Justice Committee on April 30th, 2009

[Tony Helary]

I'm totally against the legalization of any drugs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Mr. Mendicino, you probably aren't going to answer.

[Marco Mendicino]

I think the answer is self-evident in the role that we perform.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Okay, thank you.

[John Shavluk]

Mr. Fast, I beg the committee for one comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We're at the end now, and we have an in camera meeting that will be occurring. We're already five minutes late for that.

[John Shavluk]

All I would say is that crystal meth is the same drug. All these drugs have--

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We're going to suspend for five minutes as the room clears.

We are going in camera, so we will suspend.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I call the meeting to order.

I notice we have a number of members of the public here as well. I welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

As many of you know, the justice committee has been holding hearings on the issue of organized crime in Canada. We're trying to get to the bottom of this problem that we certainly have in British Columbia. We're hoping to find solutions to the problem, not simply hear complaints.

We have a number of witnesses here today. This is probably the largest panel we've had.

As you know, the process is that you'll get your chance to present. We'll pay strict attention to the five-minute rule, simply because we have so many of you and we have many questions to ask.

We'll start with Mayor Dianne Watts. You have five minutes.

[Dianne L. Watts, Mayor, City of Surrey]

Thank you very much.

I'm speaking to a point that Mayor Jackson has for the metro Vancouver piece, so I'm wondering if we could alter the order a bit. Can I let her speak first?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Absolutely, I'll be glad to.

Your Worship, please go ahead.

[Lois E. Jackson, Mayor of the Corporation of Delta; Chair of the Board of Directors, Mayors' Committee, Metro Vancouver]

Thank you very much, and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Lois Jackson and I am the Mayor of Delta, the chair of metro Vancouver's board of directors, and the chair of the mayors committee for Vancouver.

Metro Vancouver mayors represent 23 municipalities and one first nations territory, and we represent over 1,100 square miles of land. The region is home to 2.25 million people.

Along with the rest of the country, we have witnessed an increase in violent gang activity. Fear of violence from organized crime is a reality for residents of many Canadian cities. Mayors across our region are trying to cope with the impact of crime and gang-related violence on and in their communities.

Amongst all of the violence, there are the innocent victims whose lives are brutally extinguished because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time: Ed Schellenberg; Chris Mohan; Kirk Holifield, who was gunned down in Richmond. We also had a very major tragedy with Nicole Alemy, who was shot to death with her little four-year-old son in the back seat of her car.

Families seeking justice for victims of crime now stand before a legal system that has lost sight of them. Drugs, money, weapons, and power drive organized crime, and these groups are prospering from the exploitation of new technology. Gangs can communicate unhindered and unmonitored, and they know it. Gang members thoroughly understand the Canadian criminal justice system, and they use both the Canadian charter and the Constitution to their benefit.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the country struggle to keep up with the complex web of organized crime and face constant legal roadblocks that allow criminal activity to permeate our economy, burdening our legal system and exhausting our police resources. The fundamental protection of Canadian citizens is being exploited to the benefit of organized and violent criminals.

These problems are not new. In fact, organizations, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Association of Police Boards, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, have offered some 35 different policy resolutions, including issues of lawful access, municipal cost-sharing and disclosure, and policy statements on community safety, crime prevention, and enhanced policing. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has directly recommended integrated policing and crime prevention strategies to mitigate many of the problems we see. In the time since these resolutions began hitting federal lawmakers' desks, hundreds of people have been murdered, many of them innocent.

It has been made very clear to the federal government that issues around law reform, police funding, and the war against organized crime are in a state of emergency. While the number of gang-related homicides continues to increase, so does the complexity of the law. Law enforcement is staggering under the weight of this exponential relationship.

In less than a year we will initiate and invite the world to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Games, yet we are moving painfully slowly in dealing with the very real problem of violence on our streets.

Canadians have a right to be protected. More importantly, Canadians have the right to feel safe in their communities, and right now they don't. I have to ask myself, the mayors, and all who are here: What are we all doing about it?

If my five minutes aren't up yet, I would simply like to inform the committee that metro Vancouver has now put together the mayors committee, which is putting a policy paper together regarding these issues. For your information, you will find in your package, which we distributed, a document stating the things that have been done. There are 35 resolutions, as I mentioned, that have been forthcoming from many sources over the last several years. I would put those to you for your information. We're very concerned that they have been on the books for a very long time and no action has been taken.

