Justice committee  Good morning, and thank you for inviting us here to speak today about organized crime and its impact on our community. I appear before you today as a superintendent in charge of the RCMP federal policing program here in Nova Scotia. The federal policing program is focused on th

Justice committee  Enforcement alone is not enough to reduce the effects of organized crime. Law enforcement needs to broaden its focus in seeking modern ways to educate our communities on the everyday impacts of organized crime, from faulty counterfeit goods affecting public health and safety, to

Justice committee  Is there still some time?

Justice committee  In terms of your question in regard to having a judge specifically for disclosure, I think all law enforcement agencies would be very supportive of that idea. Although disclosure takes place after the main part of the investigation, front-line policing resources are tied up to mo

Justice committee  To date we don't have any investigations in the Atlantic region specific to the example posed in your question. Our challenge here in the Atlantic region is dealing with what we normally refer to as traditional organized crime from other parts of the country, because they're usi

Justice committee  Not specifically to identify gangs from the United States. We have had organized crime files that have reached into the states to individuals, but not specifically to any identified gang.

Justice committee  Not specifically, as there is in other jurisdictions. The federal Department of Justice provides the prosecutors, but from within that they provide us with experts or experienced prosecutors in that area. I would say that special prosecutors are needed in terms of the large, comp

Justice committee  The organized crime groups that use areas such as the ports or the coastline are, for lack of a better term, paying somebody to either expedite the drug or the contraband through the port or—

Justice committee  It varies, but commonly it's a payment of money.

Justice committee  To answer your question, generally, yes, we need to be in parallel with organized crime or ahead of the curve in terms of technology. The problem for law enforcement is that the process we have to go through to get the court's authorization to actually intercept the technology i

Justice committee  Absolutely. As I mentioned in my opening comments, it's not just a matter for law enforcement, but for governments at all levels. We need to have representation there to understand the complexities of technology. On your question about funding, I would say that we would best lea

Justice committee  The laws in the United States, in terms of fighting organized crime, are different in certain areas. There would have to be an examination of the specific laws in terms of how they deal with organized crime, based on the laws they have and based on the laws we have. However, I th

Justice committee  The RCMP is responsible for the federal witness protection program. It is robust. It's being used in every province in Canada. The complexity and the cost of running the program is enormous. To put a cost on an individual witness is almost impossible, because it depends on whethe

Justice committee  Within the RCMP, our human resource areas are looking to the idea of career streaming and career opportunities. As in most police services, a lot of our employees come in at the lower rank level or pay level and then work their way up. Then they tend to hit a glass ceiling, espec

Justice committee  From a regional perspective, I would say that of all the drugs seized in the Atlantic region, probably 70% to 75% of it is marijuana; 10% to 15% would be cocaine or crack cocaine; the remainder would be a combination of prescription pills and other drugs such as heroin, but those