By all means, thank you.
I conducted research on street gangs and criminal business organizations in B.C. during the last wave of overt street gang activity, from approximately 1985 until 1993. One thing we discovered from this research is that street gang activity, at least in B.C., has flowed in waves since about the end of World War II. Oftentimes street gangs are related to what I refer to as criminal business organizations—though some prefer to call them organized crime groups. But those criminal business organizations have been present in British Columbia in the greater Vancouver area since the 19th century. They're a constant in many instances, and they supply the illegal goods and services for which there is extraordinarily high demand. Foremost among those illegal goods and services, of course, is drugs.
Street gangs and criminal business organizations most certainly intersect at some points, but they should be viewed differently for the purposes of developing policy and legislation relating to them.
This research was done, by the way, for the Ministry of Attorney General in B.C., and there was a report that was produced on that research and recommendations.
In short, what we're saying is that a street gang suppression probably requires a different strategy, a different direction of resources, from suppression of criminal business organizations.
More recently, I also produced a report on crime and criminal justice for the B.C. Progress Board. The B.C. Progress Board, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a think tank, for want of a better term, created by Premier Campbell in 1991 to advise the B.C. government on a variety of issues, both economic and social. This year the board decided to commission reports on, among other things, crime and the criminal justice system in B.C.
I was asked to ascertain what the crime rates were doing in B.C. and in various centres in B.C., what the trends had been over a period of ten years, and, more importantly, for the purposes of this committee, to identify what the primary causes of crime were in the province. The research included interviews with a large number of senior people within the criminal justice system and the business community and academic community, including Chief Graham. One of the things that stood out—and it was consistent across the sample of the 40 or 50 people we talked to—was that the major driver of the crime rate in B.C. was drugs, and the drug trade in particular, both on the supply side and the consumption side.
Obviously, this committee at this point is more concerned with the supply side. As Sergeant Butler has already pointed out, on the supply side, a lot of the crime is related to conflicts within the drug trade, conflicts being settled by the use of firearms.
I think it's very useful to think analytically in terms of these groups as being businesses engaged in a trade in products that just happens, right now, to be illegal, but highly profitable because these products are in high demand and relatively short supply. You can use these business models quite successfully to understand what's going on and to help you cut through a lot of the rhetoric that gets pumped out in the media.
I have to add that I'm pretty much certain that many of the police officers involved in this particular business would not disagree with that.
As I said, lot of those conflicts are settled by the use of firearms, whereas conflicts in conventional, legitimate businesses are settled by the use of courts and lawyers. Inevitably settlements are swifter and more certain when firearms are used between individuals disagreeing with each other. It's also a lot less expensive.
As everything before me indicates, firearm importation is a significant part of the payment system involved in the trade surrounding B.C. bud. The province is a leader in the production and distribution of very high quality marijuana, which fetches a good price south of the border and elsewhere. I should hasten to add that I did not bring any product samples with me this morning.
B.C. bud goes south; guns and other products come north. There seems to be a relatively healthy and almost unstoppable trade. Ironically, it's free trade.
The options that we looked at for dealing with this in the B.C. Progress Board report included tackling the whole issue of supply and demand. We have not made any particular recommendations one way or the other; that was not the task. Instead we've thrust it back to the politicians to deal with. One option we identified was to address the pressing problem of the marijuana industry. At least one solution to the organized crime issue in British Columbia is to legalize drugs, particularly the marijuana industry, and to treat addiction as a health problem. I should add that this product should be taxed.
Of course one of the big problems with doing this is that there is significant opposition. You don't need me to go back over all that opposition. There is also significant opposition from law enforcement agencies, because there is a personal investment—and I understand this fully.
As Chief Graham knows, I have a law enforcement background before becoming an academic. So I understand the problem of tackling these groups, the members of which are often very unpleasant individuals. I would not want one as a neighbour. But sometimes in the pursuit of these individuals, one gets caught up emotionally in trying to arrest and prosecute, and loses sight of the potentially larger policy issue.
That's not a criticism in any way. It's simply an observation, because one of the second options that we identified in this progress board report was to engage in a planned attack on criminal business organizations, particularly in B.C. It's not so much a war on drugs. Again, there is a lot of rhetoric attached to that phrase, and it automatically produced a criticism based upon the failures of our neighbours to the south in this particular area.
I have to confess that some of our concern in B.C. is a little parochial, because the report is saying just go after all the criminal business organizations in B.C. and push them out of the province. Let them be somebody else's problem, which is not terribly neighbourly of us. However, it is a strategy that should be considered.
In my conversations with folks in B.C. involved with organized crime investigation, it was clear that there are a large number of organized crime groups identified in the province—over 100—that are not being actively investigated or pursued.
I was astonished by this revelation. It's a matter of public record; there's nothing secret about this. If you go to the various information sources relating to organized in crime in B.C., you'll see it there.
When I asked the person in charge of the investigations in B.C. why the situation exists, it simply boils down to a resource issue. You can legislate all you like, but if you don't pour resources into enforcement of the legislation it is so many words on paper. I'm sure members of this committee are well aware of that.