EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights NUMBER 018 2nd SESSION 40th PARLIAMENT Thursday, April 30, 2009 Le jeudi 30 avril 2009 Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE April 30, 2009 Committee Edited Evidence * Table of Contents * Number 018 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 018 (Official Version) Témoignages * Table des matières * Numéro 018 (Version officielle) 18 30 04 2009 2009/04/30 14:35:00 House of Commons Comité permanent de la justice et des droits de la personne Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights JUST Chair Mr. Ed Fast 40 2 PUBLIC PART ONLY -

PARTIE PUBLIQUE SEULEMENT

(1435) [ English ] The Chair (Mr. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC)) : I call this meeting to order. Thank you, all of you, for coming. As you know, as a justice committee, we decided to conduct a review of organized crime across Canada. It's supposed to be a comprehensive review, and it's going well beyond the number of days we'd allotted for it. We're drawing on information we're getting from witnesses across Canada. You're just one of many panels we'll be speaking to, hopefully reflecting a diversity of views. The way we normally proceed is to have you make a presentation of five minutes.

There will be room later on for questions from the committee members. If you can keep an eye on me from time to time as you're speaking, whether you're answering questions or giving your presentation, I'll let you know when you're close to the end and when I'd like to have you wind up, because we want to be fair to all the people who want to ask questions, as we have a pretty full agenda. Without further ado, John Shavluk, would you like to start, please? The floor is yours. Mr.

John Shavluk (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)) : First off, I'd like to thank the justice committee for even allowing me to be here. I wasn't here this morning, so if I'm out of line in my presentation, I would just like to explain a couple of things while this is going on. Obviously, none of you may know me, but the history involves...and I'll just put it in point form. I was a real estate developer/broker/builder in Saskatoon in the eighties and the nineties, and I spoke up for some of my tenants at the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties.

Unbeknownst to me, I ended up being framed for having 8 grams of cannabis and was denied access to my children and was jailed for two years. My entire world was torn away and my business was bankrupted. I had run for city council in Saskatoon. When I was freed from jail, as soon as I could I left Saskatchewan, and I wanted to leave the country because I was so ashamed. I'm an ex-military veteran, an ex-bank manager, and an ex-Canada Revenue Agency department head. I was appalled that this could happen in this country. The police officer involved was charged for....

There was a 1992 rape case dealing with children in Martensville, Saskatchewan. He was the police officer who caused my demise. And where I came from in Saskatchewan, racism still runs rampant. To make a long story shorter, I ended up in B.C., where I met a woman who basically nursed me back to health, because I still didn't know exactly what had happened. I'm being very point blank here.

I lost 43 apartment blocks, houses, a night club, and a restaurant over something I did not do, because of a tenant who had broken into 70 homes in the city and bought 8 grams of cannabis from a fellow whose dad owned the CTV station. So the Saskatoon police.... There's a court record I can give you that proves everything I'm saying. In 2000, a fellow you might have heard of, by the name of Marc Emery, put an ad in The Georgia Straight and organized a bunch of like-minded people to get together and start fighting. By then I had figured out what had happened to me and who did it.

For example, I was a millionaire, so I didn't qualify for legal aid. Two days before my jury trial, a lawyer phoned me and said he was representing me and had done me a favour and dropped my jury trial for a nice lenient judge. Well, I didn't see my children for two years and lost everything. As far as I'm concerned, I lost my life that day because I could not get a job in this country. Kids can beat an addiction, people, but they cannot beat a conviction. The first time I ever saw cocaine in my life was in jail.

The Hells Angels are sending a little message to you people, because when they broke into my marina and threatened my family and threatened to cut my head off, they prayed that the Conservative government would put in place mandatory minimum sentences and put people in jail, because they recruit 90% of their members from jail. Now the abuse and the threats that I've taken over the years—and it's been 18 years.... I've been in every provincial election since. I'm running against Mr. Wally Oppal right now in Delta South.

I'm the Green Party candidate, by the way, who was let go three days before the last federal election for so-called anti-Semitic comments. I go to trial in the Supreme Court of B.C. starting January 4. I will prove that the blogger who sent this attack out to the Global media family has two friends attached to his website. One of them owns a Conservative blogging site and the other one is Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister. This goes to trial on January 4, 2010. You can't phone the police when you're attacked by the Prime Minister or somebody connected to him.

The day I was described as an anti-Semite, my wife ran out screaming and crying because she has been through the shakedowns by the police, when they came with psych nurses, threatening to make me disappear. But her computer started to type in Polish and mine started to type backwards, and nobody touched a thing. They're both melted down, and technicians asked if I was attacked by the FBI. I live under personal threat by the Hells Angels or bikers or criminal elements, who sure as heck don't want me to be successful in stopping you from jailing Canadian citizens' children for a harmless, benign plant.

I just came from a national Green Party convention, where I met people who were so-called cured from cancer by hemp oil, because something ate their tumours. I pleaded with my mother and my best friend a year before that to try it, because I knew of it. They both died of cancer but could not get beyond the fact that, “The law is the law, John, and if they had wanted us to do it, we would.”

(1440) I should mention, with Joe sitting here, that Jack Layton took it upon himself. We canvassed all the leaders for the NDP, and every one of them was going to legalize cannabis or stop this craziness. Well, I spent four years working my butt off for him. He kept telling me to get grassroots support. You can check the record—North Delta got the first one. We ended up with 6 for cannabis, 200 to the drug war. They met us on the way there, asking me to go home. They said they were too afraid to touch the issue because of votes.

I implore all of you—you all must have friends or somebody who's touched these drugs. If you put them in jail for mandatory minimum sentences, you ruin their lives forever and you give the best recruits you can to these criminals, who threaten to take my life if I succeed. The Chair : Thank you. Mr. Tousaw. Mr. Kirk Tousaw (Board Member, Chair, Drug Policy Committee, BC Civil Liberties Association) : Thank you for allowing the association to present its remarks. I should point out that the association doesn't have an official position on organized crime writ large, so my remarks today are predominantly my own.

However, I think they come with some significant support from the association. I want to talk about a tale of three different eras, and I'll preface this with three key points to explain why my remarks are going to focus predominantly on the issue of drug prohibition and its linkage with organized crime. My first point is that the primary funding source for organized crime is the illicit drug market. You've probably already heard this today, as I see you had a number of law enforcement witnesses earlier. You don't have to take my word for it.

The 2008 CISC report on organized crime makes it abundantly clear that this is where they get the bulk of their money. The second point, also from the CISC 2008 annual report, is that law enforcement activity, including the disruption and dismantling of specific organized crime groups, is neither a permanent solution to the problem nor an effective long-term strategy. This is because, as the report says, the impact of law enforcement successes ...tends to be short term as it creates temporary voids into which market expansion occurs or creates opportunities for well-situated criminal groups.

In general, criminal markets are highly resistant to long-term disruption as they continue to exist in response to meeting consumer demand. The third point is that, as recent events in the lower mainland have made clear to all of us who live there, as well as everybody else across Canada, organized criminal groups use tactics to control the drug markets that disrupt the social fabric of our communities, that cause the loss of innocent lives, and that create chaos on our streets. With those three key points in mind, I'll talk very briefly about the three eras that I described.

The first era is national alcohol prohibition in the United States, a measure designed to reduce drunkenness and crime. This noble experiment of the twenties and thirties did exactly the opposite. Serious crime increased markedly. Alcohol became more available and more dangerous. There was adulterated moonshine. The potency of alcoholic products increased, because of a move from beer and wine to hard liquor, which was more easily smuggled and concealed. The unintended negative consequences of prohibition ultimately became the major impetus for its repeal.

The result of repealing prohibition in the United States was an almost immediate and significant decrease in serious crimes such as assault and, in particular, homicide. These decreases can be explained only in relation to the repeal of alcohol prohibition. The second era I want to talk about is the rise of the cocaine cartels.

This era begins in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a confluence of events occurs: a rise in popularity of powdered cocaine; the invention of crack cocaine as a means of delivering powdered cocaine to less affluent markets in cheaper and easier-to-acquire formats; and the renewal of the Richard Nixon drug war by Ronald Reagan. This confluence of events led to the rise of massive cocaine cartels, originating predominantly in South America. Everyone has heard of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. Pablo Escobar was killed by Colombian police in 1993, and that marked the end of that second era.

This was celebrated as a major victory by drug enforcement agents across the world—principally in Washington, D.C., but everywhere else as well. Pablo Escobar's death in Colombia marked the 16th major cartel that had been disrupted or dismantled in the previous three years. Either the leaders had been killed or they had been extradited to face charges, mainly in the United States. Escobar, at the time of his death, was a billionaire many times over. It was felt that this was a turning point in the war against the cocaine cartels, and in fact it was. Tragically, however, the turn was for the worse.

In the wake of the disruption of the cocaine cartels, cocaine became cheaper and more pure. Where a few cartels had once dominated, dozens sprang up to replace them, using violence to secure turf and distribution lines. As the CISC report makes clear, diversification of the smuggling routes has meant that in West Africa the very nationhood of some countries is being threatened by the continued international trade in illicit substances.

(1445) Domestically, gang wars continue unabated throughout all of North America. I have the wind-up signal, so I'll very briefly mention the third era, and it's a short story because the third era begins right around now. The third era is the road ahead for Canada and the international community. There are two paths we can take. There's the path of the failed policies of the past that will result in more bloodshed, more violence, more death, more disruption of our social fabric, and more risk to our communities and our children.

Or there's another path, and it's a path that will take a tremendous amount of courage and a tremendous amount of leadership. It's the path that was followed in the United States when alcohol prohibition was repealed and the good that this brought. It's the path that involves the repeal of drug prohibition. It is not a magic solution. It will not end the problem with organized crime in this country, but it will deal a significant blow, and I urge you to think long and hard about taking that road instead of the failed road of the past. The Chair : Thank you. I will move on to Mani Amar. You have five minutes. Mr.

Mani Amar (Filmmaker, As an Individual) : Committee and guests, my name is Mani Amar. I'm an independent filmmaker, writer, and activist based out of Vancouver, B.C. I've been invited here today to share my views on the state of organized crime and to offer suggestions in order that-- The Chair : Mani, you can read much more slowly; that way the interpreters will be able to catch what you're saying. Mr. Mani Amar : I only have five minutes. The Chair: That's okay. Mr.

Mani Amar: I've been invited here today to share my views on the state of organized crime and to offer suggestions in order for the committee to make recommendations in a report to the House of Commons. I believe my invitation was based on the film I have recently released, A Warrior's Religion . It is a documentary film in which I attempt to discover the root precursors of why so many South Asians have been heavily involved in organized crime in metro Vancouver during the last 19 years.

I hope that my experience garnered in the production of the film, along with my ongoing research on this issue, can help provide insight in terms of shedding light on this dark situation. Youth and our educational system. In today's society, more so than ever before, there exists a very heavy influence of materialism. Our youth are literally programmed by advertisements and popular media that their progression of success is measured by the ruler of wealth. This phenomenon is not unique to only Canada. It is slowly but surely becoming a global phenomenon.

