Justice Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Who do you feel this legislation is targeting? Is it adequately targeting organized crime and the people we're trying to go after, or is it disproportionately penalizing the small guy?

[S/Sgt Pierre Gauthier]

In my opinion, organized crime is being targeted by this legislation. It's important that they get targeted. Organized crime is strong, it's out there, and it's recruiting people to do the dirty work for them. In organized crime there are always people at the top, and they're the ones who profit from all this. So we support this legislation because it targets them.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I know you stated this, but I want to get it on the record once again that you believe legalizing these drugs would be detrimental to your efforts to protect our society.

[S/Sgt Pierre Gauthier]

Yes, I'll say that again, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Mr. Warkentin for five minutes.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the opportunity to join you for this committee. I'm not usually a member on this committee, but I have an interest in drugs and the impacts they have on our communities.

I had the opportunity in the last Parliament to bring forward a private member's bill that exclusively dealt with the production of crystal meth. We in Alberta have witnessed first-hand the devastation drugs can inflict on a community. Of course crystal meth is an interesting drug because it doesn't need to be imported. It doesn't need to go through a number of different levels of organized crime. It can be manufactured and distributed within the same community.

As I continued my research on the whole issue of crystal meth I discovered a number of things that were very disturbing. First, we have moved from being an importer of crystal meth to being an exporter because of our more lax responses in legislation. As far as organized crime is concerned, we have a more advantageous jurisdiction to produce it than other countries. This is something I've had some interest in, and I certainly want to address it. As parliamentarians I believe we have a responsibility to address these concerns. When we become a manufacturing nation for some of these things it worries all of us. I think this bill goes to great length to address these concerns.

I was inspired to get into the whole investigation of drugs because of the impact it has on some of the most vulnerable in our society. Mr. Storseth pointed out that it is not our intention as a government to go after the folks who possess small quantities of these drugs. We want to go after the people who produce these drugs and take advantage of some of the most vulnerable. Maybe you can speak to some of this, because I think it's very important that we as parliamentarians are very clear about who we're trying to go after.

From my own vantage point--and I think I can speak with some assurance on behalf of the government--it's really the intention of this government to go after the people who try to victimize the most vulnerable, and provide some type of protection for the most vulnerable from those people. Maybe you can speak from your experience here in the city of Ottawa, Mr. White, about what you witness in terms of the people who are organized and distribute and import drugs.

[Chief Vernon White]

Sure. Actually, first I do want to mention the fact that it was, for us, very important that it was identified in the legislation, under the factors that must be taken into account, that “the production constituted a potential public safety hazard in a residential area”. We often see crystal meth labs. When I was a chief of police in Durham, we had a multi-million-dollar explosion and fire, as well as cleanup, that easily could have cost a number of lives. So it is important for us that we saw that opportunity to attack that, because we do see that in some residential locations.

The second point for us is that we do see a high number of addicts on the streets who also have concurrent mental disorder. In fact, when I talk to psychiatrists at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, they will tell me the same thing, that the people they've dealt with in the past who had mental illness, or at least challenges from a mental illness perspective, they're now seeing also with concurrent drug addictions. So I think they are targeted by drug dealers and drug traffickers on our streets in this city, for sure. In fact, some experts would tell you that 25% to 40% of the drug addicts on our streets who we deal with every day also have concurrent mental illness. I think they are an opportunity for a lot of traffickers to increase their sales. We're not talking about people trying to make a few dollars. They don't care one second what happens to the people they sell crack cocaine to, certainly.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

In my research, unfortunately what I also found was that there are additional victims in the whole drug trade, specifically in the manufacturing of crystal meth. So often we found that young children were living in the residences where the crystal meth was being produced. I'm pleased that this bill actually has the welfare of children included as an aggregating factor. In fact, if a young person is somehow inflicted with some type of injury or has some type of ramification as the process unfolds, that is taken into consideration as well. So these children may not be purchasing, they may not be directly involved in the drug trafficking; simply by being in the location where the meth is being produced they are victims of it, because of course there are all kinds of poisonous gases and different things that go out during the production. I know the victims are not only the drug abusers and the drug users; there are peripheral victims as well.

[Chief Vernon White]

Absolutely. In fact, I think one person referred one time to the fact that it's unlawful to have a child in a car while you're smoking a cigarette, and you could easily be charged and convicted. But the same child could be in a house where they have a grow-op or a crystal meth lab, and you wouldn't be able to charge and convict them of a secondary offence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We have a little bit of time left, so I'm proposing that we do a round of two minutes: a very quick question and a very quick answer. We have 17 to 18 minutes left, so if we could do that quickly we'll fit it in.

