Justice Committee on April 20th, 2009

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

For Statistics Canada, I do appreciate the information that you provided. I think the most telling graph is the first one, which shows the rise in victims and gang-related homicides on page 2, but also interesting, I found, is page 4. I don't know if the other witnesses have your material, but there we see spikes in gang-related homicides by regions, and since we have witnesses here from Quebec and Ontario, I'll refer to Quebec, where there seems to be a pretty dramatic spike in 1998, 1999 and 2000, and in Ontario in 2003 and 2005. Could we hear from some of the witnesses?

We know some of the high-profile news stories that help contribute to these numbers. It is interesting to see it in the perspective of a number when each one of these also represents a life.

Can you talk a bit about how we do witness spikes in gang activity, gang-related homicides, and then we see a drop and then perhaps a spike again? To what do you attribute even what we're seeing now in Vancouver, where there can be a relatively calm period and then a lot of gang-related activity?

[Jocelyn Latulippe]

If I understood the question correctly, the drop was probably a result of the gang war that occurred between 1996 and 2002. That could explain and perhaps influence the statistics that you can see.

[An hon. member]

It is not a drop, it is a spike.

[Jocelyn Latulippe]

You are right, it is a spike. But there was a drop after that gang war.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Okay.

[C/Supt Ross Bingley]

Obviously we have found in Ontario that it is based on what is the environment at that time, who's taken over what turf, who's pushing, who's pressing. You have eight Bandidos killed in one outing and it causes a spike, and so that's the 2005 spike. Those kind of things, whatever internal cleansing, as we call it, in the bike world occurs--or if it's not internal cleansing it's a clash--then those obviously cause spikes. Again, in the urban centres the street gang activity is that they are trying to grab more turf, and therefore that causes spikes, but I can't put my finger on it specifically for you.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I mentioned it because one of the telling things from the statistics that have been provided is that just because things go down in one area and one part of the year doesn't mean we should drop our vigilance. We should be continually looking at ways to combat organized crime.

One of the things this bill does is in relation to drive-by shootings. I believe, Mr. Richmond, you mentioned some of the difficulties in proving a case involving a drive-by shooting and some of the inherent difficulties that are there. Could you talk a little bit more about that? When we talk about gang violence and gang activities, a lot of people think about drive-by shootings. We obviously take that offence very seriously. Why is it difficult to deal with?

[Randall Richmond]

With the present legislation, without Bill C-14, there are two major difficulties. One is identifying the people involved, and that's what Mr. Bingley mentioned in his representations this morning. But even if you get past that obstacle, the second difficulty is establishing the specific intent, because the present legislation requires you not just prove that somebody drove past a building and fired shots in the direction of the building, you have to prove that there was a specific intent to wound people while those shots were being made. Under Bill C-14 what you are proposing is that it will no longer be necessary to prove what was in the mind of the person. If you can find the person who made the shots, you're pretty much home free then, because the state of mind that the prosecution will have to prove is that of recklessness, which is much easier to prove than specific intent to wound someone.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Does anyone else want to comment specifically on drive-by shooting?

[C/Supt Ross Bingley]

If I may add to that, my colleague's comments are very accurate. My position is that the actual establishing of witnesses is the difficult part, and that's certainly not part of the legislation. That's the reality of the fundamentals of those types of investigations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Before we move on, we'll do another round of five minutes and then maybe we'll go to three minutes each to see if we can get everybody in.

Ms. Fry, you have five minutes.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question is a little tangential to what you're talking about, but it is with regard to murder committed in connection with a gang. What we talk about are drive-by shootings, as Mr. Moore said, and what we talk about is the obvious violence, but I'd like to talk about a very important gang-related activity in my part of the world, Vancouver. I mean trafficking in people, bringing people across the border either to sell drugs or to engage in prostitution in massage parlours, as they're called.

Some of the people who work in this situation aren't really Canadian citizens, but foreign nationals. The gangs are located not just in Canada, but in other parts of the world, and the trafficking in human beings for the sake of selling drugs or for the sake of prostitution falls between the cracks. I know that murder is committed in these instances, but the people who are murdered tend to be illegal aliens, so to speak, so what would you suggest we do? How does one tie this in? It's at the heart of a lot of what organized crime is doing these days. They're multinational crimes now, they're not Canada-based only, so how do you deal with that?

[Randall Richmond]

I believe human trafficking is covered by federal legislation and is usually investigated by the RCMP. Unfortunately, they're not here among your witnesses today, but that's one of their specialties and one of the fields they investigate.

From the point of view of prosecutions, it's usually federal prosecutors who handle those cases. I'm not a specialist in that field, but I believe you have legislation to cover that already. The difficult part is enforcement, and of course that takes a lot of resources. I think that's your main obstacle.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I think criminal activity with gangs is, as I said, multinational and cross-border. How do you see yourself working with countries that...? In Vancouver we have people coming up from Colombia and El Salvador and some of those countries. They come in, they sell drugs, they're part of it, they disappear again, and then they come back in again. They're related in a lot of these shootings. Do you see some way of connecting the dots here in the killing of people?

[Randall Richmond]

There's a lot of cooperation between police forces in terms of exchanging information and helping to obtain evidence in foreign countries, but we've never treated international criminal organizations as one entity. I'm not aware of any occasion on which we've actually prosecuted organizations on an international level and had prosecutions going on in more than one country at the same time. That's not how we've done it historically, and we haven't got to that point yet.

Perhaps it would be a good idea, because certainly many criminal organizations extend their membership all across the world. There are organizations with approved membership in dozens of countries, so perhaps we should be looking towards more international cooperation in prosecutions, but right now we have our hands full just prosecuting the groups in our own territory.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Yes. That extends the concept of the terrorist groups that are international as well.

[Jocelyn Latulippe]

There are certainly measures that could be taken in inspecting licensed establishments. We know that a number of those establishments employ people with no status in Canada, whether it be for adult dancing or massages. There is also the whole escort industry.

We have to have powers of inspection and increased powers over employment income, which is in provincial jurisdiction. Those tools allow us both to detect the crimes and to ensure that the employees are in good standing.

We must also remember that police services make considerable efforts to establish relationships of trust with various communities. The main obstacle to our investigations into crimes of this nature, especially human trafficking, is the mistrust that people from overseas have for Canadian police, which they often see as forces of repression. Police forces work hard on this. All the various community outreach programs and neighbourhood policing will help establish a level of trust, but that is a long-term process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on now to Monsieur Lemay.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

I have been listening carefully, and I have some questions. I am a criminal lawyer by profession, so I know you.

Mr. Richmond, one thing caught my attention. With each trial involving the Hells Angels—and, Heaven knows, there are going to be a lot of them soon—you have to establish that it is a criminal organization.

[Randall Richmond]

We have to start from square one.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Is that by voir dire or do you have to prove it for a jury?

[Randall Richmond]

For a jury. It is the finder of fact, whether that be the jury or the judge sitting alone, that must decide whether the group is a criminal organization within the meaning of the Criminal Code.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Let us take a murder trial as an example. Assuming that Bill C-14 is passed, you will have to show that the crime was committed by order of the Hells Angels. You will have to show that the order came from the Hells Angels.

[Randall Richmond]

I am not sure that I understand your question.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I will make it clearer.

Do you have to show that the Hells Angels are a criminal organization at each trial?