When youth are taught directly or indirectly by their own families and friends in every direction they look that they are not cool because they lack the newest electronic gadget or the brand name pair of shoes, you are hindering the self-confident growth of that child. Where there's a lack of self-confidence, there is a very dangerous void, a void that is preyed upon by older youth. This void is exceptional in its fertility for growing misguided morals and ethics. One of the most common recruitment measures put into practice by youth on youth is bullying.

Bullying is a tried and tested and proven-to-work technique. Imagine an impressionable youth--and remember that all youth are impressionable--being ridiculed for not having those cool items I mentioned before. Every day he comes to school to be picked on, made fun of, teased to the point of tears and beyond, and secluded from the group that decides what the norm is. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have an at-risk youth. This boy will one day be told by some other boys that he does not need to fear bullying or being ridiculed if he joins their group. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have an alliance.

That at-risk youth now has learned that he is protected when he has the strength of his friends with him. Though these childhood alliances may or may not last to the point of becoming criminal, the at-risk youth's subconscious has now been ingrained with a feeling of protection and the feeling of power when they possess these types of alliances. This is one example of how youth can become at risk. There are many paths that can lead a child to this point.

Whether it be society's stress on materialism, the lack of proper parenting, the lack of attention at school or what have you, the fact is that we are creating more at-risk youth than ever before. Moving forward with an example, what if there was awareness of this bait strategy? What if we could teach our youth from an early age in our schools that these are bait strategies that other children could use on them? Perhaps a young boy will make a positive choice by saying no to joining a group. Perhaps his saying no will create a benchmark for the boy to rebuild the self-confidence he lacks.

Everyone is well aware of the four pillars of action: awareness, prevention, intervention, and enforcement. In my humble opinion, I believe there is much more focus on the latter two pillars, intervention and enforcement, than on the two pillars that we should be focusing on, awareness and prevention. Focusing resources on these two pillars can drastically reduce the recruitment pool of at-risk youth. Awareness is having knowledge, conscience, being cognizant, informed, alert, and mindful. Prevention is effectual hindrance. Intervention is interruption, obstruction.

Enforcement is to compel observance of or obedience to. Ladies and gentlemen, which of these pillars sounds like the easier task? Prevention. As the youth being bullied is at risk, so is the bully. The void that exists in the bullied youth is the same void that the bully himself encompasses. However, his void is mostly likely engulfed with fear and insecurities--fear and insecurities that are alleviated by a showcase of power. Bullying is an issue that is taking place in our schools, just as it did when we were all growing up. However, the means to complete the bullying is no longer just physical.

Another phenomenon of cyber bullying has come into prominence. Now the bullied youth has less chance of escape and the bullies have another tool to accomplish their goals. I believe the ratio of teachers to students, which has grown stagnant over the last 20 years, needs to vastly decrease. It is not a feasible task for a teacher, essentially a third parent, to provide the attention required for a youth when they are to be mindful of the average of 30 students per classroom.

That bully who is in desperate need of attention, who's crying out for help subconsciously and in their actions, will most likely not receive the attention required to help them get to the correct path once again. I'll move on to intervention. It seems as though we have become comfortable to the point where we only take action after the youth takes their first footsteps on a one-way path. For us to intervene, there has to be a situation taking place that needs intervening, situations such as youth violence, gang violence, the drug trade, and drug abuse, among many others.

Decisions are made; life choices are accepted. These youths will find it very hard to come back, and we will find it very hard to bring them back. They will be moving faster on a downward slide in their life.

(1450) I was going to go through the other four pillars, but the whole synopsis of my statement is that we are propelling gangs to exist and to do the drug trade. The number one incentive for gangs to exist in B.C. is due to the marijuana trade. If we cannot perpetuate them and perhaps legalize, regulate, and even tax the marijuana trade, we can strengthen our own economy and limit the amount of gangs getting involved. Thanks. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move on to Tony Helary. You have five minutes. Mr. Tony Helary (As an Individual) : Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Pardon me if I'm somewhat nervous.

This is my first time before the committee. My name is Anthony Helary. I was born in eastern Canada and now live in the lower mainland; however, between then and now, most of my life has been spent in federal prison, for a wide variety of crimes, many of which I'm not very proud of. I've been in prison in all regions in Canada--Dorchester, Millhaven, Collins Bay, Warkworth, Prince Albert, Kent, and Matsqui. I am here today to share with the committee some of my experiences. Today my goal in life is to have no more victims. I am doing this through my church and my spiritual beliefs.

Today I do what I can to help the homeless and prisoners with addictions, one person at a time. I have a house in Abbotsford with four men in recovery who had been living on the street, one of them in a cardboard box under a bridge. That is not, however, why I would like to share some of my experiences and knowledge of the federal prison system. CSC is a failing corporation. I believe this is because their hands are tied, between the Charter of Rights and the mission statement. The ball is in the prisoner's court.

Gangs are becoming rampant in prison: the prairies have the native gangs; the Angels and the Rock Machine are in Quebec; the Aryan Brotherhood and white power gangs are in eastern Canada. B.C. has any number of gangs, including the Angels. The federal system is a recruiting area for many gangs, especially inmates who are doing five years or less. The major problem I see in CSC is they are unable to move gang members to other regions where they would have less power and very little influence in the general area.

Just as it is on the street, fear is what they use in prison, in both places, and violence is a means of dealing with issues. There's so much corruption in the CSC that it's easy to get whatever you want, from cellphones to drugs. In the seventies it was the Palmers, and now it is any number of gangs. Unless some changes are made, the gangs will continue to do their activities inside prison walls with little interference. I predict that in the near future prison gangs will be--if not are--the biggest problem in the CSC today. Drugs are control and drugs are power. Money is the motivator and staff are only human.

I have recruited staff in the prison system. I basically controlled two prison gangs in Prince Albert for about five years, and I controlled them with the use of drugs and the getting of drugs in the institution, because I knew how, and it was usually through manipulation and fear. I'm not proud of the things I've done, but there is a big need to stop the activities that are happening today in the prison system. Putting the Bacon brothers in prison here is doing nothing to stop their activities, or any of the Angels--Mom Boucher in Quebec or any of the gang members. It does little to put them behind prison walls.

If you put them here in Matsqui or Kent, they still have the power, the power of fear in the community. As long as they have that power, the staff just lay dormant to do anything about it, for fear.... Until we let loose on some of the laws with regard to the mission statement, with regard to transfers of inmates from one region to another--because the mission statement talks about family and goes on and on in that regard--it's going to keep going, and it's sad. Anyway, that's my take on that.

(1455) As far as decriminalization of marijuana is concerned, I totally disagree. I've seen it and I've done it; I've manipulated people by saying “here's some pot”, and the next thing I had them using harder drugs. I've especially preyed on white-collar criminals in the system. They come in and are basically green, but within a matter of months they're owing me their shirt. That's the way it is. I think there should be a revamping of or a committee to study the prison system in Canada, because it's getting worse and worse. These criminals are getting back out.

The result of them getting back out is that they're just back into the gangs. I really think that communities should be more involved, churches especially, with the integration of inmates and offenders. That's the way I see it.

(1500) The Chair : Thank you very much. We'll move now to Marco Mendicino. Welcome. You have five minutes as well. Mr. Marco Mendicino (Acting President, Association of Justice Counsel) : Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank all the members of the committee for allowing me this opportunity to speak. I represent the Association of Justice Counsel. The AJC is made up of two families, as some of you may know.

There are the Department of Justice lawyers, who essentially make up the civil litigators of the federal department, and then you have the Public Prosecution Service lawyers, who make up the federal crowns, and it is really their role that is the context in which I make the following remarks with respect to guns and gangs. The real victims of guns and gangs are people. I think that goes without saying. They're the real victims of the terror that is within the framework of the gangs and the way in which they work, and it is the drugs that fuel the work of these gangs.

Federal prosecutors serve as the last line of defence against the social chaos that is created by these gangs and the havoc they would otherwise seek to mete out in society. For these reasons, our work matters. So what is the work we do? Well, we prosecute an array of offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. We also prosecute an array of offences under the Criminal Code. We carry out organized crime prosecutions, and often enough, both Criminal Code charges and CDSA charges, or controlled drugs and substances charges, are married up under rather significant, rather complex trials and proceedings.

So that is essentially what our role is. Now we're confronted with a number of challenges as a result of the complexity of the litigation, which has evolved over time, and some of you have become aware of that in reading about these cases in the papers. So what are the major issues federal prosecutors are confronted with as the level of litigation becomes more complex? Well, we have issues that deal with drawing the right line on what is the reasonable expectation of privacy.

We have issues that deal with wiretap laws and the extent to which wiretaps may be authorized in the absence of judicial authorization when carried out in exigent circumstances. And perhaps more than anything else, we also are confronted with incredible disclosure issues. I would imagine that many of you are aware of the watershed decision of Stinchcombe, and as a result of Stinchcombe, disclosure has become what is, in essence, the biggest impediment to carrying out an efficient and speedy trial.

So as the offences become more complex and the evidentiary rules that are incorporated into those proceedings become more complex, our abilities to carry out our disclosure obligations are proportionately challenging, or the challenge to mete out those obligations is becoming proportionately challenging. That is the essence of the work we do, but it's not just about prosecuting these cases. There's also a victim side to this, and often enough when thinking about drug crimes, which again are the fuel for many of these guns and gangs, there's an assumption made that they're victimless crimes.

But that's not true at all. The people who are the victims of these crimes are the ones who have themselves lost their lives to drugs, and once the prosecution is carried out, it's up to the federal prosecutor to reach into the toolkit of our sentencing provisions to arrive at what is a fair sentence. So when we're actually trying to determine what is a fair and fit sentence in the circumstances, we have to balance the various objectives.

And in cases involving guns and gangs, intuitively, the federal prosecutor will look at denunciation, will look at separating the offender from society, but at the same time, we also want to bear in mind the need to rehabilitate. So these are the challenges we have moving forward. There have been proposals that have been advanced, including mandatory minimums. There are various disparate social science data about whether or not mandatory minimums will be effective in the long run. I think at this stage it would be premature to rule that out of the sentencing toolkit.

(1505) That's the essence of the challenges we face as federal prosecutors. What I would simply say in closing is that it is important to remember that federal prosecutors also play a critical role in the overall scheme of combatting guns and gangs and drugs. We thank you very much for your time this afternoon. The Chair : You're very welcome, and thank you. I realize that most of you, certainly the first four, ran out of time in terms of presenting. I think you'll get an opportunity to expand on your thoughts as the questions come along.

You also have an opportunity to provide us with written presentations, whether you have them with you right now or whether you want to expand those. You can deliver them to the clerk. She'll get them translated. Hopefully you can get them translated, but if you don't have the chance, deliver them anyway. Then we'll circulate them to our members. Mr. John Shavluk : As long as I can speak again— The Chair : If there are questions coming to you, and I would guess there may be, you can. Mr. John Shavluk : Otherwise, I can't say anything? The Chair : We have such limited time. We also have another— Mr.

John Shavluk : All I need is one minute. The Chair : That's okay. It applies to everybody. We're going to start over here. Who's going to go first? Mr. LeBlanc, you have seven minutes. Hon. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, Lib.) : Thank you to all of you for your comments. I have two very brief questions, and then my colleague, Joyce Murray, may want to follow up. My first question is for Mr. Mendicino. I'm a great admirer of the work of many of your colleagues. Some of my friends, people who had been to law school with me in New Brunswick, for example, are now federal prosecutors in Atlantic Canada.