The metro Vancouver board is going to be completing this. We would hope when it is completed in the very near future, we will be sending it to your committee, to others, to the ministers, and to all parties. As this is not really a political situation, but a people situation, we would really appreciate your support.

I certainly support the other mayors who are here today in relation to the specific concerns they're bringing forward.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mayor Watts.

[Dianne L. Watts]

Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity to speak before this committee.

It was really important to hear the overview from the chair of metro Vancouver, because it speaks to the fact that these are not new issues within our community. Law enforcement has been bringing them forth for many years, as have lawmakers, through the legal system, and crowns, educators, professors. All these issues we're talking about today have been brought before the general public many times.

I want to speak specifically on a couple of issues, and one is around the possession of illegal firearms. There has been a 55% increase in the lower mainland in gun-related homicides from 2007 to 2008. That's a 55% increase in one year. The guns that are coming through the border.... We have the second-largest border crossing here in my city, the city of Surrey. They're trading straight across--cocaine or weapons--for marijuana. We have a proliferation of firearms throughout our communities and the lower mainland and throughout the country.

I applaud the minister for the minimum mandatory sentencing on auto theft. However, I think it's time we had minimum mandatory sentencing for the possession of illegal firearms. When you've got an AK-47 or an Uzi sitting beside you, you know it's not going to be used for anything but creating havoc and committing a crime.

The number of weapons that have been taken off the streets is very significant. In Surrey a community impact statement will go to the court. My chief superintendent and I just signed that, and for every gun-related offence we'll get a community impact statement.

I want to highlight the fact of the crime taking place with the gangs. A lot of them are out on bail on numerous firearms charges, so they're just released into the community with our knowing full well what they're up to.

I also want to bring your attention.... Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to pass it around, but I do have our crime reduction strategy that has taken best practices. We pulled that together about three and a half years ago, again highlighting many of the things we're talking about today. I think many of you have a copy of this, and I've certainly been to Ottawa. It really centres around pulling best practices together, getting to the root causes, because it's a multi-faceted problem. It's a problem-solving approach. We have to get to early intervention and prevention, and unfortunately that piece of it is lacking. If we're ever going to make a difference, a generational difference, we have to be paying attention to what we're doing with our children.

The crime reduction strategy is also around rehabilitating, reintegrating those you can, helping people who need the help, but also putting people in jail who need to be in jail.

It's really important that we shift our focus in terms of the safety of the general public, which must come first. As Mayor Jackson said, the justice system is failing us. We have people out on the street who should not be on the street. And I know others will talk to you about repeat offenders. We really have to have a look at this and come at it with a multi-faceted approach and begin to deal with these problems in an effective way. And I hope, with the raised awareness, unfortunately as a result of the murders that have taken place in the lower mainland, we're going to get some action on that.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you so much, and thank you for staying within your five minutes.

We'll move to Mayor Robertson.

[Gregor Robertson, Mayor, City of Vancouver]

Thank you.

Thanks to the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for the opportunity to speak to you today about the state of organized crime.

Vancouver City Council believes that it's important that the federal government provide more attention to the fight against organized crime in our city and our region as a whole in the following areas: first, the urgent need for deeper financial investment in the Vancouver Police Department and the region's coordinated efforts on organized crime; secondly, the enhancement of international efforts to stem organized crime in the lower mainland; thirdly, the dire need that we have for toughening up our sentencing, especially for chronic offenders; fourthly, the need to provide greater investment in early prevention and youth education on gangs; and finally, fifth, the need to review more effective strategies for cutting off the financial resources to organized crime from the drug trade.

Public safety is at the top of mind for everyone here in Vancouver and right across the region. Gang violence has become increasingly brazen, and we're all very concerned about organized crime and the threat that it is to public safety. The Vancouver Police Department is using all the resources at our disposal to take on this challenge, and we will continue to provide support to our municipal partners in busting up organized crime wherever it may be in the region. However, we need the federal government to play a more prominent role and step up its investments in our collective programs. The scope of organized crime here and the violence that it brings in our communities is simply too big for municipalities alone, even with some provincial help, to handle.

In Vancouver, our police force has taken extraordinary steps to tackle gang violence. With Project Rebellion, the police have been targeting and arresting people who are conducting gang wars on our streets and putting them behind bars, where they cannot harm innocent bystanders. But it's not easy work, and it's certainly not cheap. The intense demand on our police department here through Project Rebellion has drained our criminal investigation unit by 50% of the annual budget in the first two months of 2009. And on top of that, the city has recently hired 96 new police officers this year, at a cost of $16.8 million. I know that several other municipalities in the region have invested substantially in increasing their police forces.

