Thank you very much. I'm going to speak in English, but I can answer questions in both languages.
I should say right at the start that except for Jean-Pierre, the rest of us are just ink-stained journalists. I don't have a badge. I don't have a law degree. All I do is I ask questions. But we do have a passport that gives us I think a unique perspective, myself and my other journalistic colleagues. We have had the opportunity to not only of course speak to police officers, but because we don't carry a badge, police officers will often tell us things that they won't tell you or won't tell their own bosses. Because I don't belong to a particular organization, RCMP people will tell me things, Vancouver police will tell me things, Montreal police will tell me things. In other words, they'll be more frank with us than they will often be among themselves. Plus of course I've had the opportunity to interview Hells Angels' members, leaders, informants, people under witness protection, victims. The advantage we have is our passport gives us an ability to go places you can't go, and even the police can't go. I hope maybe we can contribute to some of your understanding.
What I actually wanted to focus on, and I'll leave some of the specifics of organized crime to some of my colleagues, is the whole importance of image and perception. It may sound like a strange focus, but while the human cost of crime is very real if you look at the bodies we had here in Montreal, the continuing gang violence in Vancouver, the attacks in Winnipeg, much of the fight against organized crime I think is about image and perception. Organized crime is strong because of its ability to strike terror, and the response has to be strong in the same way, by striking back an image of resilience.
Let me deal with three quick issues about that.
First of all, there's our image abroad. Canada has a very strong image as a kind of a peaceful, law and order country, except when it comes to organized crime. In the last few weeks I've been interviewed by BBC, Australian TV, American papers; they're catching on to the fact that Canada is in many ways, even though our homicide or murder rate is quite low, often seen internationally as a big centre of organized crime, notably because of the Hells Angels, but because of other gangs as well.
Then look at the public's mind. What's the public's perception of organized crime? I think one of the problems, and to some degree the media is responsible for this, is that usually organized crime is ignored in the headlines. What concerns the public quite rightly is when a girl gets kidnapped or when there's a bank robbery. In other words, you don't see headlines in the paper that say a thousand kilos of coke arrived safely today in the ports of Montreal, which goes on every day. Organized crime, because it is under the radar, most of the time--except right now in Montreal's election--doesn't make it into the newspapers, so the public is not largely concerned about organized crime. They don't see the connection between organized crime and the daily attacks, the drug dealers, the B and Es, the break-and-enters. That's a problem, the public's perception of organized crime.
Finally, I want to briefly mention, on this issue of the importance of image, how the bad guys look at it. I have talked to enough Hells Angels leaders and other criminals, and obviously for them money and the terror they strike is important, but you'd be surprised how important the question of power and image also is. It is crucial. The “death head” patch the Hells Angels wear was recognized in Canada's courts of law in the first successful anti-gang prosecution we had in Ontario. It has been recognized as a weapon. The patch itself, the symbol, the image, was seen as enough of a weapon so that when two Hells Angels, with a third person, went to try to extort a man, they were convicted on Canada's anti-gang legislation with Madam Michelle Fuerst. She described the jacket they were wearing as the weapon of intimidation, because they didn't have anything. They didn't have a gun. It was the image of the Hells Angels that was the weapon. That's what's so important to understand about organized crime: it's the ability to strike terror just because of an image.
The second point, then, is based on that to some degree: how do we fight organized crime? One of the things I want to address is the importance of understanding the adjective, that it's “organized”. Everybody understands that it's crime, but it's important to understand that it's “organized crime”. Police too frequently are not. I was talking to Joe Comartin just before, and I'm sure you are aware of some of the sad costs of some of the police infighting across the country. We have stories--Michel and others can tell you stories--of huge fighting between the SQ, the Montreal police, and the RCMP. In Vancouver many cases were completely lost because of struggles and competition between the police.
After several years of covering this, I've come to the conclusion that there are not a thousand and one ways to take on organized crime, there's only one. There's only one way, and that's infiltration and intelligence. Occasionally you'll get a Hells Angels guy who forgets his gun in his carry-on briefcase in Vancouver, but short of that, the only successful prosecutions we've had were because of infiltration and intelligence. Infiltration can be agents, spies, wiretaps....
You have to gather the intelligence, and you can't do that unless you have organized strike forces, unless you have police who are specially trained. It can't just be homicide cops. They don't send homicide cops to deal with domestic abuse, you don't send rape counselling police to deal with bank robberies, and you can't send regular cops to deal with organized crime. You need specialized squads.