One of the things I hear a lot about is the difficulty of recruiting and retaining prosecutors, which can lead to difficulty in prosecuting large cases, whether they're drug cases or organized crime cases. I appreciate that in different jurisdictions across the country there are different pressures, but I'm wondering if nationally you have any insight with respect to the ability to recruit high-quality prosecutors and then retain them in the federal prosecution service. That's a very precise question. I have a second question for Mr. Helary. The Dorchester Penitentiary is in my riding in New Brunswick.

I've visited it a number of times, including two weeks ago. Much of what you said, in terms of the control of gangs within the institutions, I've heard from others, either inmates or people who work there. I'm wondering what specific suggestions you would have. You talked about a review of prisons, but perhaps after Mr. Mendicino's answer you could give us your suggestions on how to help reduce the negative pressure that we see in some prisons. Mr. Marco Mendicino : Thank you very much for the question.

The short answer is that we have an incredible problem both recruiting and retaining talent, and that problem has been particularly acute over the last three years. Historically the federal government was either number one or number two on pay scales, and as a result of that we were able to attract and retain a high quality of talent. Over the last several years, we've fallen behind.

If you take a look at where the federal government stands on the national scale as compared to some of the provinces, we rank probably seventh or eighth, certainly behind some of the major provinces, including Ontario and British Columbia. The result is that you have a red-circling of federal government salaries. What happens is after a short period of time, after federal prosecutors have amassed a certain amount of talent, they simply walk across the street and work for our provincial counterparts at salaries that could be as much as 40% to 60% higher.

Now, I don't have to tell you that should be a source of major concern to every member on this committee, because what it means is that the number one lawyers who are representing the federal government's interests are bleeding; they're going away. I want to emphasize that that's an important component to the overall strategy of warding back guns and gangs, because federal prosecutors do play an extremely meaningful role in that. I hope I've answered your question.

(1510) Mr. Tony Helary : The number one way that I think would give a lot of leeway to CSC would be to revamp the grievance system to close holes in the involuntary transfer system. If an inmate is involuntarily transferred from one region to another, or from one prison to another, he has a grievance process. It has three levels, and he can use that to get back to the region he was in. The mission statement with CSC is to keep families united as much as possible. With that in mind, more times than not, if an inmate appeals the decision, he's sent back to the region. You have to close that hole.

You have to be able to give CSC more power to transfer inmates, especially gang members. I think the ghost chain they had number of years ago....They'd have high-profile inmates. Ray Palmer was one. I'm not sure if most of you remember him. Ray, Donnie, and Dougie were the Palmer brothers, and they were involved in mafia activities here in Vancouver. They were put on the ghost chain, so to speak. They would be transferred from one region to the next region to the next region. They wouldn't give them enough time to set up shop, so to speak. They wouldn't give them enough time to get settled in.

They'd maybe spend a year or two in the area and then they were gone. They couldn't get enough time to acquire whatever needs they had. The Chair : Thank you. Joyce. Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.) : Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your presentations and for your obvious passion for the issue and the courage to come and speak with the committee today. I'm an MP from Vancouver. On the west side of Vancouver there are a lot of people who have come here from other countries. It's an area where real estate is expensive.

Some of my constituents tell me that it's distressing to make a life and invest in Vancouver and then not feel safe leaving their homes. It's a big concern in Vancouver Quadra. I understand that it's a very complex issue to reduce the impact of guns and gangs on society and on Vancouver, so I don't want to oversimplify. However, I would like to hear from the witnesses: if you were writing the committee report's recommendations, what is one thing you would recommend?

If you've already made it really clear, like legalizing drugs, I would like to hear your second-in-line recommendation, if you were holding the pen on this committee report. The Chair : Well, let's do it this way, because we only have half a minute. Each one of you do it very quickly. What's the number one priority for you? John. Mr. John Shavluk : I would simply say to all of you to ask yourselves one question: is alcohol safer legal or illegal? The Chair : Mr. Tousaw. Mr. Kirk Tousaw : I think my recommendation is pretty clear, so I'll move on to one that's perhaps more realistic in the short term.

This country needs to undertake a significant and comprehensive audit of the successes and/or failures of drug prohibition and their contribution to organized crime. We've had a number of studies. I have pages and pages of studies on the drug issue. They all come to the same conclusion, but we need to look at what we're doing to find out why it isn't working. The Chair : Mr. Amar. Mr. Mani Amar : I have to say that the number one priority I would pen is the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana. It is by far the number one incentive for gangs to get involved in the criminal underworld right now.

(1515) The Chair : Mr. Helary. Mr. Tony Helary : I think the number one thing, if I had the pen, would be to integrate offenders in a more productive manner, so they're not part of the problem and are not recruited by gangs, because of housing, their need for affordable housing. The churches and communities need to get involved in more in-depth programs. The Chair : Thank you. Mr. Mendicino. Mr. Marco Mendicino : Speaking on behalf of myself, the number one priority would be to ensure a fair trial. The way to do that is to revisit disclosure protocols. That would be my recommendation to the committee.

The Chair : Which protocols? Mr. Marco Mendicino : Disclosure protocols. The Chair : Disclosure. Got it. Thank you. Moving on to Monsieur Ménard, you have seven minutes. [ Translation ] Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga, BQ) : I will begin with Marco. I will begin by saying that this is the first time I have heard that provincial prosecutors are better paid than their federal counterparts. I know of many who would like to move to the federal level. I have been told that the salaries are 30% higher than those in the provinces. So much the better if this requires me to change my information.

I particularly wanted to have a discussion with you on the issue of mandatory minimum sentences. Since its inception, the Bloc Québécois, with a few exceptions that Mr. Comartin never misses an opportunity to point out to me, has voted against mandatory minimum sentences. The Bloc has mainly relied on criminologists, like Julian Roberts as well as other people, who have pointed out three negative effects of mandatory minimum sentences. First of all, these sentences have nothing to do with deterrence.

The countries that have greatly increased the number of mandatory minimum sentences are not the places where one finds the lowest crime rates. Then, crown prosecutors like yourself will choose to lay charges that do not involve mandatory minimum sentences in order to respect judicial discretion, rather than see a judge impose a sentence which he or she does not believe in. At that point, the judge will not wish to impose a sentence. I have rarely heard crown prosecutors speak favourably of mandatory minimum sentences. Listening to your presentation, I have the impression that you are biased in favour of them.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that and then I will ask a question of Tony and of John. Mr. Marco Mendicino : I am sorry, I am not bilingual but I believe I understood the gist of your question. [ English ] Mr. Réal Ménard : You may speak in English if you want to. [ Translation ] Mr. Marco Mendicino : Thank you very much. [ English ] What I understood to be the essence of your question was that you got a sense, at least from my mouth, that I was favourable towards mandatory minimum sentences. Mr. Réal Ménard : I'm sorry, but I don't have English translation.

She cut off the microphone, but I'm not going to stay quiet here. Voices: Oh, oh! The Chair : You never have. [ Translation ] Mr. Marco Mendicino : I will start again. [ English ] Again, I apologize. I wish I could answer you in French. But I think I understood the import of your question, which is that you sensed from my presentation that I was favourable to or not predisposed against ruling out mandatory minimums.

As we all know, a bill has been tabled by the government of the day, and all I would say to you is that there are many views about whether or not mandatory minimum sentences will be effective in the long run. At the core of the doctrine that underlies mandatory minimum sentences, there has to be general deterrence. The message is that if we create a grid or a tariff that is well known and well publicized to the rest of the public, it will act as a bulwark between conduct that is acceptable and conduct that is not acceptable. That's the rationale.

I don't think I can go any further than to identify what is the primary rationale for mandatory minimums. In my remarks I think I said it was too premature to rule that out as one of the tools within the kit that a federal prosecutor would like to reach into and use at the conclusion of a trial process. [ Translation ] Mr. Réal Ménard : You are aware that there are several studies that do not support what you are saying. I understand that you are asking questions rather than making a statement, and I respect your opinion. Mr. Helary, what form does corruption take with regard to corrections officials?

Give me an example of corruption. (1520) [ English ] Mr. Tony Helary : As in most corruption, money is the underlying thing. That's what's wanted. As for how I would do it, I would get information on staff through whichever way, especially on those who are divorced and paying alimony. It's staff like that who are in a crunch and are vulnerable. Then I'd use manipulation tactics. That's one form of it. There's another. I'm a gifted woodworker, and I'd done a few nice pieces, and one day I had this girl come up and visit me.

I knew what car this one staff member was driving and I had the piece put in his car and he went on home with it. A few weeks later, I said, “Look, can you do me a favour?” The next thing you know, I had him bringing drugs in, and the next thing you know, he was toast. It may sound so easy. It is in a sense, but it's not, you know; it takes a lot of information and being able to talk to staff in there. In Quebec, it's a lot easier, too. [ Translation ] Mr. Réal Ménard : Do I have time to ask another question of John? I did not understand the beginning of your story very well.

You said that you were incarcerated because drugs were found in your tenants' apartments. I would like you to explain the cause of your problems. [ English ] Mr. John Shavluk : Thanks for the question.

No, it was explained in court that for five years I was targeted, and I must have been a criminal mastermind because they couldn't catch me for anything, so they took one of my tenants, whom they had caught breaking into 70 homes in Saskatoon--and this is all public knowledge, the names of everybody have been released on the Internet--and he withheld two months of my rent, and they went into my banks and scared them all. The trust company that held all my holdings even went under. They had offices in B.C. It was called Sask Trust.

I held so much of the city's real estate that it caused the collapse of a financial institution. A prison has never been built where they have not found illegal drugs. I listened to the comments here, where he said they move to harder drugs. I'm sorry, mother's milk is the gateway drug. When I was in jail for something I didn't do, not seeing my children, I would've taken poison. I found out I was too much of a coward to kill myself because of what I did, and I've been fighting for 18 years to stop somebody else. Jail is just the beginning. They have to pay for it the rest of their lives. The Chair : Thank you.

I will move on to Mr. Comartin, for seven minutes. Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—Tecumseh, NDP) : Thank you for being here, Mr. Tousaw and Mr. Amar. You seem to be the strongest advocates for decriminalization, even legalization. I put this question to Professor Boyd earlier today, that unless the U.S. in particular moves to decriminalize and/or legalize, do either one of you see a practical way that Canada could do it, given that so much of our market, in particular cannabis, goes over to the U.S. side of the border? Mr. Kirk Tousaw : Sure.

The reality is that while a great deal of our domestic harvest goes to the United States, it comprises only a very small fraction of their market. I don't think we need to be beholden to American policies that have been proven failures over the last 25 years and longer. We have to chart our own course. If we choose not to chart our own course, but instead to follow the failed policies of the past, we'll end up with the same failures on our street. I used to practise criminal law in Detroit, Michigan, before I moved to Vancouver.

I've seen the future of mandatory minimum sentences, an increased militarization of our police forces, an expansion in our prison populations leading to recruitment into gangs. That's the future we have in front of us. That's the future we can choose not to take. I should also point out that while the bulk of our marijuana goes south, and we know what comes back up north as a result, a lot of it is consumed right here. A conservative estimate is about 10 million grams of marijuana are consumed by Canadians each month, so it's not as if we don't have a significant demand in our country for drugs.

