:
I call to order meeting number 31 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Today is Tuesday, October 26, 2010.
You have before you the agenda for today to review Bill , an act to amend the Criminal Code for auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime.
To assist us with our review we have a number of witnesses. First of all, we have, representing the Canada Border Services Agency, Ms. Caroline Xavier. We also have the Department of Justice, represented by Robert Borland, counsel. Welcome.
Then we have Statistics Canada. Some of you have been here before, so welcome back. We have Julie McAuley, director; Mia Dauvergne, senior analyst; and also Craig Grimes, chief and advisor. Welcome to all of you.
You know the routine. You have ten minutes to present, if you wish, and then we'll open the floor to questions.
Why don't we start with Statistics Canada.
:
Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee regarding Bill .
Statistics Canada does not take a position on the proposed amendments in the bill. The presentation we have prepared contains our most recent data on motor vehicle thefts. All data sources used are clearly indicated on the slides, as are any pertinent data sources.
We have included supplemental information at the end of the presentation for the consideration of the committee and have distributed a copy of a Juristat article on motor vehicle theft that was released in December 2008 using 2007 data. That is the most recent Juristat article on this subject.
My colleagues Ms. Mia Dauvergne and Mr. Craig Grimes will help answer any questions.
Please turn to the first slide in the deck.
Police-reported motor vehicle thefts in Canada have generally been declining since 1996. The rate of motor vehicle theft declined 15% between 2008 and 2009, continuing a downward trend that began in 2003.
Police-reported motor vehicle thefts are incidents in which a land-based motorized vehicle is taken or attempted to be taken without the owner's authorization. It includes incidents in which the perpetrator has the intent to steal a vehicle but is unsuccessful.
In 2009 police reported about 108,000 motor vehicle thefts, averaging about 300 stolen vehicles per day. This figure includes both completed and attempted incidents. This is down slightly from 2008, when police reported about 125,000 motor vehicle thefts.
A little over one-third of motor vehicle thefts in 2009 involved cars, and another one-third were of trucks.
Motor vehicle theft is one of the most common types of police-reported crime in Canada. In 2009 such thefts accounted for 5% of all Criminal Code offences and 6% of all non-violent offences.
The next slide shows that the highest rates of motor vehicle theft tend to be in the western provinces and northern Canada. In 2009, for the first time in 13 years, Manitoba did not have the highest reported motor vehicle theft rate in the country; Nunavut had the highest rate, with 593 motor vehicle thefts per 100,000 population. Vehicle theft rates in Manitoba have declined in four of the past five years, including a 39% drop in 2008 and a 28% drop in 2009.
The next slide indicates that in general the same geographical pattern is seen for Canada's census metropolitan areas. In 2009, while the highest rate of motor vehicle theft was in Brantford, Ontario, generally motor vehicle theft rates are higher in western Canada's CMAs.
Winnipeg's rate has been among the highest in Canada for the past 17 years. However, the rate of motor vehicle thefts in Winnipeg decreased from 956 per 100,000 population in 2008 to 629 per 100,000 population in 2009. This has driven the decrease in Manitoba's overall motor vehicle theft rate. In 2009, Winnipeg accounted for 74% of Manitoba's motor vehicle thefts, down slightly from 2008, when it accounted for 81%.
Motor vehicle theft is one of the least likely crimes to be solved by police. Of all vehicle thefts in 2009, 11% resulted in an accused person being identified, compared with 33% of all other non-violent offences.
Slide 5 shows that, similar to other non-violent offences, police-reported theft is a crime often associated with youth. In 2009, police-reported motor vehicle theft rates were highest among 15-to-18-year-olds. Youth 12 to 17 years old accounted for approximately three in ten persons accused of motor vehicle theft in 2009, slightly higher than the proportion of youth accused of other non-violent offences.
About 82% of all persons accused of motor vehicle theft in 2009 were male; this compares with 75% of those accused of other non-violent offences.
