Public Safety committee  I completely agree with Chief Bray: it's an important issue. We regularly carry out interventions on the ground, and these are often risky. In some cases, the person has a replica firearm or a compressed air firearm. It's very risky for both the police officer and the person, since there is a risk of someone firing on the person.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, the Association des directeurs de police du Québec, or ADPQ, would like to thank you for inviting us to share our thoughts on the issue of car thefts in Canada. Not so long ago, car theft was seen as a minor, almost trivial matter. But, as we all know, times have changed.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the question. As I said in my opening remarks, car theft is a crime that has evolved considerably. For example, people who steal vehicles are increasingly violent, and may even go so far as to drive at police officers. They will even attack citizens when citizens locate their vehicles.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Carrique could also answer that question, as far as putting works in place are concerned.

Public Safety committee  In fact, the police directors of Quebec believe that the auto theft market must be dealt with. If it remains extremely profitable to steal vehicles and export them, it will be extremely difficult to crack down on it. In light of this situation, we believe that one of the measures that should be taken is to significantly increase audits of what is going out of Canadian ports.

Public Safety committee  As we understand it, the CBSA verifies 100% of the containers it receives information on. In other words, when it has information that illegal goods could be in a certain container, it checks it. However, there is no systematic check of a certain number of containers leaving the country, or at least that was the case until very recently.

Public Safety committee  I can tell you what the Association des directeurs de police du Québec thinks about this. The recommendation applies to all Canadian ports, but let's take the Port of Montreal as an example. If thousands of cars can easily be exported overseas from the Port of Montreal, it's not hard to imagine just how many types of illegal trade are going on at the Port of Montreal.

Public Safety committee  They certainly can. That said, there's no silver bullet for solving this problem. I'm not an expert and I don't work for the CBSA, but I assume that the agency is having trouble detecting falsified VINs. Personally, I can understand that. Law enforcement has VIN falsification experts.

Public Safety committee  Yes, we believe very much in the partnership between the various Canadian police forces. Mr. Carrique talked about it earlier. The Sûreté du Québec and the Ontario Provincial Police are working together very closely on this. It's hard to say what the funding should be, but it will certainly take a lot of funding.