IBC comments on government’s proroguing
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On the last day of 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued the Canadian Parliament after an eleven month session. Some critics have claimed that the timing of the prorogation was for partisan reasons, particularly to avoid scrutiny over questions regarding the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian forces and to keep some bills unpassed.
One such bill is C-26. This bill targets Canadian auto theft and, if passed, would make vehicle theft, tampering with a vehicle identification number and trafficking in stolen property specific criminal code offences. It would also stiffen sentences and five Canada Border Service Agency tools to combat the export of stolen cars. The Insurance Bureau of Canada is a strong proponent of the bill. We have IBC’s vice-President of Policy, Barb Sulzenko-Laurie on the line to talk about this issue.
Barb, I know that Bill C-26 was a bright spot for IBC to help combat auto theft in Canada. Proroguing parliament cannot be good for this bill, can it?
Barb Sulzenko-Laurie, Vice-President, Policy, IBC: Well that’s right, you know and that was one of the good news pieces. So does it look like we have to start all over again? We had all-party agreement in the House of Commons to move it to the Senate. I’m no expert on parliamentary procedures but the risk is that exercise has to be restarted. This is not tiny business, I mean I was given a figure of auto theft costing us – the industry or consumers – $465 million a year, which is equal to about $30 a policy. That’s a very significant amount of money and we were looking forward to C-26 as a big part of the answer.