Drawing from analysis done in 2007, the next slide looks at police-reported motor vehicle thefts and organized crime. We do not yet have a reliable, direct way of measuring organized crime involvement, but vehicle recovery status has been used as a proxy measure.
As you can see, about four in ten stolen vehicles were not recovered by police, suggesting that these may have been related to organized crime. In 2007 vehicle recovery rates were lowest in the province of Quebec and among the highest in Winnipeg.
In the next slide, we turn to the question of court outcomes for charges of motor vehicle theft. It is not possible to identify motor vehicle theft using court administrative records alone, as motor vehicle thefts are currently recorded together with other thefts under section 334 of the Criminal Code. However, we can link court records, which contain criminal court outcomes, with police records, which contain offence characteristics, in order to identify this subset of theft in Canada.
The question of whether or not motor vehicle theft is treated differently from thefts in general by the courts is often asked, and we recently linked these administrative files to answer this question for another project. An unrepresentative sample of court records did show differences in the way in which theft in general and motor vehicle theft were treated by the courts. Incarceration was used more frequently for guilty charges of motor vehicle theft, and there were significant differences in the length of custody imposed by the courts for motor vehicle theft compared to other theft.
The Criminal Code under section 335 describes taking a motor vehicle without consent as an offence resembling theft. In slide 8 we see that several thousand of these theft-like charges are completed in Canadian criminal courts each year. The number of these charges against youth has been declining since the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, while the number of these charges against adults has changed very little since 2000-01. The proportion of guilty findings for adults and youth tends to be higher for this charge than for charges generally, but almost identical to the proportion found guilty for theft in general.
Next we turn our attention to data available from criminal courts on the possession of property obtained by crime. Because trafficking in such property is a new offence proposed under Bill , it is not possible to provide data on the extent to which these cases also include trafficking of that property. However, it is possible to provide data on the number of cases that contain the underlying offence of possession of property obtained by crime. Since 2000-01, approximately 10% of all criminal court cases, or roughly 40,000 cases each year, contained at least one charge for property obtained by crime. In 2008-09, the proportion of these cases completed in youth criminal courts was higher than in adult criminal courts.
In summary, motor vehicle theft continues to be a high-volume offence in Canada, but Canada's police-reported motor vehicle theft rate has generally been declining since 1996. Motor vehicle theft rates are particularly high in the west. Vehicle recovery rates can serve as a proxy for organized crime involvement, and we have seen that the recovery rates vary across the country. Stolen vehicles are recovered less often in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, while in Winnipeg the recovery rate was among the highest.
Thank you. That ends my presentation.
I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss CBSA's role in relation to Bill
[Translation]
Before I talk about the bill, I would like to take a moment to talk about CBSA's role in managing the border as well as the services we provide.
The CBSA is mandated to provide integrated border services that support national security and public safety priorities and facilitate the free flow of legitimate persons and goods, while meeting all requirements under program legislation.
This responsibility extends to enforcing immigration and refugee policy and to border inspection of food, plants and animals. It also aims to provide information and enforcement support that enable us to fulfill our legislative obligations in security and safety matters.
Overall, CBSA administers some 90 acts and regulations that govern the eligibility of people and acceptability of goods entering or leaving Canada.
[English]
The CBSA uses a risk-based intelligence approach to border management, whereby the agency focuses its efforts on the people and goods that are considered high risk, while facilitating the border clearance of low-risk travellers and goods.
The risk-based approach allows the agency to ensure that the costs and delays imposed by the clearance processes on legitimate people and shipments crossing the border are minimized, while at the same time identifying and interdicting diverse security threats as early as possible in the travel and supply chain continuum. Ultimately, this approach allows the agency to allocate its resources in the most effective manner possible by assessing risk as far away from the border as possible.
In June 2009 amendments to the Customs Act were made to strengthen the CBSA's ability to interdict contraband and other illegal items in customs-controlled areas, such as airport tarmacs and seaport docks. The primary purpose of these amendments was to give the CBSA greater scope and flexibility in its management of risk.
