We are.
Evidence of meeting #18 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
Evidence of meeting #18 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
6:55 p.m.
Mayor of the Corporation of Delta; Chair of the Board of Directors, Mayors' Committee, Metro Vancouver
—each other, as well.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Actually, believe it or not, I think there's probably more cooperation than you might see. This committee does work reasonably well.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
No, it's not the chair. No, it's just that I think there seems to be more of a will to work cooperatively to address some of these very critical issues in our communities. All of our communities are feeling this to one degree or another.
Thank you to all of you.
We'll suspend for five minutes.
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
I call the meeting to order.
Mr. and Mrs. Holifield, I presume, and Elli, and also Mr. Rafuse, thank you for appearing before us. As you no doubt know, our committee is undertaking a full review of organized crime in Canada.
Your family members, of course, were the victims, very unfortunate victims. We're so pleased you're here. You may be wondering why you're at the end of our session here in Vancouver. I think I can say we want to leave the most important to the last because we want to hear from the victims' families, because that's really what it's all about.
We're only discussing all the strategies we've talked about all day from the various witnesses because we want to protect our citizens against more people becoming victims. So your testimony is important to us.
I think you've been told already that each of you will receive five minutes to speak. If you don't want to speak, that's okay as well, and then we'll open it up for questions from our committee members.
Perhaps I could ask Ken to start.
7:10 p.m.
Ken Rafuse As an Individual
Thank you. I was assuming that I was going to have ten minutes, but--
7:10 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you very much. I'm just going to manage myself here.
I've asked the person responsible to give some material to different persons. I'd like to just be assured that that's been done.
I wish to speak today as a person who has a wonderful family, and over and above all of this, it's a family that has a father who's dyslexic. I will be 65 years old this August. What has happened to me in my life, as a dyslexic person, and being able to understand and manage my life through the eyes of a dyslexic person, is the information that you're seeing now. You'll have to excuse me for breaking up now and again.
My goal today is to explain that there are key areas that are of serious concern. I'm a fifth-generation Canadian, born in Montreal. I've lived on the west coast for the last 35 years and have brought up two fantastic sons. In my second part of my life, in 2000, I became divorced and entered into a relationship with a wonderful woman by the name of Mary Barber, who had an incredible son, Jonathan Barber, and a daughter, Colleen. These people have been the mainstay in my life.
I'd like to lay out my life because it is so important for everyone here to understand. I'm hoping this commission can get to the bottom of what's happening here, because it is so severe. We all put on a facade at times to protect ourselves, to survive. Unfortunately, I don't like to say this, but I feel the justice and human rights systems in Canada failed us drastically over the years that have been my life--and I'm sharing it through my eyes, as an individual.
My feeling is that the study of organized crime needs to be broadened. Not only do I see that as being organized crime, I see organized crime being in the church, the corporations, and the illegal drug groups in Canada. The reason I say that is because the terms “crime”, no matter how you look at it, and “organized” mean a group of people together doing something that's totally inappropriate and is against all systems out there.
When we can allow the gangs, as an example, to operate freely, when I see the Bacon brothers roam the streets, when I see police following them everywhere and taking care of them, it scares me. It scares me because when I see what's happened to my family, when I see my partner trying to survive.... She's a wonderful woman, an incredible woman. She's a teacher trying to survive losing her son.
The unfortunate side of it is that it's taken ten months for the police to decide to tell her that her son was not involved with the group. We knew that from the beginning. I believe they knew the same thing. That's a tragedy. That should not have happened. She's lost ten months of her life. Believe me, there was some guilt involved. Those are the kinds of issues that are important.
The victims' assistance is pathetic. It's just a charade. It doesn't represent anything of substance. I've met and talked to the clerks, to the people who are there, and I've realized that even they say, “Well, you know, the government's ripped it from the bottom, there's nothing here. All we can do is do our best. Can we get her a psychiatrist? Can we do this?” There has to be a better way. We need intervention teams.
When the incident first took place, and the person came over to our home and expressed opinions about how we could survive, what to do, unfortunately the person hadn't had the training or they were just young--whatever it was--but they didn't have the skills to communicate. It was so formal. It was so government-directed.
They had no sensitivity to what's going on. The reality is that the family is destroyed. There are five people involved here. There's Mary, Colleen, her beautiful 16-year-old daughter, Michael her ex-husband, and myself. All of us involved have had severe effects as a result of this murder, and Jonathan was an innocent young man.
