Absolutely.
I believe it was a recommendation in 2003 by the national coordinating committee, under the Liberal government at that time, to create a relationship between police forces and Revenue Canada for the reporting of illegal drug operations. That in fact took place. However, it's grossly understaffed, and there's no requirement for police organizations to report every file associated with drug production. And that's what's being suggested here.
Our conservative estimates on the size of plants.... We know the size of marijuana grow operations on average in the province of British Columbia. The average is 250 plants. We know the number of actual crops per year. And we know fairly conservatively, or a good estimate, what they're achieving in revenue on this.
The personal audit system that CRA actually applies is four years back into their history of paying taxes. And if their assets don't match their tax returns, then those are audited and collected.
I want to mention something to you about how effective this principle is. A number of years ago we actually entertained a civilian administrative process for interrupting marijuana grow operations in the city of Surrey. In the last four years we've interrupted 1,600 grow-ops in our city.
We did a study on what was the propensity of the grower to re-establish another grow. Prior to us bringing in a bylaw that required us to recover all of our costs, conduct remediation on the property and bring it back to code while removing the occupancy permit, what we found was that the growers would re-establish. But after we brought in our bylaw that required all of these service costs associated with running that grow, removing the occupancy and making them invest money in bringing the home back up to safety standards, nobody came back. So we know the principle of applying costs associated with doing the business is actually going to make them leave.
I would like to say one last thing. We recently completed a study of marijuana grow operations from 1997 until the end of 2008. We haven't quite put it to ink yet, but this initiative I'm talking about in the city of Surrey has seen a 60% decrease in the communities that are active in these types of ancillary programs. We have moved them out of the lower mainland. The unfortunate thing is that they're moving elsewhere.
The initiatives that we've brought before you today, which may seem somewhat soft, are ones that we know do work, and we know they're multi-faceted, so please give this your attention.
Thank you.