Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for sharing your expertise with us here this morning.
I want to ask you a number of questions about how aboriginal gangs form and how they're different from other types of gangs. I think, Ms. Fox, you mentioned that they're different from biker gangs. I take it you meant that whereas a biker gang is more like a business, these are different in nature.
As you've heard from other members of the committee, when we were in Toronto last Thursday we heard from individuals who were trying to prevent individuals, young people, from joining the ethnic street gangs that we have in many of our urban areas. I was wondering if there's a difference between aboriginal street gangs and why they form and these other ethnic street gangs.
We were told that some individuals are looking for a group of people to share identity with, that they sometimes lack positive role models in their personal lives, and that there's a general lack of economic opportunity for many of these young individuals. We were told that these are some of the reasons why they join the gangs.
A number of organizations in urban areas try to work with young people in terms of at-risk youth programs. I was wondering if you could comment on what types of programs you think would be effective and that we should be offering to try to stem the flow of young people into these gangs in the first place.
Additionally, I wonder if you comment on the role that drugs play.
Mr. Foss, you mentioned that many of the members of these gangs are users themselves. We heard from a number of witnesses last week in Toronto who suggested that one way of taking organized crime out of gangs is to decriminalize and legalize some, if not all, of the drugs they may be using.
I wonder if you could comment on what you think the impact of that sort of a solution would be on some of these young people. Perhaps you could also comment on where the drugs come from and what we ought to be doing to stem the supply of the drugs.
I know that these are a lot of different questions to focus on, but I'd be interested in hearing from Ms. Fox, Mr. Foss, and Mr. Louis specifically on those issues.