The key amendments allowed the CBSA to fully implement what we call the advance commercial information program, also known as eManifest, and to put in place changes at customs-controlled areas. Ultimately, this allows the agency to bring greater security within the trade supply chain through the receipt of advance commercial information via the eManifest initiative.
[Translation]
As mentioned, the CBSA enforces the Customs Act and other federal statutes and regulations. However, none of these acts or regulations includes a provision to specifically address the export of stolen vehicles and, in particular, suspected stolen vehicles.
[English]
Under current legislation, the CBSA may receive and act upon intelligence information, but the information must relate to the administration and/or enforcement of the Customs Act. The CBSA may only conduct an administrative check of outbound cargo to ensure its compliance with the Customs Act, the reporting of goods regulation, or any other act of Parliament the agency administers and enforces.
Currently, if a CBSA officer happens to discover what they suspect is a stolen vehicle during the course of an export examination, the officer does not have the legal authority to investigate whether or not the vehicle has been reported as stolen. Rather, the officer only has the authority to inform the local police jurisdiction of his or her suspicion. The police will then run checks on the vehicle through various databases to determine whether it's stolen.
Included in the Criminal Code amendments being considered by this committee is a provision that prohibits the importation and exportation of property obtained by crime, such as stolen vehicles. This prohibition will enhance the CBSA's ability to manage the border by triggering existing authorities in the Customs Act, which will allow the agency to undertake examinations to determine whether vehicles have been reported as stolen.
Under the proposed legislation, an officer who suspects that a vehicle has been stolen will also have the authority to run database checks to determine whether the vehicle has been stolen. In doing so, the CBSA will refer vehicles to the police that the agency believes to be stolen rather than just suspected of being stolen.
Therefore, the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code would provide the CBSA officers the lawful authority to assist police by examining and using various law enforcement databases for the purpose of detaining stolen vehicles. Such detained vehicles will then be turned over to the enforcement partners for further investigation, thus enhancing our information sharing capabilities with our law enforcement partners.
Bill S-9 will empower the CBSA to examine vehicles, determine theft through database checks, and detain stolen vehicles until the police can investigate the offence and take possession of them as part of their ongoing enforcement activities. Essentially, this bill will put the CBSA in a better position to work in a more effective manner with its national and international law enforcement partners to deter the cross-border trafficking of stolen goods.
Bill S-9 will also create specific offences: the offence of auto theft; the offence of tampering with a vehicle identification number; and the offences of trafficking in property obtained by crime and possession of property obtained by crime for the purpose of trafficking.
[Translation]
This bill will have a direct and positive impact on the CBSA in that it will allow the agency to play a more direct and meaningful role in preventing the exportation of stolen goods.
[English]
Currently the CBSA has a strategic export control program as part of our Customs Act authorities. Bill will provide CBSA further authority to assist our law enforcement partners by actively targeting those shipments that are reported for export before they reach the port, for the purpose of detecting stolen goods—in particular, vehicles.
These authorities will allow us to look at the export information we are receiving in advance so that we may work with our law enforcement partners to determine whether or not there could be an infraction or prohibited goods, such as a stolen vehicle.
Within its current legislative framework the CBSA works diligently on its own enforcement priorities that support police efforts to identify and investigate suspected stolen vehicles destined for export. The CBSA will continue to utilize a risk-management approach to do advance analysis, using intelligence from our law enforcement partners and our tools to focus our attention on suspicious containers.
In 2008 the CBSA participated in a six-month export vehicle verification probe led by the RCMP. During this probe, the CBSA used established export verification techniques, tools, and resources to look for indications of suspected contraventions of the Customs Act, the reporting of exported goods regulations, or any other act administered or enforced by the CBSA.
During the probe, the CBSA officers assisted the RCMP and examined 281 containers at the ports of Montreal and Halifax and intercepted 258 stolen vehicles. The results of the probe provided law enforcement agencies with a glimpse of the current situation regarding stolen vehicles.
