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.
3:45 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Well, it would take away from them one of their main money producers.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
3:45 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
No. They'll get into other things. They'll get into more things. A lot of legal drugs like oxycontin are sold on the street through organized crime. It's going to happen that organized crime will be in drugs. All I'm saying is that a number of organizations, whether it's in Mexico now, or in Vancouver, or on the streets of Toronto, are making their money from selling what people want.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Let me suggest that this would just give the organized crime folks another great way to launder their money, rather than take any money away from them.
The third question, if I have a moment, is to ask you, Mr. Dubro, if you have any facts that you can give us about organized crime in Toronto, because we've come here to hear about organized crime in Toronto. I haven't heard much about organized crime in Toronto today, such as how many people are involved and what are the major activities of organized crime. I don't know whether you can tell us about that or not.
3:45 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
I can tell you a bit about it because I have studied it for many years.
Right now in Toronto it's quite different from what it was, say, in the 1970s or 1980s, when we had four or five major Mafia families and a few other groups. Now we have quite a lot of different organized crime groups. We have black street gangs. We have Vietnamese gangs. We have Chinese gangs. We have Russian organized crime. We have virtually everything you can think of, including Tamil street gangs. We have the Mafia, of course, but the Mafia is less structured these days in Toronto. There are 'Ndrangheta, as Antonio referred to.
They don't get a lot of attention, because they're not fighting it out right now. The ones who get the attention are the street gangs. When they had a big internal problem a couple of years ago, they got a lot of attention, as did the Vietnamese gangs in 1991, when they had a lot of problems. Now Vietnamese and Asian crime is doing very well. Primarily they're running grow ops and making ecstasy, which they export to the United States and sell throughout Canada.
There are very many groups in the city. It's not as though one mobster controls the city or anything like that.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
3:45 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Well, that's part of it. There are other groups. There are bikers, and there are all sorts of.... Bikers won't let in certain ethnic groups, such as black people.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you.
We're at the end of our time, but I'm going to allow each of you a two-minute opportunity to give us any final information that we may have missed or that you wanted to get out there but didn't get a chance to give us.
Before you do that, I have a brief question. I'm trying to flesh out where you stand on legalization of drugs.
Mr. Dubro, you were pretty clear on that.
Ms. Beare, you certainly were advocating for decriminalization, and I sense.... In the long run, what's the optimal situation? Is it legalization of marijuana or legalization of all drugs?
3:45 p.m.
Professor of Law and Sociology, York University, As an Individual
It might end up with more than marijuana, but I was not advocating legalization. Decriminalization of marijuana is what we need right now.
3:45 p.m.
Professor of Law and Sociology, York University, As an Individual
It is possibly a first step. Again, there is research that looks at decriminalization of heroin in terms of the fact that there isn't an increase in the population of users.
Someone said that we need more research, and I did want to comment--
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Yes, you'll get that chance in a second.
I want to go to Mr. Nicaso. I took note of your comment that those who sell drugs are merchants of death. I take it you don't support it?
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Rev. Julius Tiangson
Not at all.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
So you're opposed to the legalization of drugs.
All right. Each one of you has two minutes. Reverend Tiangson, you can start.
3:50 p.m.
Rev. Julius Tiangson
We've been talking very much about organized crime. I want to come from a different vantage point.
I provide direct services to our young people, and one of the things I constantly advocate, not only with the people I work with among the non-profit organizations but also with parents, is organized prevention. Parents and community groups can actually take this upon themselves and not wait for governments to come up with wonderful and beautiful policies and solutions for our young people. We can do this as community groups and community organizations.
In order for us to succeed in eliminating some of those barriers that many newcomers, children and youth, are facing right now, the role of the government is to truly come alongside non-profit organizations and community groups and resource them properly in such a way that there would truly be an organized prevention of recruitment of people who would belong to street gangs, which are the feeder gangs, really, for these big organized crime groups.
3:50 p.m.
