House of Commons Hansard #31 of the 36th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was criminal.

Topics

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:50 a.m.

NDP

Svend Robinson NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the solicitor general.

He is going to Vancouver. I want to appeal to the minister not just to go to Vancouver but to go to Burnaby as well. I represent a group of constituents in the Metrotown area of Burnaby who are absolutely fed up with the failure of this government to respond seriously to a very significant problem, a crisis in that community.

Drug dealers are openly defying the law in the Metrotown Skytrain area. People are abusing immigration laws and the criminal code.

The minister says he is studying the situation, that he is looking into it, that he is going to treasury board. This is not good enough.

My colleague from Kamloops previously pointed out that an organized crime investigation was shut down because a couple in his constituency were told that the RCMP did not have the resources to deal with it.

When the minister goes to Vancouver, will he meet with people from Burnaby? The Burnaby RCMP have identified this as a very serious problem. There is a total lack of resources. Will the minister take his responsibility seriously and respond to this crisis?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is wrong. I did not say we were just studying this. In fact, if he had listened to what I had to say, I indicated a large number of initiatives that the government has taken.

What I did indicate on the resource review was that my department, along with the RCMP and treasury board, conducted a study to make sure that the dollars that will be spent, our tax dollars, British Columbia tax dollars, Canadian tax dollars are spent in a co-ordinated fashion. This will enable us to fight organized crime in the most efficient manner possible.

That is why the proceeds of crime unit, the DNA data bank, the $115 million for CPIC were established, so that we would have in place the best technology possible enabling us to share information with police forces across the country. These are very important initiatives which have been taken by the government. We are not just studying; we are taking action and have taken action.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)

Before we resume debate, I want to make an explanation on questions and comments. I can see there is a lot of interest and there is some consternation.

This is a Bloc supply motion. If there are members of the Bloc who wish to ask other members questions, the Speaker would normally see the party whose motion is on the floor more often. If there are members who have been in the Chamber all day wishing to ask a question, the Speaker will very often see those members. I will ask for the questions and responses to be short because there is a lot of interest. Very often the Speaker will see critics or people whose portfolios are specific to this issue.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:55 a.m.

Liberal

Aileen Carroll Liberal Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, ON

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate my colleague on the justice committee, the member from the Bloc who has brought forward this excellent motion.

The motion we are discussing this morning is one that deserves all of our attention. Organized crime is not a new problem in Canada but has been recognized as a growing one. It affects Canadians from coast to coast and it affects people in countries throughout the world. Whether it is a fraudulent telemarketing scheme preying on seniors in Montreal or a large shipment of narcotics through the port of Vancouver, organized crime manifests itself in many ways.

The word globalization has been used more and more frequently as the millennium draws to a close. The development of computers and network technologies is creating a global revolution in human communication and commerce, but it is also creating new opportunities for crime that we must now address. In Canada, developing effective measures to deal with computer related crime has raised numerous challenges. It has required us to meet these challenges in ways that previous generations could never have imagined possible.

More and more we find ourselves looking outward to the international community in our search for solutions. We look to our neighbours because we can learn from their ideas, from their successes and from their failures. But there is more to it than that. In a new environment of high speed low cost communications, we need policies and legislation and practical solutions that are compatible with those of our neighbours. In the high tech environment, the list of neighbours with whom we must co-operate is much longer than it ever was in the past.

We share crime control problems, not just with those countries with whom we share physical borders and trade links and with whom we share political and social beliefs, but also with those who are distant from us geographically and philosophically.

Any country in the world with an airport, telephones, fax machines or Internet access may be a base for offenders targeting Canadians or a source of victims for Canadian offenders. They could also serve as a haven for the concealment of evidence or illegally gained proceeds of crime.

Developments in the world of high technology create many challenges that we must now address if we are to maximize the benefits of globalization for our citizens, but at the same time protecting them from these risks that we are discussing here in the House today.

I will discuss four specific challenges facing Canada and its international partners in this area of high tech crime. First, the challenge that arises from the time pressures imposed by the rapid and highly volatile nature of computer communication. Those who investigate cases of high tech crime must be able to successfully locate the source of attacks and seize electronic evidence or proceeds of crime in an environment where these can be erased completely at the touch of a finger or moved cross national borders without detection or scrutiny. The challenges of law enforcement is to ensure that they are technically able and sufficiently resourced to locate criminals and preserve that data. The government has made it perfectly clear that we intend to provide the RCMP with the tools it needs to do the job in the fight against organized crime.

Our challenge as legislators is more difficult. It is the problem of creating laws that will ensure that national borders do not provide offenders with increased opportunities to hide their identity or location, or to conceal or destroy evidence so as to evade detection.

Another challenge relates to the creation of new rules. Traditionally the development of policy in the international community has taken place incrementally at a slow pace as measures are thoroughly examined and discussed until consensus is reached. Consensus of course is still an essential ingredient in our approach, but we will find ourselves faced with a need to achieve it more quickly than ever before as we are able to successfully keep up with the rapidly changing technology while protecting our citizens and fostering a healthy climate for the traffic of information and commerce into the next millennium

The third challenge that I will discuss arises from the costs associated with law enforcement in this new global electronic environment. Many of the obvious costs in detecting and investigating transnational crime are currently borne by national governments and agencies. The governments' challenge, one which we share with industries and the private sector, is that of creating rules and practices which address all of the challenges that I have mentioned, but which also minimize the cost that governments must bear and maximize the degree of crime control that we can hope to achieve with our limited resources.