Mr. Murphy, you can start.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

Mr. Sterling, the Governor of California is talking about what seems to be legalization and regulation from a fiscal point of view, and there are so many parallels to prohibition in the twenties and thirties in the United States and Canada—well, the United States more than Canada. What's the situation? Is that just smoke and mirrors? Is there any flavour for that in the United States as a whole? It may be a difficult question.

[Eric Sterling]

Mr. Murphy, there's a great deal of discussion in the United States, especially in the press, around this issue. Not only has Governor Schwarzenegger brought it up, but numbers of members of Congress have brought it up in hearings in the context of the violence in Mexico.

Legalization is not the absence of any regulation, an impression you would get from the comments that Chief White made. There are many different ways in which different drugs could be controlled and regulated. There's an excellent analysis in a book called Drug War Heresies by Dr. Peter Reuter and Dr. Rob MacCoun, 2001, Cambridge University Press, that lays out some of the kinds of issues. It's a complicated issue, and there's not a simple answer.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll go on to Monsieur Ménard for two minutes.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Ms. Beauchesne, you seemed to have certain concerns with respect to what some of my colleagues have said about the date rape drug. Obviously it is ridiculous to talk about legalization. The bill does not even deal with that. Therefore I think it is completely out of order to ask witnesses to answer to that. However, I would like you to set the record straight on what you have heard.

[Prof. Line Beauchesne]

First of all, the name date rape drug attracts a lot of attention in the media. The main drug used by a rapist is still alcohol, and the second most used drugs are barbiturates: Valium and others. GHB is not used very frequently for that purpose, but it is used for other purposes, as are several drugs. In fact, in order for there to be a rape, you need a rapist. That is the main condition. Drugs do not create rape.

Second, I found it difficult to criticize minimum sentences. It is as if we are being told that we do not see a problem. We see the problem, but we do not propose the same solutions.

Contrary to what people may think, legalizing drugs reduces their availability. Put me on a black market anywhere on the planet and in three hours I will get you what you want. In a black market, anybody can sell anything.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Ms. Davies, you have two minutes.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

We heard Chief White say that in the downtown east side, which is part of my riding, it's almost a legalization situation, and that's certainly not my experience. I've seen many police sweeps. They're very expensive, and they don't really change the situation, but we see them from time to time. The last one was called Operation Torpedo, I remember.

I want to get at the reality versus what's on the paper here about who this bill is directed at. It seems to me that the enforcement regime we've seen is basically levelled at the low-level folks, the low-level dealers, who are often users, because they're the easy pickings. So I'd just like to ask Mr. Sterling if he could comment on that, because that's the reality, both from my understanding of what happens in the U.S. and also in my own community and other places across Canada.

[Eric Sterling]

The American application of the mandatory minimums has been overwhelmingly against low-level offenders.

I was very disturbed when I heard the question from Mr. Storseth earlier, who asked about the seven prior convictions and the recidivists. These are low-level offenders, if I understand what he's talking about. These are petty thieves; these are drug addicts. Then 30 seconds later, he's talking about organized crime, but those are not the organized crime figures that you want to get at if you're interested in going after the high-level offenders.

My sense is that the presentation of this bill is very confused between who the intended targets are and who will in fact be the targets when it's applied by the police officers on the street.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

You can ask one last question, Mr. Norlock. You have two minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Chief White, why do you target just the easy low-hanging fruit and not the organized criminals, which you're being accused of? We have people who are accusing you now as a police officer, so I'd like you to respond to that, because that's the accusation, that you're really not interested in going after the organized criminals—all you're interested in is taking on the poor drug-addicted person who is selling drugs to our children. So why don't you pick on the big guys? Could you respond to that?

[Chief Vernon White]

There you go. Thank you very much.

In fact we actually do take a two-pronged approach here. We have a drug section that particularly targets organized crime, particularly targets high-level distribution organizations in Ontario, in Canada, and in the United States. In fact it was very successful last year. Operation Scarecrow, for example, took us down into New York State.

But at the same time, from a quality-of-life perspective, the large number of street crimes being committed in specific pockets of the city caused us to start targeting traffickers who were living off some of the most vulnerable people living on those streets, doing the four, five, six thefts, break-and-enters, or whatever else they could to steal from community members so they could sell the assets, so they could buy a $25 rock of crack cocaine.

It can't be one; it has to be both. And from our perspective, we need to target both at the same time.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you so much.

We're at the end of our time. Thank you to all our witnesses, including those in Vancouver, as well as Washington, D.C.

We'll adjourn the meeting.