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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/6/24 10:21:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will quote a Manitoba statistic from 2007 since the member referred to that year: “the province's 2007 rate remained the highest in the country...for the 11th straight year and was 24% higher than a decade ago”. I remember talking about the issue when I was an MLA. I will remind the member that Stephen Harper was prime minister then. Unfortunately for the people of Winnipeg, there are far too many victims. The member needs to recognize that in order to deal with an issue such as this, as we did then, there is an obligation to work with other jurisdictions such as provinces, and with law enforcement agencies, and to provide support where we can. Can the member indicate why Stephen Harper was such a disaster during 2007-08 on the issue of automobile thefts in the province of Manitoba?

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Feb/6/24 10:22:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member wants to talk about stats. Here are some stats: Violent crime is up by 39% since the Liberals have been in government for the last eight years. Gang-related homicides are up 108% since they have been in government, and violent gun crime has increased. Murders are up, and yes, car thefts are also up. It is not just about the cars; it is also about the fact that the insurance industry is saying auto theft is costing over a billion dollars a year, which makes everybody's premiums more expensive. The current government is just not worth the cost.

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Ms. Kristina Michaud (Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, BQ)

Feb/6/24 10:23:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see that the Conservatives have finally realized that there is an auto theft crisis in Canada. I for one have been talking about it since October 2023. I moved a motion at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to study—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/6/24 10:23:26 a.m.
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If the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester has anything to add, he can wait until it is time for questions and comments. In the meantime, he may want to respect the individual who currently has the floor. The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.

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Ms. Kristina Michaud

Feb/6/24 10:23:41 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-26 Bill C-20

Madam Speaker, I will start again. Unfortunately, I do not think anyone heard me. If the member would put his earpiece in, I think that would work even better. I am pleased to see that the Conservatives have finally realized that there is an auto theft crisis in Canada. I for one have been talking about it since October. I moved a motion at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to study this issue. The Conservatives agreed to it. They thought it was a good idea, but all they have done since then is hold up the committee's work. That is what they did with Bill C-20 and Bill C-26. Why are they doing that? The reason is that they do not think that the auto theft crisis is all that important after all. Why do they want to talk about it today? Is it because it makes for a good campaign slogan? Is it because they want to crack down on crime? Why has this become a priority for the Conservative Party today?

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Feb/6/24 10:24:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives have been steadfast in supporting communities and calling for safer communities. We brought forward legislation in the past, when we were in government, to have mandatory minimums. These were actually repealed by the Liberal government, which has made it easier for criminals to get bail and to serve their sentence at home. We have opposed those measures all along the way, and we will continue to do that because Canadians want and need safer streets.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Feb/6/24 10:25:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I like the member, but he neglected to say a whole bunch of things around the issue of car theft that concern a lot of Canadians. First, when the Harper government was in power, it actually slashed $600 million from RCMP funding. It also cut over 1,000 border officers and gutted the crime prevention programs that were so effective in stopping car theft. The House will recall that under the Harper government, the highest rates of car theft in our country's history were found. Five of the worst years for car theft over the last 15 years were under the Harper government. In December, with vote 3, we saw Conservatives vote again to cut CBSA funding. In vote 76, they voted to cut FINTRAC funding, and in votes 103, 104 and 105, proposed by Conservatives, they voted to cut over $100 billion in RCMP funding. Why are Conservatives so contradictory on issues like crime?

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Hon. Tim Uppal

Feb/6/24 10:26:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have already proposed ideas for legislation that would bring in mandatory minimums for those who have committed car theft for a third time. Currently under the Liberals, the minimum sentence is only six months. Our proposal would bring it up to three years. We are going to get tough on criminals and make streets safer for Canadians.

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Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

Feb/6/24 10:26:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of Justin Trudeau, one word keeps coming up over and over: trust. After eight years of Liberal governance, people no longer trust this government or this Prime Minister. The latest example could not be clearer. The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Nazi who was invited here and honoured in the House was also invited—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/6/24 10:26:58 a.m.
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The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia on a point of order.

