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.