MLA hopes bill puts a dent in metal thefts
Sellers would have to present identification to scrap dealers
Alberta Justice will craft rules in support of a private member’s bill that requires scrapmetal dealers to keep track of who is selling them copper and other products, the department’s minister says.
The Scrap Metal Dealers and Recyclers Identification Act, introduced by Progressive Conservative MLA Dave Quest, passed third reading Monday in the legislature.
If signed into law, it will require scrap-metal dealers to purchase goods only from people who provide identification. The act also means metal-recycling businesses will have to keep that personal information on file for a year and allow police investigating metal thefts to review it.
“Scrap-metal theft has been escalating at an alarming rate in the last few number of years in our province and across North America,” said Quest, MLA for Strathcona-Sherwood Park, explaining why he introduced the bill.
Though some scrap-metal dealers already ask for ID before they buy from private sellers, Quest said this bill will “level the playing field for all of them.”
It is rare for such bills, which are not part of the government’s official agenda, to receive third reading. Those that do are not always proclaimed into law.
But Justice Minister and Solicitor General Jonathan Denis, who supported the bill, said Tuesday he believes Quest’s initiative should be proclaimed once supporting regulations are in place.
“I have had private industry, but also many people in the upper echelons of our law enforcement community, talk to me in the last few months about their support for this bill,” Denis said.
“It is not going to happen overnight, but at the same time, this is a bill, I think, that is important for law enforcement in this province to guard against metal theft.”
Copper theft in particular has become a serious problem.
In 2012, a Telus spokesman told the Journal that the telecommunications company lost more than $20 million worth of copper in a year to theft in Alberta and British Columbia, with thieves even pulling lines off telephone poles.
Police have said in the past that construction sites, as well as LRT lines, electrical transformers and substations have been looted for metal. A man died in Calgary 2008 after cutting a live wire in an effort to steal copper from an underground vault.
British Columbia also introduced a provincial law in July 2012 that requires scrap metal dealers to check ID, record that information and forward the details to police.
Quest said he hopes making sellers provide more information will discourage such thefts, or give police more tools to investigate.
Margaret Cahill, co-owner of Canadian Consolidated Salvage Ltd. in Edmonton, said she was not aware of the bill before the legislature, but said the requirements sound like they are in line with steps her business already takes.
She said people who arrive at the metal recycling company with scrap metal to sell must provide their names, phone numbers and addresses. That information is kept on file.
“We need to know where the metal comes from and if it’s OK for them to sell it to us,” Cahill said.
Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, who introduced an amendment to Quest’s bill that limits businesses from holding people’s personal information for more than a year, said she still does not like the act.
Blakeman, MLA for Edmonton-Centre, said she believes it will put unnecessary burdens on small businesses and do little to halt copper thefts.
“It was not an advance-action bill. It was an after-the-fact bill,” she said. “I am particularly concerned about this government’s proclivity for collecting personal information on people and keeping it.”