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Ms. Kristina Michaud

Feb/6/24 10:27:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, you may not have noticed, but at the beginning of his speech, the member called another colleague in the House by name. I believe we are supposed to call our colleagues by their titles. Perhaps he should be reminded of that.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Feb/6/24 10:27:16 a.m.
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Thank you. I did not hear it. I want to remind members not to use the names of members who sit in the House when making a speech. I also want to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms something. I notice it is getting a little noisy in the lobby. Someone really should go and see what is happening and ask people to lower their voices. The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Feb/6/24 10:27:46 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister whose name we cannot say anymore, the trust is gone. Unfortunately, the trust is broken. We saw this in the most recent incident. The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Prime Minister provided disinformation, at the very least, to the House concerning his office's knowledge of the presence of a Nazi who was honoured here. Each of my colleagues was asked to applaud this Nazi on the recommendation of the former Speaker of the House of Commons. For weeks, the Prime Minister denied any knowledge of this situation. He denied his office had been involved. However, we learned this week that not only did the Prime Minister's Office know, but that the PMO itself invited this Nazi to a reception. This was a personal invitation from the PMO. For this reason, when the time comes to talk about crime, to stop the crime and find solutions, every word from this Prime Minister must now be taken with a grain of salt, unfortunately. It is unfortunate because, after eight years of this Prime Minister, Canadians no longer trust him or his announcements, like the summit on auto theft he announced. For the eight years this Prime Minister has been in power, he had the tools at his disposal. For eight years, he has had the power to act, yet the only solution he can think of is to call everyone together so he can share the blame with them instead of taking responsibility for his actions, just as he refused to do when he himself invited a former Nazi to a reception hosted by the Prime Minister and attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A Conservative government will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and, above all, stop the crime. That brings us to today's motion. Auto theft is a serious issue across the country, mainly in big cities, but also in rural areas. I will talk about this in my speech. In Quebec alone, 10,595 auto thefts were reported in 2022. This figure comes from the Groupement des assureurs automobiles, an auto insurance group that represents virtually all Quebec insurance companies. That is a 37% increase between 2021 and 2022 and a 138% increase since 2016, or since this Liberal government came to power. It amounts to an average of 29 vehicles stolen per day. In 2022, auto theft cost insurers $372 million, up $130 million in one year alone. People are going to wonder why their car insurance costs are going up. It is simple: Insurance companies have to pay for all these stolen vehicles. Why are more of them not being recovered? Why can the police not stop auto theft? I will share a couple of quick stories. I have friends in the Quebec City area whose vehicle was stolen. They have cameras set up at home. There was a nice vehicle on the property. This happened in broad daylight. The footage clearly shows the thief going up to the vehicle with a forged key, getting in and just driving off. Minutes later, my friend called the police. The police told him that his vehicle was probably already on its way to the port of Montreal and that, if it was already there, unfortunately, they would not be able to get into the port of Montreal to seize it. The police suggested he call his insurer. No search is launched and no investigation is opened to find the guilty party. The police tell the owner to call their insurance company, and the thieves get off scot-free. The same thing happened in the Sherbrooke region, and I think similar accounts are cropping up across the country. The port of Montreal has become a hub for exporting stolen vehicles to other countries, wherever they can be sold. I saw a news report on that very topic this week. It was so odd. It reported that vehicles are turning up in a country not far from Saudi Arabia, I forget which one, and they still have Quebec flag stickers on their windows or other Quebec-related markings. No one even bothers to clean them. Why should they? All this happens in broad daylight. This Prime Minister's federal government is doing absolutely nothing to stop auto theft. Vehicles are being stolen with impunity, considering that the federal government, which could and should have acted, is responsible for 95% of all the laws and procedures needed to stop these thefts. The Prime Minister has chosen to do nothing, other than holding a summit to talk about the problem instead of taking action. Why is this happening? It is happening because of the government's choices. The government amended certain laws. One particular example is Bill C‑5, which permits house arrest instead of jail time for car thieves. Because of these bills, repeat offenders do not go to jail. They can serve their sentences at home, watching Netflix, which is why we call them “Netflix sentences”. What is happening, as a result? There are no longer any consequences for thieves. Apparently, based on the information being provided and shared by police officers, thieves are simply no longer afraid of facing justice. It is so lucrative to sell these luxury vehicles abroad and the risk of getting caught is so low compared to the potential gains that they would rather carry on. Organized crime is involved. Meanwhile, people are watching as their vehicles are shipped off to countries all over the world, and the government does nothing. After eight years of inaction by this Prime Minister, it is time to act. That is why a Conservative government will take action. It will immediately reverse the changes made by the Liberal government in its soft-on-crime Bill C‑5, which allows car thieves to be placed under house arrest rather than going to jail. That bill was supported by the Bloc Québécois. A Conservative government will strengthen Criminal Code provisions to ensure that repeat car thieves are kept behind bars. We will provide the CBSA and port officials with the resources they need to stop stolen cars from leaving the country. Specifically, we will increase mandatory sentences from six months to three years for a third car theft offence. Three car thefts will mean three years in prison. There will be far fewer thieves on the street if we do things right. We will get rid of the Netflix sentences and create a new specific aggravating factor when the offence is committed for the benefit of organized crime. Furthermore, just this morning, the leader of the Conservative Party was at the port of Montreal to announce other very important measures that the government could have implemented. Instead of holding a summit, it could have taken action. However, once again it chose to give car thieves free rein and keep car owners in Montreal and in the regions living in fear of having their cars stolen at any time. Today we announced we are going to fire the useless management consultants at the CBSA and use that money to fix our federal ports. We are going to invest in state-of-the-art X-ray scanners that can be used to quickly scan containers at the four federal ports of Montreal, Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Halifax. We are going to hire a special team of customs officers to use the scanners and intercept stolen cars so they do not leave the country. We are going to hire 75 CBSA officers to secure our federal ports. We will do all that while adhering to our policy of saving one dollar for every dollar spent, particularly by saving money on the infamous ArriveCAN app, which cost $54 million. If they had invested that $54 million in customs rather than in an app that does not work, we would not be in this situation today. That sums up this Prime Minister's record over the past eight years.