The problem is we can't do anything to address that demand until we take the blinders off and stop putting enforcement ahead of the other methods we have. A dollar invested in enforcement is wasted. A dollar invested in prevention and treatment makes a difference to the generation to come.

(1525) Mr. Mani Amar : I believe the legalization of marijuana in Canada will be more or less an incentive for gangs to deal with a product going south. It would cause more U.S. gangs to create their own back ends, their own alleyways, into Canada to hold up the criminal underworld. I can't stress this enough, the number one priority on every gang member's list, and I know this for a fact because I've driven around with them and I've spoken to them for research on my documentary, is not guns, not cocaine, not prostitution; it's marijuana. It is so easy to do.

If the government can reduce the incentive for them, they have no reason to bring in guns, to become stronger gangs for the U.S. over here. So I think we should be looking at our own process in cutting off the legs to the U.S. to even want to trade with us. Mr. Joe Comartin : Thank you. Mr. Mendicino, I think you're only the second prosecutor we've had in front of us on this study. Of course, Stinchcombe comes up, not just from those sources, but every police officer we've had has raised it. As to the expectation that legislation is going to be able to correct this problem, I don't see how we can do that.

At the basis of Stinchcombe is the charter. Even if we curtailed the extremes that we're seeing with Stinchcombe, the Supreme Court is ultimately going to tell us that the charter overrides us. Do you see anything developing where we get to the judiciary with better arguments that the extreme amount of information you're having to find and disclose to the defence should be curtailed?

It has occurred to me that our judiciary is not—maybe because they don't have enough time—actively engaged enough when the motion is being brought forward for further disclosure, or else the crown is saying it's given what it has to and it doesn't have to give more. They're not engaged enough at this point. I have the impression that this is a particular problem in this province. Mr. Marco Mendicino : You said that judges weren't involved enough at the pre-trial phase, which is where some of these disclosure issues could be resolved.

It's a theme that Michael Code and Justice LeSage recently picked up on in a report that I believe was published in Ontario several months ago. The idea of the report was to try to identify the problems in prosecuting major cases. Of course, it's an issue that's synonymous with the theme today, which is discussing guns, gangs, and drugs. You mentioned that whatever legislative response we may come up with will ultimately be overturned, because the Supreme Court of Canada will say that the charter applies.

If one looks at Stinchcombe very closely, it does not take long to figure out that the reasoning and the fact pattern that informed the decision was varied. It was a garden variety case, a small case. Mr. Joe Comartin : But it's never been overturned. In fact, it's been reinforced repeatedly by subsequent decisions. Mr. Marco Mendicino : That's right. I think the answer to our question lies in how we define “relevance” and “clear irrelevance”. That is the operative standard we're working with. The police investigators go out and collect the evidence.

There is a corollary obligation on them to turn over all the evidence to the prosecutor. The prosecutor will sift through it, but it all goes out to the defence. It was one of the rationales that informed Stinchcombe. There is very little discretion exercised by the crown in separating the wheat from the chaff—between what is turned over from the police to the prosecutor and what is turned over from the prosecutor to the accused. The reason we don't exercise much discretion is that we don't want to quibble over what is clearly irrelevant. If it's clearly irrelevant, what difference does it make?

We have to revisit our notion of what “clearly irrelevant” means. Certainly, as cases have mushroomed, you have your evidentiary component, which is what police officers do—the surveillance, the wiretaps, what will actually make up the case to meet. Then you have another component, which is corporate disclosure, and which essentially amounts to the communications exchanged between police officers and various investigative branches.

My point is, under the current disclosure regime, rather than quibbling about all the other corporate disclosure, which can actually be far more significant in volume than the actual court case to meet, we simply disclose it to the defence. Then it can take months if not years for the trial to come to pass as the accused sifts through all this other corporate disclosure, which has no bearing on the essence of the case. If we revisit “clear irrelevance”, I think we may actually be able to persuade the courts all the way up the chain to rethink the way they view disclosure, even in the light of the charter.

(1530) The Chair : Ms. Grewal, you have seven minutes. Mrs. Nina Grewal (Fleetwood—Port Kells, CPC) : Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for coming here and for your presentations. My question is for Mr. Amar. As you know, in the last decade, more than 100 South Asian men have died violently in the lower mainland as a result of gang violence. Why is it that these men, who are often from very good families, have turned to gangs? What can we do to prevent this from happening? Mr.

Mani Amar : I spent three years trying to discover the answer to that exact question: why were so many South Asian males over the last 19 years getting involved? And before that, why were so many Asian males getting involved in the 1980s in the drug trade? It seems that for the last 100 years or so, it has moved from one minority to the next. It moved through the Italian community, through the Irish community, all the way through prohibition, through small Honduras communities and native communities. We've had Vietnamese gangs that were very prominent.

I don't believe it is because of the cultural or even religious traits of the South Asian community, which a lot of people have stressed. It's not that easy. I think this is more of a societal issue than a minority importing issue. These young men came from well-to-do families, not broken homes. If we look at the typical North American gangster, for example, if we take a look at south L.A. and African Americans getting involved in gangs, the majority of the time they come from broken homes, with one parent, usually a single mother.

They have drug abuse or a parent who is currently in the judicial system or has served time. None of those factors were really relevant in the South Asian and Asian communities from the 1980s on. It was more of a societal issue. Because Vancouver is a port city, and very prominent in trade routes north to south and east to west, the drug trade is very easy to get into.

Every one of my friends and any one of my acquaintances knows that I'm an activist and that I stand against any criminal activity, yet I can pick up the phone right now and ask one of them to drop off a marijuana plant here at the Four Seasons Hotel and it will be here within half an hour. We have to look at the fact that the marijuana trade is so prevalent in B.C. I was not an advocate for drug use or drug legalization before, but I do see the logic behind legalizing it now. We have to reduce the incentive for these gangs to exist.

The number one reason they exist, especially from one minority to the next, is because of marijuana. It is such an easy trade to get into, and there's so much money to be made. It's not slowing down. Supply and demand is not going down. The amount of money being made from it has not slowed down for years. Last year, annually, we were looking at $7 billion in illegal criminal underworld trade for marijuana alone. It's not an issue that's going to slow down, unless we can control it. It's just like prohibition. We regulate alcohol. We tax alcohol. We should be looking at doing that for marijuana as well.

(1535) Mrs. Nina Grewal : My other question is for Mr. Shavluk. Mr. Shavluk, I understand that you want to legalize drugs. Would you allow children to take drugs? Where would it stop? Is it not true that decriminalization might even result in the criminals turning their attention to younger and younger children? Children are already being inducted into the drug subculture in alarmingly high numbers. If you legalize it, do you assume that there is a natural limit to the demand for these drugs and that if their consumption were legalized, the demand would not increase substantially?

Price and availability would exert a profound effect on consumption. The cheaper alcohol becomes, for example, the more it is consumed, at least within quite wide limits. Why wouldn't it be the same for marijuana or crystal meth? Could you please explain? Mr. John Shavluk : First off, thank you, Nina, for the question, because sitting here there are a million things I'd like to say. Thank you, because the dead Indo-Canadian men are in my riding as well, and I've run in three provincial elections about that. Let's face the facts, please. There are zero deaths from cannabis.

You say, how would I stop children from being targeted? Well, alcohol is safe for legal drinkers. When it was illegal, people were dying just from consuming wood alcohol. I've been in bikers' homes where they've sprayed cans of Raid on these things. There are children in the hospital, high school students with asthma attacks, because there's nobody controlling the marketplace. In countries where they kill you for a joint, they still have drug use. You're fooling yourselves to think, oh, get them out of our sight, out of our mind, and we'll feel better.

Well, I'm sorry, but since I started this in 2000, there have been a thousand more police added to the streets of Vancouver, and what do we have? We have shootings with AK-47s in shopping malls. So it's ridiculous to sit here and say that what we learned from alcohol prohibition will work. Do you want to do your kids a favour? Do you want to do all of us a favour? These drugs have killed nobody. Sugar and meat kill the majority of people in this country. They found a grow-op in one of Mr. Dosanjh's houses.

The Liberal Party and this provincial government are threatened with receiving money from illegal marijuana grow-ops. It's so big, I've been threatened by the unions because it's such a money-maker for people. If you really want to make a difference in this country, please stand up and be brave, because the people whose lives you're going to ruin—and give a criminal education to while they're in jail—are Canadian citizens. Do you want to make a difference? Make fats and sugars and meats regulated.

Put a sign on it, “Steak: you're going to die of colon cancer from this.” Nobody dies from cannabis; there's yet to be a case. In fact, I've found people who were cured of cancer by it, and the government won't talk about this. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move on to Mr. Dosanjh. Mrs. Nina Grewal : Mr. Amar had something to say about this. Mr. Mani Amar : I just wanted to make a quick point. I want to stress that I've never done marijuana and have no reason to, but at the same time, I haven't drunk a sip of alcohol my whole life, yet it's readily available.

Just because something becomes legalized, it doesn't mean that everybody is going to go out and do it. Those gangsters I hung out with—Bal Buttar, and the sister of Bindy Johal—and from speaking to the youth gangsters, they told me for a fact that they never carried a gun or never traded in cocaine or any hard drugs until they were given it instead of money for marijuana, because B.C. bud is in such high demand. As for the regulation of this, who would you want selling marijuana to your children?

Would you want a drug dealer selling to your 12-year-old, or would you want to go to Shoppers Drug Mart and say, hey, son, you're too young to be buying marijuana at this time? It makes it harder for these kids to get it. The Chair : Thank you. I'll move to Mr. Dosanjh. You have five minutes. Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South, Lib.) : I'm sorry I missed the presentations from some of you. I was doing something else. Mr. Amar, I have a question for you about part of the remarks you made when I was here. You said there's a cycle and that each community of newcomers goes through the cycle.

What is inherent in each new community that it becomes victimized by this, if that's the logic, and there are no other factors, essentially?

(1540) Mr. Mani Amar : That definitely was the logic up until probably the 1980s. We don't have racial oppression of many of these minorities, such as the Asian and South Asian minorities, but they still went through it. This is no longer a minority issue; the cycle has stopped going from one minority to the next. We saw it going from the next major minority coming into Canada in the 1980s, the Chinese Canadians, and then in the 1990s with the East Indians, even though they had been here for hundreds of years before that. It's when the influx of immigration happened. But that no longer happens.

Gangs are multi-ethnic now. They're working together. We don't see the same norms that North American gangs have, especially in the United States and in L.A., where most of my research has been based. It is no longer because of the usual precursors that they're going through it. Here it seems to be more of a collaborative approach, as they're working together. It's not even going to the next minority now; it's more a matter of a recruitment and who can do the job the best.

Even the Hells Angels, who were once a Caucasian-based gang, have opened the doors to ethnic minorities to come in and work with them, because they see the benefit of having everybody working together against the government, against society, right now. I don't believe the cycle exists anymore. I did touch on it as a research point that it was going from one minority to the next, but that doesn't exist anymore. It's a multi-ethnic issue; it's society in general. Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh : I don't take the issue of decriminalizing marijuana lightly. It almost happened when we were the government.