The VPD will continue to pursue criminals wherever they may be in the lower mainland, but we do need more help. I've met with the Prime Minister, with our chief of police, the minister for public safety here in B.C., the premier, and the solicitor general to discuss this issue. I know they all share our concerns. But so far the resources that we have been given have not been enough. As Vancouver prepares for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, it's vital that we act together right across the region to protect our international reputation. I know that Mayor Jackson, Mayor Watts, and Mayor Fassbender, who are here today, have helped bring local mayors together to find consensus on regional safety. They obviously share these concerns.

So it's not just a matter of stronger policing and tougher sentencing. Those are critical, but it is also, as Mayor Watts alluded to, about dealing with the social problems that we know lead to crime. We have gangs in Vancouver that make their money from the drug trade and that prey on people who have effectively fallen through the cracks, those who are suffering from abuse, addiction, and mental illness on our streets.

We need the federal government to invest more heavily in the education, prevention, and social services that we need and to take a more effective regulatory approach when it comes to drugs. The current war on drugs is not working. We've seen that in the United States. We see it glaringly in Mexico. And with the current escalation of violence here in Vancouver, we're seeing it in Canada. So I urge this committee to look at the full spectrum of gang violence, both the current activities and the root causes, and at the systems that are in place that allow gang members to make huge profits from the drug trade.

The problems we face with organized crime are far bigger than one city or one region can handle. It's an international problem here. We are, as a port city, in the midst of a gang environment that crosses borders, and that's why we require your help. Also, both from sentencing and law enforcement on to monitoring the borders and ports, and providing the support that we need to stay one step ahead of organized crime in our region, fighting organized crime will continue to be a high priority for all of us. We need the federal government to make necessary investments and the changes that we're outlining here today.

Once again, thank you for inviting us and having us here today and listening to our concerns. I hope this helps provide clarity on some of the challenges that we're facing right now in Vancouver.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Mayor Peter Fassbender. You have five minutes.

[Peter Fassbender, Mayor, City of Langley]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I'm pleased to be here with my colleagues. I have the support of Len Garis, and Superintendent Armstrong from the RCMP is on her way. She's caught in traffic, but she will be here shortly.

You will have copies of these notes in the background paper, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on some of the facts. I'm going to talk about marijuana grow operations and their impact on the crime scene, not only in this region but right across the country.

As you're probably aware, in British Columbia the estimated business related to marijuana is $6 billion to $7 billion. From 1993 to 2007 the growth of marijuana across the country has seen a sevenfold to eightfold increase. That's a huge increase when you start to think of the impact that has on organized crime and otherwise. We're also seeing a real shift in marijuana grow operations moving to rural communities. That shifts a significant burden onto those communities to deal with these operations as far as policing and other protective services go. The RCMP tell us that most of the crime groups in our country are involved in some form of activity related to marijuana and that they profit greatly from it. Other drug aspects that are attached to that are significant as well.

What we really need to do is to look at what we can do and what kinds of positive changes can be made. I'm going to give you four specifics that we would like to refer to today.

The first deterrent involves simply making use, believe it or not, of our existing tax laws. It's no surprise that criminals don't willingly pay taxes on their huge drug profits. However, in Canada the revenue agency has a special enforcement program, the job of which is to collect tax from people suspected of earning income from illegal activity. They just need to know who to investigate.

To show how significant a source of tax income this could be, let's look at the city of Surrey alone, where 277 grow operations were found in 2008. The written presentation includes the detailed calculation, but we estimate that a single site can produce $350,000 a year in revenue. Multiply that by 277 sites, and that's almost $97 million in Surrey alone. What would that mean in taxes? Probably, doing a quick calculation, that would mean more than $42 million in federal and provincial taxes. Based on 2008 rates, taking it a step further, the RCMP has estimated that B.C. has 20,000 grow operations. If that's true, that would equal $7 billion in revenue and add $3 billion in lost taxes alone. The second thing that is really important is that the tax crackdown could make producing marijuana and other drugs much less lucrative for those crime groups and would ensure that there would be some kind of action attached to it.

