CBSA Superintendent Jean-Francois Rainville removes a mattress that was used to hide a stolen Toyota Sequoia in a container at a news conference Thursday, July 17, 2014 in Montreal.
This week's car theft summit was, if nothing else, a chance for the Liberals to be seen taking the issue seriously. But if they want to beat back Pierre Poilievre's slogans, they obviously need to demonstrate "serious action."CBSA Superintendent Jean-Francois Rainville removes a mattress that was used to hide a stolen Toyota Sequoia in a container at a news conference on Thursday, July 17, 2014 in Montreal.
To that end, Thursday's event suggested how much might go into fully responding to the problem — including amendments to the Criminal Code.Justice minister's government car stolen for the third time in as many years Oddly enough, that spike in theft coincided with a sudden jump in the political attention paid to it. The phrase "car theft" appears in the parliamentary record an average of 1.6 times per year between 2015 and 2022. In 2023, there were 10 references. In 2024, the phrase has been spoken 66 times already.
Governments are measured by their actions, not their processes, but Thursday's summit was probably the most interesting and educational public discussion of policy that Ottawa has hosted in years.