There are further cost factors to be considered. Many of the options open to us, such as requiring service providers to use particular types of technology or retain data for extended periods of time, offer effective law enforcement but at significant cost.

Until relatively recently, cost implications would have been purely domestic policy questions, but in the present era of globalization it has become one of international trade as well.

We must establish rules and practices to fight transnational crime that are economically fair and maintain a level playing field for communication industries that now operate already in a very competitive global milieu. Imposing undue burdens on certain industries may well result in their relocating outside of our country and by so doing they will create safe havens for criminals who wish to abuse new communication and information networks.

We have undertaken a dialogue here in Canada with the private sector and we find it very willing to co-operate in preventing criminal abuse.

We are engaged, we are committed and we welcome the opportunity that this motion has brought to have this matter brought before the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, of which I am a member.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:05 a.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I too agree with the Bloc motion. It is way overdue. It is 1999 and the government came to office over six years ago.

The member opposite, more or less, talked about the issue of dialogue, consensus and going to committees about it. Where I live, we are sick and tired of politicians saying that we need consensus, dialogue, studies and committees to review this issue. It is upon us and has been for well over a decade. My community, which was a little farming community, now has prostitution and drugs like cocaine, heroine and so on.

I am curious as to what length of time the member opposite feels is appropriate to have dialogue, consensus, committee meetings and so on. There are people on the streets today, I can assure her because I have been there many times, who are hurting and have been hurting for years. They are sick and tired of this House saying that we need consensus, time and dialogue.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Aileen Carroll Liberal Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, ON

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we ought to interpret from my explanation of the need for consensus that this necessarily entails a slowing of a process. It does not.

In my view, and I very strongly believe this, we create the very best laws for this country by thoroughly vetting the issues that have brought us to the process of wanting to create a new law. Consensus building is rooted in common law and common law is the tradition of the country. It is not the tradition of the country to go shooting out with little study, little analysis and little comprehension of the essential issues with a response that creates a weak law.

We are talking about an information era that we are only beginning to grasp on many fronts. As it impacts on the issue of organized crime, we too in this area have to make sure that we have all of the information that is requisite in order to effectively defeat the very problems and the crimes that the hon. member from across the House wishes us to address. We will do an excellent job. We have an excellent justice committee.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:05 a.m.

Bloc

Ghislain Lebel Bloc Chambly, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member who just spoke that the purpose of the motion put forward by the Bloc this morning is specifically to ask that a committee look into the matter so that all her concerns and fears can be discussed.

I do not understand her point. I would like her to be more explicit, because what we are proposing this morning is that, all partisanship set aside, we meet in committee and consider the issue. We have proposed a deadline of the end of October 2000, next year, one year from now, to do it. I wonder what part of the motion disturbs the hon. member.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Aileen Carroll Liberal Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am not disturbed. I have no difficulties at all. I did not want to imply a sense of being worried.

I am not disturbed. I am happy that we have time enough to address this issue and the other issues we mentioned this morning.

We have a justice committee at this time. Having completed second reading in the House of the young offenders legislation, I know that on all sides of the House there is considerable concern that we take our time and adequately address those issues. I know this is a major issue to the Bloc. I would be most surprised to hear that the Bloc would wish us to drop that from the agenda in order to move on to another important matter.

All of these things must be considered. All of these issues and laws impact very much on our communities.

There are impacts on communities in Quebec and in Ontario. However it is necessary to address those issues step by step. We have to think and we have to consider. Of course, I am not disturbed, I am delighted.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:10 a.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the motion before the House today.

I do want to clarify a couple of things. I find it interesting that the member opposite says that we do not want to go ahead with too little study on this issue. I can assure her that this issue has been studied and studied to death. I have reams of information if she would like to have it on drugs in this country, on trafficking, on organized crime and on the effects of heroin and cocaine on our lives and on our people.

That is what is so disappointing about the House of Commons. We get into this place and someone says that we have to do a study, we have to take our time, we have to look at it and we have too little information. The fact is, we have an abundance of information. It is a matter for all parties in the House to act.

I see it from two different levels. I wish the hon. solicitor general could hear some of these things. He mentioned $50 million to fight organized crime in airports. At the same time, this is the government that disbanded the ports police. Just exactly where does the government think drugs come into Canada on the west coast? They come in through our ports. Since the ports police have been disbanded the situation has become much worse.

In order to fix the problem, the reaction by the government is to say, “We'll throw $50 million into fighting organized crime at airports”. On the other hand, it disbands the ports police. That is not consistent at all.

There is $78 million to fight smuggling. That is nice, but on the lower mainland between Vancouver and Hope there are numerous open trails. One in particular is called the Ho Chi Minh trail which I was on the week before last. It is a smuggling trail. The police know about it. I was with the police when we were on it. I have been on it a number of times. There are a number of trails, beaten down and four feet wide between Canada and the United States on which illegals come across, guns come across, money is laundered across, marijuana goes south and heroin and cocaine come north. Seventy-eight million dollars would not even touch that area because we have a maximum of six RCMP officers, and one is an administrator, working on it. It is just not enough.

The minister talked about proceeds from crime legislation. However, the proceeds from crime are not effective. The solicitor general talked about how effective anti-gang legislation is but has refused to acknowledge, because I have talked to his people and the solicitor general himself, the drug cartels in prison. The commissioner of corrections refused to even acknowledge it, but it exists.

If we look at the national drug strategy that was put out by the PCs in the eighties, not too much was done as a result of that. Then we look at the national drug strategy that was developed last year by the Liberals and compare them, which I have. They are virtually an overlay of one over the other. Nothing has changed in their opinion. The problem is that a great deal has changed.