The next deterrent we would like to talk about relates to hydroponics equipment, which is used by criminals to grow marijuana as well as by hobby gardeners to grow things like orchids and tomatoes. Regardless of how it's used, this equipment has extremely high wattage. As an example, it uses 1,000-watt bulbs. For this equipment to be used safely, it is absolutely critical that it be installed properly in a legal and approved fashion; otherwise it brings tremendous risk of fire and electrocution, not only to that location but to surrounding areas as well. Studies show that the likelihood of a grow operation catching fire is one in 22. That is 24 times more likely than a typical house. The problem is that marijuana growers typically install and use this equipment in a dangerous and illegal fashion. It's also worth mentioning that there is no permitting process or regulation of hydroponics equipment, even for legal non-commercial users. It's likely they too are at risk.

We've already established the link between marijuana and organized crime. Our thinking is that regulations would make it much harder for criminals to obtain hydroponics equipment. At the same time, buying this equipment off the Internet and in stores with no regulations or restrictions creates the issue. The other benefit of regulation, of course, is public safety, which I've talked about already.

The next deterrent addresses medical marijuana grow operations. More than 2,000 Canadians have licenses to legally grow marijuana through the marijuana medical access regulations that are administered by Health Canada. They are told they must observe all the laws, bylaws, and safety regulations, but there's no enforcement. Health Canada does not verify the safety of each production site, and it does not tell cities where these sites are so that they can do it.

Across Canada more and more of these medical grow sites are being caught by municipal safety inspections, because they share many of the same characteristics and safety issues as the illegal sites. Inspectors are finding hydroponic equipment that is illegally and incorrectly installed as well as mould and dangerous structural changes. This is happening across the country, while the number of medical grow licences rises every year. On the surface it may look like a public safety issue; however, by regulating medical grow sites, we're also reducing the chance they will be used for illegal purposes.

The last deterrent we'd like to talk about is the need for research. Research will provide us the opportunity to detect drug production sites and collect evidence to take them down. The problem is that funding for research is not easy to obtain. The City of Surrey is self-funding research into a device that can detect hydroponics equipment from a moving vehicle. The work shows tremendous promise, but there is a limit to how much Surrey can do. Another potential project would research a device that can detect clandestine drug labs. And if you read the Vancouver papers, you will have seen we had an explosion in Vancouver that is suspected of being caused by a meth lab.

In closing, they are just four of many possibilities. What we're saying is we need attention to these items, and we need it now. We need legislative changes to ensure we can move ahead on all these areas.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move now to Dr. Plecas. You've got five minutes.

[Dr. Darryl Plecas, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again for the invite back, from a few days ago.

I just basically want to make a point. I know the committee has certainly heard arguments for decriminalization and arguments basically pointing to such a change somehow magically causing organized crime to go away. From research we've done, looking at thousands and thousands of grow operations over more than a decade, in British Columbia and in Alberta, and looking at clandestine labs, the fact of the matter is that the bulk of marijuana that's produced and drugs that are produced otherwise here and across Canada are destined for export markets. And likewise, for a large proportion of drugs that are imported into Canada, Canada is simply a transit point. We are dreaming if we think for a minute that decriminalization is going to impact whatsoever on organized crime.

Secondly, we need to be reminded that if you look at the individuals who are involved in this activity, consistently the vast majority of these people are seasoned criminals; they are repeat criminals. Drugs is not the only past crime they've been involved in. So we want to also remember that these individuals are involved in a number of other associated crimes, and of course we've seen the aftermath of that here in British Columbia.

I would ask that the committee turn its attention to what's been proposed here by others who have presented and also to the spectacular successes we've had on some fronts in trying to come to grips with this problem. I know the committee is aware that crime in Canada has been on the decline for the last few years. We've had in British Columbia an even greater decline.

If you look specifically at municipalities such as Surrey, Kamloops, Coquitlam, Prince George, and Courtney-Comox, for example, you will find the decreases in crime there have been greater than we've ever seen in four decades. They've happened quickly, they've happened faster, and it's a consequence of police and others taking a very comprehensive approach and taking a very targeted approach, a very focused approach. If we want to be able to sustain that and enjoy those successes—continued success and further declines—we need to commit more resources on a number of different fronts, as has been pointed out already.

We certainly need more resources on the law enforcement side, and we certainly need more resources pumped into the kinds of things that cause people to enter the criminal scene in the first instance, such as what we could do in terms of social programs, etc.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Welcome, Janice Armstrong. We understand that traffic can be that way sometimes in Vancouver.

We'll move to Ray Hudson. You have five minutes.

