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Feb/6/24 12:04:49 p.m.
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This is not the place to actually have a debate. There is a lot of opportunity for people to have debate in the House. Therefore, I will ask the hon. acting whip whether he consents or does not consent to the amendment.

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Mr. Greg McLean

Feb/6/24 12:05:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think it is pretty clear that the words the New Democrats are putting in here are a deflection to try to continue to cover up what the government is doing here, as they have finally become aware of it. We reject the amendment.

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/6/24 12:05:14 p.m.
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There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Don Valley East.

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Mr. Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Lib.)

Feb/6/24 12:05:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been an elected member for 20 years, whether on the school board, provincial government or here. Fighting crime has always been connected to what I have worked on in my life, and there has always been a correlation between good investments in programming and preventative measures. Crime cannot be dealt with entirely through policing. The Conservatives seem to have a very narrow perspective on crime, which is to throw people in prison and throw away the key. I have always looked at preventative measures as one of the solutions to fight crime. How does the member think Conservatives would approach preventative measures for crime mitigation in this country?

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Mr. Peter Julian

Feb/6/24 12:06:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they do not. Conservatives are absolutely appalling when it comes to crime. We have talked about how high the auto theft rate was under the Harper Conservatives. They just said no to putting in place crime prevention programs, reinforcing frontline border officers, requiring auto manufacturers to ensure that there are security features in the cars they sell and putting in place tough new measures to crack down on organized crime and money laundering linked to auto thefts. We know that Conservatives are soft on money laundering and organized crime. They will not take on corporate CEOs who are spending $10 on a car door for a $100,000 automobile. They are not putting in place any of the measures that would address the issue. Of course, when we look across the country at which provinces have the highest crime rates, they are the Conservative provinces. In every single case, they have policies that are designed to fuel crime, not cut it. Therefore, for Conservatives to say no to this common-sense amendment just shows complete and utter hypocrisy.

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Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, CPC)

Feb/6/24 12:07:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that, under the Liberals, supported by the New Democrats, auto thefts and crime have skyrocketed. The New Democrats need to bear some responsibility. New Democrats have pointed to the government confidence motions on funding that we have voted against. That is because we have no confidence in the government, unlike the New Democratic Party, which is supporting the incompetency of the Liberals. Canadians are paying the price. Under our plan, we will see some major investments and changes in ports regarding security. Will the New Democratic Party support our motion?

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Mr. Peter Julian

Feb/6/24 12:08:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have seen the Conservative plan, and the Conservatives voted in front of the entire country. Every Canadian saw they wanted to cut over $100 million from the RCMP budget. Every Canadian saw they wanted to gut CBSA; they did it when they were in power and they are doing it again. Every Canadian saw they wanted to gut FINTRAC, which is supposed to be ensuring that criminal financial transactions are caught at source. I think every Canadian saw in December how a Conservative government would act. We lived through the Harper regime. We know that, when it comes to crime, Conservatives simply do not have any smart-on-crime policies at all. The NDP offered a way to fix their motion, and they rejected it. They do not want to tackle organized crime. They do not want to crack down on money laundering. They do not want to install the crime prevention programs that save so much money and make sure that Canadians are not victims of crime. The Conservatives do not want to restore what they gutted when they were in power. They do not want to compel automobile CEOs to put in place security measures to ensure that cars cannot be stolen easily. They said no to all of those things, and it is on the record.

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)