Where we have specialized squads, as we have here in Montreal, or units like the BEU--the biker enforcement unit in Ontario--or some of the groups that they had in Vancouver, we have successes, but when they dismantle those groups or when they don't bring everybody together, we don't get successful prosecutions.
You absolutely need specialized strike forces, police that are trained, but you also need specialized prosecutors. Quebec led the example, and they sent their prosecutors across the country, because what was happening in the rest of the country was that although they had finally set up specialized squads that were doing good investigations, they were doing things like dumping 80 boxes of their investigation onto some hapless prosecutor who had no training in organized crime, as one of the stories in The Globe and Mail pointed out. Only when they set up specialized bureaus of prosecutors who understood organized crime could they take it on. You need specialized strike squads of police and of prosecutors.
The last thing I want to talk about is the long but sometimes weak arm of the law. First, let's look at the organized crime law, what we call the gang law. There have been quite a few defeats recently in court, as I'm sure you're aware, especially in British Columbia. Operation Pandora, which was a very good investigation, so far has not scored major successes in courts.
It's clear that the anti-gang law is complicated and cumbersome. I don't want to go into details about some possible reforms. We could talk about that later, although one of the things the police are looking at is the whole idea of simpler targets. In other words, we'll see what happens with Quebec. As you know, they've charged over 100 Hells Angels. That might be a little unmanageable. Is there a way to go after simpler targets?
The point I want to raise briefly here about the gang law goes back to my point about image. Sure, it's important to convict these guys and send them to jail if they're guilty, but the very act of prosecuting them and forcing them to go trial, even if the trials don't often work, goes to their image. It's the image that's important.
First of all, it disrupts them terribly. In the two or three years that the Hells Angels were recently facing immense prosecution in Vancouver, their activity declined. Unfortunately it led to a rise in street gangs, but the Hells Angels were paralyzed by that. In Quebec we're seeing the same thing.
The point I'm trying to make is, sure, you want trials to be successful, but the very act of prosecuting them and going after them is important. It goes back to the image. It's telling organized crime, “You are not impregnable. We can take you down.” It's very important to keep that point about image. The one thing the Hells Angels in particular hate more than anything else is being prosecuted under Canada's anti-gang law.
Second, let's be creative and think outside the box. We all know about the anti-gang trials, but you've got to look at some creative ways some jurisdictions are going. Saskatchewan has an anti-patch law, and so do many other jurisdictions. In other words, you can't wear your gang colours in a restaurant. It's actually being appealed by the gangs, but it's a great way of using municipal or provincial laws to try to curb the activities of gangs.
Manitoba and other jurisdictions have anti-bunker laws, preventing you from turning your clubhouse into a fortress. Vancouver has a great program going on. There's a private trespass law in Canada, so the bar owners and restaurants sign up ahead of time with police, saying they agree they don't want known members of organized crime in their restaurants, and sometimes they list the names of the gangs or the names of individuals. Then if the police walk in and see a known Hells Angels member or other gang member, they can say “You have to leave”, and the guy has to leave because it's a private restaurant and there's a private trespass law.
In fact one Quebec gang member was arrested because he was sitting there at the bar, as he does in Montreal. The cop came over and said “You have to leave”, and he said, “What are you talking about?” He said “We have a private trespass law”. The Hells Angels guy did not believe him because it doesn't exist in Montreal, and he was arrested.
It does exist in Vancouver, so the HA can't party in downtown Vancouver. It's a simple law, not changing anything that exists, and it's working well. So think outside the box.
Finally, rely on the courage of ordinary people. I've had the honour to meet some pretty brave people.
We all know of Danny Desrochers, the 11-year-old boy who was killed. His mom, who sadly passed away, contributed to the passing of the anti-gang laws by being so active and outspoken. I met a Quebec City bus driver who literally had the neighbours from hell. He woke up one day and found a Hells Angels bunker had been set up right next to him in Saint-Nicolas, across the street from Quebec City. He organized a circle of neighbours and protested against the bunker, and they eventually got it closed down.
Those are my basic conclusions. Fighting organized crime is like fighting bad weeds: they're going to keep coming back. You don't pave over the garden; you simply keep weeding and weeding the garden. It's important to send a message to communities that we don't want them in our neighbourhoods, and here are different ways we can fight.
Thank you.
