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.