Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question. I think the announcement from Minister Champagne was a good step forward, in that banning these devices is helpful. However, I would share that there are dozens of these devices. The Flipper device is one that amplifies a signal from a key to a car, which is called a relay attack.

Public Safety committee  I think the number one thing manufacturers can do is strengthen their security systems through simple solutions, such as software patches or immobilizers. That would prevent the cars from being stolen in the first place. Think about the broader context of today's conversation. If the vehicles cannot be stolen in the first place, the expense of special prosecutors, port authorities and law enforcement, and the danger to our communities—the carjackings and all those things—will start to come down, because organized crime will no longer be able to exploit Canadians and steal vehicles with the absolute speed—under 60 seconds—that they can today.

Public Safety committee  Moving provinces is an effective way to evade detection.

Public Safety committee  They could take it to another province and fraudulently re-register it, yes.

Public Safety committee  I can respond on revinning. As my colleague Ms. Power said, there are some loopholes in our provincial registration systems across the provinces that allow revinning to happen. One of those loopholes is requesting RIN histories. What that is is a list of vehicles that includes make, model, colour, details about the vehicle, past owners and the VINs.

Public Safety committee  Anybody in the public, for a small fee, can purchase a RIN history, but our experience in investigations has shown that these are organized crime rings that are executing these auto theft crimes across provinces.

Public Safety committee  A VIN plate is a very simple piece of metal, but most of the revinning—or cloned VINs or fictitious VINs—is really happening through registration paperwork and through shipping manifests, so they're crimes of paperwork that are allowing stolen vehicles to leave the country or be sold to unsuspecting customers.

Public Safety committee  No, they can affix a new VIN plate and resell it domestically, or they can move province and re-register it in another province and sell it domestically.

Public Safety committee  No. I would say, as Ms. Power said, we've been working collaboratively with all industries for a whole-of-society approach, as our friends at the IBC have been saying. Stopping the revinning fraud certainly stops the domestic resale of stolen vehicles, but preventing the vehicles from being stolen in the first place with effective software patches or prevention technology such as immobilizers is really critical to stopping the theft—and then stopping the export stems the funding into those illegal trade markets and into organized crime.

Public Safety committee  Okay.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the question. What I can share is that we have significant bait car vehicle programs in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and we work collaboratively with our members in the insurance industry and with law enforcement to run those programs. What I would share about the difference in the experience with B.C. is that the illegal trade markets overseas are across the Atlantic.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. Thank you for the question. Yes, a small percentage of the vehicles are actually being chopped up for parts. I think the most significant ones are catalytic converters. Catalytic converters have precious metals embedded in them, and when the value of those metals goes up, the catalytic converters become more valuable.

Public Safety committee  The investments in the CBSA were across additional investigators and training, as well as analytics. The continued sharing of information will be critical for us, CBSA and other law enforcement partners, so we can do more targeted inspections. Sharing that intelligence in targeted inspections has proven to be very successful as we spoke about it with the U.S. jurisdiction.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the good questions. I can't speak to the CBSA cuts, necessarily, as I don't really have purview over its organizational structure and funding structure, but what I can say is that with the resources it has allocated to outbound inspections, it has always been responsive.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for your participation and for bringing this forward at committee as well. I really appreciate it. We have been very heartened at Équité Association by all of the recent announcements and partnerships, in particular, by the actions that have come out of the summit.