Feb/6/24 12:10:14 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague and good friend, the member for Oxford. Since 2015, the Liberals have pursued a systematic agenda of dismantling Canada’s judicial system and undermining the rule of law in this country. They have not only done so with their repeated ethics violations and blatant disrespect for the charter but have also done so through more legitimate means, like through acts of Parliament. Thanks to Liberal bills that passed under a former justice minister, committing crimes has become easier and more common than before. It seems that under the current minister, the streak will continue, given the responses we have heard in the House already, along with some colourful language of course. At every step of the way, Liberals have placed the rights of offenders over the rights of victims, and their woke, out-of-touch ideology over common sense and safety. With respect to deterring crimes, the Liberals' Bill C-5 eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for dangerous crimes such as robbery with a firearm, sexual assault and drug trafficking. There are others. Not only that, but it also allows hardened criminals to serve their reduced sentence in the comfort of their own home, to serve time while watching TV in their living room, sleeping in their own bed and enjoying the privileges that all those who have not committed crimes enjoy. With respect to arresting criminals, the catch-and-release practices now mean that it is nearly impossible to keep dangerous offenders in jail for more than a few hours. They are then released back into the world, free to commit crimes, sometimes even the same crimes and on the same day, over and over again. The revolving door spins, cycling through a rotation of hardened, merciless lawbreakers who face no accountability. They are free to break the law over and over again, putting the public at risk and propagating unnecessary harm on communities, innocent victims, families and neighbourhoods. Finally, with respect to prosecuting criminals, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP incompetence, the government has decayed our justice system and made it just a shell of its former self. It takes months to get a court date. Resources have been stretched to the limit, which makes it harder to catch criminals, and it is harder to keep them accountable. Therefore it is no surprise that our streets are more dangerous and that Canadians are worried that their once-safe neighbourhoods are subject to crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. Every single day we see new, outrageous headlines about individuals who are putting communities in danger and about a system that is failing Canadians. Just last week, a 43-year-old man stabbed a total stranger with a syringe in broad daylight in downtown Toronto. The man was out on bail for previous assaults and has had more than 40 convictions in his lifetime, including failure to comply with the court and failure to attend court dates. The incident was in the middle of the day in Toronto. However, thanks to the Liberal policies, we know he will get bail one more time and that the cycle will continue again and again. Stories like these add up; that is what makes Canadians feel unsafe. It is not just a feeling; it is based on empirical data and evidence. The stories not only add up to broken communities, broken victims and broken families; they also a story about the state of our country. Since 2015, gang crimes have doubled and violent crime is up 37%. Canada’s murder rate is the highest it has been in 30 years, since the last time there was a Liberal government in power, and nowhere is the story more out of control and more apparent than when it comes to auto theft. Too many people wake up, look out the window and see that their car that was sitting in their driveway the night before is no longer there. It is gone. It was taken while they were sleeping in safe communities like mine, where, at one time, nobody locked their front door. Since 2015, car thefts have tripled in Canada. More than 100,000 vehicles are being stolen every year, including nearly 10,000 in Toronto alone. That means that every six minutes in Canada, a car is stolen. Gangs and criminals profit from the criminal activity and use it to finance even more criminal activities, like more car theft, arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking. Do not listen to me; the Prime Minister actually admitted it in his own press release. It costs every Canadian who drives almost everywhere more to pay for this. It cost the insurance industry a billion dollars in 2022. Everyone in the province is now paying more to drive. In Ontario, car theft claims, just in the first half of last year, were up 329%. That accounts for $700 million in losses. It means $130 more for every Ontario driver on insurance. Why is this happening? Let us lead ourselves back to the dangerous catch-and-release policies that unleashed crime and chaos in communities. Bill C-75 allows repeat violent offenders to be released on bail within hours of arrest. They then often re-offend. Last year, even Mayor Steven Del Duca, who is the mayor of Vaughan and probably a familiar name to many on the other side, wrote to the Prime Minister, calling on the federal government to urgently modernize Canada’s bail system to ensure that dangerous offenders are kept off our streets for committing crimes ranging from gun violence to home break-ins and auto thefts. The mayor wrote to Canada’s then public safety minister, asking about auto theft specifically and asking that CBSA protocols be tightened for screening and inspection of exports leaving our country. It fell on deaf ears. There was nothing until last week from the government's member of Parliament who represents a riding in Vaughan. The letter was written in January, after the problem got so out of control that the council had to step in to demand action for something it had been asking for. For what happens after offenders have been convicted, the government did not let it stop at Bill C-75. Bill C-5 gives convicts house arrest, even those with long, storied histories of stealing multiple cars. This means that they can just walk out their front door, be on the streets again and start stealing cars and terrorizing neighbourhoods when they are done doing whatever they do in the comforts of their own homes. One last thing is that the federal government controls our ports, the places where organized crime is taking place: en route to federal ports and at federal ports. Stolen cars are waiting at federal ports to be shipped overseas. It is time for a new approach. It is time to start increasing mandatory jail time to deter the actual crime and not to have people keep doing it over and over again. We propose three years for three thefts, and of course ending house arrest for car thieves while also increasing sentences for gang-associated car thieves. Police, insurance associations, community groups and business organizations have been sounding the alarm bell about this for years. Our own constituents send us videos of it happening right in their front driveway, but their concerns have fallen on the deaf ears of the Liberal government, which in the meantime still continues to stand with lawbreakers instead of with law enforcement. Now the calls have reached a breaking point, and the Liberals are finally going to do something about it. What is that something? Are they going to increase the punishments? No, they will not. Are they going to end catch-and-release policies that turn repeat violent offenders back onto our streets? Are they going to crack down on the incompetence at Canadian ports that allows thousands of cars? Nope, they will not. They are going to have a summit. They are going to sit around a table. They are going to have a meeting. They are going to come out with a press release. They are going to take some photos. They are going to talk about it, after eight years, this problem that has gotten out of control. They had a summit on food prices; food prices went up. They had a summit on housing; housing prices have doubled. I can hardly wait to see the results from this summer. In fact, I think Canadians would beg them not to have a summit. Instead, they should start cracking down on the violent offenders, keep them behind bars when they re-commit, stop the house arrests and actually get serious about fighting crime in every single neighbourhood across the country.

