Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee.
My name is Jocelyn Latulippe and I am the Chief Inspector and Director of Criminal Inquiries with the Sûreté du Québec.
I am also appearing as a representative of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and I am the co-chair of the Organized Crime Committee. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police represents the managers of law enforcement agencies in Canada. Ninety percent of its members are directors, assistant directors and other superior officers in various Canadian police services at both the municipal and federal levels. Our association's mission is to promote efficient enforcement of Canadian and provincial legislation and regulations, for the protection and security of all Canadians.
I would first like to say that the members of our committee who are engaged in combating organized crime support the proposal to create a list of criminal organizations or a mechanism to send a clear message to certain organizations, both national and international, that would like to set up shop in Canada. I am gong to start my presentation with the two main reasons why we support this measure, and conclude with a more general observation about its effects.
First, for police services, the limitation imposed by lengthy, expensive and repetitive court proceedings, in terms of the use of personnel with expertise in combating organized crime, is an issue. Adding organized crime offences to the Criminal Code has been a major step forward in terms of tools for effectively combating organized crime in Canada. This new legislation has also prompted us to intensify our efforts when it comes to criminal investigations, with the aim of eliminating the leaders of major criminal organizations, through a number of projects, since those provisions came into effect. However, the length of investigations has grown, as has the length of trials, but we have met those challenges by going the extra mile, and being more patient, more innovative and more effective.
However, another effect of this has been to reduce our presence on the ground, in terms of specialized personnel, because of the lengthy court proceedings resulting from these high-level cases. The question then was to try to maintain our operational capacity on the ground in spite of the lengthy disclosure and court proceedings. We have been able to improve disclosure times, with innovations arising from the development of new technologies for compiling evidence. That work is still ongoing. However, our efficiency cannot overcome the length of court proceedings, and at present we have very few possibilities open to us, and proceedings are getting even lengthier with the emergence of new defences that drag out and lengthen criminal proceedings.
The proposal being considered today, however, would be a major and important step forward, to avoid having to prove the criminal organization all over again at each trial, for the same organization. It would save us weeks or even months of testimony and preparation to prove aspects that have already been accepted in previous court proceedings, and would therefore be an important avenue to enable us to be even more effective in combating organized crime on the ground.
We have to optimize our time and resources so that we are better able to respond, for example, to the rising phenomena, and I assure you they involve very difficult investigations, of the infiltration of Canada's legal economy by criminal organizations or the rise in the wanton violence committed by some unforeseeable criminal organizations such as street gangs. Experienced personnel are needed, since the criminal organizations have figured out that when police experts are held up in court they will not be working on the ground for many months. The measure being considered today will therefore optimize our efforts.
The second reason for supporting this proposal is to prevent the success and the intimidation engaged in by criminal organizations because they advertise themselves as criminal groups.
We think that there is a second major argument in favour of this kind of amendment. Implementing this measure would mean that the effectiveness of criminal organizations, their ability to intimidate and to control crimes, would be significantly reduced, and people in Canada would feel safer. I would offer the example of the biker gang phenomenon—the Hells Angels, who have been in Canada for some years, and notably since 1977—and also point out that at present the Hells Angels have 34 chapters in Canada, in eight provinces, with 479 members, 366 or 79% of whom have criminal records for activities associated with organized crime activities.
Biker gangs, like some other criminal groups, have long understood that their trademark enabled them to control crime for their own benefit. Is it reasonable for a criminal organization to be able to set itself up in Canada, to be able to advertise itself and promote its violence and reputation for intimidation? Criminal organizations like this know that their trademark can be attacked only by getting at their members, who change as they are promoted and accounts are settled. Our tolerance therefore has an effect on their effectiveness. It feeds their power to intimidate the public as a whole in order to carry on their criminal activities and major takeovers of legal and illegal activities.
Although the law, paragraph 467.11(3)(a) of the Criminal Code, provides that using a symbol that identifies a criminal organization is a factor that can be used to establish participation in the organization's activities, those members keep doing it. Part of the problem, in our view, arises from the fact that the organization is not criminal by definition in the eyes of the law. The legislative message is therefore ambivalent.
We believe that while in 2001 Parliament chose, both for organized crime offences and for terrorist activities, not to criminalize the use of the symbols themselves, or mere membership in a terrorist group or criminal organization, declaring that an organization is criminal would help to discourage the wearing of the organization's symbols in situations that are unrelated to freedom of expression.
We firmly believe that Canada has to send a clear message to criminal organizations that advertise themselves in order to impose control and intimidate: that from now on, there will be an even higher risk because what they do will be evidence against them. There is a difference between engaging in intimidation while flying your colours or the colours of an organization that the law does not regard as criminal in itself and doing it under the emblem of a criminal organization that the law recognizes as criminal. That should bring about a significant change in the pride its members take in advertising themselves, and their power to control.
We would ask this question: how do we respond when members of a criminal organization advertise themselves in spite of all of the statements by the courts holding that their organization is a criminal organization? Most members of the public will say that they get in another line, or change seats, or move to another lane of traffic, when they see people flying these symbols.
So what do we do when they look at us, when they make comments or threats, while they are wearing the colours of a criminal organization? We have to put an end to this situation, so that these organizations will then hesitate before advertising themselves as criminals and using their reputation as a tool to instil fear and to succeed. Their symbols affect Canadians, but they also affect the basic mission of police services in Canada: to ensure that the public feels safe, and ultimately to maintain the quality of life in Canada.
If there were to be such a law, criminal organizations that advertise themselves and intimidate people would find it more difficult to behave like armed criminals right under everyone's noses. It would therefore be more difficult for their members to use their prestige to climb up through the ranks of crime and succeed in controlling the lives of the people around them through their affiliation, which we would be making illegal in Canada.
In conclusion, legislative advances to deal with organized crime have enabled us to get a better idea of the importance of these groups and a better understanding of their tactics and parallel community structures, which threaten the equilibrium of our society, often simply by their public demonstration of membership in criminal groups. We have also realized that our modern society no longer wants to see these groups advertising themselves as violent criminal organizations risk-free.
A mechanism of this nature will make it possible for us to organize our work better in order to limit their powers, but may also make us more effective in striking at the heart of these organizations: their prestige, which they use to impose their control and interfere in the freedoms recognized by the various charters.
Thank you for listening, and I at your disposal for questions.