Evidence of meeting #43 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organization.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:50 a.m.
Conservative
10:50 a.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Federal Services and Central Region, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Mr. Aubin will stay here to address the other questions.
10:50 a.m.
Conservative
February 1st, 2007 / 10:50 a.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I don't have a lot of time left.
My question is mainly for Larry Butler. I'd like to hear your view on the following question.
The Province of British Columbia and the Province of Quebec have adopted what, in politics, are called socialist assistance measures. In Quebec, all kinds of preventive measures are in place in an attempt to eliminate organized crime and participation in organized crime. We have free street workers, free psychologists, free psychiatrists, free social workers, shooting galleries where they give out free needles, free arenas and gymnasiums, volunteers to help people, free primary and secondary schools. There are all kinds of things that your province, like our province, provides in order to help the public.
However, barely three weeks ago, in Montreal, a person was walking with a red scarf on. One group, the Blues, shot at him. During the same period, barely three weeks ago, a number of youths who had exchanged songs through YouTube fought each other with guns because one didn't like the other one's song. You're familiar with the same kind of problem in British Columbia.
In my province, there's also a firearms problem. As you know, we've had the three biggest killings, the one at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, the attack on Valery Fabrikant and what happened at Dawson College. We've really had our quota.
Recently, however, a Bloc québécois member published a very good book on street gangs. I don't know whether you've had the opportunity to read it. This book shows that, despite all the free resources for helping youths to avoid getting involved in street gangs — we're told that youths of 12 or 13 belong to street gangs, as is the case in your province — you can currently buy weapons in Montreal in less than half an hour. You can even rent weapons there and return them afterwards. That tells you how big a problem this is.
We're considering Bill C-10. The problem this bill attempts to solve is that there are now 34 active street gangs in Montreal. We were unable to get rid of them, and, in addition, they're growing.
Today there are two philosophies. Either you pardon criminals and find all kinds of explanations, or you try to defend the victims and future victims. Bill C-10 may be the least costly measure that can help you.
I'd like to hear your comments on Bill C-10. You no doubt know that that's why you are here. In your opinion, could Bill C-10 prevent people from being shot at in the street?
We have to know what position to adopt. I don't want to find out tomorrow morning that someone was killed in the street because I made the wrong decision. That's my problem; it's a matter of conscience.
I'd like to know whether you think that Bill C-10 could help you.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Mr. Petit.
Could we please have a direct and short reply?
10:55 a.m.
Sgt Larry Butler
I'm not sure if any piece of legislation is going to stop anything anywhere. Street gangs, from my experience, are fuelled by a number of things, and I think one of the largest things fuelling it is ego. You can't legislate ego.
I think Bill C-10 is an improvement on the firearms legislation out there now, but as far as street gangs go—and I'm sure Mr. Gordon will agree—the street gang phenomenon goes back to social and economic bases. You spoke about the red and the blue scarves. That's a phenomenon from the L.A. street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods.
As far as a piece of legislation is concerned, I think things can be done in Parliament that will help. I don't think anything's going to stop it.
As far as feeling guilty about somebody getting shot, speaking for Vancouver only, there is such a possibility of that every single night out in the nightclub scene that if you gave us a piece of legislation to arrest and lock up and throw away the key on anybody we think has a gun, I still don't think we'd stop it. The flow of guns into Canada—and I can only speak for British Columbia—is out of control. We are taking offloads of guns in the numbers of 200 and 300 at a time, and they're just going out there on the street. They are expensive, but the drug trade gives people the money to buy these things.
Without getting into a whole lot of other philosophical discussions, I don't think we're going to stop it. We just need some tools to help curb it, but it's going to keep going on. It's a socio-economic thing and largely an ego thing, unfortunately.
10:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you very much, Sergeant Butler.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses who came to testify here. I think this has been a very open and frank discussion, and we really appreciate it as committee members. It has been valuable information for us, and hopefully we can glean from it some very specific points that we can build into some legislation here. Thank you, gentlemen.
We will suspend for 30 seconds and then we'll get to some committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]