Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Fraser MacRae. I'm a police officer and a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for over 32 years. Currently I'm the officer in charge at the Surrey RCMP detachment.
I acknowledge and recognize two MPs here from the city of Surrey, Ms. Grewal and Ms. Cadman.
I will be brief. As a chief of police for a city of half a million people, I'd like to talk about some of the downstream impacts of organized crime in our community.
While organized crime groups are becoming more diversified in their criminal activities, it is clear that their primary source of income and power comes from trafficking in illicit drugs. In British Columbia, cannabis has been the currency of organized crime. The production and cultivation of cannabis is occurring throughout the province in small and large communities and in urban and rural areas. This cannabis is primarily cultivated for export into the United States, where it is converted into cash, firearms, and/or cocaine, and imported back to Canada and the province.
Once the cocaine and firearms arrive in the country, it sets up the dynamic and atmosphere of violence and misery. The street drug of choice is crack cocaine. This cocaine is accessed primarily in three ways. There is the hand-to-hand drug transaction on the street, or the street buy. There is the dial-a-dope operation, where addicts access dealers--known and unknown to them--through cellphones, and the dealers attend with the product. Then there are the crack shack operations, where addicts attend to the latest location where crack cocaine is being held and sold.
There is a significant amount of money that can be made at this level of organization through these operations. For example, some dial-a-dope operations can realize $5,000 a day. These large profits and potential incomes result in significant competition for these drug lines, whether they be for the reloads for the crack shacks or the dial-a-dope line or the turf itself.
We have seen over the past several months that this competition is aggressive, often supported by firearms. Some statistics from 2008 will help to illustrate this situation.
In 2008, 33 people were shot in the city of Surrey, ten of them fatally. Surrey RCMP responded to 98 incidents of confirmed shots fired. This represents a 20% increase in shots-fired incidents over 2007.
In 2008, Surrey RCMP seized 222 shotguns and rifles, and another 120 handguns, for a total of 324 firearms that were seized by police.
I previously referenced the dynamics of violence and misery. The statistical information I've provided regarding firearms speaks to the violence. The misery resides with those who are addicted to the cocaine, many of them street-level addicts. They can be seen in any city in Canada.
Most of these addicts will do anything to get their drug, whether it be begging, prostitution, thefts, break and enters, robbery, and sometimes murder. Most are in constant crime mode, moving from one crime to another to get enough money for their next drug purchase. It is these persons who most impact on society's feelings of safety and are responsible for the vast majority of property crime that occurs.
As the committee well knows, this is a very complex subject, one without an easy answer, quick fix, or a single-facet solution. I offer the following as suggestion for attention. This is a dynamic that goes beyond those involved in high-level international organized crime and, in my view, requires strategies in the following areas.
Certainly there is a need to address issues that present impediments to police as they investigate sophisticated organized crime groups. Disclosure and lawful access are two examples of this. Not only will this provide police with opportunities to successfully impact these organizations, but there will be a net effect in the freeing up of police resources that can be otherwise applied.
For all those who are involved in enterprise crime, or crime for profit, especially when that criminal endeavour is premised upon drug trafficking, there needs to be significant custodial consequence upon conviction. Not only will this more appropriately balance the risk versus reward equation, it has potential to interrupt the continuing involvement of lower levels of criminal organizations.
It is commonplace for those who are involved as either shooters and/or victims in these firearms incidents to have had considerable police and criminal justice history. If these criminals are removed from the scene earlier and for non-violent offences, then this inevitable path of violence and competition is interrupted.
In my opinion, there needs to be significant consequence for someone who is in possession of firearms. There should be a reverse onus on those charged with simple possession of a firearm that they are not involved in criminal activity.
There's a requirement for the criminal justice system to better respond to the issues surrounding those who commit crimes because of addiction, especially for those offenders who are prolific and who have a long history of criminal conviction. This would require the cooperation of provincial and municipal governments. It would include a mandated program of detoxification, rehabilitation, and forward planning for the subject. For those who have demonstrated an unwillingness, through action and record, to avail themselves of these opportunities, there needs to be a consequence of substantial custodial sentence that will both provide opportunity for rehabilitation and training and protect the Canadian public from these individuals' criminal activity.
Finally, there's a need to develop education and prevention strategies that are directed at youth, both in the area of drug use and in gang awareness and avoidance. Without this piece of the strategy, there will continue to be persons destined for the type of overpowering addiction that drives the majority of crime, and there will continue to be the market that is in place for those who would prey upon the addicted.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me here today.
Thank you.