In one outlet alone in downtown eastside Vancouver last year, 1.5 million needles were issued to over 6,000 addicted people. Yet we are still talking in the House of Commons about a committee, about talking and about researching. No damn wonder it is so frustrating in this place.

Yesterday I asked the solicitor general why he was building a research facility in his riding for $2.5 million to study drugs in prison. He said “You can study it anywhere”. But he missed the point. That $2.5 million building has a life expectancy of 25 to 50 years. Will he study the issue for 25 to 50 years? If he has to study the thing, which has been studied so often, why can it not be done in one of the many government buildings that have been vacated? Chilliwack, British Columbia, has a whole military base right smack dab in the middle of all the prison problems, drugs, cartels and organized crime. He could use the Aldergrove base, which has been closed.

That is what tells me the government is not sincere about the issue. One of its ministers says that he is building a building in his riding to study it, when we know darned well that it is basically patronage. There is more interest in looking after the riding than in solving the drug problem.

The opinion across the country is that not enough is being done. An article in the Ottawa Citizen stated:

Organized crime in Canada is now so pervasive that police have been reduced to putting out isolated fires in a blazing underworld economy.

That is true and the government knows it.

An opposition party raised the issue and said it should go to committee. The government thought that was a good idea. Another government member said that we should study it and that we need dialogue and consensus.

I want leadership, and I want it now, not later. The problem is here. I have dealt with enough people who are addicted to know they have all but given up hope of getting anything from the federal government. Those people who are working with young teenagers who are addicted have all but given up hope of this place doing anything.

A government minister, the solicitor general in particular, said that the government gave $78 million or $50 million to fight organized crime. Is he kidding? That is petty cash in Vancouver. Lots of dealers have $50 million. Lots of them in my community have that much in assets.

I am splitting my time and I note that I have two minutes left.

Members might sense that I am a bit frustrated with the government on this issue. I worked with an organization that is trying to get a rehabilitation centre for young teenage girls who are addicted. I went to the Minister of Health to tell him they need some help. I was put off to a bureaucrat in Vancouver who did absolutely nothing, and yet we have more teenage girls who are addicted in our little community than we can handle.

I dare say that Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam and all of these other places have more than we do in the Fraser Valley, and yet an opposition party has to tell the government to get off its butt, take this issue to committee and do something about it. It is terrible.

All I can say is that I do not believe the government is sincere. If it was sincere something would be done. While I applaud the Bloc for bringing this up, I equally say to the Liberals, shame. There are a lot of people across the country who are depending on 300 members of the House to take some action, to stand together and deal with this issue. It is lack of leadership that is the problem. If the government said “We will go to committee and we will come up with a national drug strategy that will really work at the street level”, I would be the first one applauding it. I have taken the government's national drug strategy, and everywhere from Sydney, Nova Scotia, right through to Vancouver, British Columbia, when people looked at it they said “This is meaningless. This is not helping us here. We are issuing needles. We see drug addicts every day. Take your document and go away”.

I do not have confidence that the government will do anything. I applaud members of the Bloc for bringing it up, but good luck trying to get some help from those folks.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

NDP

Peter Mancini NDP Sydney—Victoria, NS

Mr. Speaker, it is not often that the previous speaker and I agree on many things, but he raised some interesting points today and I applaud some of them.

I am particularly interested in his discussion about the building of a new facility in Prince Edward Island to study the effects of drugs in jails. He said that there are existing facilities that might be used. I think of that because my own riding, and he mentioned Sydney in his comments, has a severe unemployment crisis because of the closure of some of the traditional industries. I am wondering if he would like to take that a little further and support the establishment of that kind of centre in areas in the country which suffer a high unemployment rate. If the government is going to establish this kind of facility and there is no need to build a new building and spend government revenue—and I will not confine it to my riding—would that not be a more sensible kind of decentralization of government offices that would enhance those communities and provide some revenue generation?

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, I am not very interested in creating employment through researching the issue of drugs in prisons. This issue has been researched time and time again. What is lacking in the system is the will of the correctional service to implement its own procedures. The commissioner's directives state that there is zero tolerance in prisons, and yet they issue bleach to sterilize cocaine needles. What kind of contradiction is that? The problem is not the research. The difficulty is in the implementation.

I am just sick about the solicitor general wanting to build a building with a 50 year lifespan to study something that should not be studied but acted upon. If they are going to do some work on drugs, it should be in a prison or close to a prison, in a post-secondary institution where research takes place, anything but building a building. It is not a matter of job creation, it is a matter of saving lives. That is the problem. They have the wrong emphasis.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

Edmonton Southeast Alberta

Liberal

David Kilgour LiberalSecretary of State (Latin America and Africa)

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Langley—Abbotsford knows I share his concern about the drug situation in Vancouver and elsewhere in the country.

Could he tell us how we could stop approximately one young person a day from dying of an overdose in East Vancouver and many other places in the country? What could we do to combat that more effectively?

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:20 a.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, the big problem is the supply of drugs. We need programs to cut it off.

The demand for drugs is only going to decrease by fewer people being on them. Unfortunately, in Vancouver we are not going to be able to stop people from dying because of drugs. It will be unstoppable until we stop the drug trade. Until we stop organized crime, until we cut off the supply, someone will die today, tomorrow and the next day.