He was an incredible young man who loved doing stereo systems in high-end vehicles. That was his life. He loved it. I remember when he was in high school, he did it all the time. He became expert. It was just unfortunate that a friend of a friend asked him to put in a stereo in the vehicle that unfortunately was owned by the Bacon brothers. A few days before, the Bacon brothers had done some damage to the United Nations Gang, so he became their target. The Bacon brothers used him as bait to see whether there was something out there.
Great attention is given to the crime and the criminals. They get protection. What about the families? That's my concern. The families need support. The families need intervention. The father can't work. He's totally destroyed. Mary can barely hang on. She goes to work just to survive. Her daughter's looking over her shoulder believing she's going to be murdered.
I saw someone coming over the fence on my property downtown the other Saturday morning. I freaked out. I saw the Bacon brothers coming after me. So those are the issues that seriously need looking at. We have to stop focusing on the criminal. We need to deal with the criminals in the way they should be dealt with. For a long time, we've been giving them too many freedoms. We need to give the police the authority necessary to monitor everything that they're doing. We've become too much of a civil libertarian society. We give all our freedoms to these people who aren't worthy of it.
I've included in one of those pieces of paper that I gave you the documentation of a friend of mine. A long time ago, he told me about this wonderful thing that really changed the justice system—it was called the strap. And if you have a moment, I'd like you to have a look at this. It describes what it was and how it cleaned up the penal system. I think we're giving it to them too easy. We're not only letting them get away with murder; we're also letting them continue to murder and destroy families.
It destroyed our families on the human rights side of things. We're doing everything to hold on. My partner and I are seeking counsel. We're doing everything we can. The issues are so major. That's where the intervention needs to be done. We need to bring back the money. I don't want social systems. I don't want more counsellors on government. I want more assistance to help the family, because we are getting no help at all.
I talked about the family and the gangs and what's going on and how it's affected our lives as people, but that's just one aspect of it. The other side of it is the church, the government, and my faith in the justice system. In 1989 I came down with asbestos lung disease as a result of exposure to asbestos in a museum in Victoria. The government tried to cover it up. I spent two years in hell. I ended up on the streets of Vancouver going to the food bank, getting my food. I lost my family, I lost my home. There are ten boxes like this of human rights cases. I was successful in getting a legal aid lawyer to help me through this case. We won the case, but the sad part was that the government chair at the time was married to the senior partner of the law firm representing the government side.
It was a circus. It was a disgrace. I've never seen anything so disgusting in all my life.
WCB.... I have asbestos lung disease. This is a very small part. Three boxes later.... The fact is, we don't have an organization like WCB and governments to fight for us. We need the support. We need the help to be able to express our opinions as lay people clearly.
A person like myself who is dyslexic, who sees everything in 3-D, sees things differently from what you would. I can't even write a letter properly, the way things are.
It has taken me 65 years to discover how serious this has been. What we need to do is to look at ways of streamlining the process for lay people, streamlining the process to help other people.
Just in closing, I've left a piece of black material in there, a black cloth. The reason I did that was because human rights failed me when I was a child. As a twelve-year-old, I was raped and molested by a priest. Those kinds of things are horrible. Those kinds of things need to change.
We need stronger laws. I attempted in Quebec to deal with the issues. They told me I didn't have a hope in hell of dealing with those kinds of things. You're clearly aware of the thousands and thousands of young people and other people, I'm sure, of how horrible it is for them to defend themselves from the large corporations or from large government organizations.
What I'm saying to you, and I'm pleading with you, is streamline the system, simplify it. Einstein said to keep it simple and short. That's the way we have to do it. That's the only way we can survive in this world or we're going to hell in a basket.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7:20 p.m.
Conservative
7:20 p.m.
Conservative
7:20 p.m.
Conservative
7:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I can really relate to what I've just heard. It's just like déjà vu all over again. The only thing that keeps me sane right now after losing our son is my three girls--that's my wife, my daughter-in-law, and my granddaughter. If it weren't for them.... I forced myself. I didn't work for almost a year. Actually, I can't tell you what you go through, as you have to be there to know.
My wife put together this little bit of something. She worked on it for a couple of days and we've all looked at it and this is what we want to say. It's called “The Centre of Our Universe”.