The legislation came that close to being passed. I grew up in India until I was 17, and marijuana grew wild everywhere. Nobody touched it. Even the animals didn't touch it. It still grows wild. Let's assume you decriminalize marijuana--or at least its possession or growing it for personal use--what is there to prevent crystal meth or something else from becoming the item that's traded? Just two or three days ago, a couple of Indo-Canadians were caught on the way to Edmonton or Calgary in a car with one or two kilos of crystal meth. Where do you go? How do you deal with that? Mr.

Mani Amar : Gangs and criminal activity have always been-- Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh : I'm not saying we shouldn't think about it because of that. Mr. Mani Amar : I understand. You're saying something new will take marijuana's place. But marijuana is not a gateway drug for the criminal underworld and the people using it. Marijuana is the standard for why gangs exist in B.C. If we legalize it and regulate it, fewer gangs will exist, but I'm sure they'll exist in another faction, or whatnot. I'm not saying we should legalize all drugs, but we should be legalizing the number one trade in B.C. right now.

Marijuana is the one we should be concentrating on. Crystal meth may be an issue in parts of Vancouver and sometimes in rural communities, but it's not a major issue if you look at the amount of the drug traded and issues that are occurring from marijuana. Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh : Fine. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move on to Monsieur Ménard for five minutes.

[ Translation ] Mr. Réal Ménard : Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to continue the discussion with Marco on the Stinchcombe decision. I began my law studies rather late, in the year 2000. When I was studying criminal evidence, that decision was very important in terms of disclosure of evidence. I feel very uncomfortable. It seems to me that many other tools could be provided to the prosecutor and to the police rather than limiting the disclosure of evidence. I'm very fearful that this will greatly compromise the fairness of a trial if we go down that path.

It seems to me that the Supreme Court was able to set out guidelines by stating whether it believed that this was a reasonable limit or not. I am afraid that it will not be possible to agree upon a definition of relevance, depending on whether the crown attorney or the defence lawyer is doing the defining. To your knowledge, have crown attorneys begun to think about this? Parliament could pass an amendment to the disclosure of evidence laws and codify that tomorrow morning. Have prosecutors begun to reflect on a definition of relevance? How will all of this be implemented? This is my fear.

(1545) Mr. Marco Mendicino : I'm sorry, but I need some assistance as far as the translation is concerned. Mr. Réal Ménard : Take your time... [ English ] You can use it as you want. It's for you. Don't be shy. Mr. Marco Mendicino : I know. I've tried to put it on a couple of times, but it seems that whenever I do-- Mr. Réal Ménard : You can speak Italian if you want. Mr. Marco Mendicino : My grandparents would be very ashamed. I actually don't speak Italian. I can't communicate in my ancestor's mother tongue. My grandfather is rolling over in his grave right now, sadly. Let me see if I can get the channel right.

Mr. Réal Ménard : Do I have to repeat it? [ Translation ] Mr. Marco Mendicino : Please. Mr. Réal Ménard : That is good. I was talking about disclosure of evidence and placing restrictions on it. I studied law much later on in life and I am well aware of the significance of the Stinchcombe decision on a fair trial. How can the relevance of evidence be defined? Will a defence lawyer and a crown prosecutor be able to agree on that notion? Crown prosecutors from your organization would perhaps... [ English ] Is there no translation? Mr. Kirk Tousaw : I guess not. They changed the channel. [ Translation ] Mr.

Réal Ménard : I think we would need to discuss this issue over dinner. [ English ] The Chair : Monsieur Ménard, I will get you to briefly restate the question. [ Translation ] Mr. Réal Ménard : Marco, how will the notion of relevance be defined? Is there not a risk that the fairness of trials will be compromised? [ English ] Mr. Marco Mendicino : Yes, I think there is a risk. That's something your colleague Mr. Comartin asked me about. There is a tension between defining a practical threshold for relevance and arriving at a fair trial. That's something we continue to struggle with.

If you start to restrict or narrow the threshold for relevance, you may lose certain aspects of information that an accused might otherwise wish to use to demonstrate innocence. That can be done in a variety of ways. I think Ms. Murray asked what my silver bullet would be, and I suggested it would be disclosure. I don't mean to suggest for one moment that there's a quick or easy solution to this.

But I think the learned members of the committee should really take a moment to pause and reflect about whether or not the current thresholds for disclosure are actually working in the new era of the major, complex trial. That applies particularly in light of the guns, gangs, and drugs, the way we marry these charges, and all of the evidentiary issues that flow from that. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move on to Mr. Saxton. Mr. Andrew Saxton (North Vancouver, CPC) : Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you all for coming here today and sharing your very passionate stories with us. My question is for Mr. Helary.

You are a self-confessed criminal. You committed crimes both outside and inside of prison, it sounds like. You recruited people to do criminal activity as well. Yet you come before us today and you seem to be rehabilitated and remorseful. What made you change your ways?

(1550) Mr. Tony Helary : I guess I just got tired of it. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'd been through every program you can think of and they taught me to be a better manipulator in the system and everything. Inevitably, I could survive better in there than I could on the street. About three years ago, I guess, I was living on the street, and I met this guy named Andrew Stanley in a park. They were having a barbecue and he gave me this little hamper with some food in it and his card.

I got back to my little squat, for about another month and a half, and then one day I just thought I've got to change. I might as well be in prison or dead. This card fell out and I saw that it was a church. I went down there and this guy, on cue, came right out to meet me, and it was just like an awakening of a sort, and ever since then, it's not about me any more. In a criminal lifestyle it's always about self, and in addictions it's always about self. What's in it for me? What's in it for me? Today I don't live for what's in it for me. Today I live for how I can do things to help people, to help the community.

Like I say, I have four guys living upstairs in the house, and it's a chore, especially with one guy. This guy's name is Gordon. He was living in a cardboard box. I don't know if you heard about the guy that got killed. I was going around all winter with hot chocolate and that to different squats in that certain area. Pepsi was the guy who died under the bridge on South Fraser. Anyway, two bridges up was Gordon, and Gordon lived there and he had his route. You know how homeless people have their route. They can be timed within 10 minutes of where they're going to be every day.

Anyway I met this guy and my heart just went out to him. People just need that little help. For one reason or another, God touched me, and since then my life has been totally changed. I do what I can, one day at a time. People want to meet me now. People want to see me. Instead of hiding when I'm coming, they open the door. It's been just a ride that I never thought could happen. What I attribute it to is just that one little helping hand, that somebody really cared. In addiction and in prison and everything, they have their programs and everything, but they're all in the system.

They have alpha programs, which are not. They have man to man; that's a program. They're real people. They're in there because they want to be. They're not there because they had to be. This guy I met was there because he wanted to be, and now I'm where I'm at today because I want to be. Does that answer your question? Mr. Andrew Saxton : Thank you. Can you tell me what programs you encountered in the system that did help you and that you think should be expanded? Mr. Tony Helary : I think the biggest is the education program. The education level, getting it instead of just playing around.

There's a lot of illiteracy, especially in the prairie provinces, in eastern Canada. I don't know how many guys I write letters for just because they can't read and write. I think education programs should be expanded. There's the OSAP substance abuse program. Those are about the two biggest programs that I see that really need more put into them. Obviously more outreach programs with the community, like man to man, person to person, are needed. And we need spiritual-based programs, where people are going there because they want to, not because they have to. That's a big thing, you know?

When a guy's sitting in his cell 24/7, he's got nobody; he's got nothing out there. Then some guy and his wife come and visit you out of nowhere and you develop a relationship, a healthy relationship.

(1555) The Chair : We have time for one more question on this side. Mr. Rathgeber. Mr. Brent Rathgeber (Edmonton—St. Albert, CPC) : Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, witnesses, for your attendance this afternoon. I must say, Mr. Tousaw, that I was troubled by some of your comments, specifically when you referred to drug prohibition as “a failed policy”. You said it several times, and you said it rather emphatically, so I'm assuming that what you mean is that since drug prohibition has not managed to eradicate drug use or trafficking and use, it is therefore a failed policy. Do I understand you correctly? Mr.

Kirk Tousaw : Partially. Not only has it failed to eradicate, but it has failed to make substantial decreases in either demand or supply over the course of the last 30 years. Worse, the unintended consequences of prohibition have spawned lucrative organized criminal groups, both in Canada and across the world, have contributed to social decay in cities and towns across the country, and have contributed to death, disease, and the destruction of our social fabric.

So yes, it's a failed policy, not just because it's ineffective at reaching its goals, but because of the negative unintended consequences that it inevitably has. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : So I did understand you correctly. But could one not make the same argument concerning, I don't know, homicide? Prohibition-- Mr. Kirk Tousaw : No. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : Hear me out. The prohibition against homicide has not managed to eradicate it--far from it. Cities like Vancouver, where I understand you live, and certainly cities such as Edmonton, where I live, have exponential growth in the homicide rate.

So where is that analogy breaking down? If prohibition ought to be abandoned because of its alleged failure in drug use, why is prohibition still a valid policy with respect to violence against individuals and homicide? Mr. Kirk Tousaw : The analogy breaks down in three ways. First, it breaks down factually. There isn't a dramatic increase in the homicide rate in this country or in this city. Also, frankly, it breaks down in terms of category, because homicide is a crime against another person. The participants in this crime are not consenting to the crime,

whereas in drug trafficking, the participants are consenting to the crime, which leads to a very difficult investigative situation for police. As well, there isn't a criminal market in homicide, or not much of one; there are contract killings, most of those spawned, frankly, by the drug trade. But there is a lucrative criminal market in currently illicit substances. We see very clearly from the example of alcohol prohibition that the moment it ended, the homicide rate in the United States dropped precipitously, and we can expect the same kind of result here in Canada. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : Okay.

So in the twenties, when prohibition was the law with respect to alcohol in the United States, organized crime made a lot of money on it. Mr. Kirk Tousaw : Yes, they did. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : There were the rum-runners such as Al Capone and others. But you will agree with me that when prohibition was abandoned in the United States, that wasn't the end of organized crime. Organized crime always finds another currency, and I would suggest to you, sir, that if it's not drugs, it'll be guns or prostitution or child labour. It'll be something. Mr.

Kirk Tousaw : I agree with the premise that organized crime is not going to disappear when we end drug prohibition. The fact of the matter is, however.... Again, don't take my word for it. It is the criminal intelligence service telling you this. Each year when it publishes its annual report on organized crime, it tells you very clearly that the primary funding source for organized criminal groups is the prohibition on illegal drugs, and the marketplace is their spawn. So if we take away that money from these groups, they lose power. They also, as Mr.

