Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting us today.
I have Staff Sergeant Pierre Gauthier with me, as well as the NCOIC of the drug section for the Ottawa Police Service.
From our police service perspective there are a number of areas where we believe the legislation is important, particularly when it comes to attacking criminal organizations that are involved in the distribution of drugs. Secondly, it's important in any case where it's school-related or it gives a police service the opportunity to try to defend those we see as most vulnerable: young people at school grounds. Again, it's an opportunity for us to attack criminal organizations or drug traffickers who decide to participate in drug distribution at that level.
Lastly, where weapons are involved, particularly when we're dealing with the number of gang activities across this country today--particularly in the city, where, as you heard last week, we have criminal organizations and street gangs that are involved both in drug distribution and in gun and gang activity--we believe it would help the community understand the seriousness of it and at the same time allow the police to take on the challenge of organized crime in this country. We believe that anything less would be foolhardy on our part.
We do believe that minimum sentences in relation to the charges or the offences identified in this legislation would assist us while at the same time focusing on community safety and making more serious the offences that are committed, for example, near schools or where criminal organizations use young people to commit their crimes.
We're very pleased to see the consideration of drug treatment court and drug treatment as alternatives to immediate incarceration. We do have some challenges in this city, in this province, in this country, around capacity. I can tell you, to get into drug treatment in Ottawa right now, on average it's about seven months from notification. We believe there needs to be some serious federal acceptance of responsibility in increasing funding when it comes to drug treatment. At the same time, we do accept that it's not something that will be solved overnight.
In this city we have focused our efforts on high-level drug trafficking from criminal organizations--and have been successful, to a degree--as well as on low-level trafficking where street crime has been influenced as a result of low-level trafficking. We have a street crime unit that has been very successful in attacking some parts of the city where we have seen a dramatic increase in street crime as a result of the purchase and utilization of crack cocaine, for example, particularly in the market, just blocks from here.
Again, we want to identify the need to focus on distribution where the criminal organizations are involved, but we need as well to focus on drug treatment and drug court options. We believe this legislation would allow us at least a beginning, a start in attacking some of those areas.
Thank you.