Writer and Filmmaker, As an Individual
Since I've been the main proponent of legalization, as you explained, I didn't come to this conclusion out of any one study or because I use drugs, or anything like that. It has taken me 30-odd years. If you look at some of my books, you'll see that I don't argue this at all, but the opposite: more enforcement, more enforcement, more enforcement. It's not because I'm a libertarian, which is a bit of a bogey argument. I'm saying this as someone who has studied organized crime all my life, that marijuana just has to be available, because it is available.
Mr. Norlock said that making it legal means that more people will use it, and there'll be more sickness, more illness, and everything. That's simply not true, not if it comes with an educational component. There may be fewer people using it. During prohibition, alcohol was illegal and more people drank than ever before, I believe—you can check it out, but they certainly drank quite heavily.
The government is already a “merchant of death”, to use Antonio's very dramatic phrase. I understand where he's coming from, but the government is already a merchant of death with cigarette taxes and with alcohol control and taxes.
In terms of gambling, I think it's iniquitous, some of these ads. I remember before gambling was run by the government. They sneak you into becoming gamblers on television. It doesn't matter what government is in power—Conservative, Liberal, or NDP—they all run these ads saying, “Oh, you can be a millionaire overnight.” That's not what they should be doing. They should actually be using the money they're getting from gambling to tell you how not to get addicted, and to fight the gambling addiction.
So I would argue that making marijuana legal isn't something that I think is good for society or bad for society. It's somewhere in the middle. We have to fight it, obviously. We don't want everyone running around stoned on marijuana, and I don't think they would be. Obviously, to succeed in this world, you can't be stoned, whether it's on alcohol, which is legal, or drugs that you get from your doctor, such as Ritalin, or God knows what they give kids nowadays and they get addicted to. It's not the way you get ahead in this world.
3:50 p.m.
Author and Journalist, As an Individual
According to the reports prepared by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, every major criminal group in the world has a branch in Canada. If I were in your shoes, I would ask why they love Canada, why we have all those people in Canada. This is a criminal microcosm, because we have so many different criminal groups.
We should go behind the headlines. If this is a priority, and a priority to fight criminal organizations, let's come out with the proposal at the end of this hearing and avoid what your colleague did in 2001. Come out with the proposal, bring the people in with experience and expertise, and really start targeting criminal organizations in this country in a proper way. I think the only way is to take the money out of a crime.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you. I just want to respond.
We have hearings yet in Edmonton and Winnipeg, and once they're completed, we'll likely immediately go into providing instructions to our analysts to prepare a comprehensive report.
This study has taken at least two years, if I'm not mistaken. One year? All right. It feels like two years. But we've travelled across the country, and there will be a report that comes out. Likely it will be full of recommendations from this committee, and then it's up to government to respond to those recommendations.
Ms. Beare.
3:55 p.m.
Professor of Law and Sociology, York University, As an Individual
I feel very strongly about a couple of things. I realize this is a legislative committee, and I guess my recommendation to you would be to curb the pure focus on legislation, or at least to take into account what are likely going to be the unanticipated consequences for it.
The notion of decriminalization was not to be a major part of my approach, and one of the people commented that that was a simplistic kind of response. Welll, there are some responses that sound like they're so solid, but to me they are simplistic. Take the money out of organized crime. Isn't that wonderful? The headlines, the public, the politicians—it's very popular.
We did a study of all of the RCMP cases that had a money-laundering component. We did that in 1990. In 1994, we did an update. After all the money-laundering legislation, what are the RCMP cases and what do they tell us? Yes, people laundered in all kinds of ways, but mostly they pissed their money away the same way that you and I do. They bought things. This idea of taking money away from organized crime sounds better than it is because of what we have said before.
The criminal organizations are not necessarily Mafia structures like the five families in New York or whatever. You take some money away, yes, but we're talking about fluid, networking organizations that in my mind need ongoing, persistent, well-funded, and to some extent traditional police work. To look over at the United States and say, “Why is Canada so weak and why do they favour our—” Well, look at the United States. It's something like the third prisonized country in the world. Yes, they put out of business their five Mafia families in New York, Detroit, or wherever, but the country has the wide array of organized crime groups that we have in Canada and more so. They put more people in prison, and they have a higher percentage of crime, even taking into account the population.
I do not think we are weak on crime. I would like us to just try to be really intelligent on crime enforcement.