Our son was murdered. He was immediately declared guilty. Dale Carr of the IHIT would not say he was innocent. We lost our precious and only child. His daughter was ten months old at the time, and the RCMP would not say he was innocent. Our granddaughter had no father. Our son would hold her and be so overwhelmed by his love that he would start crying and say, “Mom, I just love her so much”.
He was raised in an extremely loving and caring family. He had no siblings, so he was even more special, because we had all our eggs in one basket. He was the only grandchild and nephew—and this is my wife speaking—and her mother was 87 at the time of his death. They had the most incredible relationship, and they talked five, six, seven, or eight times a day. He was on the phone with her minutes before he was murdered. We were so worried about telling her that Kirk had been murdered, thinking she might have a heart attack or worse. Her only grandchild was gone. She had to live with the suspicion hanging over his name.
Our community reached out to us, though—family, friends, and hockey mates—and fundraising began immediately for an education trust fund for Kirk's daughter, Amelia.
Yet he was still guilty. You held our family and friends in suspension; our only child was a criminal because of the vehicle he drove. His Dodge Ram was so special to him; he was fastidious about the truck. When he had company in the vehicle, he would put his floor mats right side up; but when he was alone, they were upside down to keep them clean. He was our Felix Unger from The Odd Couple. He is dead because he had a black Dodge. Our son never had anything before but little hoopties. This was his first brand-new automobile, and he worked very hard for it. But he's “guilty”.
He had the same truck as some Iranian thug, a criminal, who lived in the area that Kirk was visiting. He was guilty because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On January 11, 2007, at 2:45 a.m.—a night I'll never forget—Elli called me. She asked me to come over. She was crying. I thought something had happened to the baby. It was 3:30 in the morning and I had to go back to tell my wife afterwards that our son, our only child, our baby boy, had been murdered.
In our circle of family and friends, murder does not happen, but a car accident, a motorcycle crash, or a bad skiing mishap. We do not have a child any more. Our daughter-in-law is a widow. Our beautiful little Amelia, Daddy's little angel, is fatherless at ten months.
Amelia's car seat was in her Daddy's truck. He went to Richmond to buy a hockey stick two days before everything happened.
Things could have been so different. Amelia was the precious cargo in his back seat. Her diaper bag, after the shooting, was filled with shattered glass. My wife has the car seat in her car now. There are cuts in the fabric because of that shattered glass. The hockey stick he bought is special to Amelia. She is still a toddler, but she says she wants to play hockey with it when she is a big girl.
The RCMP has been so distant. We have been floundering in our pain, our horrendous loss, our overwhelming grief. No one from the IHIT calls to say that they are doing this or that and how we could help in Kirk's investigation.
I must say that in two and a half years, we were never notified by IHIT. We called every time. She was never called. I was called once, and that when the news media had already picked up the fact that Kirk was innocent. Elijah Rain called me and said Kirk had been declared innocent. Well, I had already found that out through the media, because a reporter had called me and told me. But he was our contact officer. Sometimes we wouldn't hear back from him for a day or two. In two years, nobody called to show any interest in how we were doing; we felt totally abandoned by the police.
On February 13, 2009, Kirk was declared innocent. No police call, but a TV reporter who has kept in touch with us, Rumina Daya, from Global, called at 11:35 a.m. She obtained a press conference and heard the words we had been waiting for. Elijah Rain was our contact, and 15 minutes after we had seen it on the TV news, Bill Fortier was saying Kirk was finally an innocent victim. Thanks, Elijah, for being so connected. Our son was finally innocent, but no press conference, no press release, only the TV news item, a few words attached to another innocent victim's thankful moment. Our son deserved better. This was a huge moment.
On February 22, 2009, two wonderful young men held a rally to vent about justice, criminals taking control, and the power of gangs. We were able to talk with Peter Thiessen, and finally a press conference. Kirk is officially innocent. Thank you, Peter German, for that. We have waited for this for over two years, but still there's a reason as to why it took so long. We are grateful nevertheless.
Many people have told us that now we have closure. Not ever. We are on a new path, but we're still only existing in this life without our child. After two years, one month, and eleven days, our son is now innocent. Why did it take so long?