[Translation]
With the passage of Bill , the CBSA will have the legislative authority it needs to take a more effective role in law enforcement efforts to intercept stolen vehicles.
[English]
As part of our ongoing enforcement activities, the CBSA will be able to use the authorities provided by this bill to do our job more effectively within the parameters of our available resources.
Thank you for inviting me to contribute our perspective for your consideration of this legislative proposal.
[Translation]
I am now ready to answer questions. Thank you.
:
Actually, the two amendments are intended to remove the minimum sentence of six months for motor vehicle theft. It applies from line 8 to line 12. That is the intent. If we remove the minimum sentence, we will no longer need the second paragraph, and that is actually the intent of the second amendment.
For once, I find it relatively lenient. It targeted a specific goal with moderation.
It is true that, generally speaking, I do not find minimum sentences to have sufficient effect on crime rates to make them into a habit. Recently, the Conservative government has consistently given us the impression that they really are making it a habit.
Personally, I am really afraid of this trend. It is an American trend and it gives the United States one of the highest incarceration rate in the world: over 760 inmates per 100,000 Americans. In Canada, we have between 103 and 116, according to last year's statistics. Canada is comparable to western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.
That is why I have a horror of using minimum sentences systematically. But I will say that I am in favour of some minimum sentences.
My position is not rigidly ideological. I agree with keeping them for murder, because it is one of the most serious crimes. Murder is voluntary homicide, so the criminal intent is really reprehensible.
For minor violations, I agree with minimum sentences for repeat offences. Drunk driving, for example, is a crime committed by people who are generally not criminals. Criminologists know that, in those cases, minimum sentences can have a positive effect, especially when they are kept for repeat offences. In cases like these, I acknowledge that we are dealing with repeat offences. That is why it seems to me, as a general principle, that those who want to impose a minimum sentence must bear the burden of proving that there is a real need for a minimum sentence in order to get a positive outcome and that there is no other way to do so.
Now, the statistics clearly show that the rate of motor vehicle theft has increased. With the minimum sentence disappearing in 1985—I rely on my colleague Mr. Petit for that, but I have not checked it myself—the increase was not that great, and, even then, it was followed by a drop. I feel that the statistics showing the drop prove once again that prevention measures often have a much better effect on the crime rate. The subsequent drop corresponds to the difficulty in stealing motor vehicles.
Because young people are committing a lot of motor vehicle thefts, we see very clearly... It is called joyriding. They are fascinated by cars. I went through that. Rest assured that I never stole a car, but I remember how fascinated people are by cars when they are young. It is a young person's crime. But you still need a certain amount of skill to get a car started without the keys.
With time, we have developed...then we got results. We often get better results through prevention. So there have also been campaigns to remind people to lock their car doors. You have seen that the crime rate keeps going down.
In spite of those changes, I do not see that the government has proved to our satisfaction that a minimum penalty is necessary. That I why I would stick to my general policy of being against minimum sentences as a principle, unless I can be shown convincingly that this minimum sentence will have a major, tangible major effect on the kind of crime we want to target.
That is why I share my party's view, one that we have consistently expressed in previous years when dealing with bills on this issue. I am not hiding the fact that these amendments that we are proposing are exactly the same as the ones that Réal Ménard proposed to similar provisions in previous bills on the same subject. I have the numbers of those bills somewhere.
First of all, Mr. Chair, I'm a little confused by Mr. Ménard's position at this point in raising this objection and putting forward this amendment. I was in the House on October 6 when this bill was debated. I listened very intently to what he had to say. With respect to the mandatory minimum sentence he said the following:
We've seen this in the United States, where there are many minimum sentences. Moreover, this is one of the problems with minimum sentences. In this case, there is no such problem. I feel that a six-month sentence for a third offence is reasonable. It can certainly act as a deterrent. As honourable members can see, the Bloc's objections are not ideological, but are based on rational knowledge, experience, and criminology.
All I can say is that I agreed with Mr. Ménard then; I thought he made a good point. I think many people in the House of Commons who heard that did.
