I feel very strongly about a couple of things. I realize this is a legislative committee, and I guess my recommendation to you would be to curb the pure focus on legislation, or at least to take into account what are likely going to be the unanticipated consequences for it.
The notion of decriminalization was not to be a major part of my approach, and one of the people commented that that was a simplistic kind of response. Welll, there are some responses that sound like they're so solid, but to me they are simplistic. Take the money out of organized crime. Isn't that wonderful? The headlines, the public, the politicians—it's very popular.
We did a study of all of the RCMP cases that had a money-laundering component. We did that in 1990. In 1994, we did an update. After all the money-laundering legislation, what are the RCMP cases and what do they tell us? Yes, people laundered in all kinds of ways, but mostly they pissed their money away the same way that you and I do. They bought things. This idea of taking money away from organized crime sounds better than it is because of what we have said before.
The criminal organizations are not necessarily Mafia structures like the five families in New York or whatever. You take some money away, yes, but we're talking about fluid, networking organizations that in my mind need ongoing, persistent, well-funded, and to some extent traditional police work. To look over at the United States and say, “Why is Canada so weak and why do they favour our—” Well, look at the United States. It's something like the third prisonized country in the world. Yes, they put out of business their five Mafia families in New York, Detroit, or wherever, but the country has the wide array of organized crime groups that we have in Canada and more so. They put more people in prison, and they have a higher percentage of crime, even taking into account the population.
I do not think we are weak on crime. I would like us to just try to be really intelligent on crime enforcement.