So on that premise we started conducting safety inspections of homes that provided us with the threshold of electrical consumption or about which there were complaints from the neighbourhood. During that course of time, when we started, one in four of these homes had children present, and the homes were filled with mould, fertilizers, pesticides, and electrical wiring and ballasts. We were attending those as a preventative measure.
Since we started this program in 2005, as I indicated before, we have inspected and remediated 1,006 homes in our city. Since then, eleven other communities have come on board and started these safety inspections to make our homes safe. This was a public safety initiative.
I also want to remind the group--as the chair mentioned--that I need to connect this back to organized crime. What we heard before--and it's something I never wanted to know as a fire officer--is that 85% of marijuana that's grown in the province of British Columbia is connected to organized crime. So if you say there aren't safety issues, Bill C-15, I think, is good. But let's define what aggravation is in terms of growing it.
We did a study, and a home with a grow-op is 24 times more likely to catch fire than a home without one. We experienced that big time.
In Philadelphia there were two firefighters who were killed when they went into the basement of a home that had a grow-op, and they became entangled and suffocated trying to get out of there. It was only a matter of time before that was going to occur here in British Columbia, and we had to do something.
So why did we get involved? We talked about tougher sentencing and disclosure. In 1997 police got to 92% of the complaints that came to their attention, and they were able to interrupt them. At that time only 1.5% of grow-ops were discovered by way of a fire. In 2003--and we're going to find out something new for 2008--they were able to get to only 52% of them. Why? Because in 1997 it took three steps to get a search warrant. In 2003 it takes 68 steps to get a search warrant. So that protraction of time meant that these homes were sitting in our neighbourhoods for years before they could get to them. Those electrical systems would start to interrupt, fray, and break down. In some homes we found electrical systems in which the wiring had to be entirely stripped because it was so fragile and damaged. So that's what we're dealing with. And this is all predicated on marijuana, that $7 billion industry in British Columbia that's fostering organized crime.
If you want to look at a root cause, at where the money is coming from and why it's so profitable, we have created an environment--not directly--in which they can basically propagate, and make their money. That's where our gang-land crime is coming from.
So I would say that these initiatives may look soft, but we've proven that they work, and we've made a significant difference. These are the tools we would like you to take a serious look at and provide for us.
Thank you so much for your questions.