Eileen Mohan said she only had to wait a few days for her son to be declared innocent. On January 11, 2009, the second anniversary of our horrible loss, Rumina Daya wanted to do a TV follow-up interview with our family. She thought it was important to put Kirk's name out there again. Maybe somebody would know something and call the police. Dale Carr, the IHIT spokesman, was again interviewed and would not exonerate Kirk. He declared that the case and Kirk's were still under investigation. What pain you've caused us.
When we first heard, we thought it was an old news clip, but, no, he said the day, and we realized it wasn't from the year before.
Kirk is innocent. We are now treated so differently. The declaration on February 13, 2009, has changed so many things. We now stand shoulder to shoulder with the families of Ed Schellenberg, Chris Mohan, and Jonathan Barber. The press will talk with us now. Our son is innocent. He is not a gang member. Victims of crime have acknowledged our daughter-in-law, finally, and our granddaughter. They are now not tainted with guilt through association. Our son is innocent.
Our son's birthday is April 16, 1971, the day our lives expanded with love. He was always so special and would say he loved Mommy, Daddy, Granny, Poppa, Uncle Sam, and later shared his wonderful love with his beautiful wife and our special gift, Amelia. Life is so empty without him. There is no more fun. Kirk's business partner, travel companion, and best friend, Chris, called on Kirk's birthday on April 16. He wanted to connect and share the loss we're all feeling. Amelia heard me say to Chris on the phone--and I didn't realize she was listening to me--that I couldn't believe Kirk was dead. Amelia immediately became so upset and she started saying that her daddy was dead. I tried to tell her he was in heaven, and he was there with his dog, Raffi, who had died previously, on December 19. She relates to the pup being in heaven with her daddy. We don't know what she perceives heaven to be, but at three she is comforted by daddy and Raffi being there. Trying to explain to our grandchild that she does not have a daddy is something we don't want to do. We know the day will come when she will want to know where daddy is, but now we just want to keep our heads in the sand.
Our lives will never be straight ahead again. The sadness is so intense. We no longer have Christmas. Kirk was our Christmas. That day was such a major highlight in our lives. I can't even put up a tree for Amelia at our house any more. Our family now comes together in major sadness. There is no Mother's Day, no Father's Day--we are no longer parents. To celebrate a special day without Kirk is too painful.
Peter Thiessen and Peter German have tried to help us. On February 22 they immediately put together a press conference for the TV stations and were present at the rally against gang violence. We were also invited through Peter German and the RCMP to a roundtable discussion. A few days after that we were introduced to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He was extremely compassionate. My wife put out her hand to shake hands, as did Elli, and he stopped and hugged both of them, which I thought was very commendable.
We still have no press release from the newspapers. Our son deserves that. I'm just tired of asking, as my wife's speaking. We live our lives because of our precious Amelia and our daughter-in-law. She's our daughter, really.
At our age, we're co-parenting a three-year-old now. Our son would be happy that she knows us so well. Our son was a constant in our lives. We took care of each other. He grew up in Ladner, and we were so happy that his marital home was only five minutes away. We needed to see each other every other day or so. We were always on the phone. Our relationship wasn't cloying or smothering, just loving. The tribute to this is how our daughter-in-law is now so close to us.
This is my wife talking: My husband and my son were always together; they worked together for quite some time, and when Kirk went on his own they still found time for each other. She means my son and myself. We were best friends.
Ladner's Starbucks was where the day started. There is a plaque there now that says, “Kirk's other office”. He was there almost every day, having coffee at Starbucks. This is only part of what we received from our very supportive community.
As we walk through town on some errands, there's always somebody remembering Kirk. This will mean so very much to Amelia when she grows up where we live. The hockey buddies have just purchased new jerseys that have a commemorative patch on the shoulder for Kirk. My wife's sister still attends all the games in memory of Kirk.
We try to move on, but it's so very painful. Kirk was the centre of our universe, our mainstay. He'd say, “Mom, don't worry, I'll take care of you”, and he always told us all that he'd look after us in our old age.
There are days when we can't function. In my case, I have panic attacks. I have bad dreams. I have sleepless nights. I just take Ativans. I think the only thing that keeps me going is my granddaughter Amelia. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be...I don't know what I'd be doing right now. In our worst nightmare, we would never have thought that murder would be the way we'd lose our baby boy.
We are victims of gang violence. We are moving into old age without our son. This shouldn't have happened, but some very stupid gang member saw a black Dodge and opened fire.