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All Topics

Mr. Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Lib.)

Feb/6/24 12:19:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member started her speech by talking about woke policies. She used the word “woke”. I have always been a person who has invested into preventative measures, like acknowledging things like systemic racism and acknowledging that we need to invest into communities where there may be some disaggregated race-based data that would contribute to making those decisions. Does the member opposite acknowledge that systemic racism is real in this country? Should we be making investments based on data collection?

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman

Feb/6/24 12:20:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, violent crime in this country has gone up by 32%. Gang-related crime has gone up by over 90% in this country. There needs to be something done about it, and that is exactly what we are talking about right here. We are talking about the solutions that we are going to put in place to keep repeat violent offenders in jail. The member can talk about whatever he wants, but this motion today is about, frankly, keeping our cars in our driveway and putting the bad guys in jail. I do not know why that is such a novel concept in this country.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Feb/6/24 12:21:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course, we could impose harsher sentences, but in order to be able to do so, we have to be able to bring down the organizations and catch the people who are committing these crimes. Will the member do the honourable thing today and recognize that, by making cuts to the CBSA, the RCMP and ports, the Conservative government made a mistake that is having an impact on what is happening today?

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman

Feb/6/24 12:21:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a constant refrain that has been coming up in the House. The Conservatives actually spent less money, and the rate of crime was lower than it is today. We have had a 300% increase in car theft in Toronto since the Liberals took power. Yes, we probably did spend less money as a Conservative government, but does the member know what is worse than failure? It is expensive failure, and that is exactly what we see from this government.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Feb/6/24 12:22:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague did not answer the question. The Conservatives, when they were in government, cut $600 million to the RCMP. They got rid of the RCMP recruitment fund. They cut over 1,100 jobs at the CBSA, and we are still feeling the effects of that today. In fact, the NDP brought forward amendments today, common-sense proposals, which I would think the Conservatives would support, including getting CEOs to make sure car manufacturers change the way they are designing vehicles to make them harder to steal, but they did not do that. Also, we heard testimony from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Again, the Conservatives, the law-and-order party, failed to listen to the experts. The worst provinces for car theft are Conservative-governed provinces, so maybe my colleague can explain why that is happening in Conservative-led provinces, why the Conservatives cut so seriously and so deeply on the RCMP and the CBSA, and whether they regret those cuts.

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman

Feb/6/24 12:23:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member does have one thing right. We are the tough-on-crime party. We are the only tough-on-crime party in the entire House. The truth is that I am not the one who needs to explain to my constituents why I am propping up a government, at every single opportunity and in every single confidence motion, that has let the rate of crime rise in this country to 32% higher on violent crime, to 100% higher on gang-related crime and to 300% higher on auto theft. Hundreds of thousands of cars are being stolen in this country, and the member who just asked me the question is supporting a meeting and supporting tougher measures by car companies, placing the blame on car companies instead of the government that he supports at every single measure, no matter how hard it has failed in this country.

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Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, Lib.)

Feb/6/24 12:24:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the debate from the lobby, and I heard the member start by talking about “woke” policy. I wondered what she thought about when she used that word, and if “woke” to her means caring for vulnerable people, advocating for the rights of the LGBTQ communities, working on reconciliation, and making sure that people have a fair chance to succeed and young people do not find themselves in a life of crime or worse. I would like to know what she means when she talks about “woke”.

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman

Feb/6/24 12:25:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are talking about repeat offenders doing the same thing over and over again. What is woke is allowing this to continue to happen in this country with absolutely no recourse, no punishment and no jail time, and I do not think Canadians will stand for it.

