On the subject of licence plates, I have to say, upon reflection—

I have to say that under the sleepy watch of this government when it comes to auto theft, the fact is most people have been left on their own. And the police divisions have been left on their own, begging for the supports that they need in many different ways: “Come on, give us help.”

Let us fix these jurisdictional issues. Yes, I heard someone say that this is a federal issue, not like—I don’t know how many government questions there are a morning; they’re literally all about carbon tax, a federal issue. But, of course, on this one thing, “No, we’re not going talk to anyone about it. The last thing is we’re going to talk to auto manufacturers.”

But when I think about it, most drivers and the enforcement agencies, when it comes to auto theft, are left on their own. So much so that I fear, on the issue of licence plates, if we continue under this sleepy watch, we may have to change the Ontario licence plate motto from “Yours to Discover” to “Yours to Recover,” because that is literally where we are. That’s what it is. That is essentially what is going on. Because if you want to get your car back, you’re going to have to track it, you’re going to have to find it in a container—I don’t know what—come there with a blowtorch, a bulletproof vest maybe, whatever else, and call all your friends because you don’t know what you’re going to end up with.

I want to thank my friend for giving me the bill. And I apologize to the government because I was really taken in. I was almost captured by the resolve they had when they said they were going to deal with this auto theft issue because they really sold it. They really sold it as an end to auto theft in the country and in the province where we continue to set records in terms of the thefts that have happened.

So, to the government: You want to say that you are the party of getting tough on crime—again, ironic, because they are being investigated. But the thing is, if you want to do this, there are solutions that are out there. They’re literally in every single newspaper. Other jurisdictions are doing it. We’re talking about the VIN registration, where we are now a hot spot for stolen cars to come in here. It’s such a fast way to deal with it. We know that over 70% to 80% of these cars get shipped out of the province. So that means in some way, shape or form, they end up in the back of a truck, on a container, at a border somewhere. We know this has been happening since 2018.

So, to this government: Please do it on behalf of our enforcement agencies. Provide them the support in this effort. Reach out to the federal partners. Maybe as you repeat the words “carbon tax” over and over again, if you literally repeated anything else—if you said, “car theft, car theft, car theft,” in the same way you talked about carbon tax, I’m sure we would actually see a steep decline. If you showed even a fraction of the energy of repeating yourself on that every single morning in terms of some of these other issues—and I could name all sorts of them. And yes, the other thing is beer. I know we heard about that. Carbon tax and beer is really what I got from them—and embarrassingly walking back legislation.

But the thing is, this should be all you. You could do something about this. You want to talk to big business? You know, I’ve raised this to government members—about talking to auto manufacturers. Let’s talk about the highest standards of theft protection in the province of Ontario. You know what I get back? “It’s not our role.” Meanwhile, they will want to talk to businesses and say they want to attract business here, so it doesn’t really make any sense. Because it seems like they will talk to auto manufacturers about batteries and nothing else. Making these vehicles actually safer so that you or a loved one isn’t on the receiving end, God forbid, of some weapon for them to get at your vehicle—no, that’s not part of the conversation. I just can’t understand that, for a Conservative government.

The last thing is to say that they must all know, Speaker, that these are really lukewarm solutions to any of this. Because the reality is, we all know that this is not going to be a serious deterrent. If a person is willing and has worked themselves up to do serious harm to someone else, they are not going to be deterred from the simple matter of losing their licence indefinitely on not just the first, second, but on the third attempt. I’m sorry, but this is not scarier than jail for criminals. It literally is not, and I think the government knows this. So, if they’re going to get up, puff out their chest with pride and declare that it’s an end to auto theft in Ontario or even a serious dent, let’s be serious: It’s not.

There has been work. There have been conversations at the highest levels. Please listen to the enforcement officers that you talk about respecting everyday. There are solutions out there, like our member from Oshawa has talked about here and in the media and everywhere else. Deal with the fact that these VIN numbers are being stolen. That is leading cars to come here, making us not just number one for car thieves but for stolen vehicles too, which is kind of ridiculous, because you’re imagining cars are being stolen from here and then other cars are being welcomed into the province. It makes no sense. It’s an embarrassment.

This is not the kind of growth that you want to see under your watch. There are actual, real solutions. Please, come back with more serious legislation. I don’t know how much time we have left in this session, but you can put a serious dent when it comes to auto theft and you can make Ontarians feel safer, whether they’re actually behind the wheel of their car or waiting—some of them literally fearful every single night that they may wake up in the morning and have no vehicle to drive to work or to go somewhere else. The ball is in your court. Come on. Let’s get serious on crime. Let’s get serious on auto theft, not this bumper sticker stuff. Come on. You can do better than that.

Under the current system, I guess, presumably, a car thief goes with their full identification, their licence and everything. They drive to a prospective home to steal a car—maybe park their own vehicle in front of that property, steal the car and leave.

And now, under this new system—because we know, there’s no way that a criminal is going to try to steal a car now that they no longer have a licence—we will actually see an increase in demand in getaway drivers under this legislation. So we may see some more openings for actual getaway drivers as a result, and this might be one of the unintended consequences we’ve seen as a result of legislation in this House. So thank you so much for the question.

Speaker, you know, you can’t make this up. This government put out these blue plates not that many years ago. Those plates couldn’t be seen in bad weather, couldn’t be seen in the light of day, they couldn’t be seen in the night, and it was an embarrassment, right? Because border officials, officers were saying, “Guys, get it done. Get these plates off. They’re a safety issue. They’re a safety issue”—over 150,000 on the road.

And so what did this government do? The minister came out and he announced a plan. Do you know what he announced the plan to get it done was? To let weathering and rust take care of the plates. The plan was to do nothing.

My question is, why can’t this government get it done right?