Mr. Henry and Mr. Trudell, I think this is the first time we've heard this outside of Ottawa--in the other communities we've visited so far and had hearings in--that the street gangs, as we've been calling them, aren't organized crime.
Certainly, other communities are seeing them as another level of organized crime, with the traditional, stereotypical Mafia, Cosa Nostra, model historically being the first one in most of our communities in the 20th century, then the bikers in the latter part of the 20th century, and now the street gangs seeming to follow. There are ways of identifying them, or they self-identify. They wear colours in a lot of cases. They certainly appear to take over territories. In some cases these territories may have been controlled in the past by the bikers, although that's not to suggest they're not still being used by the bikers or the old-style gangs and organized crime.
I'm trying to figure out why they're not considered organized crime in the way we've looked at it in the justice committee and in most police forces. I recognize certain small groups wouldn't fit that pattern. But if you think of the Crips or some of the street gangs in Toronto and in Vancouver, they would seem to fit most, if not all, of the criteria of what an organized crime group is.