We only have to go into some of the hotels in the downtown east side to see what a terrible scene it is. I invite every Canadian watching to take the time to do that. The police will take people to the downtown east side of Vancouver. It is like a war zone. I am not kidding. I have seen young girls and young boys shooting up between their toes because there is no other place to do it. All their marks have been used.

I really do not think it will be stopped until all members of parliament take action to cut off the supply. That means boarding the ships that are anchored off Vancouver, getting the drugs, seizing the ships, selling the ships and telling the lawyers that they have to stop defending the bad guys and start prosecuting those people with everything they have.

There is no easy answer, but somehow we have to wake up the House, and particularly the government.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:25 a.m.

Reform

John Reynolds Reform West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, no other issue threatens the sovereignty of Canada, or for that matter other nations, like organized crime. Organized crime is operating in Canada with impunity. The extent of organized crime is epidemic.

Allow me to read a statement from the Canadian Police Association: “Recent threats against the Bloc MP should be a wake up call for all politicians” says the executive officer of the 30,000 member Canadian Police Association, David Griffin. “The frightening reality is that organized criminals are flourishing in epidemic proportions and police feel frustrated by the lack of tools and resources to fight back. Canada has gained third world status as a haven for organized criminals and money laundering”, said Griffin. “Even our institutions are being threatened by the influence of global criminals. Two Quebec prison guards were murdered. A member of parliament and his family are now under police protection and players in the National Hockey League have become the targets of Russian gangsters”.

I am told by police officers that there is too much politics and infighting regarding who is in charge of fighting organized crime in Canada. I am told it is foolish to have provincial law enforcement agencies take on this issue. We are in dire need of a national organized crime agency to deal with this issue. We must tie all of the different agencies together.

Recently the solicitor general announced the formation of an organized crime directorate, headed by an individual of deputy minister status in the RCMP. I was told last night by a crime fighter that this initiative is nothing but smoke and mirrors. The individual put in charge has no foot soldier to carry out the task, no resources and is wondering what to do. He is in a void.

Every August a report on organized crime is tabled by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada. Every year is a litany of the proliferation of organized crime. Every year it offers, according to my crime fighting friend, no plan of action, simply recognition of everything every police officer already knows but does not have the power to change.

Let us get serious. If Canada were really intent on fighting organized crime we would get away from the rhetoric and deal with such obvious issues as RCMP understaffing in British Columbia due to budgetary cuts. There have have millions of dollars in cuts and the RCMP detachment is not meeting its own standards. Yet, we expect police officers to do their jobs. One would think there is some complicity with organized crime to allow these staffing issues in the RCMP.

If we were serious we would deal with the illegal entry of Chinese migrants. We all know that organized crime is being paid to get them into Canada. If we were serious we would not be playing the patsy for the triads in Vancouver. If we were serious we would take a look at the kinds of companies we allow to do business in Canada, particularly those like COSCO, which is allowed to use the Vancouver waterfront but has been banned from U.S. ports because of nefarious or suspect criminal activity. It imported AK-47s into the United States for criminal purposes. It is banned from U.S. ports, yet it looks after the Vancouver ports now. Is it not interesting that this government allowed the port police to disappear just when it took over? Why are we so naive?

If we were serious we would never have allowed a known triad leader, Tong Sang Lai, to enter Canada. He was rejected in Hong Kong but allowed into our Los Angeles office. He is known and on a Canadian list of high ranking triad leaders. If we were serious we would not have whitewashed how he eluded scrutiny by conducting a phoney inquiry at immigration. Many who know the Lai story know of the drive-by shooting that took place at his residence in Vancouver, a settling of a score. He is still around. Is there is nothing we can do but turn a blind eye to the existence of known triads in Vancouver?

If we were serious, we would question and investigate the existence of crooked Hong Kong police officers who retired, so called, in Canada. These officers made medium salaries in Hong Kong, yet live in million dollar homes in Vancouver. How did they get that kind of money? Are they doing it here on the take? What is the government doing?

At least 44 former Royal Hong Kong Constabulary police officers who fled a corruption crackdown in the former British colony have established themselves in Canada with their ill-gotten gains, police studies show. Dubbed the millionaire cops, the ex-Hong Kong officers, their wives and concubines are believed to have invested tens of millions of dollars in businesses and real estate in Canada, mostly in British Columbia and Ontario.

A covert study by the Asian organized crime investigators, with the help of Immigration Canada officials, found that 30 of the police officers have invested in at least 13 B.C. companies and bought about 50 pieces of property in the Vancouver area. This included large homes in West Vancouver, commercial buildings, a shopping mall and vacant acreage. Others invested in restaurants and bought shares in a private hospital.

The study also found that four of them whose average salary had been about $30,000 Hong Kong a year, a pittance by North American standards, have built a two tower, 600 room hotel in Toronto valued at more than $20 million. Police sources said the B.C. study into the cops with strong connections to triads in the Chinese mob began in the late 1970s and was updated in the 1980s, but it was kept under wraps.

Last night I was told by a crime fighter that he thinks the Canadian embassy in Hong Kong has been bought and paid for by organized crime. He feels our system of security has been penetrated and he has a point. Allow me to explain.

Project Sidewinder, a joint CSIS-RCMP venture, was launched in the mid-1990s to look into the influence of Chinese tycoons in Canada and their political connections. The investigation was going along merrily, perhaps too well. Names were being amassed and the information was being assembled on Chinese espionage activities and triad-linked businesses in Canada. After a couple of years the probe was abruptly shut down, and following that CSIS destroyed documents pertaining to the investigation. Why? Two people involved in it know and stepped forward. One was an immigration official at the Hong Kong embassy, Brian McAdam, an expert on Chinese criminals. He knows the immigration computer, and files and codes were accessed by those who should not have had access.

