My name is Steve Brown. I'm appearing before you today because some gangster murdered my brother-in-law, Ed Schellenberg. Ed was not only my brother-in-law but he was my business partner, and he was also my friend. Ed was murdered on October 19, 2007, execution style, while he knelt in front of the gas fireplace he was repairing. He was doing his job.
Ed's story actually starts in 2002, when eight people, four youths and four adults, beat a 16-year-old boy to death with baseball bats and iron pipes at a karaoke bar in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The four adult males, although charged with second degree murder, were offered plea bargains to manslaughter. A judge sentenced each of the four adults to an 18-month conditional sentence for beating somebody to death. They were basically sent to their rooms for 18 months. A subsequent sentence appeal by the crown was denied.
When we fast forward to October 19, 2007, I was awakened while I was snoozing in front of my TV by the sound of our phone ringing. It was 9:35 p.m. and Lois Schellenberg was calling to ask why, at this late hour, Ed would still have any reason to be working. He was not at home and he was not answering his cell phone. I said I knew absolutely nothing about it and thought it very strange. If Ed had problems on the job, he probably would have called me.
It wasn't until we started to hear the news reports that evening that emergency personnel had been called to the same high-rise where we had been working all that week and where Ed was working that day--where they discovered the bodies of six adult males, all shot to death in one suite on the 15th floor of that high-rise--that we knew something horrible must have happened to Ed. We knew that Ed was going into suite 1505 and that it was the last service call he was going to do in the whole complex.
Since then we've learned that, of the four gangbangers targeted and killed in that suite along with Ed, two of them, named Michael Lal and Eddie Narong, were in fact two of the four adults convicted in the manslaughter beating of the 16-year-old boy in the karaoke bar in Coquitlam, which I mentioned previously. In the time between their brush with the law in 2002 and their deaths in 2007, Narong and Lal amassed a breathtaking total of 48 criminal offences, serious charges including drug trafficking, possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, possession of restricted weapons, resisting arrest, and breach of recognizance. In Narong's case, he was charged with 15 counts of breaching his bail conditions, but he was still out on the streets because each time he was brought before a judge he was granted bail yet again. In 2005, Michael Lal was convicted of several drug trafficking offences and of five counts of breaching bail conditions. His sentence for that was another 17-month conditional sentence.
I believe I can reasonably argue that if these two persons, Lal and Narong, were handed sentences appropriate to their crimes, they would have been in jail and Ed Schellenberg would likely still be alive today. We asked ourselves how something like this could happen in our country. How could this happen?
This is what we found out. We've gone on this journey. We've gone on a very steep learning curve to try to answer these questions. Why was Ed murdered?
We are presently experiencing in British Columbia what I would call a perfect storm of lawlessness and injustice around this gang violence on the streets. Let me share with the members of the committee what I believe are the conditions that have come together to create this perfect storm. I can assure you that Ed's story is not a one-off; it is in fact the tip of the iceberg in British Columbia.
Over the last five years the number of these street gangs operating in the Vancouver area has grown from just a handful to well over a hundred. The reason this is happening is this. We have learned that there's been a complete failure in our justice system to hand out appropriate sentences for the offences that these gangsters are charged with under the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. I'm saying a complete failure, and I'm not overstating it. I've been told by a criminologist who's been studying the crime statistics for over a 30-year period in B.C. He's told me that I cannot overstate the situation we're in in British Columbia.
On the federal level, let's take grow ops as one example. Everybody knows grow ops are a big business in B.C.--at least $8 million a year. The marijuana is distributed by organized crime and they trade it for heroin and illegal handguns south of the border, and money laundering is also very much involved. Yet in B.C.--and get this--the statistics show that for every 100 grow ops only three or four of those grow ops that encounter our justice system result in any kind of punishment like jail time. That means 96 out of the 100 get away scot-free. Is this a good message to send to organized crime?
