In terms of the linking of the criminal organizations legislation to this bill, my particular concern has to do with the new offence created with Bill C-10, the participation one. Again because of the breadth, all the conditions that the crown does not in fact have to prove, and the fact that it is highlighted in the legislation as being so worthy of the enhanced sentences.... I'm jumping again, from five, to seven, to ten years.
We know that at their August meeting the CACP wanted to see it put in the Criminal Code that once the group is identified as a criminal organization, they won't have to repeatedly document it.
They're trying to make Hells Angels a criminal organization by definition. Every time somebody comes up who is related in any way.... Again it's the breadth of that participation that I find so alarming. You can participate without knowing who makes up the organization. You can facilitate without the offence itself ever having taken place. Again you apply that to....
Hells Angels is a perfect organization to get that powerful legislation passed. I often joke with the police that they couldn't ask for a better group of criminals: they wear jackets, they have clubhouses, and they have Harley-Davidsons. They are perfect for thinking about group membership, and therefore sort of criminalizing that kind of organization. Then you apply that to a street gang situation, and you have problems. You try to extend it further, and you go against the grain.
Other countries have finally started to realize that organized crime's structure is often largely a fraudulent one, in the sense that the structure that's perceived by the police, the media, or whatever is sort of a core of that. You have lawyers, you have all.... In fact, today the take-down in Montreal...you know, talking about organized crime corrupting officials. They're probably part and parcel of the whole organized crime scenario.
My only point is that we make groups out of people who are hardly groups, and we can roll into that group.... I would fear anybody and everybody who in any way comes in contact with these so-called criminal organizations. It's the vagueness and the breadth that I'm worried about.