Another Canadian, Corporal Robert Read of the RCMP, agreed and talked about the project sidewinder and was suspended. In a series of compelling and investigative stories by Fabian Dawson of the Vancouver Province , the project sidewinder story has been revealed. SIRC has been called in to get to the bottom of the issue. Many important names are surfacing in its investigation and many of these names are those of individuals with investments and interests in Canada.

Frankly, the government is ignoring the proliferation of organized Chinese crime figures in Canada. One asks the question where the direction is coming from when it comes to shutting down investigations like Project Sidewinder.

If the Canadian government was serious about organized crime, this would not happen. Is our sovereignty being sold? It is a good reason this is going to committee. It is sad for instance that questionable and suspect organizations of our Hong Kong immigration office are surfacing. As well, one has to question the wisdom of our federal court in this entry of triad leaders into Canada. I will quote one instance, a triad leader turned down by immigration a number of times. His name was Lam Chum-wai, a member of a very notorious triad. Yet the federal court overturned those rejections and he was allowed to stay in Canada. A known criminal should not be in this country, a triad leader by all reports, and yet a federal court judge allowed him to stay in Canada. Nobody questioned that issue of a judge and we should be. We should be asking why this is happening.

In October I had the pleasure of attending the ministerial conference of the G-8 countries on combating transitional organized crime held in Moscow. I knew organized crime was proliferating, but I did not know to what extent and in what high-tech way. Clearly, the bad news guys have the upper hand.

There was a communique issued at that conference that said:

The G-8 are committed to fight against the dark side of globalization—transitional organized crime which threatens to damage our societies and our economies.

We have agreed that transnational organized crime can only be successfully combated by combining preventative and enforcement measures.

We have agreed that all G-8 members who have not yet done so should consider the possibility of accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of proceeds from Crime. We also agreed on the importance of an outreach to the media and non-governmental organizations because they have important roles to play in fighting against organized crime and corruption.

  1. Today, we have endorsed the Guiding Principles and Plan of Action to Combat the Smuggling of and Trafficking in Human Beings, which was prepared by the G-8's Lyon Group under guidance provided at the G-8 Summit in Birmingham in 1998...

  2. We have agreed to co-operate against an immediate threat—the possible use of Y2K as a cover for high-tech transnational organized crime frauds. We have agreed to support the continuing work of our Lyon Group subgroup on high-tech crime. We must explore new options for locating and identifying criminals who use networked communications for illegal purposes.

This debate could go on and on. I certainly have a lot more to say but I know my time is just about up.

I congratulate the Bloc members for what they are doing today and I congratulate the government for allowing this to go to committee. I think it is time we got into some very serious discussions in committee as to how do we really stop organized crime in Canada. Let us get the facts on the table. Let us call the Corporal Reads, the Mr. MacAdams and people like that to the committee and get their stories under oath to a bunch of members of parliament who can finally take the tough stand and take some action against organized crime in Canada.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Edmonton Southeast Alberta

Liberal

David Kilgour LiberalSecretary of State (Latin America and Africa)

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member tell us a little more about how he thinks we could make it more difficult for criminals, particularly the organized career type of criminal, to get into Canada?

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Reform

John Reynolds Reform West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, certainly there are a number of ways and a standard basis of just criminals getting in.

There is the situation of the triad leader I mentioned who was turned down in Hong Kong and got in through the L.A. office. There is no question in my mind, even though there was a report written by a former ambassador, that there were cover-ups in that area. There is very strong evidence and I think we should call these people to the committee. Mr. MacAdam who has gone public and Corporal Read when talking about Sidewinder have some answers in that area as to why these people are getting in. We have to get them before that committee and talk about it.

We have to stop the payoffs and the fraud outside the country. We all know the RCMP has numerous investigations at embassies right now into people who are paid off at the local level to get people to the front of the line. We have to stop that.

One might ask, why did a federal judge with evidence from the RCMP and worldwide police organizations of a well-known triad leader allow that man to stay in Canada? There should be no reason for that whatsoever and yet a judge did that in this country and it was a federal judge. That is what disturbs me the most because most federal judges come by political appointment, as we all know. I just start to wonder.

I have been in this business for a long time. I sat in a committee of this House in the seventies on penitentiaries. It was unanimous from all members of the House, yet I know the government did darned near nothing about it when it came in. I hope that if we make this public enough, we can get some answers, get them out before the public and make sure that things change so that people do not laugh at Canada because it is such an easy place to get into by organized crime.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have in hand a copy of a criminal intelligence brief dated June 15. I brought it to the attention of the House in a statement last week. I would just like the hon. member's comments on this.

This is an RCMP criminal intelligence brief on computer crime and national security. It states:

The likelihood of a serious, deliberate and targeted attack to a Canadian critical infrastructure program has increased from low to medium and the impact of such an attack remains at high.

Several government departments dealing with an increasing number of sophisticated attacks, are seeking guidance, support and assistance from law enforcement, only to find there is a lack of skilled and trained resources.

Interestingly, when a reporter asked the RCMP to comment on the release we did of this criminal intelligence brief, it said it was going to move some resources around.

I do not think that is quite the way to do it and I think the hon. member would probably agree with me. Just moving resources around is not the answer. Coming up with new resources and more of a determination on the part of this government is the answer, I believe.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

Reform

John Reynolds Reform West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that just moving the resources that we have around is not going to solve any problems. As we mentioned to the Solicitor General earlier, we have RCMP shortages right across Canada and we need money for that. Organized crime is costing Canadians about $18 billion a year. On top of that there are the profits the criminals make and the billions a year on drugs and other issues.

