Thank you to all our witnesses for being here. Several among you were here previously on behalf of the same police forces.
We are looking for solutions to try to eradicate organized crime. This is the aim of our inquiry and why we went to several cities: Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, etc. In Montreal, we heard striking testimony. At one point, a witness talked about the construction industry. At that time already — this was last year — some witnesses mentioned that the construction industry was almost “tied“ to organized crime. One year later, it seems that more and more people are talking about it.
Since you are from Toronto — and I noticed that there is a lot of construction going on — do you experience the same phenomenon? Indeed, it has been said that the tentacles of organized crime reach into any area where money can be made. So it infiltrates construction, or the major projects whether at the municipal, private, federal or other level, in order to launder money. That is their goal. These people are so well organized that they can be labelled organized criminals, in some cases, but still we must be careful not to paint everyone with the same brush.
So, Mr. Martin, since you are with the OPP, I imagine you are working out in the field. In your view, is it possible that, like in Montreal as we were told there, organized crime has a foothold in the construction industry in Toronto? Did you hear anything of that sort?