very effective deterrents in his private member's bill. For a first time offence an individual would receive either three months incarceration or $1,000 or both, the choice is up to the judge.

Car thieves need to take a look at this. If they are prepared to steal a car and whip down the street to maybe see a buddy, they should be thinking twice about it. Even hardened criminals who are looking to get a ride from one location in the city to the other to commit another crime have to know they will not get away with it if they are caught. They have to know they will not get a slap on the wrist and walk away from a crime with probation because there would be minimum sentences.

I also dispute anyone who says that minimum sentences are wrong because the judge tends to give only the minimum sentence rather than a far more serious sentence. The fact is this is a joke. If there are no minimum sentences, an offender will get nothing but probation. What are we saying to society if we allow car thieves to walk away with no punishment? This is a no-brainer in my view.

We have to put something in place that will act as a deterrent for the segment of our society that feels it is their right to steal cars. They are doing it because they know they can get away with it. If we do not put a series of deterrents in place to try and stop car thieves from committing their crimes, we will only to get into worse situations.

I can absolutely assure members that if we adopt the private member's bill that my hon. friend from Langley is proposing, it will act as a deterrent in Regina, Saskatchewan. It will lower the incidence of car theft and I think and I hope that all members will agree that is a good thing.