[Inaudible--Editor]
Evidence of meeting #5 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was intelligence.
Evidence of meeting #5 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was intelligence.
3:05 p.m.
A voice
[Inaudible--Editor]
3:05 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
No, because it is in demand by a lot of people, not just sophisticated people. That is an elitist argument.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you.
Dr. Beare, you didn't go as far as to tell the committee that drugs harder than marijuana ought to be decriminalized. Where do you draw the line?
3:05 p.m.
Professor of Law and Sociology, York University, As an Individual
The argument in my mind is not one of drawing the line, but the sense that what we're doing now doesn't work. What we're doing now leads to all kinds of police corruption, corruption of officials, and a whole lot of money for.... One of the questions that was asked was how organized crime recruits. It recruits, to some extent, at least, from the street-level kids who want to make money.
It's the harm it does that I'm concerned about. Whether or not people have the right to do it.... I might think that anybody has the right to do whatever they want, but that is not my argument. My argument is that this just doesn't work.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
No, I understand that you are defending prohibition for different reasons.
So I am going to go back to the libertarian.
What about the child? What about the mentally infirm? Do they require state protection, or do they too—
3:05 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
I'm sorry, I missed the first part of your question.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Does somebody under the age of 18 or do the mentally infirm also have the right to make their own choices, or do they need state protection from—
3:05 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Well, I wasn't arguing primarily as a libertarian, even though I am a libertarian. My argument was essentially, as someone who has studied organized crime and looked at it for almost 40 years, that, as Margaret said, this thing doesn't work with every drug.
As for underage people, that's a whole different area. Of course not; that is parental guidance and various other things.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
So it is only adults who have the right to make their own choice. That's fine.
You talked about alcohol. Alcohol is a great case study, I would suggest, in the argument against abolishing prohibition, and I'll tell you why. Alcohol has been legal for almost a century, and organized crime still exists and abuse of alcohol is at higher levels today than it ever was. With that as background, why do you think abolishing prohibition of marijuana would be a successful policy?
3:05 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
If you look at alcohol, the reason organized crime is still in it is that usually, with high taxes, people want cheaper booze. I quoted at the beginning that New York cop.
If you made it legal, then the government would control the quality and the distribution. There will still be organized crime, probably selling higher-quality stuff, but there would be billions of dollars to be made by government for education on why young people and others shouldn't be using drugs. I think that is very important. I mean, it doesn't make sense to use drugs on a regular basis. We all know that, libertarian or not.
You have to educate people. I don't think education campaigns now are very effective at all. If you had more money for doing television and probably more sophisticated modern technology communication, it would work.
I think marijuana is where all the Asian crime money comes from. Look at the proliferation of grow ops. I've just been noticing, over the last 10 years, that whereas there used to be one or two, they are literally every day busting huge places. And who are the people in them? They're not the people who run the gangs; they're often disposable people who will go to jail for the people running the gangs.
3:10 p.m.
Conservative
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Professor Beare didn't have a chance to answer the question. I'll just remind you that if there is time and if anybody else on the panel can offer an insight, I would appreciate it.
You talked about the root causes. I assume you were talking about organized crime membership, or how an organized crime enterprise decides to go into sector A or industry B or community C. I'd be interested to hear if that's what you meant by root causes.
Also, at the end of your comments you talked about alternative measures. I think you meant mega trials, these big prosecutions that tie up huge resources, both police and prosecutorial resources. You talked about “alternative measures”, perhaps to organized crime prosecution, which in my province has led, in one case in New Brunswick, to our first mega trial. In a small province, it taxed the resources of the criminal justice system in a terrible way.
3:10 p.m.
Professor of Law and Sociology, York University, As an Individual
I was speaking specifically about the gang problem and I suppose in terms of your question about recruitment.
I'm hoping there is a proceeding or a transcript from the summit that I wasn't able to attend yesterday, because it had a number of ex-gang members talking very fluently about why and how they had joined. One man in particular was making the point that a large number don't want to do that, and that what in fact....
I talked about jobs, literacy, social inclusion, and social services that I still think we pay lip service to. I know this isn't the forum to talk specifically about a particular approach, but a book by Jock Young talks about the blurring of borders, and that there's a sense of inclusion and exclusion operating at the same time in our cities.
The guys and girls who are gang members in parts of Toronto are not immune to the celebrity status we see on television--the ads and all the rest of it--but they are excluded from it. In fact, distributing drugs for somebody else is a good way to at least give yourself a sense that you are participating in the culture. Why don't we take some of the resources that we use to overemphasize...possibly even the gangs and guns approach, and really seriously look at social services, jobs, literacy, and all the rest of it?
