- Member of Parliament
- Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Leader of the Opposition
- Conservative
- Carleton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $61,288.13
- Government Page
- Mar/20/24 3:05:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister's catch-and-release policies and his mismanagement of our ports, car thefts have gone up by over 200% in Toronto and 100% in Montreal. There are 12,000 cars stolen in Canada's biggest city every single year. That is one car stolen every 40 minutes.
Will the Prime Minister accept my common-sense plan to scan every shipping container, reinforce our ports and put career car thieves behind bars?
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- Feb/7/24 2:52:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the cold, hard facts. There were two-thirds fewer cases of extortion in the last year of the common-sense Conservative government than there are today. In the 10 years we were in office, the number of car thefts fell by half, and that was because we targeted the worst offenders and kept them in prison, secured our ports and stopped organized crime.
The Prime Minister has only multiplied crime with his catch-and-release policies. Will he follow the evidence and reinstate a common-sense criminal justice—
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- Feb/6/24 3:46:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
After eight years in power, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost, he is not worth the crime and he is not worth the cost of crime. After eight years with this Prime Minister in power, everything costs more, work no longer pays, housing costs have doubled, and crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are out of control.
I want to give an example from a CTV article. A 26-year-old man is facing a slew of charges filed by police officers in Bradford. Police say the suspect was arrested for stealing a vehicle at around 11 p.m. but was more or less automatically released on bail. That morning, he was arrested again at 4:30 a.m. for another theft. There will be a bail hearing. He will likely be released a second time to commit a third theft in less than 24 hours.
We are hearing these sorts of stories after eight years of this Prime Minister because Bill C-75 gives automatic parole to chronic auto thieves. Even the bail reform the government presented under pressure from the Conservatives did not address auto theft. As a result, these same criminals can continue to commit hundreds of crimes, even if they are caught. It is no big deal if they are found guilty, because, under Bill C-5, they can serve their sentence in their living room, meaning they can watch Netflix or play a game while they wait to go out and steal another vehicle. That is why, after eight years of this Prime Minister, auto theft is up 300% in Toronto, 100% in Ottawa and Montreal and 100% in New Brunswick.
The government is releasing recidivists who terrorize our streets and then it helps them send stolen goods around the world to fund terrorism and organized crime. The ports are wide open to criminals. Even though the Prime Minister has spent billions of dollars on bureaucracy, we see that the Port of Montreal has only five border officers to inspect more than 500,000 containers. Less than 1% of the containers are inspected. They have a scanner that barely works. It is easy to see why theft has massively increased. Even after all of these increases, we see that the number of containers being intercepted is the same as it was eight years ago. There is more theft, more illegal exports, but more containers are not being intercepted. That does not make sense.
We did exactly the opposite when we formed the government: We cut the number of car thefts in half. That is a massive reduction that makes me proud. The Prime Minister likes to point out the fact that we did that by cutting costs. It is true, we cut costs and reduced crime at the same time. That is a good thing, a win-win, as the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles would say.
Today, I continued to present our common-sense plan. First, we will bring in three years of jail for three stolen cars. Second, we will end house arrest. Third, we will bring in harsher penalties for theft tied to organized crime. Finally, we will strengthen our ports.
We will do this by hiring 75 border officers to carry out inspections at Canada's four largest ports, namely, Vancouver, Halifax, Prince Rupert and, of course, Montreal. They will be able to use new scanners that can look into the boxes to see if they contain stolen goods. Each of those 24 scanners will be able to scan one million containers a year.
How are we going to pay for that? With a common-sense approach, dollar for dollar. We are going to cut $165 million from the budget for external management consultants. We are going to get rid of consultants and put the money into boots on the ground and box scanners.
It is really very simple. We have a common-sense plan to stop auto theft by strengthening our ports and keeping thieves behind bars. That is just common sense.
After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. After eight years, he is not worth the crime. After eight years, he is not worth the cost of crime. Crime is costly, because after eight years of the Prime Minister, we are paying $1 billion in higher insurance premiums to pay for the stolen cars. In Ontario, that adds $120 to the insurance bill of every family that has a car.
Let me tell the story that was on CTV News on December 27:
A 26-year-old man faces a slew of charges after police arrested him twice less than six hours apart for alleged crimes in Bradford and Innisfil.
Police said he was caught stealing a car at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday. They arrested and released him, and then he was arrested at 4:30 a.m. the very next morning. That was five hours after his last crime.
This is the new normal after eight years of the Prime Minister and his catch-and-release Bill C-75, which forced police to arrest the same 40 offenders 6,000 times in Vancouver and contributed to a 300% increase in auto theft in Toronto, 100% in Ottawa and Montreal, and over 100% in New Brunswick. It is crime, chaos, drugs and disorder.
If these repeat career car thieves are actually convicted, they do not have to worry about that either, because under the Prime Minister's Bill C-5, which has the full support of the NDP, they will have house arrest, meaning they can watch Netflix or play a game of Grand Theft Auto in their living room. Then they can get up whenever they say they need a few more bucks to fill their pockets, open the front door, walk out onto the street and steal another car. That car then goes to the port and is gone.
Our common-sense plan is very straightforward. We are going to get rid of house arrest for career car thieves. We are going bring in jail and not bail for people who have long rap sheets. We are going to bring in a mandatory three years' jail for three cars stolen. We are going to increase penalties if the stolen car was related to organized crime.
Then, we are going to reinforce our ports. I am going to cut $165 million that we are now giving to management consultants, because if the managers over at CBSA cannot manage, they should not be managing; they should be fired. We will fire the management consultants, and we will put that money, $135 million of it, into hiring 75 border agents who will use 24 new scanners that are able to scan a million shipping containers every year at our four biggest ports. If a stolen car is in there and there is a phony claim on the manifest, the scanner will show it. If someone calls saying, “Look out for my stolen car,” the scanner will catch it. The box can be put aside. The car can be put back in the hands of the rightful owner.
In other words, our common-sense plan is to put boots on the ground, to scan the boxes and to put the career car thieves in jail. Our common-sense plan is to stop the crime and bring home safe streets. It is the common sense of the common people, united for our common home.
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- Feb/5/24 2:19:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I promised to do was axe the tax and lower income taxes.
We are also going to reduce the cost of auto theft. Today I announced a common-sense plan to end house arrest, to end automatic parole for auto thieves and to make three-year prison sentences mandatory after three auto thefts.
Will the government stop the crime it has caused with this common-sense plan?
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- Jan/31/24 2:34:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he claims to have stopped 1,600 car thefts. There were 100,000 car thefts in 2022, which is a 34% increase across Canada. He needs to host a summit to understand the problem. He is the problem.
We have common-sense solutions. We need to put an end to the catch-and-release policy and Netflix sentences for car thieves and restore competent management to the Port of Montreal to prevent our cars from being exported.
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- Jan/31/24 2:26:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, wow, is the Prime Minister ever losing control of himself. My goodness, he is screaming and hollering like that.
It is his press release that says that, in Toronto, auto thefts are up 300% since he took office. His solution is to hold a summit. He held a summit on food prices, and food prices went up. He held a summit on housing, and housing costs doubled. How much is crime going to rise after all of the bigwigs go to his summit?
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