As time goes on in families, roles reverse and the children in time will take care of their parents. Kirk was already doing this. We have lost the support of our wonderful son. It is frightening to think about being 80 years old without him and being so alone. Worse is Amelia having to go to a father-daughter banquet. Have a gang member explain that to her.
I hope I haven't rambled on too long. Without my girls--I call them my girls, my wife and my granddaughter Amelia--without them I wouldn't be functioning right now. I'll tell you, I have to drag myself up in the mornings to go to work. They say that after two and a half years.... It never goes away. It never gets better.
That's all I have to say.
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
7:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. I just want to say that the letter doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the chaos and the hell that our lives really have been over the last two years. It's been very difficult, and we've only come so far and we are only standing here today because of each other, not because of crime victims' services and not because of any government help or aid. I have to say that, because you're all gathered here today to make a change, right? If that's what we want to do, well, that's what you need to do.
We are victims, and we have been left in the lurch the whole time that this has been going on, and that's the truth. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. I was not contacted once by the police. The only time the police came to talk to me was when I was being questioned about his murder. That's it. To me, that's pathetic.
That's basically it. This cannot happen any more to victims, to families. There has to be more support, just as Ken said, to help people cope and get through. We're lucky that we live in a great community in Delta, in Ladner, and we had grief counselling from our Delta Hospice Society. I'm so grateful, but crime victims' services? What a waste of money.
Sorry. That's basically what I wanted to say. Thank you.
7:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you for being so honest with us. That's why we're meeting. You've put the human face to this whole study we're doing. Without that, I'm not sure we could complete the study, so thank you for that.
I'm going to open it up for questions, if there are any, or comments from my colleagues here.
Go ahead, Mr. Murphy.
7:35 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I think you summarized what I suspect are the feelings of everybody here. You've put the human feeling aspect to what we're doing, and it's profound.
We have no solutions to offer. I, personally, hear what you're saying, and I felt what you were saying more than heard it. We all have loving families, and I can't think what it must be like to be without your partner or your child or your spouse's child. I'm going to leave it at that.
Just know that there are 308 members of Parliament, and I, to my core, believe that every one of them is united in one feeling, which is that we have to make the community safer and we have to do right by the people. Those things obviously differ from day to day, but probably all of us here are going to take home the idea that we're going to try our best to make our society safer and more supportive to people like you.
I have no questions.
7:35 p.m.
Bloc
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga, QC
I'm going to speak in French because I'm coming from Montreal.
Thank you very much for being with us. We had a most productive day. We began this morning at 8:30, and of course, we heard many examples of the damage that confrontations, street gangs and organized crime can cause in communities.
I am the MP for a riding in east Montreal. In 1995—I was a young MP, I had been elected in 1993, so I had been an MP for two years—a car bomb blew up. I do not know if you remember that. This attack took the life of a young fellow called Daniel Desrochers, a victim of the confrontations between criminal biker gangs fighting to get control over the illicit drug trade in Montreal.
I hope that you are encouraged by the fact that this event, which happened in 1995, gave rise to a great deal of mobilization. In my part of town, people signed a petition and rallied the public all over Quebec. The Minister of Justice at the time, Mr. Allan Rock, agreed to meet, along with me, the mother of the young Daniel Desrochers. This was followed by a demand for anti-gang legislation that we obtained in 1997, and that was supported by all the parties in the House. This legislation went beyond the offence of conspiracy. It created a new offence called gangsterism.
Today, I think that I can speak for all of my colleagues. Everyone here is very aware of the fact that we are now in the fourth generation of criminal activity. For every generation, we as parliamentarians must have much more efficient tools to fight organized crime.
I hope that you will derive some consolation from the fact that we all have ideas about going further and giving tools to law enforcement organizations, mayors and citizens. That fight against organized crime concerns us all.
I have a concern and I would like to ask you a question. I would like to understand why the RCMP—I understand that it is not the local police, but the RCMP that has the contract for maintaining public safety in your community—did not get in touch with you.
Do you think that our chairman should think about writing a letter, on behalf of all of us, to get some explanations? Is it because the investigation is not yet over, because there is still more evidence to gather?
If you ever feel that this committee can do anything to intervene, do not hesitate to tell us, and I am convinced that all of the parties will agree to intervene in the ways that you suggest to us.