Amar has pointed out, lose a massive recruiting tool for future generations. I don't say that ending drug prohibition is going to solve all of our problems as a magic bullet today. I'm looking 20, 30, or 50 years down the line, when we see that by cutting off the major funding source of these organized criminal groups, we cut off the incentive for people to go into them, and we decrease their power exponentially. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : You represent a group called the BC Civil Liberties Association. I understand that you protect the individual rights and freedoms of the individual, and I think in large

part I respect that. You may have heard that in my city last Saturday, at the West Edmonton Mall, a 14-year-old girl purchased $10 worth of ecstasy from a 16-year-old individual, who sold it to her--

(1600) Mr. Kirk Tousaw : Yes. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : --and she died of an overdose. So in that circumstance, you'll agree with me that this is not a victimless crime. Mr. Kirk Tousaw : What I will agree with is that prohibition failed to save her life and in fact almost undoubtedly contributed to her death. Mr. Brent Rathgeber : Mr. Amar was quite careful when he advocated for the decriminalization of marijuana. You have not been so specific. If I'm to understand you correctly, you are against the prohibition for all drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine? Mr.

Kirk Tousaw : And again, I'll reiterate that I present views as myself and not necessarily as a member of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, but I will have to say emphatically yes. The regulation and legalization of marijuana is a good first step; however, it does not solve the problems caused by addiction. It does not solve the problems caused by the prohibition and the criminalization of addiction and the victimization that prohibition visits on our most marginalized and most disadvantaged citizens. So, no, it cannot stop with just marijuana.

People will continue to die in the streets of Vancouver and across this country until we've woken up to the fact that our policies have failed. They've failed everywhere they've been tried, at every historical moment. There's no reason to speculate that they can succeed today. I think this committee owes Canadians the responsibility to deal with the facts as they are, not the fantasy of what we'd like them to be. The Chair : Thank you so much to our witnesses. I just have one last question. Mr. Tousaw, you already gave your opinion on the issue. I assume, Mr.

Shavluk, you're also in favour of getting rid of all prohibition. Is that right? Mr. John Shavluk : To be honest with you, I'm actually a fairly conservative-minded person. That's just the lesser of two evils. The Chair : I understand that, but just yes or no in terms of legalizing-- Mr. John Shavluk : I would like to...like they do in Amsterdam. This will only take a second. If you research, you'll find that instead of spending all this money on crime and so on, these people were given a shot of heroin in the morning and another one in the evening, and what happened-- The Chair : I understand that. Mr.

John Shavluk : I just want to point this out. The option is available because it costs a lot to-- The Chair : I want a yes or no answer. If you don't have one, that's okay. Mr. John Shavluk : Treating it as a medical issue solved their problem with 70% of the addicts. The Chair : Okay. Mr. Amar. Mr. Mani Amar : I agree with Mr. Tousaw that marijuana is a good starting point. The Chair : General legalization. That would include legalizing cocaine eventually, and crystal meth and heroin. Is that right? Mr.

Mani Amar : Yes, we shouldn't stop at marijuana, but marijuana should be the starting point as the major incentive. The Chair : Mr. Helary. Mr. Tony Helary : I'm totally against the legalization of any drugs. The Chair : Mr. Mendicino, you probably aren't going to answer. Mr. Marco Mendicino : I think the answer is self-evident in the role that we perform. The Chair : Okay, thank you. Mr. John Shavluk : Mr. Fast, I beg the committee for one comment. The Chair : We're at the end now, and we have an in camera meeting that will be occurring. We're already five minutes late for that. Mr.

John Shavluk : All I would say is that crystal meth is the same drug. All these drugs have-- The Chair : We're going to suspend for five minutes as the room clears. We are going in camera, so we will suspend. [ Proceedings continue in camera ] [ Public proceedings resume ]

(1700) The Chair : I call the meeting to order. I notice we have a number of members of the public here as well. I welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. As many of you know, the justice committee has been holding hearings on the issue of organized crime in Canada. We're trying to get to the bottom of this problem that we certainly have in British Columbia. We're hoping to find solutions to the problem, not simply hear complaints. We have a number of witnesses here today. This is probably the largest panel we've had.

As you know, the process is that you'll get your chance to present. We'll pay strict attention to the five-minute rule, simply because we have so many of you and we have many questions to ask. We'll start with Mayor Dianne Watts. You have five minutes.

(1705) Ms. Dianne L. Watts (Mayor, City of Surrey) : Thank you very much. I'm speaking to a point that Mayor Jackson has for the metro Vancouver piece, so I'm wondering if we could alter the order a bit. Can I let her speak first? The Chair : Absolutely, I'll be glad to. Your Worship, please go ahead. Mrs. Lois E. Jackson (Mayor of the Corporation of Delta; Chair of the Board of Directors, Mayors' Committee, Metro Vancouver) : Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Lois Jackson and I am the Mayor of Delta, the chair of metro Vancouver's board of directors, and the chair of the mayors committee for Vancouver. Metro Vancouver mayors represent 23 municipalities and one first nations territory, and we represent over 1,100 square miles of land. The region is home to 2.25 million people. Along with the rest of the country, we have witnessed an increase in violent gang activity. Fear of violence from organized crime is a reality for residents of many Canadian cities.

Mayors across our region are trying to cope with the impact of crime and gang-related violence on and in their communities. Amongst all of the violence, there are the innocent victims whose lives are brutally extinguished because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time: Ed Schellenberg; Chris Mohan; Kirk Holifield, who was gunned down in Richmond. We also had a very major tragedy with Nicole Alemy, who was shot to death with her little four-year-old son in the back seat of her car. Families seeking justice for victims of crime now stand before a legal system that has lost sight of them.

Drugs, money, weapons, and power drive organized crime, and these groups are prospering from the exploitation of new technology. Gangs can communicate unhindered and unmonitored, and they know it. Gang members thoroughly understand the Canadian criminal justice system, and they use both the Canadian charter and the Constitution to their benefit. Law enforcement agencies throughout the country struggle to keep up with the complex web of organized crime and face constant legal roadblocks that allow criminal activity to permeate our economy, burdening our legal system and exhausting our police resources.

The fundamental protection of Canadian citizens is being exploited to the benefit of organized and violent criminals. These problems are not new. In fact, organizations, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Association of Police Boards, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, have offered some 35 different policy resolutions, including issues of lawful access, municipal cost-sharing and disclosure, and policy statements on community safety, crime prevention, and enhanced policing.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has directly recommended integrated policing and crime prevention strategies to mitigate many of the problems we see. In the time since these resolutions began hitting federal lawmakers' desks, hundreds of people have been murdered, many of them innocent. It has been made very clear to the federal government that issues around law reform, police funding, and the war against organized crime are in a state of emergency. While the number of gang-related homicides continues to increase, so does the complexity of the law.

Law enforcement is staggering under the weight of this exponential relationship. In less than a year we will initiate and invite the world to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Games, yet we are moving painfully slowly in dealing with the very real problem of violence on our streets. Canadians have a right to be protected. More importantly, Canadians have the right to feel safe in their communities, and right now they don't. I have to ask myself, the mayors, and all who are here: What are we all doing about it?

If my five minutes aren't up yet, I would simply like to inform the committee that metro Vancouver has now put together the mayors committee, which is putting a policy paper together regarding these issues. For your information, you will find in your package, which we distributed, a document stating the things that have been done. There are 35 resolutions, as I mentioned, that have been forthcoming from many sources over the last several years. I would put those to you for your information. We're very concerned that they have been on the books for a very long time and no action has been taken.

(1710) The metro Vancouver board is going to be completing this. We would hope when it is completed in the very near future, we will be sending it to your committee, to others, to the ministers, and to all parties. As this is not really a political situation, but a people situation, we would really appreciate your support. I certainly support the other mayors who are here today in relation to the specific concerns they're bringing forward. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move to Mayor Watts. Ms. Dianne L. Watts : Thank you very much.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak before this committee. It was really important to hear the overview from the chair of metro Vancouver, because it speaks to the fact that these are not new issues within our community. Law enforcement has been bringing them forth for many years, as have lawmakers, through the legal system, and crowns, educators, professors. All these issues we're talking about today have been brought before the general public many times. I want to speak specifically on a couple of issues, and one is around the possession of illegal firearms.

There has been a 55% increase in the lower mainland in gun-related homicides from 2007 to 2008. That's a 55% increase in one year. The guns that are coming through the border.... We have the second-largest border crossing here in my city, the city of Surrey. They're trading straight across--cocaine or weapons--for marijuana. We have a proliferation of firearms throughout our communities and the lower mainland and throughout the country. I applaud the minister for the minimum mandatory sentencing on auto theft. However, I think it's time we had minimum mandatory sentencing for the possession of illegal firearms.

When you've got an AK-47 or an Uzi sitting beside you, you know it's not going to be used for anything but creating havoc and committing a crime. The number of weapons that have been taken off the streets is very significant. In Surrey a community impact statement will go to the court. My chief superintendent and I just signed that, and for every gun-related offence we'll get a community impact statement. I want to highlight the fact of the crime taking place with the gangs.

A lot of them are out on bail on numerous firearms charges, so they're just released into the community with our knowing full well what they're up to. I also want to bring your attention.... Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to pass it around, but I do have our crime reduction strategy that has taken best practices. We pulled that together about three and a half years ago, again highlighting many of the things we're talking about today. I think many of you have a copy of this, and I've certainly been to Ottawa.

It really centres around pulling best practices together, getting to the root causes, because it's a multi-faceted problem. It's a problem-solving approach. We have to get to early intervention and prevention, and unfortunately that piece of it is lacking. If we're ever going to make a difference, a generational difference, we have to be paying attention to what we're doing with our children. The crime reduction strategy is also around rehabilitating, reintegrating those you can, helping people who need the help, but also putting people in jail who need to be in jail.

It's really important that we shift our focus in terms of the safety of the general public, which must come first. As Mayor Jackson said, the justice system is failing us. We have people out on the street who should not be on the street. And I know others will talk to you about repeat offenders. We really have to have a look at this and come at it with a multi-faceted approach and begin to deal with these problems in an effective way. And I hope, with the raised awareness, unfortunately as a result of the murders that have taken place in the lower mainland, we're going to get some action on that.

I'll leave it at that.

(1715) The Chair : Thank you so much, and thank you for staying within your five minutes. We'll move to Mayor Robertson. Mr. Gregor Robertson (Mayor, City of Vancouver) : Thank you. Thanks to the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for the opportunity to speak to you today about the state of organized crime.

Vancouver City Council believes that it's important that the federal government provide more attention to the fight against organized crime in our city and our region as a whole in the following areas: first, the urgent need for deeper financial investment in the Vancouver Police Department and the region's coordinated efforts on organized crime; secondly, the enhancement of international efforts to stem organized crime in the lower mainland; thirdly, the dire need that we have for toughening up our sentencing, especially for chronic offenders; fourthly, the need to provide greater investment in early prevention and youth education on gangs; and finally, fifth, the need to review more effective strategies for cutting off the financial resources to organized crime from the drug trade.

Public safety is at the top of mind for everyone here in Vancouver and right across the region. Gang violence has become increasingly brazen, and we're all very concerned about organized crime and the threat that it is to public safety. The Vancouver Police Department is using all the resources at our disposal to take on this challenge, and we will continue to provide support to our municipal partners in busting up organized crime wherever it may be in the region. However, we need the federal government to play a more prominent role and step up its investments in our collective programs.

The scope of organized crime here and the violence that it brings in our communities is simply too big for municipalities alone, even with some provincial help, to handle. In Vancouver, our police force has taken extraordinary steps to tackle gang violence. With Project Rebellion, the police have been targeting and arresting people who are conducting gang wars on our streets and putting them behind bars, where they cannot harm innocent bystanders. But it's not easy work, and it's certainly not cheap.