Secondly, we heard from a number of witnesses, when we were traveling in Winnipeg and other cities during our study of organized crime, about the large number of auto thefts that are committed by a small number of repeat offenders. During the debate in the House, we heard about some of the tragic cases that have come out of some of these auto thefts in which innocent people have been killed by the stolen cars driven by repeat offenders.
For example, there is a very famous case, which Mr. Ménard will remember, that we heard about in Winnipeg, in which a young woman was jogging. She was struck and killed by a stolen car driven by a repeat offender who in fact was out with the intent of seeing how many joggers he could hit. It is a very famous case there. In the case that I believe in part the Nunn commission was responding to, my recollection of the facts—and Mr. Murphy can perhaps correct me, if I'm incorrect about it—is that a young repeat offender who was driving a stolen car killed a victim with that stolen car.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that many of the worst crimes committed with stolen vehicles are committed by repeat offenders. A mandatory minimum penalty will not only send them a message that this is not tolerable behaviour; they will have to think a long time, while they're in that jail sentence of six months, thinking about what they have done and the danger they cause to the public.
And obviously, while they're in incarceration they can't be committing another auto theft and putting the public in danger, as the individual did in the case that led to the Nunn commission.
Thirdly, I would point out that under this legislation the prosecutor has a discretion to decide whether to proceed by way of summary conviction or indictment. If he proceeds by way of summary conviction, there is no mandatory minimum; the mandatory minimum only applies when he chooses to proceed by way of indictment. Obviously the prosecutor will look at each case, and when he has a serious repeat offender who he thinks poses a threat to the public, that's when he will proceed by way of indictment, which would result in the mandatory minimum penalty.
For all those reasons, Mr. Chair, it's my view that a mandatory minimum penalty of six months after the third offence of this sort is very reasonable and actually quite limited. For those reasons, I would ask all the members of this committee to vote against this amendment and support the bill as drafted.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I can't quite understand how it is that although we hear all the time that crime statistics are going down, when we actually see evidence that they're going up, the response is “Oh, well, they fluctuate up and down. It doesn't matter.” I don't see how we can ignore the evidence we've heard today that apparently around the time the mandatory minimum was removed, there was a jump in motor vehicle thefts reported to the police, and I notice that it almost doubled in the ten years following that. While we've wrestled it down again, probably with great devotion of police resources, it has still never returned to where it was in the mid-1980s. We just can't ignore that evidence.
Second, this is a commercial offence at the point that you're getting to the third conviction. We are not talking about young offenders. We're talking about adults, and the evidence we've heard is that the number of adult charges for taking a motor vehicle without consent has gone up since the year 2001. It was previously below 2,000 and now it's over 2,000. As well, the evidence we have heard is that for adults, the total number of charges for property obtained by crime has gone up since 2001. It was 28,444 in 2009 and it is now 30,183, so we're not talking about young offenders here; we're talking about adults.
Nor are we talking about committing joyriding, as Monsieur Ménard mentioned. Nothing in this statute removes the offence of joyriding. If someone is charged with joyriding, that person is not going to be subject to a minimum penalty. If they are convicted of theft of a motor vehicle--it is entirely different from joyriding--three times, at that point they will be subject, at the prosecution's discretion, to a mandatory minimum penalty.
For those reasons I hope we won't take an ideological approach, and that in this particular case, because of the evidence before us that he was good enough to draw to our attention, perhaps Monsieur Ménard can see his way clear to agreeing with the mandatory minimum.
Thank you.
I very much appreciate the comments that our colleague Mr. Ménard is making to justify the amendments he is suggesting, but I am not going to be able to support them.
I would like to explain my reasons briefly. First, these minimum sentences would not apply to young offenders. Secondly, in my opinion—and I hope I am accurately reflecting his words—for once, the Conservative government has zeroed in on a problem with surgical precision. Third, the minimum sentence proposed by the bill is quite lenient.
And because of the fact that the government has once more gone to the trouble to establish that it has to be a third conviction for the same offence, I feel that I can support the clause in Bill as written, with no hesitation or difficulty, and I am comfortable doing so.