With regard to the new computer data and all of those problems across Canada and across the world, that was one of the issues discussed at the G-8 conference in Moscow. It was interesting that all the countries agreed except for Germany, so they could not come to an agreement. They just agreed to study it for one more year which is much of what we get here. Politics around the world is not much different than what it is right here. At a conference like that everybody wanted to get in.

Now with encryption, criminals can talk to each other quite openly. Wire taps cannot be put on like what can be done with telephones to investigate. So it is not just resources. There has to be a will to say to people that we have to do something about organized crime in Canada, that we can do something about it, that we have not done things about. I hope the committee will make recommendations the government will listen to and act on in a very quick manner.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Peter Mancini NDP Sydney—Victoria, NS

Mr. Speaker, I too will be dividing my time and I too, like every member who has risen so far to address this resolution, want to congratulate the members of the Bloc Quebecois for bringing it forward. It is an important resolution and I can indicate that my party will be supporting it.

The only real concern I have is that unfortunately the government of the day does not always respond well to reports from committees, and we can name the committees to which the government has either watered down recommendations or dismissed them outright. I can think of recommendations from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, both of which at different points in this government's lifetime brought forward important recommendations which were then diluted after consideration by cabinet.

It is my hope that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will take this issue as is recommended in the resolution, that it will investigate it, hear witnesses and bring forward the kind of report I know we can. I sit on the committee on justice. We have brought forward unanimous reports in terms of important measures for the House to consider. It is my hope that the government will then adopt those measures.

There has been some discussion here about frustration, about how long it has taken the government to recognize that organized crime is something that has to be dealt with in this country. I share that frustration.

Today is November 30, 1999. I have here my comments from almost a year ago when the solicitor general brought forward his statement on organized crime. My comments are dated December 3, 1998, almost a year ago to the day. At that time we were talking about the need to take action on organized crime in this country. Much of what we have heard from the government today was said at the same time almost 12 months earlier. It has taken an opposition party, the Bloc Quebecois, to bring forward this motion, and it will take the justice committee I suppose to get some action by this government.

Organized crime affects every single ministry in this government and every single geographic part of the country. When I say that it touches on every ministry, it touches on transportation. I will go back. The member for Langley—Abbotsford began talking about the ports police. We are a nation bordered by three oceans and yet when I first came to parliament two years ago, the Minister of Transport was eliminating the ports police, one of the real safeguards against the importation of drugs, weapons and illegal contraband into this country.

It is no small irony that we stand here today debating organized crime at the same time as the talks are taking place at the World Trade Organization because there is a World Trade Organization. It trades in ammunition. The single greatest item that is traded and sold is arms from one nation to another, illegal arms. It is a billion dollar trade around the globe. My colleague has correctly called them implements of destruction, and we trade them in billions of dollars.

The second largest item traded is drugs. Although I do not have the figures, I would suspect the third is trade in humans, in immigrants, people who are seeking some kind of better life. If we look at what is being traded around the globe today we find that it is arms, drugs and humans. It is about time that we began to address the issue here.

One protection we had were the ports police. I argued in the House passionately with the Minister of Transport that we ought not to disband the ports police. The government went ahead and did it anyway and privatized the ports. It is in the process of privatizing airports. The role of government is diminished at the points of entry where illegal activity takes place.

I have said that it cuts across ministries. It is not the concern of a particular minister. I mentioned the fact that there is trade in human beings. Because of the situation in Vancouver with the boatloads of immigrants that arrived there, the general public is now aware of the snakeheads, the people who traffic in individuals seeking a better life.

It touches on health and justice. We know the cost of young people who are addicted to crack cocaine. We know the cost of people who take drugs. We know the cost to the country of prisons. We know the cost of trying to treat people who have been the victims of organized crime.

Organized crime touches on finance and international trade. Let us not forget white collar crime. When we talk about organized crime there is a temptation to think that everyone involved in it looks like a stereotypical biker. In reality many people in very expensive suits, shirts and ties are laundering money. They are shifting the proceeds of crime from one country to the other and are robbing us with a fountain pen. With one stroke they create criminal activity.

It touches on finance. It touches on international trade. It touches on Canada customs. It also touches on defence because in many cases we rely on the men and women who serve the country in the military to fill the void created because of cutbacks to the RCMP and because of the elimination of the ports police.

The issue of organized crime is the responsibility of every member of cabinet. The fact that there has been little or no action taken on it is a shame shared by every member of cabinet. There are no geographical boundaries in terms of organized crime. No one area of the country suffers more than another. In small towns across Canada there are concerns about organized crime.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, we have a sad spectacle of two rival gangs, the Hell's Angels and another gang. One is located in Dartmouth and the other is located in Halifax. The people in that community live under the ever present threat that maybe the situation will turn into the same situation that has been complained about and highlighted by my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois as happening in the province of Quebec.

In cities in Ontario there is a real danger and fear of trafficking in everything from tobacco and alcohol to drugs across the border. In cities like Winnipeg there are real concerns. The new government in Manitoba is beginning to take real action against inner city crime and inner city organized crime.

British Columbia, as my colleagues have highlighted, has seen a dramatic increase in drug trade. To the people who live in those communities it appears that the government is powerless to stop it because of the funding cuts to the RCMP. It is also an issue that requires international co-operation.

