Justice Committee on Feb. 1st, 2007

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Deputy Commissioner, do you want to comment on that a bit?

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

Yes, indeed.

What's interesting is working along with the Vancouver Police Department. The genesis of a similar project called the crime reduction strategy for the RCMP is being rolled out across the country. We're going to focus on these types of offenders, but we're also going to work with the court systems, with social services just to ensure that we manage these individuals properly. As Jamie indicated, we've had instances when, 15 minutes after being sent out on probation, people were violating again and were arrested immediately on the spot and brought back before the court.

I'd like to link this with my project and the CACP project, where we also look at these repeat offenders on the organized crime side of the house. What's so vivid in my memory is when I was the officer in charge of the integrated proceeds of crime unit in Montreal and we conducted a four-year undercover operation. We managed to arrest 44 individuals--520 charges before the court, $162 million laundered in Central America, straight from Montreal. We had one key individual who was sent to jail for eight years and was out of jail after a year and a half. What's interesting is that one individual was back before the courts six years later for similar types of offences.

So what we're proposing is the lifetime management of serious offenders, working with the judicial system, working with immigration, customs and excise, and so on, so we would manage these serious offenders and have different strategies. We can only tackle so many people on the tactical piece, but on the strategy to manage these folks, we have to use all of our available resources to deal with these habitual offenders.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I noticed also this Hells Angels special defence fund. They have a more politically correct name now, apparently, but it doesn't change that. The odds are stacked against the law enforcement side when it comes to access to the resources because they have the evidence. We heard a professor talk on the trade in marijuana, in guns, and about a limitless supply of cash, apparently, to fund their own defences.

[Chief Jamie Graham]

If I could just make a point, if you run a police force similar to the way you run a business, budgets are crucial. So when officers come to me and say look, we've got a major project we would like to do, we listen to the project. The first thing, one of my deputies pulls out of his desk a budget sheet to ask, do we have funds? Does our criminal investigative fund allow for that? And if it doesn't, it doesn't get done. It just doesn't.

So funding is a never-ending issue, and then we look to our partners. The RCMP have been very good. We partner with them and the organized crime agency, or CFSEU, to get projects done. But funding is a never-ending issue. That's why any increase in officers, be it at the provincial level, anywhere, is an issue, because every nickel I spend in Vancouver comes from city tax dollars. That's all. I get no other funds from anywhere else.

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

On the funding piece, if you'd allow me, what's important to realize is that the current government has allocated resources to finance some of our core programs, with an additional 1,000 police officers over the next five years, but that deals specifically with core programs. Then we still have to manage criminal organizations operating within these core programs and reprofile some of these resources.

[Sgt Larry Butler]

I might just make one point with this, I'll speak more to the Hells Angels type of thing. Talking about expertise, which came up earlier, and attacking this type of problem, one of the key issues here--and it's to do with this legislation--is the Hells Angels, for example, are Hells Angels for their whole career, as are other organized crime groups. Police officers move throughout different ranks, throughout different jobs. What happens is it's harder to keep continuity of experts because of succession planning through your ranks in the police department.

We've noticed from documents seized from the Hells Angels that they think globally. They think about attacking as a group, working together as a group, forming a shell around their organization, so much so that they proposed all their lawyers, worldwide, getting together to brainstorm how to combat the police. We don't have that luxury in a lot of cases because lawyers change positions, talking about specialized lawyers. We might get a gang lawyer for a year or two, and then they're off to a different job. So our environment is ever-evolving. People are changing and people are coming and going, and it's more difficult to keep that core of experts focused on what you're doing.

I've been very fortunate with my chief and my administrators. I've managed to stay where I am for a number of years and keep doing that. But I've watched people around me, other experts, who are continually just getting to the point of being an expert, and boom, they're off, mandated to do something else. So they don't change and we are forced to change, so it's a harder job for us to keep up on the expertise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Gordon, did you have any comment that you wanted to make?

[Prof. Robert Gordon]

Yes, if I could, just very briefly, just to endorse the idea of crime reduction strategies. Probably what's required in Canada is an organized crime reduction strategy that follows some of the similar characteristics, where you have high levels of cooperation in components of the system.

At the moment the criminal justice system, at least in British Columbia, is faced with a number of silos, and I think that doesn't produce effective law enforcement or prosecution of organized crime.