I am very comfortable justifying my vote for the clause as written and against the amendments that you are proposing, Mr. Ménard.
:
I would like to agree with everything that has been said, but you know I have some difficulty with minimum prison terms. What concerns me about minimum sentences in this bill, and what intrigues me...The rate of motor vehicle theft has clearly gone down. But what concerns me it that it has increased in the Northwest Territories and the other territories in the north.
You know that I also sit on the Standing Committee for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Clearly, statistics can be made to say anything. Manitoba has lost its championship, of course; unfortunately, the province now ranks third. I feel that it is going to go ever lower because of the measures taken by the police forces. But the problem is growing in the north. So we have Inuit stealing skidoos because it is part of their reality. They do not steal cars; they steal snowmobiles, which are motor vehicles to them.
When I was a lawyer, I went around the north. I had clients there, and we could feel this coming. They are going to steal four-by-fours, they are going to steal skidoos, and they are going to end up in prison for a minimum of six months.
I have reservations too. I would likely share Ms. Jennings' opinion. I would vote against minimum sentences. I have always voted against them because I do not feel that they are the solution.
But now we are getting into something dangerous. If you look at the statistics on page 3, in the column called Northwest Territories, you will see that it is not just about skidoos. Ms. MacAulay brought the table to show us. What we are doing now is dangerous. That is why I would really hesitate to impose minimum sentences. At least, I would wait a little, even if it means going back to it later. Motor vehicle theft is dropping everywhere, except in the north.
I can assure you that in Quebec, where there were 351 thefts, a lot of them were in and around Montreal. That is clear, we know that.
An hon. member: There are some in Trois-Rivières.
Mr. Marc Lemay: There are some in Trois-Rivières as well, but there are a lot in the north, in Nunavik.
Kids steal…I say “kids”, but the gentleman is right, these are adults who are 18, 19, 20 or 21 years old and they are stealing snowmobiles and quads, lots of quads. That is what concerns me most: we are going to be filling up our prisons, but with Inuit and Aboriginals. For me, that is a greater concern than minimum prison terms.
:
I have a question on this amendment.
I adopt everything Marlene said and therefore would be supporting this mandatory minimum, but I want, in my own head, to be assured that we have a correct understanding of the hierarchy of offences in our heads.
If you look at part IX of the Criminal Code, which deals with offences against rights of property, there are things like theft, armed robbery, criminal interest rate, breaking and entering, and being in a dwelling house unlawfully. There's something here about oyster beds, which I found fascinating. Anyway.... It goes to the modernity of the code.
The way I read it, the most serious offence in this section is armed robbery. In 1995 there were mandatory minimums attached to some of those serious offences. We're now putting theft of a car at the next plateau in terms of mandatory minimums. I don't think there are any others, and we're leaving on the tree--maybe there will be other pieces of legislation coming forward--breaking and entering for the purpose of committing a crime, being in a dwelling house unlawfully, some of the other offences, and then just normal theft. It may be the right message that we see armed robbery as extremely serious, with heavy mandatory minimums. We see auto theft for the third time as something that needs to be curbed in society, and we see some of the other offences to be handled at the discretion of a judge in giving up to the maximum of whatever the case may be--six months, ten years.
Am I right that this is the only section of part IX that has a mandatory minimum?
I am happy to support this measure, but the message should be sent to the government, or the next government, that we need to look at the code and prioritize. If you looked in our communities and found that somebody has been the subject of a third home invasion, you might want to think of that as something you might want to look at as well, as long as it's measured and as long as it's proportional. In this case, this is fairly proportional, so I support it.
Thank you.
As I read this bill and the amendments, I saw in proposed subsection 353.1(2) the definition of “vehicle identification number”. The way it's described there is:
For the purpose of this section, “vehicle identification number” means any number or other mark placed on a motor vehicle for the purpose of distinguishing it from other similar motor vehicles.