I will end on perhaps a more positive note. I congratulate the government on taking some steps to work with the international community. It was my pleasure and privilege to accompany the minister to the United Nations in New York where we shared some ideas with attorneys general from other countries on how to fight organized crime.

I congratulate members of the Bloc for bringing forward this motion and will support it.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am always very buoyed and entertained to a degree by the commentary from my learned friend from Sydney—Victoria in the province of Nova Scotia.

He always gives a very insightful view. I want to ask him a question specifically with respect to the problem of organized crime in the maritimes. We face a very unique situation, not unlike that of the coast of British Columbia, where we have large bodies of water that make our coastline vulnerable, in particular for the importation of drugs, contraband material, pornography and weapons coming from large urban centres like Boston and New York.

I am wondering, particularly in reference to his area in Cape Breton or Nova Scotia generally, if the hon. member could talk to that and the increased vulnerability of our coastline because of the disbandment of the ports police. I know that Halifax, which was very much vying for superport designation, dealt with that in a very timely way. It may have factored into the decision ultimately as to whether Halifax would receive that designation.

Could the member expand on that thought and tell us what he feels we could do to address the situation in Nova Scotia? Specifically, what advice might he have for the solicitor general in this regard?

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Peter Mancini NDP Sydney—Victoria, NS

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague. I am glad to entertain him whenever I can. On this issue he is correct. The ports police played an important role but not only by themselves. I think this is an important point. The customs officers who worked at the ports in Nova Scotia relied heavily on the partnership with the ports police to assist them in ensuring there was no importation of stolen items, whether they be automobiles, drugs or whatever.

My advice would be to reinstate the ports police. There was some interesting discussion the justice committee could look at in terms of a national police force which might incorporate some of the work the ports police did if they were not reinstated.

He talked about the vulnerability of the Atlantic region. It is true. The coastline is full of coves, full of areas where ships can land. We need additional protection in that part of the country. We used to be able to rely to some extent on a partnership between fishermen and the RCMP. There were programs where fishermen could report if they saw suspicious activity. Again, with the downsizing of the RCMP that becomes more and more difficult.

We are talking about the sea coast. I noticed in his remarks the solicitor general talked about funding for airports. Halifax is not one of the airports that has been mentioned. As the government enacts policies that cause rural areas to lose population and to congregate in large urban centres, we also lose the ability to protect those coasts as small villages and small towns lose their population.

I know the member will understand, coming from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, that as Halifax becomes a concentrated centre, because that is where the government has decided economic activity will take place, we lose some of the resources along the coastline and in other communities that are assets in the fight against organized crime and make those communities more vulnerable.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the member for his commentary. I know that his heart is very much in the right place when it comes to the province of Nova Scotia. In fact there is a great deal of pressure on him to spend more time in his home province.

My question for him is with respect to airports because he raised a very interesting point. There has been a lot of discussion in the policing community about privatization of policing, that is security guards. The thought is that we might remove RCMP presence in airports. This is very much a great concern because of the vulnerability of airports and because of being the flash point in terms of importation of contraband materials. Halifax is certainly an international airport with that designation.

Could the member expand on his party's position and his own personal approach to privatization of policing? Standards are lowered and I believe police officers themselves do not receive the same level of training they would get as members of the RCMP or municipal police forces.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Peter Mancini NDP Sydney—Victoria, NS

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member again that the privatization of the police force is not the way to go. We need professionally trained police officers with the benefits of good pay and good training to protect communities.

He is correct when he says that I am under pressure to spend more time in the province. He is under the same pressure sometimes himself.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to take part in this debate. I want to start by expressing appreciation to members of the Bloc Quebecois who brought forward this very timely, topical and relevant subject for us to debate today. Special thanks go to the member for Berthier—Montcalm for bringing forward the particular motion.

I come from the riding of Winnipeg Centre, the core area of Winnipeg. In that neighbourhood, I am not proud to say, we are no strangers to the problems of organized crime albeit on a small scale. I am speaking specifically of urban street gangs, often wrongly called aboriginal youth gangs. It is a misnomer to call our problem an aboriginal youth problem. These urban street gangs are run and orchestrated by adults, often using young people or abusing young people, to bring about their own goals. I want to make perfectly clear that when I talk about the gang problem in Winnipeg it is an urban street gang problem and not an aboriginal youth problem.

Much of our problem in the inner city of Winnipeg is a very predictable consequence of a disastrous social policy or the absence of any social policy. This is a predictable consequence that anybody could have told us would be the outcome of years of neglect. Years and years and years of letting the inner city of Winnipeg rot has had a very predictable outcome and consequence in the form of a permanent underclass. Quelle surprise. Starve people for a couple of decades and we will develop an underclass which will become organized. When we shut people out of the mainstream economy where do they go to find a standard of living?

When we talk about organized crime everybody thinks of the Mafia. It is almost a cliché. Where do we think it came from? In the 1900s in New York City people were shut out of the mainstream economy. People would not hire a swarthy Mediterranean type. They were shut out of the economy and they created their own economy. Yes, it was illegal. Given the choice between my children starving and doing something a bit off colour, I have often said it is frankly an easy choice to make. They loved their children too and they were forced into the situation of doing something illegal in order to survive.

That is the situation with the urban street gangs we have in the city of Winnipeg. A whole generation of people were shut out of the mainstream economy and created its own illegal mini economy. Some people think that illegal is just a sick bird because frankly when it is survival or illegal they choose survival.

