All northern communities have been completely inundated and infiltrated by organized crime. I have personally spoken to a gang member while I was the chief of police at UCCM, and I asked, “Why are you coming here?” He boldly told me to my face, “I've been here for years. You didn't know about me. I will continue to come here. You do not have the resources to be able to concentrate on me.” They know this, and he told that to me boldly to my face and said, “I'll be back as soon as I get out of jail.”
That is not something unique to my communities. I worked in Sudbury. We saw the infiltration of gangs starting specifically in 2006 with a major incident that happened in our city at that time with a shooting that had taken place, and we really saw gangs starting to come. It is all over.
I was part of the Criminal Intelligence Service of Ontario. I was the representative when I was a police officer in Sudbury. We would have meetings, and we would meet with all those officers. They would talk about all of the gang members. We have the same people that I was working on in Sudbury now on Manitoulin Island. Those are also the same gang members that are going up to Thunder Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and all of our first nation communities. It is a massive, major problem that has been ignored for too long.