I sit on a police community liaison committee in my neighbourhood, and the citizens of my community were upset because somebody was breaking mirrors in the cars on the street. It was as petty as that. The police community mobilization people were there at our very next meeting. Well, broken mirrors.... Target those highly problematic areas, but don't target them from a gangs and guns perspective. Target them in the kinds of ways I have been advocating.
3:10 p.m.
Rev. Julius Tiangson
If I could simply add to it as well, from the relative experience I have in terms of working with young people and early newcomers in cities, areas, or regions like the greater Toronto area, or Montreal, or Vancouver, where there are high concentrations of newcomers, I think we now have a very good breeding ground for recruitment, simply because the root cause is poverty.
If how we're settling newcomers and their families into our country isn't being addressed.... We still have all of these barriers that could be changed right now, both at the provincial and federal levels, so that newcomers could be integrated properly and would have more economic options.
The root cause is really the lack of access to economic opportunities in this country. When you have areas like where our centre is located--at the catchments of Erindale and Cooksville--where nearly 56% of the population are actually born elsewhere.... If I drive around some of those areas where newcomers are settling, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that social problems are now brewing and occurring.
It has now become a wonderful breeding ground for recruitment of young people, beginning with the youngest of our immigrants. The fact is that 80% of those we serve under our alternative measures program are children of immigrants who have been in trouble with the law for less than a year.
In fact, just before I came in here--and the reason I was late--I was dealing with a newcomer who recently arrived in July and got in trouble with the law in October. Now the whole family is a mess. It doesn't take very long.
3:15 p.m.
Conservative
3:15 p.m.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
This is an enormous, a gigantic problem. I would really like to be able to clean up the whole mess from top to bottom, but there will always be some residual dirt. It is an unending task. However, we must strive to do our utmost.
Reverend, I would like to say a few words about the young Asians in particular. I have recently read two or three reports on Asian parents who send away their children alone to study in Canada, in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal. These youth who are not yet adults, were 14 to 17 years old. Parents were sure their children would be taken care of here but in fact they were left to themselves. It is an obvious and recognized fact that these youth are easy prey for street gangs and many have joined these gangs. We must get these young people back. We really have to do something for them.
I want to talk about Carcajou. You know that we launched operation Carcajou in Quebec. It was a complex, difficult, dangerous task. We put lives in danger but it worked.
I would like to know your opinion on this. Do you believe we should start another such operation? What could be improved in carrying out such an operation? I know it worked in Quebec. It was not perfect. It is never perfect but I believe that we should consider operations of this type to eliminate criminal groups. This reduces at the same time the number of street gangs because it is all a vicious circle. I would like to hear your views.
3:15 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
I think there have been operations as a result of intense violence, where the pressure is on the police to sort it out, as in Vancouver last year.
The Quebec operations--which of course Mr. Ménard was a part of as the leader--were focusing because there were two big biker gangs and lots of violence. They focused first on the Rock Machine. It was all very well thought out from a police angle, but they focused on the Rock Machine as the smaller party, knocked them out, and then went after the Hells Angels. They're still in existence, I believe, are they not?
3:15 p.m.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Yes, but they are much less strong, less powerful. Mom Boucher is in jail. This leader has lost a lot of influence over his confederates. It divided the gang.
3:15 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Right. It created an opportunity for other gangs, as we said earlier--Haitian gangs, black organized crime.
3:15 p.m.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
As I said, there will always be some, they will always exist. Should we launch other operations like this in order to reduce their number as much as possible, letting some small marginal groups subsist rather than having major gangs like before?
3:15 p.m.
Author and Journalist, As an Individual
I think we should focus continuously on organized crime.
Quebec is a special society in that sense too, because it's the only one that is using the anti-gang legislation. It's the only one that is not afraid to target several members of organizations. The rest of the country is afraid to run a mega trial. But when we talk about criminal organizations, we are talking about several people. So if we won't target them in the right way--because there are associates among them--it's worthless.
I think Quebec should be considered as an example in the fight against organized crime in this country. Unfortunately, it's the only good reason for someone like me. I don't see the same spirit in the rest of the country.
3:20 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Since we're in Toronto, Bill Blair, since he's been the chief, and even before he was the chief—and some would argue against this, particularly in the youth gang field—has used the same anti-gang laws that they've been using in Quebec against the black organized crime gangs in Toronto. He's used them three or four times. Sometimes that causes a lot of problems because all sorts of people are rounded up. If you have Michael Chettleburgh here, I'm sure he'll tell you about this.
3:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
There's a half a minute left for you to respond, and then we'll move on.