The whole social problem faced in the core area of the city of Winnipeg recently manifested itself in arson. There is an epidemic of arson. It is like Watts in 1965. It is burn baby burn. People are expressing their frustration by torching the miserable neighbourhood they live in. They are levelling it. They are taking the law into their own hands. They are expressing themselves and their frustration by burning down the neighbourhood they live in, maybe in the hopes that something will rise from the ashes that will be a better world.

It is very predictable. Any student of the human experience could have told us that this would happen. We are playing with fire here and now we are experiencing fire. It boils down to year after year after year of fundamental neglect in the inner city.

Thankfully we have now elected a progressive mayor and a progressive provincial government. Maybe those two could actually work together and start to turn the issue around. Let us call it what it is. Organized crime and street crime are predictable consequences of chronic long term poverty that we should have known about.

My colleague talked about an issue in which I am very interested: human bondage, human slavery, the advent of slavery again.

I see the member from the Tories gets a kick out of that. I agree that human bondage can have many meanings. The particular meaning I am dealing with now is the terrible spectacle of desperate people, looking for a better life, who are washing up on the shores of British Columbia's west coast. They are getting put into a pipeline that is in fact organized crime. The whole network of people who are taking advantage of these desperate individuals is organized crime in its truest sense. They are very well connected. They have a network all over North America that takes these people from the ships and puts them into illegal and abusive situations where they have to pay off the debt they owe for getting themselves smuggled into the country.

More sensitive people are looking at this issue and trying to understand how it comes about. People from the Fujian province in China, desperate enough to leave their situation, are willing to get on some death trap of a boat and owe some criminal $40,000 to come here to build a better life for themselves and their children. Let us try and understand their motivation. What kind of circumstances are they leaving that they would risk life and limb to undertake a journey like that?

In doing a bit of research, I have learned a bit about the Fujian province where these desperate people come from. That is the first place in China where they had these free economic trade zones, that great bastion of capitalism called free economic trade zones. It is a fenced compound where labour legislation does not apply and no laws apply. People work making Barbie dolls, The Gap jeans and Liz Claiborne sweaters. A lot of our western products are developed in these trade zones in the Fujian province of China.

The ILO, the International Labour Organization, did some research. It found that they need to make about 85 cents an hour to make a reasonable standard of living in China. To live like a Chinese peasant, they need to make 85 cents an hour. This is $6 or $7 a day. The wage in these free economic trade zones is 18 cents an hour, one-fifth of what it costs to survive as peasant. The Gap jeans, Liz Claiborne and all these outfits are paying these people 18 cents an hour for making western goods. These people are not stupid. They put two and two together. They know there is another world out there that lives a hell of a lot better than they do. To better themselves and their families, they will do anything to get here and maybe have some hope and optimism that they will enjoy a better standard of living.

I believe we have only seen the tip of iceberg in this situation. I think we will face a day of reckoning. As a western developed nation, we cannot keep those people down forever. They know that we are here enjoying the good life and they are there living a life of misery and desperation. We have this bizarre spectacle of people living in a grass hut with a mud floor watching Mary Tyler Moore reruns on a colour TV and wondering why it is not them and why they cannot have a piece of that good life. So they become desperate.

A lot of less sensitive people or people who have not thought this through are saying “Why should these people be able to jump the queue and wind up on the shores of Canada and become landed immigrants in this country? What about all those good people who are waiting patiently in line?”

Let me tell the House something. There is no way to get here from there. China has 1.2 billion people and we have one Canadian immigration officer in China who is in Beijing, which is a heck of a long way from the Fujian province. How does a person making 18 cents an hour save up enough money to get themselves to Beijing, to then stand in line for months sometimes and literally sleep outside the door of the embassy to get a visa to come to Canada?

I asked the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration why we could not set up a little satellite office. If there is such a great demand from the Fujian province to come to Canada, we could set up a little office in the Fujian province for 18 months. There would be no market for snakeheads. We would pull the rug out from underneath them if we gave people conventional access to this country. Well, the minister said that there was no budget for promoting Canada, et cetera. It is all a budgetary issue. Now we are facing the consequences of these people who are desperate enough to come to our shores and become victims of this terrible criminal pipeline.

The last thing I will say about this is that I am very critical of the way the government is handling the issue. We know some of the problem people in that criminal pipeline. We know some individuals, and I know some by name, in Vancouver, Toronto and New York City. However, for some reason the government is hoping to wait until it can do one big sting, like a TV cop show where in the last five minutes of the show they will round everybody up and bust them so they can look like heroes.

Why are the police not harassing the people that it knows already? By the word harass, I mean within the context of the law. Why are the police not picking these people up and questioning them? Why are they not doing everything they can to stop this and send a message back to the Fujian province that Canada will not tolerate the smuggling of human cargo and human bondage in our community. That is one issue I am very critical of.

The other thing that my colleague from Sydney—Victoria raised is the RCMP's inability to enforce the laws and put an end to some of the terrible organized crime we have in the country.

Our party gets letters from RCMP officers telling us that they are unable to investigate crimes they know are being committed because they do not have the budget or personnel to do it. It is sending a green light to organized crime, especially on complicated issues of white collar crime, et cetera. It is a terrible thing when we do not have the money to bust criminals who we know are operating in our community and exploiting Canadians. It is all budgetary. It is strictly a matter of finance. Balancing the budget seems to have priority over protecting Canadians from organized criminals, and I think that is scandalous.

SupplyGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Sarkis Assadourian Liberal Brampton Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, could the hon. member table the letters from the RCMP officers that he spoke about earlier? I would appreciate seeing them.