The intense demand on our police department here through Project Rebellion has drained our criminal investigation unit by 50% of the annual budget in the first two months of 2009. And on top of that, the city has recently hired 96 new police officers this year, at a cost of $16.8 million. I know that several other municipalities in the region have invested substantially in increasing their police forces. The VPD will continue to pursue criminals wherever they may be in the lower mainland, but we do need more help.

I've met with the Prime Minister, with our chief of police, the minister for public safety here in B.C., the premier, and the solicitor general to discuss this issue. I know they all share our concerns. But so far the resources that we have been given have not been enough. As Vancouver prepares for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, it's vital that we act together right across the region to protect our international reputation. I know that Mayor Jackson, Mayor Watts, and Mayor Fassbender, who are here today, have helped bring local mayors together to find consensus on regional safety.

They obviously share these concerns. So it's not just a matter of stronger policing and tougher sentencing. Those are critical, but it is also, as Mayor Watts alluded to, about dealing with the social problems that we know lead to crime. We have gangs in Vancouver that make their money from the drug trade and that prey on people who have effectively fallen through the cracks, those who are suffering from abuse, addiction, and mental illness on our streets.

We need the federal government to invest more heavily in the education, prevention, and social services that we need and to take a more effective regulatory approach when it comes to drugs. The current war on drugs is not working. We've seen that in the United States. We see it glaringly in Mexico. And with the current escalation of violence here in Vancouver, we're seeing it in Canada. So I urge this committee to look at the full spectrum of gang violence, both the current activities and the root causes, and at the systems that are in place that allow gang members to make huge profits from the drug trade.

The problems we face with organized crime are far bigger than one city or one region can handle. It's an international problem here. We are, as a port city, in the midst of a gang environment that crosses borders, and that's why we require your help. Also, both from sentencing and law enforcement on to monitoring the borders and ports, and providing the support that we need to stay one step ahead of organized crime in our region, fighting organized crime will continue to be a high priority for all of us. We need the federal government to make necessary investments and the changes that we're outlining here today.

Once again, thank you for inviting us and having us here today and listening to our concerns. I hope this helps provide clarity on some of the challenges that we're facing right now in Vancouver.

(1720) The Chair : Thank you. We'll move on to Mayor Peter Fassbender. You have five minutes.

Mr. Peter Fassbender (Mayor, City of Langley) : Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm pleased to be here with my colleagues. I have the support of Len Garis, and Superintendent Armstrong from the RCMP is on her way. She's caught in traffic, but she will be here shortly. You will have copies of these notes in the background paper, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on some of the facts. I'm going to talk about marijuana grow operations and their impact on the crime scene, not only in this region but right across the country.

As you're probably aware, in British Columbia the estimated business related to marijuana is $6 billion to $7 billion. From 1993 to 2007 the growth of marijuana across the country has seen a sevenfold to eightfold increase. That's a huge increase when you start to think of the impact that has on organized crime and otherwise. We're also seeing a real shift in marijuana grow operations moving to rural communities. That shifts a significant burden onto those communities to deal with these operations as far as policing and other protective services go.

The RCMP tell us that most of the crime groups in our country are involved in some form of activity related to marijuana and that they profit greatly from it. Other drug aspects that are attached to that are significant as well. What we really need to do is to look at what we can do and what kinds of positive changes can be made. I'm going to give you four specifics that we would like to refer to today. The first deterrent involves simply making use, believe it or not, of our existing tax laws. It's no surprise that criminals don't willingly pay taxes on their huge drug profits.

However, in Canada the revenue agency has a special enforcement program, the job of which is to collect tax from people suspected of earning income from illegal activity. They just need to know who to investigate. To show how significant a source of tax income this could be, let's look at the city of Surrey alone, where 277 grow operations were found in 2008. The written presentation includes the detailed calculation, but we estimate that a single site can produce $350,000 a year in revenue. Multiply that by 277 sites, and that's almost $97 million in Surrey alone. What would that mean in taxes?

Probably, doing a quick calculation, that would mean more than $42 million in federal and provincial taxes. Based on 2008 rates, taking it a step further, the RCMP has estimated that B.C. has 20,000 grow operations. If that's true, that would equal $7 billion in revenue and add $3 billion in lost taxes alone. The second thing that is really important is that the tax crackdown could make producing marijuana and other drugs much less lucrative for those crime groups and would ensure that there would be some kind of action attached to it.

The next deterrent we would like to talk about relates to hydroponics equipment, which is used by criminals to grow marijuana as well as by hobby gardeners to grow things like orchids and tomatoes. Regardless of how it's used, this equipment has extremely high wattage. As an example, it uses 1,000-watt bulbs. For this equipment to be used safely, it is absolutely critical that it be installed properly in a legal and approved fashion; otherwise it brings tremendous risk of fire and electrocution, not only to that location but to surrounding areas as well.

Studies show that the likelihood of a grow operation catching fire is one in 22. That is 24 times more likely than a typical house. The problem is that marijuana growers typically install and use this equipment in a dangerous and illegal fashion. It's also worth mentioning that there is no permitting process or regulation of hydroponics equipment, even for legal non-commercial users. It's likely they too are at risk. We've already established the link between marijuana and organized crime. Our thinking is that regulations would make it much harder for criminals to obtain hydroponics equipment.

At the same time, buying this equipment off the Internet and in stores with no regulations or restrictions creates the issue. The other benefit of regulation, of course, is public safety, which I've talked about already. The next deterrent addresses medical marijuana grow operations. More than 2,000 Canadians have licenses to legally grow marijuana through the marijuana medical access regulations that are administered by Health Canada. They are told they must observe all the laws, bylaws, and safety regulations, but there's no enforcement.

Health Canada does not verify the safety of each production site, and it does not tell cities where these sites are so that they can do it.

(1725) Across Canada more and more of these medical grow sites are being caught by municipal safety inspections, because they share many of the same characteristics and safety issues as the illegal sites. Inspectors are finding hydroponic equipment that is illegally and incorrectly installed as well as mould and dangerous structural changes. This is happening across the country, while the number of medical grow licences rises every year. On the surface it may look like a public safety issue; however, by regulating medical grow sites, we're also reducing the chance they will be used for illegal purposes.

The last deterrent we'd like to talk about is the need for research. Research will provide us the opportunity to detect drug production sites and collect evidence to take them down. The problem is that funding for research is not easy to obtain. The City of Surrey is self-funding research into a device that can detect hydroponics equipment from a moving vehicle. The work shows tremendous promise, but there is a limit to how much Surrey can do. Another potential project would research a device that can detect clandestine drug labs.

And if you read the Vancouver papers, you will have seen we had an explosion in Vancouver that is suspected of being caused by a meth lab. In closing, they are just four of many possibilities. What we're saying is we need attention to these items, and we need it now. We need legislative changes to ensure we can move ahead on all these areas. Thank you very much. The Chair : Thank you. We'll move now to Dr. Plecas. You've got five minutes. Dr.

Darryl Plecas (Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual) : Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again for the invite back, from a few days ago. I just basically want to make a point. I know the committee has certainly heard arguments for decriminalization and arguments basically pointing to such a change somehow magically causing organized crime to go away.

From research we've done, looking at thousands and thousands of grow operations over more than a decade, in British Columbia and in Alberta, and looking at clandestine labs, the fact of the matter is that the bulk of marijuana that's produced and drugs that are produced otherwise here and across Canada are destined for export markets. And likewise, for a large proportion of drugs that are imported into Canada, Canada is simply a transit point. We are dreaming if we think for a minute that decriminalization is going to impact whatsoever on organized crime.

Secondly, we need to be reminded that if you look at the individuals who are involved in this activity, consistently the vast majority of these people are seasoned criminals; they are repeat criminals. Drugs is not the only past crime they've been involved in. So we want to also remember that these individuals are involved in a number of other associated crimes, and of course we've seen the aftermath of that here in British Columbia.

I would ask that the committee turn its attention to what's been proposed here by others who have presented and also to the spectacular successes we've had on some fronts in trying to come to grips with this problem. I know the committee is aware that crime in Canada has been on the decline for the last few years. We've had in British Columbia an even greater decline. If you look specifically at municipalities such as Surrey, Kamloops, Coquitlam, Prince George, and Courtney-Comox, for example, you will find the decreases in crime there have been greater than we've ever seen in four decades.

They've happened quickly, they've happened faster, and it's a consequence of police and others taking a very comprehensive approach and taking a very targeted approach, a very focused approach. If we want to be able to sustain that and enjoy those successes—continued success and further declines—we need to commit more resources on a number of different fronts, as has been pointed out already.

We certainly need more resources on the law enforcement side, and we certainly need more resources pumped into the kinds of things that cause people to enter the criminal scene in the first instance, such as what we could do in terms of social programs, etc. Thank you.

(1730) The Chair : Thank you. Welcome, Janice Armstrong. We understand that traffic can be that way sometimes in Vancouver. We'll move to Ray Hudson. You have five minutes. Mr. Ray Hudson (Policy Development and Communication, Surrey Board of Trade) : With all my experience in broadcasting, I've never been able to do very well without a microphone. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today. It's a beautiful day, and I salute you members who are sitting here when there's a gorgeous day going on outside. All the best to you.

The Surrey Board of Trade is bringing a slightly different perspective. We're bringing the perspective of the business people of our city. We represent some 1,300 member-businesses and 3,600 business owners. We operate in the second-largest city in the province. We are severely impacted by the gang and drug violence and the drug- and alcohol-addicted chronic offenders who tarnish the appeal of one of the most desirable and beautiful cities in the country. Surrey is often the butt of jokes because of crime. It is negatively impacting the city and its people, who are doing spectacular things with this community.

Ottawa, we have a problem. The justice system isn't--it's a legal system that for a myriad of reasons, at least in criminal law, has strayed far from the original tenet of ensuring law and order, dealing with wrongdoers, discouraging others' bad behaviour, providing a measure of protection for society from such individuals, and so on. It seems that the criminals are the only ones who have the rights here. One of our members asked me recently, after 12 or 13 break-ins, “Where are my rights as an honest taxpaying citizen to operate my business and my life free from criminal interference?

What about my right to a safe community and my right to have the so-called justice system work, not exclusively for the criminals, but for the people and the society who pay for it?” That's a pretty hard one to answer. There's a major discontent in the land with this broken system. So here are four priority proposals we would like to bring to you. The first two proposals that we endorse are disclosure codification and lawful access, which were put forward by the B.C. government. We have talked with the various people involved with these, and we endorse them strongly.

Disclosure codification is necessary in order to subject defence requests for disclosure of materials that are outside the investigative file to a rigorous procedure to justify reasons for materials sought. On lawful access, we need to amend the Criminal Code to modernize our current means and technology.

We need to require telephone and Internet service providers to include interception capability in new technology; require telecommunications service providers to make customer name and address information available on request; require service providers to ensure that existing specified information on a particular subscriber is not deleted; and modernize

part 6 of the Criminal Code on interception of private communications to reflect current technologies. The next piece we bring forward is on prolific and chronic offenders. It is really a problem for our business community. The greater volume of crime in our society is committed by relatively few perpetrators, who amass records of 50 to 150 or more crimes, primarily to feed drug habits. The government must amend the Criminal Code, with appropriate guidelines for the judiciary, to ensure that sentences reflect the record of the individual and not simply the crime before the court at the moment.

