Evidence of meeting #7 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meth.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
Your intent here is very clear. You want to do something to address this problem of methamphetamines, and I think that's to be applauded.
In looking at your bill, I think the question I have, and that we have to be able to answer, is what substantive difference this bill would really have on the success of enforcement. We have to figure out whether or not the mechanisms we have now produce the maximum enforcement that we think we can get.
For example, we do have a bill on organized crime. In any situation now that involves people knowingly being involved in organized crime, there are very serious penalties. We've actually never used that. I don't know if you're aware of it, but that legislation has never been used. There are also regulations that were brought in for business licences on methamphetamine.
So what is the response to the problem here? Your response is that we need this change. But will that change produce any better enforcement? That is my question.
I think it's up to you to show that this is the case. Right now the emphasis should be on really getting into some of these communities and providing prevention and education about the dangers of these substances. That way we'd have much greater success.
So I'm still not clear on what you believe the success will be of this bill in terms of enforcement.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I appreciate your concerns, Ms. Davies. I absolutely do.
In terms of the organized crime element, it's very difficult. By your own admission, we haven't used this legislation yet, and that's because proving it's organized crime is very difficult. That's why I wouldn't leave this whole issue up to that piece of legislation. Organized crime can mean just a couple of people getting together and organizing, whereas this organized crime legislation hasn't been able to be used usefully to address those concerns.
This specifically addresses the whole issue of methamphetamine. It is something we need to....
Am I not correct, Ms. Davies, that the legislation has not yet been used?
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
That's my understanding, but that's really my point: we have incredibly strong legislation, but the new legislation is not yet being used, so it raises the question as to whether this particular legislative change is going to produce any better effect.
For me it raises the question of what we think we're going to accomplish here. Is it just some nice words on paper that give the illusion we're going after this problem, while in actual fact there will be no greater success in enforcement than we currently have, so maybe we should be looking at the other elements that we all agree are very important as well?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
In conversation, even your colleague Mr. Comartin and I were of one mind in terms of going after people who would willingly contribute. He felt this legislation would assist in that. The justice department and the Library of Parliament all have come together to formulate this as a result of my particular concern. If indeed it's your perspective that it won't add anything, I would ask you, would it take anything away?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Ms. Davies and Mr. Warkentin.
We have one very quick question from Madame Freeman.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
I would like to continue with Mr. Calkins' questioning on supply.
It seems quite clear to me that the illegal labs belong to organized crime. There are also small illegal labs set up by young people who can get their hands on these things just about anywhere.
Are you aware of the distribution of these labs? For methamphetamine production, how many of these illegal labs are owned by organized crime and in what proportion? How many of these clandestine labs belong to street gangs and to youth, and in what proportion?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
My understanding is that for the most part it isn't young kids who are producing crystal meth in these super labs; it's people who have an entrepreneurial mind in the criminal respect, and they are going after young people in terms of distributing this particular product. It's not my understanding--
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Just a moment. If they are superlabs and these are big businesspeople, obviously the materials that they are using must be purchased in enormous quantities. We are no longer talking about Wal-Mart, we are talking about bulk purchases.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Are they the ones you are targeting? Are you targeting the superlabs that are buying in bulk?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
My specific target would be the super labs, because 85% to 90% of the drug that's out there being sold on the street is produced in the super labs.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you, Madame Freeman.
As a point of clarification, when Mr. Warkentin refers to a super lab, generally the products are bought in bulk. Many of them are imported into the country from other countries. I know that China has been on the list. Containerloads of the precursors have hit the shores of North America and they are destined for the super labs. This is just one aspect of it, to my knowledge.
I'm going to stop the--
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Mr. Chairman, you have clarified one thing. I would also like to clarify something.
Mr. Warkentin has suggested that the organized crime legislation had not been used yet, and I don't think either of us--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I don't think anyone has particulars around the table, but my understanding is that it has been used several times, and I think the record should show that whether it has been used may be unclear.
Monsieur Ménard and I are both aware that it has been used; we just can't cite actual case particulars at this time.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Thank you very much, Mr. Lee and Mr. Ménard.
For this round of questioning, I will suspend for one minute and call the other witnesses to the front: the mayor of the town of Drayton Valley, Diana McQueen; and Mr. André Bigras, executive officer, Drug Prevention Network of Canada.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
I would like to call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order and welcome our next set of witnesses.
I'm going to change the order of presentations, deviating a bit from our agenda, and welcome first the mayor of the town of Drayton Valley.
Can you give us a brief outline of the weather situation in Drayton Valley?
Mayor, we're not sure if you're coming across clearly yet.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
We just picked up the last part of your comments.
Are we good to go now?
Welcome, Mayor, to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. You are very much aware that our discussion is centred around private member's Bill C-428, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, methamphetamine, presented, of course, by our member of Parliament from that area, Mr. Warkentin. We have gone through his presentation now, and the committee would like to hear what you have to say. I understand you have a unique situation you would like to describe to us.
We're very much aware of the time constraint here, so please, Mayor, you have the floor.
12:40 p.m.
Mayor, Town of Drayton Valley
Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation. I won't take a lot of time.
I'll give you a brief understanding of Drayton Valley, and—this is not unique to Drayton Valley—the leadership our community took. It was an entire community effort.
About seven or eight years ago, when I first came on council, we started looking at the issues of drug and drug-related crime and how we could bring the whole community together to deal with these issues. We had created a community coalition, if you will, of stakeholders broadly based throughout the community. At that point in time, we were starting to hear from the police about methamphetamine in our community.
That stakeholder group was already together, and what we did was apply for a federal grant, which we were very grateful to receive, to hire what we called a community mobilizer, someone who was going to teach on the education prevention side to the students, teachers, businesses, and the entire community about the prevention side and the facts about this drug. On the other side of it, we had a community police officer.
This particular mobilizer was a past drug addict who had quite a bit of understanding of drugs and the drug-related crime, had been recovered for many years, and was a great person to have with us and working with our RCMP.
Also at that point in time, we had what was very unique for a community of our size in Alberta; we had hired a two-person RCMP GIS or general investigative services team to deal with the drug and drug-related crime. We were taking a holistic approach to this: prevention and education, as well as working with the RCMP on the enforcement side.
As we were working through this, we became aware that Drayton Valley and the whole corridor on Highway 16 in our community was starting to have a methamphetamine problem. Later we found out that there was a major drug house within that corridor on Highway 16, which was later taken out.
In discussion with the prevention team, and in particular when one of the RCMP members came to one of our committee meetings, we asked the question: what can we do, if anything, on the legislative side that would help this? We're working on the enforcement and on the prevention sides, but is there anything with regard to legislation whereby we could start the ball rolling to have an impact not just for our community but across Canada?
We had a discussion, and what we did as a council was create a resolution with our RCMP and their supervisors out of K division. I believe you have a copy of that resolution in front of you. It was first sent to our Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and approved. It was then sent to the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, which is the rural association in Alberta, and they approved it, and then together that resolution was formatted and taken to the federal Canadian municipalities. So all the municipalities within Canada had the opportunity to review, discuss, and approve this resolution.
I know you have that resolution in front of you. Really, what it speaks to in the “therefore” clauses is about urging and requesting the Government of Canada to implement regulations that will strictly control the sale and possession of large quantities of chemicals used to produce methamphetamines—and it lists some of those as examples—but also to institute reporting requirements associated with the sale and possession of these chemicals. We felt very strongly, as did the majority of all federal Canadian municipalities, which approved this, that this was very important legislation.
Drayton Valley has.... I sat on Premier Klein's task force a year ago—
