Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm intrigued by this comparison between section 83 and section 467. Just for review, section 83 in its breadth consumes over 30 pages of our Criminal Code, and Section 467, in its breadth on organized crime, consumes four pages.
There's no doubt in my mind, having come back from our sojourn in the west, that it is time we addressed the issue of organized crime, and that maybe we are facing, to use Mr. Mainella's analogy, a Normandy situation, and a beachfront needs to be made. Knowing a lot of Dieppe veterans in the past, I can say that didn't work, and commando raids don't work, so maybe it is time for a Normandy invasion.
I want to take some issue, Professor Roach, not only with the fact that your words in discussing terrorism launched a fire alarm in the building, but also because I tend to disagree with many of your points. One is that judicial review hasn't been tried by groups that have been so named and therefore it's illusory. Those groups have the right to come forward and say they're not terrorist groups, but they haven't. I'm sorry, but to me that means that maybe they think they would be declared terrorist groups. In the case that individual people have been misnamed, that is wonderful. That is what it is there for, and that has worked once.
That the judicial review is lugubrious and slow--the Federal Court is an itinerant court, with judges falling out of the sky to hear anything on quick notice, particularly environmental obstruction cases. The judicial review by its nature means relatively swift, 60 to 90 days. So I don't buy that argument. Of course you're permitted rebuttal in this democratic society, Professor Roach, but it seems to me those are frivolous arguments, and the fragmentation through delay wouldn't work.
My bigger issue is that we can't take the words. It seems to me that reasonable people would read Justice McMahon's wording and say that HAMC, Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, is a criminal organization, and that should be able to apply throughout Canada. We understand it's not an in rem thing, and we can't take judicial notice of it. But if enough judges, pile upon pile, say that HAMC is a criminal organization, what would be wrong with Parliament using its prerogative through a Governor in Council regulation and declaring them such? How could that be a bad thing?
My final comment or question is for the police officers, and particularly the line that the HAMC continue to learn from every court proceeding and adapt their methods of operating. If section 83--that's ATA talk--is used, it talks about entities associated with the declared group, and it gives very wide power, I think, for the cabinet to decide who is and who is not a group, and therefore later on in interpreting the list of groups the judge can interpret who is associated with those groups. What's the problem with that?