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Mr. Arpan Khanna (Oxford, CPC)

Feb/6/24 12:25:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was a passionate speech by the member for Thornhill about this issue, the common-sense motion we have brought forward. Axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime: These are the common-sense priorities needed to get our country back on track. That is why it is an honour today to rise in the House on behalf of the good people of Oxford to speak to our fourth priority, stopping the crime. After eight years of the Prime Minister, everything costs more. Work does not pay, and housing costs have doubled. Rent has doubled. Mortgages have doubled. The amount needed for a down payment has doubled. For the first time, the government has priced an entire generation out of owning a home. Even if people are able to get a home, there is now crime in our neighbourhoods. Our families do not feel safe any more. Eight years of the Prime Minister’s soft-on-crime and dangerous catch-and-release bail policies have unleashed a wave of violent crime across our country, which has led to a massive increase in car thefts. Looking at violent crime at large, homicides are up 43%, up for the fourth year in a row. Gang-related homicides are up 108%. Violent gun crimes are up 101%, up for the eighth time in a row. Aggravated assaults are up 24%. Assault with a weapon is up 61%. Total sexual assaults are up 71%. Sex crimes against our children are up 126%. Kidnapping is up 36%, and car thefts are up 34% across our country. Every morning, Canadians are waking up and looking out of their windows, not to check the weather but to make sure their cars are still in their driveways. This may sound like we are being a bit dramatic about this issue, but the numbers do not lie. One in four Canadians either have had their car stolen or know someone who has. We as members all know somebody just down the aisle from here. The former justice minister had two of his government cars stolen. If that does not speak to how much of an epidemic this is, I do not know what will. For the sake of clarity, let us review the data. According to the Liberal government’s own admission and press release, which came out a few days ago, since 2015 car theft is up 34% nationwide. It is up by 300% in Toronto, 100% in Montreal, 100% in Ottawa-Gatineau, 120% in New Brunswick, 122% in Ontario and 59% in Quebec. However, this is no longer just an urban issue. After eight years of the Prime Minister’s soft-on-crime policies, even rural communities like Oxford are not immune to the rising crimes we are seeing. Crime and car thefts are trickling into our small, peaceful communities. While I was preparing for this speech I was in the habit of reading our local morning newspapers, and I could see that there are even pickup trucks being stolen in Beachville, Tillsonburg and Woodstock. It was not like this eight years ago. Back in the day, a person could leave their car unlocked and leave their doors unlocked, and that was enough for them to stay safe, but the hard-working people of rural Ontario are now directly impacted by the Prime Minister's reckless policies. I recently spoke with someone who had two cars stolen from their driveway within a single hour. Local police detachments cannot respond once a stolen vehicle reaches a federal port, so Canadians are now forced to take these thefts into their own hands. Many are using air tags to track their stolen cars, which are now being shipped to the ports and, from there, out of the country. Recently I heard from a man who tracked his car from Ontario to Montreal and all the way to Dubai, and he was completely powerless to stop it. It is at these ports that the Prime Minister's absolute mismanagement of the RCMP and CBSA is highlighted. The port of Montreal, a major hub for stolen vehicles being shipped out of Canada, has only five CBSA officers to inspect the containers. They have 580,000 containers to inspect every year, according to media reports. One agent said that the CBSA has no resources to check the containers, so they check less than 1% of containers. They apparently have only one X-ray scanner, which constantly breaks down. How on earth can we expect them to inspect 580,000 containers that will be leaving our country, with one scanner? Federal ports in Prince Rupert, Halifax and Vancouver all report the same thing. Is the Prime Minister working with CBSA to fix the problem? No; he has done the exact opposite. Despite rates of car theft skyrocketing, CBSA is seizing about the same number of cars today at the federal Port of Montreal as it was doing years ago, and it is frequently ignoring suspicious containers even when they are reported or even if there is somebody standing in front of the container, looking at their phone and saying that the tag is showing their car to be in that container. Just last year, the Prime Minister spent $15 million on useless management consultants at the CBSA. Let us not forget the $54 million the Liberals spent on the arrive scam app, which not only did not work but also is now being investigated by the RCMP for corruption. Common-sense Conservatives would use these dollars to put boots on the ground and support our CBSA officers. We would not pump more money into bureaucracy. The CBSA has failed to spend $117 million that had already been approved by Parliament. This is yet another example of Liberal mismanagement and the inability to deliver desperately needed results for Canadians. The failure of the current government and the CBSA allows stolen cars to be shipped abroad to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Europe. They are resold and used to fund organized crime and terror networks to profit evil globally. This is simply unacceptable. With federal ports, the federal CBSA, the federal Criminal Code and the federal Prime Minister, this is a federal responsibility, and we need to respond immediately. Car theft has become a get-rich-quick scheme for violent criminals and gangs, and hard-working Canadians are paying the price. This rise in car theft has made Canadians less safe at a time when many are already struggling as a result of the Prime Minister's reckless debt and costly carbon tax. Car theft is an additional burden on Canadians. In 2022, car insurance payouts totalled more than $1 billion. In Ontario, car theft claims were up 329% in the first half of 2023 alone, adding up to more than $700 million in losses. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has estimated that auto theft will cost every single driver an extra $130 a year. The failure of the government is to respond to the violent crime crisis, costing more and more at a time when Canadians are hurting and life is unaffordable. Only a Conservative government would stand up for Canadians and bring home safe streets. We have a common-sense solution for the real problem. A Conservative government would go after real criminals by restoring jail and not bail, increasing mandatory jail time and ending house arrest for car thieves, while also increasing sentences for gang-associated crimes. We would increase the mandatory prison time from six months to three years for a third offence of a motor vehicle theft. We would remove eligibility for house arrest for anyone convicted of a motor vehicle theft by way of indictment. We would create a new specific aggravating factor where the offence of a motor vehicle theft is committed for the benefit of organized crime. We would repeal the catch-and-release rules in the Prime Minister's Bill C-75 to ensure that repeat offenders would get jail and not bail. We would fire useless management consultants at CBSA and use that money to fix our federal ports. We would invest in state-of-the-art X-ray equipment to allow for rapid scanning of containers at our four major ports in Vancouver, Montreal, Prince Rupert and Halifax. We would purchase a total of 24 new scanners, and we would hire more CBSA officers. After eight years of this Prime Minister, crime, chaos, drugs and disorder run rampant in our communities. People's homes are where they are supposed to feel the safest, and all Canadians deserve to feel safe in their homes. We need to do more to ensure our communities are safe places for our children to grow and for people to raise their families. It is very simple: The Prime Minister's reckless policies have allowed car thefts to explode in our communities, and his only action to fix this is to hold summits. Canadians do not need more summits; they need a common-sense plan to stop theft and end the crime. Stop the photo ops, stop the talk and let us have more action. Let us put a stop to auto theft, protect our property and bring home safer streets for all Canadians. That is just common sense.

