CFTO - Sunday, May 26, 2024 - 11:00 a.m. (ET) - Segment #2

>>> Coming up on "question period", we are going to turn to the issue of auto theft and in particular the degree to which they're skyrocketing in this country. What is the federal government planning to do about it? Public safety minister dominic leblanc is my guest after a short break. with new Flatbread Pizza. Served hot out of the oven and freshly prepared in Chicken Parmesan, Pepperoni, Simply Cheese, and Bacon Everything. Try Tims new Flatbread Pizza. It's time for Tims Voltaren Emulgel Extra Strength contains an anti-inflammatory... ...that has the power to relieve your muscle and joint pain. It penetrates deep to relieve pain and reduce inflammation. And you can go 12 hours between applications. Voltaren. The joy of movement. When things heat up, you don't just want a cold one. You want the coldest one. [psst] The cold lagered, cold filtered, cold certified one. Coors Light. The Chill Choice. (classical music plays) My Lindor bar. To enjoy. To dream and to keep dreaming. Irresistibly smooth milk chocolate from the Lindt Maître Chocolatier. Melt into a lasting moment of bliss. If you're lost You can look And you will find me Time after time For everything you care about. Intact Insurance. Music Dogs have hands too. Help clean them every day with Dentastix. To help keep them happy and healthy. In the truck world, there's only one. Only one that's led the way. One that delivers both performance and efficiency. Tough this smart can only be called f-150. Right now, get this f-150 for $228 bi-weekly at 1.99% apr. All the things you take care of make you beautiful on the inside. Collagen30 can help on the outside. It's clinically researched to help reduce eye wrinkles within four weeks. Collagen30. Beauty from the inside out. Nutty...and sweet. Latte macchiato. ( ) This one is for the prize? Intenso. No, cool. Definitely iced. ( ) Sweet. Bye. Nespresso, what else? Two for five dollarWhopper Junior deal? Oh, just one's for me. [Car Accelerates] I lied! Stretch your dollarat Burger King when you mix n' match2 Whopper Juniors or Chicken Juniorsfor 5 bucks. . Oh Canada!! their time has come Argentina have done it! Messi magic once again The stage is set And it is spectacular!! Monday on Your Morning, Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan is here with his new novel, Lies and Weddings. Start your morning with us, Monday, only on ctv. [ ] >> Vassy: welcome back. With just four weeks left before the house of commons rises for the summer, the feds announce plans to put the brakes on dramatic increases in auto theft. The measures include increased collaboration with international law enforcement agencies and new penalties for auto thefts connected to organized crime. The latest data shows insurance claims for stolen cars have gone through the roof. The insurance bureau of canada just released numbers that show it paid out a record $1.54 billion in claims last year. That's up 20% from 2022. The four-year average between 2018 and 2021 was just $556 million. The problem is most pronounced in ontario where the minister of transport recently said a car is stolen there every 14 minutes. >> Dominic: is the minister of publicminister ofpublic safety. Good to see you. Thanks for taking the time. >> Good morning. >> Vassy: I know as we referenced in the introduction that you did announce this week the full suite of measures in your government's plan to combat auto theft but when you first told the summit back in february on the issue you announced $28 million of of funding to tackle the export of stolen vehicles. How much has actually been sent out the door? >> Most of that money has already been committed. The border services agency is in the process of procuring a number of scanners. We've funded some local police forces for increased intelligence capacity. We've paid border services officers to work overtime. Some of the ports where we have intelligence information around containers that may contain stolen vehicles, and we're working of course with the rail