Judges must distinguish between the first-time offender and the prolific or chronic offender, and treat them differently. It is stunning that many chronic property offenders receive an average sentence of 101 days for their first offence, and only an average of 25 days for their 35th conviction. What's wrong with that picture? I ask you that. That information comes from the Vancouver Police, by the way. These offences must not be treated as petty. Here's another issue, and it's a perception one. These repeat offenders drive businesses away by their ceaseless predation.

It's not petty when a business must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to repair damage or to protect themselves against crime. It is not petty when a community's reputation is sullied by such crime. Some people ask who would want to locate a business or home in an area where there's a reputation for high crime. Surrey is a place we're proud of, and we're trying to get that fixed. At the same time, it's critical that substance abuse treatment be provided for prolific offenders to break that cycle. These programs must be available wherever the offender is, and that includes remand and provincial jails.

The last issue is judicial accountability, and there's a lot of feeling on this in our community. The vast majority of judges are competent, concerned individuals who do their utmost to discharge their duties appropriately. My comments are not addressed to them. We have, however, seen some decisions that leave the public agog and gasping for air. We feel the judiciary appear to face very little internal and virtually no public accountability for their decisions, apart from what you see in the press.

We don't want the courts to be hyper-reactive to the public, but neither can we simply accept decisions that in some cases result in serious damage, death, and destruction of lives and businesses, by failing to adequately protect witnesses, victims, and the public at large.

(1735) Many engineers carry the liability for their work through their whole careers, and most professionals are liable for their decisions and actions. Yet if a judge releases an individual on bail, conditional sentence, or whatever and there are violent consequences, where is the accountability for that jurist? Is it not reasonable that there be some method to call that individual to account? It's about restoring the public's confidence in the system.

We call for a carefully selected committee of legislators, academics, legal professionals, and the public to examine this issue and devise a method for a performance review of judges. We don't want to suggest what the mechanism should be, only that a solution be developed and implemented. Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the four points the Surrey Board of Trade wishes to bring before you. We thank you very much for the opportunity. The Chair : You're very welcome.

We're pleased to welcome two additional witnesses: Shannon Renault, representing the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce; and Weldon LeBlanc, representing the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. Shannon, why don't you present? You have five minutes, and I'll let you know when it's time to wind up. Ms. Shannon Renault (Manager, Policy Development and Communications, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce) : Thank you. We have concerns that are similar to those of the Surrey Board of Trade and we also have some different ones.

The Canadian justice system is plagued with repeat offenders who take up an inordinate amount of enforcement and legal resources. A reduction in the number of appearances by repeat offenders would greatly reduce the burden on our police and justice systems. Issues of crime and public safety are a significant concern for the business community and for British Columbians in general. A Doob and Webster report, cited in the paperwork that you'll receive later today, showed that 74% of British Columbians are concerned with lenient sentencing practices in our province as compared to 69% of those in other provinces.

Doob and Webster state that sentencing practices in British Columbia are not lighter than those in other provinces in the aggregate; however, the findings also highlight specific challenges in British Columbia. While 41% of convicted drug offenders in B.C. are incarcerated, compared to 39% for Canada, only half of those receive sentences of more than three months. In the rest of Canada, 71% of convicted offenders receive sentences of more than three months.

Only 20% of those convicted of drug offences in British Columbia receive a sentence of six months or more, while 58% of convicted offenders receive sentences of six months or more in the rest of Canada. The report also does not examine the question of whether repeat offenders received increased sentences. The Doob and Webster study is in stark contrast to studies from city police forces on the problematic population of chronic offenders.

As my colleague cited, the Vancouver Police Department followed a group of chronic offenders and found that after their thirtieth conviction they were actually receiving an average of 25 days for their convictions. Offenders themselves indicate that they can victimize up to 4,000 individuals and businesses per year, generally to feed a drug habit. They further indicate that, upon release, they'll continue to commit crimes--property crimes--to fund their habit.

An inquiry to the Victoria Police Department indicates that though they've done no such formal study, they are confident that their findings would reflect the same thing. Persons who engage in repeat offences for property crime should be dealt with more seriously by the law. While the light sentence may be reflective of the particular incident in front of the court, it does not reflect the ongoing harm to the community at large and the volume of property affected.

It in no way leads the offenders to stop their behaviour upon release, as it does not allow adequate time for drug treatment with the goal of withdrawal and changed behaviour. In fact, the light sentence simply perpetuates what is widely seen as the revolving door of the justice system. In the long run, it is the community that suffers the harm from repeat offenders while offenders themselves are relatively unaffected.

The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce recommends that the federal government call for the judiciary to issue increased sentences for chronic offenders, sentences that better reflect their criminal history and the collective harm they have done to the community, and that those sentences be consistent across Canada. The second thing I want to address is actually a corollary issue for the justice committee. I'd like to address the need for the federal government to invest more assertively in a national Housing First Strategy.

The majority of chronic offenders referred to earlier commit a high number of property crimes to support drug addictions. The chamber believes the public needs to be protected from those behaviours by incapacitation of the offenders with increased sentences; however, we also believe that root causes need to be addressed. Professionals in the field attest time and again that stable permanent housing is the base that is needed to help drug addicts get through treatment and off drugs. Getting off drugs is the only outcome that will change the behaviour of committing property crimes. No drug habit? No need to steal.

The Canadian government has invested in homelessness programming; however, the chamber is concerned that the allocation falls drastically short of the need and that the problem will continue to grow, burdening our justice system and costing our economy. In 2007, the federal budget provided $269.6 million over two years to prevent and reduce homelessness. That equates to roughly $4.10 per capita per year. By comparison, in 2008 the United States committed $4.47 billion on the same initiative. That equates to approximately $14.85 per capita per year.

On a per capita basis, the U.S. federal government budgets 3.6 times the amount the Canadian government does to address the issues of homelessness in its cities.

(1740) In Budget 2009, the Canadian government committed to extending the same level of funding to address the issue of homelessness in Canada. While we are pleased with the continued engagement, the level of contribution is simply not enough to expect any real change and improvement in the level of repeat property crime that supports the drug habits of a percentage of our homeless population. The chamber recommends that the federal government evaluate existing models and outcomes of programs designed to end absolute or chronic homelessness.

Based on those results, it should develop and fund a national long-term strategy to measurably reduce homelessness in Canada. Thank you. The Chair : Thank you so much. We'll move over to Weldon LeBlanc. You have five minutes. Mr. Weldon LeBlanc (Chief Executive Officer, Kelowna Chamber of Commerce) : Thank you. The Kelowna Chamber of Commerce is a membership business organization representing 1,500 members. One of the primary roles of our organization is to bring the concerns of our members to decision-makers like you.

On behalf of the board of directors and our members, I wish to thank you for the opportunity to present our challenges to you today and to talk about the role the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce is playing in addressing the issue of crime in our community. As you may know, Kelowna is one of the most vibrant economies in British Columbia. Located in the southern interior of British Columbia, Kelowna is the largest city in the Okanagan Valley, with a growing population of 110,000 people.

With a very diverse economy, our city features a wide range of industries, including agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, high technology, aerospace, and tourism. Kelowna has been rated among the most competitive places to do business in the Pacific region of North America. Kelowna is also home to one of the top ten airports in Canada, by passenger volume. It serves over one million domestic and international passengers annually. The quality of life in the Okanagan is outstanding, featuring attractions such as golf, ski hills and resorts, vineyards and wineries, and fine dining.

Tourism in the region is growing, and both Tourism Kelowna and Kelowna International Airport are looking to expand their facilities and services to accommodate increasing visitor volumes. I tell you this not so much to boast about what our city has to offer. Sadly, these are the same attributes that attract criminals involved in organized crime to our community. My message to you today is that organized crime is not just a large city issue. It is established in bustling mid-sized cities like Kelowna, as well. The Kelowna RCMP detachment is the third-busiest in Canada.

As a community, we are faced with a sophisticated criminal element that uses sophisticated technology and sophisticated weaponry. Organized crime activity is increasing. The Hells Angels established a full

chapter in Kelowna in 2007. In addition, we have established gangs, such as the Red Scorpions, the Independent Soldiers, and the Kingpins. The RCMP have also noted that a number of other gangs are operating under the radar in our community. On January 26 of this year, two people involved in gang activity were shot in mid-afternoon by a rival gang member at a car rental agency. To quote a media report, schools in the area implemented lockdown procedures. In February of this year, the RCMP announced the formation of a 16-person gang unit for Kelowna to combat organized crime.

The RCMP's organized crime intelligence branch has identified the Okanagan region as an ideal location for organized crime activity. The bustling economy, high real estate values, close proximity to Calgary and Vancouver, and our close proximity to the U.S. border make the Okanagan attractive to organized crime groups as a key distribution point for drug trafficking. In March of this year, for the first time, Kelowna had the dubious distinction of making the top-20 list of Canada's deadliest cities, as compiled by Maclean's magazine in its annual survey.

Earlier this week, a crackdown on car theft netted one of B.C.'s top-10 most-wanted car thieves, who was operating in Kelowna. I'm not proud to share this information with you today. I could have filled this presentation with pages of stats. The negative impact of crime on business is well documented. Instead, I want to share with you real-life examples of what we're dealing with today and what we, as a business organization, are doing to address crime.

The Kelowna Chamber of Commerce is working to combat the negative effects of organized crime and crime in general, and we believe that you have a role in helping us. Working closely with the Kelowna RCMP and community stakeholders, the Kelowna chamber has taken a broad approach to addressing crime in our community. The issues relating to crime and the justice system are complex and overlapping.

In our efforts to address these issues in our community, we're packaging these issues as a continuum of justice that encompasses the following five key areas: organized crime; the need for additional prosecutors; dealing with chronic offenders; exploring community court; and the need for correctional facilities. First, with respect to the organized crime task force, I want to talk about one of our successes. For more than a year, the Kelowna Chamber has lobbied government for the establishment of an organized crime task force for Kelowna. We developed a policy resolution, which was adopted by the B.C.

Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, calling for such a task force to be in centres such as Kelowna. In February of this year, that was announced. This unit will provide the necessary resources for investigating and curbing organized crime activities in the Okanagan.

(1745) The second area is additional prosecutors. In our meetings with the RCMP, it's been identified that a key challenge for the justice system is the lack of prosecutors to deal with the increased crackdown on crime activities. Court dates for bringing criminals to justice are now being booked for 2010. The Kelowna chamber has met with the provincial Solicitor General and provincial finance minister to address this need.

In recent meetings we've had with the Kelowna RCMP, the Vancouver Police Department, and with chambers and boards of trade in the lower mainland, targeting the negative impact of chronic offenders has been identified as a primary focus in reducing crime in communities. In discussions with the Kelowna RCMP, they've identified 200 chronic offenders and have noted that these people are responsible for the majority of crimes against business. The message is very straightforward. When you remove chronic offenders from the street, you reduce crime.

The Kelowna chamber is working with community stakeholders to address a community court model. This pilot project i