The other issue relates to resources, that there is no point in blindly throwing resources at this particular issue. I think any new resource allocations to deal with organized crime in Canada have to be focused and there has to be accountability and there have to be some reasonable deliverables at the end of the day and it needs to be a planned process.

We've suggested in the progress board report that ten years is not an unreasonable time to be applying resources and applying a national strategy or at least a regional strategy to deal with organized crime. If you just throw money at it, it's not going to produce a greater return.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Gordon, good point.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming today. Certainly I want you to know you have the support of all committee members in the dangerous work you do with dangerous smart offenders, and we want to give you as many tools as we can.

Just before I start, in your answers, if there's anything you would like to tell us in camera at the end of the meeting, when there's no one else here except us and where you don't want the information to get out to organized crime or whatever, let us know during your testimony and we can do that at the end.

Related to municipalities, there's nothing to stop us legally giving money to municipalities. We do it all the time, but there may be other reasons we don't do it. This is not my question, though.

[Chief Jamie Graham]

You and I should talk afterwards.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

We'll talk after, yes.

Related to the tools, this has been fantastic today, this much work. In our party we don't think Bill C-10 is going to help you because the judges already have the same maximum penalties now that they can give and this doesn't increase that, but you've given all sorts of great examples. I would suggest that with the arbitrary search related to the warrants, the wiretaps, the proceeds of crimes, there are lots of things we could do.

It might be helpful if, like the Hells Angels, you got your lawyers together to come up with.... Rather than waiting for us, because we and the Department of Justice often get sidetracked on things, propose some draft laws and work with the human rights groups to make sure it's acceptable so they don't come here and trash them. Get the whole package together, present it, and lobby us and the Department of Justice on that with the wording of the laws and everything. You might be able to move faster than by waiting for us. There are all sorts of discussions we could have on that. I'd love to, but we don't have time today. Hopefully we'll do it in the future.

I have a question for Mr. Gordon.

It's interesting talking about crime as a business and the deterrents to this business. I'd like to know from yourself or any of the witnesses if there are international examples of laws that we don't have in Canada now that have successfully provided this deterrent to crime and made it unpalatable so that they've moved to other countries. Obviously a lot of these things don't work in the United States. But are there laws that other countries have that actually have caused organized crime and street gangs to move because it's an unpalatable business decision to stay there?

[Prof. Robert Gordon]

I can't give you specific examples off the top of my head at the moment.

[Sgt Larry Butler]

If I may--and I'm sorry I keep going back to biker stuff, because that's what I do--we meet and we speak frequently with OMG investigators throughout the world. There's a tool they use in Australia, which is not specific to bikers and I won't be able to be specific here, but they have a threshold they meet with certain levels of drugs. Once you're found in possession of a certain level of a drug, and it varies with respect to the drug, you are deemed a drug dealer. At that point the government takes everything you own--gone. We hear this from the Australian biker cops all the time. They try to snare their criminals with in excess of this threshold and then they drive over and take their home, their cars, this, and that. You create a whole new animal because you create layering, nominee holdings, and guys are hiding stuff in other people's names, but it's obviously a very powerful deterrent. It's a piece of their narcotics legislation, as opposed to gang legislation. But it certainly has a powerful effect in Australia.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I have one last question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

A quick question.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Is there anything else we could do? These criminals obviously have all sorts of money sitting around. Is there anything we need to do to strengthen catching them related to avoidance of income tax or to seizing their assets more easily and readily so it's less profitable for them? Are there hindrances in catching them for those reasons or taking away their assets and their wealth?

[Chief Jamie Graham]

We and the RCMP do that already. When we multi-task and go after offenders we don't just do it in isolation. A lot of times, depending on the seizure and the product, it will depend on who gets called. We have a huge problem at the moment with street-level drug dealers in Vancouver of a certain ethnic persuasion--Central American. We work hand-in-hand with a strike force from immigration. The provisions in the Immigration Act are that if you are a convicted offender and caught with drugs you can be deported very quickly. They don't get a lot of good press about what they do, but they do some marvellous stuff with us--really good stuff. We can have offenders and they're gone. The problem is they come back three times and then we use those provisions.

They got Capone by using income tax legislation, they tell me. We do that effectively through a number of agencies where offenders we know have funds but, believe it or not, just don't pay income tax. There's joy in the police circles when we hear that the income tax people are looking at somebody, because that's a powerful tool. We do work pretty closely with them.