companies, principally cn and cp, at intermodal yards. I was in brampton last week and there's an intermodal yard in brampton where we think and gel intense indicates a lot of -- intelligence indicates a lot of these stolen vehicles transit. We thought it was important to update people on what we've done just over the last finance of months but we're obviously prepared to do more with our partners to deal with this problem. >> Vassy: can you be more specific about when you say the money is committed that there are people working overtime. I'm going to ask you very specifically about the port of malbecause that's where we've seen the majority of this problem take place and in particular the criticism levied against your government was that there were not enough personnel looking through or trying to determine whether stolen vehicles were in cargo ships or cargo boxes and that there weren't enough of those x-ray machines. Has there since february been any more staff added and x-ray machines? >> The number of staff has absolutely increased. At any one time I was told there can be between 50 and 60 officers in the port of montréal focused on this particular effort. What we said on monday, and I think this is important, is as we get intelligence from local police, provincial police in ontario, or québec or policing partners, we continue to add border services officers to go to the containers where the intelligence indicates there may be stolen vehicles. It is operationally impossible to look into or scan every single container that would leave a port as busy as montréal. No other country does that. So the most effective and efficient way is to get this intelligence information from police partners, the ontario provincialontarioprovincial police are a terrific partner, the toronto city police, the sûreté du québec. So every time we have intelligence information, the border services officers are assigned to the port of montréal to follow up on every single one of those leads. So at one time there may be 120 people in the port because we got a treasure trove of intelligence around certain transport carriers bringing in potentially stolen vehicles. So the numbers go up and down, but there has been a massive increase overall in terms of the border services officers. And in terms of scanners, we're in the process of redeploying many cases these are giant scanners that trucks can drive under quite quickly. I hadn't understood the complexity. I was told you literally need the nuclear safety commission permission to move a scanner from one part of ontario to an intermodal terminal because of the potential t you can imagine radiation involved in some of the pieces in these scanners. So that work is it underway. We're going to do everything we can at every step of the transit process to try and stop these vehicles from being sold. >> Vassy: the spike didn't just happen overnight. If you look at the data from statscan you can see a particularly punctuated increase from 2021 to 2022, initially the increase at that point was 26.6%. Why were you not convinced the situation was urgent until february of this year? >> Vassy, in february we decided to have a national summit and bring automotive manufacturers, the insurance industry, senior police leaders from various parts of the country, to try and see what we could do more collaboratively, but we have very much been, and the border services agency and the rcmp and more importantly local police and provincial police have been working on this spike for a number of years. So it wouldn't be [Speaking simultaneously] >> Vassy: why does it keep increasing? >> Because organize crime is increasingly finding what they think is an easy source of revenue for -- to finance a number of, in some cases, more violent criminal activity. This is a global problem, but we certainly accept our responsibility with the province of ontario, the province of quebec, municipalities to lean in. I'm encouraged, the rcmp commissioner told me last week that major automotive manufacturers are going to meet the rcmp to discuss new technologies that might prevent thieves from not only copying the electronic key but actually sort of hacking into the on board computer in a vehicle and therefore being able to start or steal a vehicle that way. So everybody's leaning in and have been leaning in for some period of time, but we acknowledge that the increase in this criminal activity is absolutely unacceptable. >> Vassy: respectfully you referred to it as a global problem and certainly organized crime is. When it comes to the rise in auto thefts it has been more pronounced in canada than elsewhere particularly even when you compare it to the united states just south of the border. For some reason organized crime or car thieves or whomever we're referencing here seem to think canada is a much easier target. In 2022 the increase was as I

noted about 27% n canada it was only 11%. In the united states. What responsibility does your government bear for not recognizing the urgency of that sooner? >> We recognize the urgency of this for a long time, vassy -- >> Vassy: since february. >> Since february we had a national summit but as I said we were working on this problem with police partners for a long time. You'll understand that it's not the rcmp that are patrolling the streets of cities in ontario and québec. This is a local police, provincial police, and rcmp joint effort. The border services agency has been in joint taskforces for over two years trying to work with local police partners to get this intelligence. Some we recognize that canadians are understandably frustrated. So we're moving on a whole series of fronts to deal with what we acknowledge is a worrisome situation. >> Vassy: to quickly note before I let you go that the rcmp and the cbsa were asking for more resources prior to that summit in february in order to deal with the issues that as you point out were within their jurisdiction. They were asking your government very specifically the first new package of money that you announced was in february. How will canadians be able to judge whether what you have announced is effective? Are you looking to reduce the number of thefts, stabilize them? What is the objective and how can they judge whether your plan is successful? >> Obviously we want to reduce massively the number of vehicles being stolen. We want to reduce the number of violent incidents that canadians are potentially facing as people attempt to steal these vehicles. So we're leaning into with partners in every jurisdiction to do that, and we'll continue -- we'll add more resources if we need to, vassy, to do what we can to really bring the number down. Everybody would like zero vehicles stolen. So we're doing everything we can to bring that number down. So I'm hoping and believe that we'll see a significant reduction quickly and will continue to push to bring that number down and down and down. >> Vassy: I'll leave it on that note. Appreciate your time as always. Thank you so much. >> Have a great weekend, vassy, thank you. >> Vassy: public safety minister dominic leblanc. After a quick break, taking aim. The liberals amp up criticism of conservative leader pierre poilievre arguing he's going to get rid of policies like child care and dental care and women's reproductive rights. The strategy has been effective with previous tory leader The new dq Summer Blizzard Menu. New Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Party, New Picnic Peach Cobbler. And more delicious flavors. Start summer now! Only at dq. Happy tastes good. With majority of my patients with sensitivity, I see irritated gums and weak enamel. Sensodyne sensitivity, Gum & Enamel reliefs sensitivity, helps restore gum health and rehardens enamel. I am a big advocate of recommending things that I know work! ( ) Ever wonder what's around the next corner? ( ) ( ) Past the trees. ( ) Over the mountains? ( ) That's where adventure lives... ( ) Take a Nissan suv and go find it. ( ) I I was standing ( ) You were there Two worlds collided And they could never tear us apart ( ) I I was standing You were there Two worlds collided (Blowing) (Blowing) (Bright upbeat music) (Crunching) Hm-hmm. (Laughing) (Growling) (Cutlery clinking) McCain. Make it a fry day. Want the power of 5 serum benefits in 1? New Olay Super Serum. Activates on skin. For visible results that beat the #1 luxury serum. A super glow for your best skin yet. Olay. [Song playing - Here Comes theHotstepper by Ini Kamoze] [people shaking the ice in their cups] [people shaking the ice in their cups] [people shaking the ice in their cups] I'd do anything Welcome to the new PetSmart Treats rewardsTM. Ready go Collect points with every purchase. And save big on their favourite services. Anything for you PetSmart.

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