Now, putting a mark on a vehicle could include your name. You might paint your name on a vehicle, but more importantly, it appears to include a provincial motor vehicle licence plate, and I am not sure that is what was intended. Most of us think of a vehicle identification number as one of these stamped markings that show up on the engine block and on various other parts of a motor vehicle, placed there by the auto manufacturers.
What we have, then, is a section--and I'll ask officials to comment on this--that just by the bare words of the definition includes a vehicle licence plate.
Then the charging section notes:
Every person commits an offence who, without lawful excuse, wholly or partially alters, removes or obliterates a vehicle identification number on a motor vehicle.
In theory, then, the act of removing your licence plate from the motor vehicle would constitute a criminal offence. In theory, somebody who simply took the motor vehicle licence plate from the motor vehicle would be committing an offence. I'm just taking the plain wording of this definition. On the face of it, someone who had vanity plates in a garage and removed them from the vehicle would be committing an offence unless he or she had what is described here as a “lawful excuse”. In other words, the burden is on the person. The offence is there unless the person has a lawful excuse.
I don't think our criminal law should be criminalizing very normal, routine acts, or be placing the burden on the citizen to have a lawful excuse to do something that up until this point in time he or she had every right to do, which is to remove the vanity plates.
If someone who was gathering intelligence--a police officer, a CSIS agent--for whatever purposes in an operation decides to remove a licence plate or alter a licence plate, you may say they have a lawful excuse. They might or might not.
I looked for a way to fix this and I thought that maybe we should remove the motor vehicle licence plate from the definition and clearly say that it's not included, but maybe the drafters really did intend a licence plate to be part of the definition. Then I thought that what I'd really like to do is switch the burden so that the person doesn't have to have a lawful excuse; rather, someone who removes a licence plate or alters a vehicle ID number must do it with intent to impede or obstruct in the identification of a motor vehicle. That would put the citizen back on neutral ground. That is the intent of my amendment.
In my amendment I've added words. After “A person”, it would read:
who, with intent to impede the identification of a motor vehicle and without lawful excuse, wholly or partially alters, removes or obliterates the vehicle identification number on the motor vehicle
That is the purpose of it. I'd like the officials to explain to me in whatever way they could--and my colleague may want to try as well--why a motor vehicle licence plate is not included in the current definition of “vehicle identification number” as it's set out here.
:
Well, I could be wrong. But am I wrong that we don't define vehicle...? I think it's not intentional, but Derek has got us on to something.
The VIN is not defined in the section that makes it an offence to obliterate it. Is that in proposed subsection (2)?
It's the same one as in subsection (2) of having possession, which is now.... Is it the same? Why doesn't it have letters in it?
I guess what I'm saying is that section 354 stays, gets a new name, and has that definition section of VIN. In the one we're proposing, section 353.1, it has “for the purpose of” in subsection (2). Why doesn't it have, more specifically, a number or letter or a definition that's...? We all know what a VIN is, but I'm not sure that is the best wording for it.
In fact, if you took Derek literally, you could say that a VIN means any number or other mark placed on the vehicle. It's possible--I'm just thinking about defence lawyer tactics. Why don't we work on a better definition of VIN? Or do you think that's the best there is out there?
:
I'm mindful of the reminder you gave to all members of the committee at our last clause-by-clause consideration of Bill , I believe it was, at which the majority members on the committee defeated the short title because the amendment amending the short title was deemed inadmissible.
I do have a concern about this short title. I do not believe the English version of the short title accurately and appropriately expresses the French version of the short title.
[Translation]
In French, the short title is . But,
[English]
in English, the short title says this act may be cited as the Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act. I do not believe that in any way accurately translates or represents this bill, whereas the French short title does.
So I'm asking if the government is at all open to perhaps modifying the English clause so that it more accurately represents the French short title, which in fact does represent accurately the bill itself, whereas I do not believe the English short title does.
Is there any openness to try to find an English short title that more accurately represents the actual body of the bill, the objective of the bill, in the way that the French title does? Because the French title does it very well.