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All Topics

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/6/24 10:37:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, could my colleague explain why, when I was in the Manitoba legislature and Stephen Harper was the prime minister, the province of Manitoba hit record highs in terms of automobile theft? We are talking significant numbers. In fact, they were the highest in Canada for something like 10 consecutive years. They continued to be high well after 2007. It was not until the province actually started to take tangible actions in working with Ottawa that we saw the numbers go down. Would the member not agree that, like for Stephen Harper, there is an obligation to work with provincial jurisdictions and other stakeholders to ensure that we minimize the number of victims and deal with the issue? Would he not acknowledge that?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Feb/6/24 10:38:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, is there anyone in this government who will ever take responsibility for their actions and decisions? The Liberals have been in power for eight years. In those eight years, the rate of violent gun crime has surged. In Canada, in 2022 alone, the rate jumped by 9%. Approximately 14,000 violent crimes were committed with the aid of a firearm in this country in 2022, which breaks down to 36.7 crimes of this type per 100,000 inhabitants. That is 8.9% higher than in 2021. In Gatineau, just on the other side of the river, the number of violent crimes rose by 76% in one year. That is unacceptable. Meanwhile, all the Liberals are doing is once again trying to find other people to blame for their inaction. We, the Conservatives, have a plan. We will take action to fight auto theft and stop the crime.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Feb/6/24 10:39:10 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, obviously, the Bloc Québécois agrees there is a serious auto theft problem. However, this is not the only problem right now. There is an argument behind the Conservative motion, but it lacks a certain intellectual rigour. For example, it says the law arising from Bill C-5 is largely responsible for the surge in auto thefts, yet Bill C‑5 only received royal assent on November 17, 2022. I would like my colleague to explain how Bill C‑5 can be the reason auto thefts have surged since 2015 when Bill C‑5 was not even in force at the time.

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Feb/6/24 10:40:11 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois just has a tendency to support the Liberal Prime Minister. The Bloc Québécois voted for the Liberal law arising from Bill C-75, which allows car thieves to be released on bail the same day they are arrested. The thieves are arrested, but the next day, they are free to start stealing again. The Bloc Québécois also voted for Bill C-5, which allows car thieves to serve their sentence at home, watching Netflix in the comfort of their living room. The Bloc Québécois does not want a solution that will stop criminals and stop auto theft. They proved it when they voted with the government for Bill C‑75 and Bill C‑5.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Feb/6/24 10:41:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing at issue here is the fact that Conservatives have historically cut CBSA infrastructure. Detector dogs were reduced under their administration. The teams that worked with the United States, in terms of being proactive, were reduced by Conservatives. They implemented a new training program that did not hire workers until they had spent 18 weeks away from their families, getting $125 a week just to be trained for a potential job. Therefore, we are short thousands of workers. They mention five workers in the port of Montreal in their motion. Why do they not specifically outline what they will do for the CBSA officers they refer to as “agents”, who do not get the respect they deserve and do not have the infrastructure to stop the vehicles from being stolen?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Feb/6/24 10:41:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can see the NDP is confused, because, during the Harper years, it was indeed less costly and there was less crime. Crime did not pay during the time of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. I can see the NDP has trouble understanding this, but we Conservatives have decided to act. We will continue. We will stop the crime and take steps to reduce auto theft in this country. Car owners will be able to sleep easy. The first thing they do in the morning will no longer be to look outside to see if their car is still where they parked it.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)

Feb/6/24 10:42:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to bring the attention of the Speaker to a very unfortunate incident that happened in Oral Questions yesterday in response to the Leader of the Opposition's very measured policy-oriented question, which I will read right now to provide some context: Mr. Speaker, the advice is to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. The Prime Minister is not worth the cost and not worth the crime. We now are paying a billion dollars more in insurance premiums because he has led to a quadrupling of car thefts in Toronto. I have a common-sense plan, which I rolled out today, to end house arrest and catch and release for career criminals, and bring in three years of jail for three stolen cars. Will the government accept the common-sense plan? It was very focused on actual policy. No personal attack or insult at all was contained in that question. The Minister of Justice, though, used an extremely unparliamentary word in his response. It was not captured in Hansard, but it was captured on the audio. At the end of his response, the Minister of Justice called the Leader of the Opposition “an effing tool”. This comes from a government that loves to lecture everybody else about raising the level of debate, decorum and civility. Once again, we see Liberal hypocrisy on full display. The Minister of Justice completely lost his cool, lost his temper and hurled that offensive insult in this place, in the House of Commons. The Speaker has issued several rulings in the last few weeks where he has indicated that he is going to try to address these types of comments made in the House. I ask the Speaker to examine the audio. It is clearly audible for all to hear. This offensive, unparliamentary remark needs to be withdrawn, and the minister needs to apologize.

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