Let me explain just how we have found out the justice system falls on its own sword. If you start with those 100 grow ops, 35% of the time our police treat them as non-cases. They seize the plants; they seize the equipment. They tell them they've been naughty boys and girls. So 35% of our tax dollar is going to policing a controlled substance. The police are shooting blanks. Out of that 100, that leaves 65 grow ops. Of those remaining 65, 42% of the time our federal prosecutors stay the drug charges--42%. So what are we paying for? That leaves 37 grow ops that make it to our courts in B.C.
So what happens there? Historic figures show that only 9% of the total number of grow ops and the charges, having gone through the courts in B.C., actually result in a sentence that includes jail time. The average length of that jail sentence is only three months, and they only get fined, on average, $1,200, and this is after they have stolen hydro to run the grow op at around $1,800. Do we have any doubt why we have an organized crime and street gang problem in B.C? This is just one element of the perfect storm.
What we've learned on the provincial side is mind-boggling. In British Columbia we're experiencing an epidemic of plea bargains. Plea bargains are arranged for over 90% of the serious charges before our provincial courts--the number is actually 95%. Now, think about that. In B.C. a plea bargain is done behind closed doors by two lawyers and then it's presented to a judge for rubber stamping. There are no arguments; there is no public hearing. There's no giving of that evidence.
Members of Parliament have passed and are introducing laws that certain kinds of offences will carry a mandatory minimum sentence. However, in British Columbia--and I can assure you it's happening now--the police will lay the charge at that level that carries a mandatory minimum, but the provincial crown will plead down from that. It's happening all the time, and Ed's case is the only case in point I need to articulate on that.
Overriding everything that's happening in British Columbia, there is a shocking trend toward leniency in the judiciary around sentencing. Our sentencing judges must follow the B.C. Court of Appeal guidelines, which frankly make a mockery of the maximum sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada.
To sum it up, the trial judges impose sentences far below even these weak guidelines established at the B.C. appellate level, and the public is completely bewildered by what's going on. The judiciary's failure to appropriately address these criminals the first, the second, or even the tenth time before the courts has created, in my view, a new class of psychopathic career criminals. They have such contempt for the police, for the courts, for you lawmakers, and now for even members of the public--Ed Schellenberg. But there have been actually four innocent victims of this gang violence over the last two years: Ed Schellenberg, Chris Mohan, Kirk Holifield, and Jonathan Barber.
Members, do you realize that in the Vancouver area we have drug-addicted property crime offenders with more than 100 convictions who are still on the streets? What happens to them is that once they reach the 50 conviction threshold, their sentences are reduced. Any time they spend in jail is reduced--from the 50 to 100 level. Is that what we want to be known for? Is that a good message to send to people who can't control their own behaviour?
We've heard a lot of talk about the two for one on the remand. In British Columbia, literally, it's a joke. The defence lawyers are allowed to delay and delay, and they dictate the sentences for their clients. The justice system, the good guys, we don't have a say in it.
On the handguns, in 2008 there were over 50 gang hits in the Greater Vancouver area, a record. To date, in 2009, there are 33. The situation is out of control. In handgun offences, the charges are stayed all the time--not enough evidence. They have loaded assault rifles, they have hidden compartments, handguns with silencers, and charges are stayed--not enough evidence.
That wasn't the case 10 years ago. So what has changed? It's this new brand of criminal that's been created, the gangsters. They wear body armour. They're being arrested and found with military-style weapons. And they're driving armoured vehicles. Yet with all of those things in mind, in British Columbia they still get bail. Something is terribly wrong in British Columbia. When we see conditional sentences for manslaughter, which is murder, an 18-month conditional sentence, what's the message we're sending about the value of a human life? I believe the criminal justice system has rewarded and enabled this anti-social behaviour. There is no fear of consequences to act as a deterrent. Really, the sentencing around these gangsters is laughable.
All I can say about bail is that in British Columbia the people you think should never get bail always get bail. Even though more people are remanded, these dangerous psychopathic career criminals get bail every time. The public is at a loss. No matter how psychopathic their behaviour, or how their presence in the community poses a substantial public safety risk, everybody gets bail, it seems. I believe British Columbians have been backed into a constitutional corner on this one issue alone. These people are being released onto the streets after serious criminal charges, but they reoffend while on conditional sentence all the time. There are no consequences. They are a menace to themselves, a menace to society.