[Ray Hudson, Policy Development and Communication, Surrey Board of Trade]

With all my experience in broadcasting, I've never been able to do very well without a microphone.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today. It's a beautiful day, and I salute you members who are sitting here when there's a gorgeous day going on outside. All the best to you.

The Surrey Board of Trade is bringing a slightly different perspective. We're bringing the perspective of the business people of our city. We represent some 1,300 member-businesses and 3,600 business owners. We operate in the second-largest city in the province. We are severely impacted by the gang and drug violence and the drug- and alcohol-addicted chronic offenders who tarnish the appeal of one of the most desirable and beautiful cities in the country. Surrey is often the butt of jokes because of crime. It is negatively impacting the city and its people, who are doing spectacular things with this community.

Ottawa, we have a problem. The justice system isn't--it's a legal system that for a myriad of reasons, at least in criminal law, has strayed far from the original tenet of ensuring law and order, dealing with wrongdoers, discouraging others' bad behaviour, providing a measure of protection for society from such individuals, and so on. It seems that the criminals are the only ones who have the rights here.

One of our members asked me recently, after 12 or 13 break-ins, “Where are my rights as an honest taxpaying citizen to operate my business and my life free from criminal interference? What about my right to a safe community and my right to have the so-called justice system work, not exclusively for the criminals, but for the people and the society who pay for it?” That's a pretty hard one to answer. There's a major discontent in the land with this broken system. So here are four priority proposals we would like to bring to you.

The first two proposals that we endorse are disclosure codification and lawful access, which were put forward by the B.C. government. We have talked with the various people involved with these, and we endorse them strongly.

Disclosure codification is necessary in order to subject defence requests for disclosure of materials that are outside the investigative file to a rigorous procedure to justify reasons for materials sought.

On lawful access, we need to amend the Criminal Code to modernize our current means and technology. We need to require telephone and Internet service providers to include interception capability in new technology; require telecommunications service providers to make customer name and address information available on request; require service providers to ensure that existing specified information on a particular subscriber is not deleted; and modernize part 6 of the Criminal Code on interception of private communications to reflect current technologies.

The next piece we bring forward is on prolific and chronic offenders. It is really a problem for our business community. The greater volume of crime in our society is committed by relatively few perpetrators, who amass records of 50 to 150 or more crimes, primarily to feed drug habits. The government must amend the Criminal Code, with appropriate guidelines for the judiciary, to ensure that sentences reflect the record of the individual and not simply the crime before the court at the moment. Judges must distinguish between the first-time offender and the prolific or chronic offender, and treat them differently.

It is stunning that many chronic property offenders receive an average sentence of 101 days for their first offence, and only an average of 25 days for their 35th conviction. What's wrong with that picture? I ask you that. That information comes from the Vancouver Police, by the way. These offences must not be treated as petty.

Here's another issue, and it's a perception one. These repeat offenders drive businesses away by their ceaseless predation. It's not petty when a business must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to repair damage or to protect themselves against crime. It is not petty when a community's reputation is sullied by such crime.

Some people ask who would want to locate a business or home in an area where there's a reputation for high crime. Surrey is a place we're proud of, and we're trying to get that fixed.

At the same time, it's critical that substance abuse treatment be provided for prolific offenders to break that cycle. These programs must be available wherever the offender is, and that includes remand and provincial jails.

The last issue is judicial accountability, and there's a lot of feeling on this in our community. The vast majority of judges are competent, concerned individuals who do their utmost to discharge their duties appropriately. My comments are not addressed to them. We have, however, seen some decisions that leave the public agog and gasping for air.

We feel the judiciary appear to face very little internal and virtually no public accountability for their decisions, apart from what you see in the press. We don't want the courts to be hyper-reactive to the public, but neither can we simply accept decisions that in some cases result in serious damage, death, and destruction of lives and businesses, by failing to adequately protect witnesses, victims, and the public at large.

Many engineers carry the liability for their work through their whole careers, and most professionals are liable for their decisions and actions. Yet if a judge releases an individual on bail, conditional sentence, or whatever and there are violent consequences, where is the accountability for that jurist? Is it not reasonable that there be some method to call that individual to account?

It's about restoring the public's confidence in the system. We call for a carefully selected committee of legislators, academics, legal professionals, and the public to examine this issue and devise a method for a performance review of judges. We don't want to suggest what the mechanism should be, only that a solution be developed and implemented.

Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the four points the Surrey Board of Trade wishes to bring before you.