[Sgt Larry Butler]

If I could add to that, one thing that's happening in British Columbia--and we've been doing this for a year or two now--is that we're on board with Revenue Canada. They have made it a priority and they have served all the Hells Angels in British Columbia with audit notifications. We've gone around with Revenue Canada and personally served documents to people in their shops or their homes. We've even offered to attend Hells Angels' church meetings to pass out the necessary documents.

We very much see a cause and effect. We've noticed that some of these individuals haven't filed tax forms for seven or eight years, but they're driving around in Escalades. Their lawyers and accountants are advising these people that they had better get something to justify this. So we're seeing them buying dump trucks and backhoes, something to justify a business and some income.

Revenue Canada has also gone to a certain number of the Hells Angels--the more affluent ones--and served them with asset demands, basically demanding to be told what they own and what they owe so they'll be able to have a base net worth of this individual. That has been challenged before the Supreme Court. I have to give evidence next month on behalf of the Solicitor General with respect to the Hells Angels and this pursuit. They're saying it's unconstitutional and that they're being targeted because they're a member of a club. They're trying to avoid this microscopic examination of their financial standings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Butler.

Ms. Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Good morning.

Thank you for the quality of your presentations.

A number of questions that I would have liked to ask have already been asked. I'm nevertheless going to put two to Mr. Bourduas.

Earlier my colleague talked about the reversal of the burden of proof, under Bill C-53, in the case of property acquired by gangs associated with organized crime. Could you tell us why you haven't made more use of that provision?

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

Your question is a relevant one. The act entered into force in November 2005. Since then, the Department of Justice has had to administer the act, under which the burden of proof is reversed, but not enough. It doesn't go far enough. The Crown nevertheless has to prove criminal activity, as well as the connection between the material acquisitions and the criminal activity, before the reversal of the burden of proof applies.

At the time debate on the bill was taking place, we asked that an individual's involvement in criminal activities be proven. Once the proof is made, we rely on the principle that no one may benefit from crime. The reversal of the burden of proof is applied, for example, where an individual has to explain to the court how, with an annual income of $10,000, he was able to own three expensive residences. It's in that sense that the act doesn't go far enough, and that's why the Department of Justice laid no information before the courts under this act to date.

We talked about — and Sergeant Butler mentioned this as well — the increasingly frequent use of the services of the Canada Revenue Agency. Ten investigators from that agency worked on the last case, Project Colisée, and I can tell you one thing: if you want to discourage organized crime people and let them know clearly that Canada is not a good place to do business, seize their assets. These people get involved in organized crime above all to acquire assets. If tough laws are applied and these assets are seized, the message is clear.

As regards the reversal of the burden of proof, the Department of Justice is waiting for an airtight casein order to establish well-settled case law. Then it will be possible to build around this act. Our investigators are trying to provide the Justice Department attorneys with the necessary evidence, precisely in order to begin a prosecution under Bill C-53. Unfortunately, that has not yet occurred, madam.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Earlier this week, we heard from the witnesses from the Province of Quebec. We were told that the exchange of intelligence between police departments was fairly deficient. You seem to say that these exchanges are going very well. I'd like to know whether this exchange of intelligence is as efficient as you seem to say.

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

As police chief Graham said, in British Columbia and in Quebec, the entire police community realizes that, in order to combat organized crime, intelligence sharing also has to be organized. We can do that through the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We can say that, in Quebec, for example, the partnership among police departments has matured, which has made it possible to improve the practice.

This best practice is called Project MINERVA. As part of this project, each of the major police forces, that is the RCMP, Sûreté du Québec and the Montreal Police Department, is responsible for certain criminalized groups. Intelligence and staff are shared by the services. For example, a number of agencies worked together as part of Project Colisée. I'm going to ask Inspector Aubin to talk about that.

[Insp Michel Aubin, Director, Organized Crime Branch, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

The Montreal Police Department, Sûreté du Québec, the Customs Agency, the Laval Police Department and the RCMP were all involved. We had a team of approximately 100 investigators plus some 10 investigators from the Canada Revenue Agency. Here we're talking about highly integrated groups. I can even tell you that, within the team, there was an intelligence group formed by the various police forces. In this way, we made sure we had access to available intelligence in all the agencies. It was the Project MINERVA report that gave rise to this practice.