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

Feb/6/24 12:35:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, sometimes it is hard to believe some of the things the Conservatives will say. He said they were going to increase supports and have more CBSA officers. It was the Conservative government that cut over 1,000 Canada border control service officers back in 2000. Then the member says that they will increase the penalty from six months to three years. Who do they think put in the six-month minimum? It was Stephen Harper. Does the member not know what the Conservative Party has actually done? How can he stand and say what he has when the Conservative Party in the past did the absolute opposite?

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Mr. Arpan Khanna

Feb/6/24 12:36:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is obviously entitled to his opinions, but not to his own facts. The government has been in power for the last eight years. It has had eight years to fix this crisis. They are federal courts, federal CBSA, federal RCMP, federal Criminal Code and it is a federal Prime Minister. The Liberals have been sitting on the sidelines watching this crisis unfold. Now that it has blown up, they are holding summits, they want amazing photo ops and they want a pat on the back. They have caused the chaos in our housing, in our judicial system and in our communities. We are going to stop that with our common-sense plan to get car theft under control.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/6/24 12:37:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is obviously concerned about the situation. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia wants to ensure that the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security conducts a study. Strangely enough, the Conservatives do not seem to want that study to happen. They would rather have an opposition day about it, which, by the way, will not do much to change what is happening in the country. We are having an opposition day today and we will vote on a motion. Not much will change once we have voted on the motion, whether it is adopted or not. However, a study by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security could get results by making serious recommendations and hearing expert testimony. Speaking of expert testimony, I would like to ask a simple question. The Conservatives are proposing a three-year prison sentence for a third auto theft offence. What expert proposed a three-year sentence? Why are the Conservatives proposing a three-year sentence as opposed to a three-and-a-half-, two-and-a-half-, four- or five-year sentence? What is the rationale behind the three-year duration? I am not for or against that. I just want to understand why. What expert recommended that? Why are they proposing a three-year sentence?

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