We thank you very much for the opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

You're very welcome.

We're pleased to welcome two additional witnesses: Shannon Renault, representing the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce; and Weldon LeBlanc, representing the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce.

Shannon, why don't you present? You have five minutes, and I'll let you know when it's time to wind up.

[Shannon Renault, Manager, Policy Development and Communications, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you.

We have concerns that are similar to those of the Surrey Board of Trade and we also have some different ones. The Canadian justice system is plagued with repeat offenders who take up an inordinate amount of enforcement and legal resources. A reduction in the number of appearances by repeat offenders would greatly reduce the burden on our police and justice systems.

Issues of crime and public safety are a significant concern for the business community and for British Columbians in general. A Doob and Webster report, cited in the paperwork that you'll receive later today, showed that 74% of British Columbians are concerned with lenient sentencing practices in our province as compared to 69% of those in other provinces.

Doob and Webster state that sentencing practices in British Columbia are not lighter than those in other provinces in the aggregate; however, the findings also highlight specific challenges in British Columbia.

While 41% of convicted drug offenders in B.C. are incarcerated, compared to 39% for Canada, only half of those receive sentences of more than three months. In the rest of Canada, 71% of convicted offenders receive sentences of more than three months. Only 20% of those convicted of drug offences in British Columbia receive a sentence of six months or more, while 58% of convicted offenders receive sentences of six months or more in the rest of Canada. The report also does not examine the question of whether repeat offenders received increased sentences.

The Doob and Webster study is in stark contrast to studies from city police forces on the problematic population of chronic offenders. As my colleague cited, the Vancouver Police Department followed a group of chronic offenders and found that after their thirtieth conviction they were actually receiving an average of 25 days for their convictions.

Offenders themselves indicate that they can victimize up to 4,000 individuals and businesses per year, generally to feed a drug habit. They further indicate that, upon release, they'll continue to commit crimes--property crimes--to fund their habit. An inquiry to the Victoria Police Department indicates that though they've done no such formal study, they are confident that their findings would reflect the same thing.

Persons who engage in repeat offences for property crime should be dealt with more seriously by the law. While the light sentence may be reflective of the particular incident in front of the court, it does not reflect the ongoing harm to the community at large and the volume of property affected. It in no way leads the offenders to stop their behaviour upon release, as it does not allow adequate time for drug treatment with the goal of withdrawal and changed behaviour.

In fact, the light sentence simply perpetuates what is widely seen as the revolving door of the justice system. In the long run, it is the community that suffers the harm from repeat offenders while offenders themselves are relatively unaffected.

The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce recommends that the federal government call for the judiciary to issue increased sentences for chronic offenders, sentences that better reflect their criminal history and the collective harm they have done to the community, and that those sentences be consistent across Canada.

The second thing I want to address is actually a corollary issue for the justice committee. I'd like to address the need for the federal government to invest more assertively in a national Housing First Strategy.

The majority of chronic offenders referred to earlier commit a high number of property crimes to support drug addictions. The chamber believes the public needs to be protected from those behaviours by incapacitation of the offenders with increased sentences; however, we also believe that root causes need to be addressed.

Professionals in the field attest time and again that stable permanent housing is the base that is needed to help drug addicts get through treatment and off drugs. Getting off drugs is the only outcome that will change the behaviour of committing property crimes. No drug habit? No need to steal.

The Canadian government has invested in homelessness programming; however, the chamber is concerned that the allocation falls drastically short of the need and that the problem will continue to grow, burdening our justice system and costing our economy.

In 2007, the federal budget provided $269.6 million over two years to prevent and reduce homelessness. That equates to roughly $4.10 per capita per year. By comparison, in 2008 the United States committed $4.47 billion on the same initiative. That equates to approximately $14.85 per capita per year. On a per capita basis, the U.S. federal government budgets 3.6 times the amount the Canadian government does to address the issues of homelessness in its cities.

In Budget 2009, the Canadian government committed to extending the same level of funding to address the issue of homelessness in Canada. While we are pleased with the continued engagement, the level of contribution is simply not enough to expect any real change and improvement in the level of repeat property crime that supports the drug habits of a percentage of our homeless population.

The chamber recommends that the federal government evaluate existing models and outcomes of programs designed to end absolute or chronic homelessness. Based on those results, it should develop and fund a national long-term strategy to measurably reduce homelessness in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you so much.

We'll move over to Weldon LeBlanc. You have five minutes.