I want to relate a story that I heard recently. Before I joined the justice committee, I happened to be on a plane flying from Ottawa to Toronto. I was sitting beside a lady who was coming back from Pangnirtung, on Baffin Island, where she works as a nurse. She is of aboriginal or first nations heritage.
She was telling me about the drug situation in Pangnirtung, the small isolated community of 1,500 people that she serves. She said the drugs there were supplied by the Hells Angels. She started off by telling me that there were three full patch members of the Hells Angels in that community. I was really surprised and asked if they were local people. She said no, they're actually from Montreal, and they run some kind of café in Pangnirtung and supply the drugs directly to that community. They get people addicted early to all kinds of things.
At some point, the Hells Angels must have sat down in their head office in Montreal with a map of Canada and decided on where they could find some new customers. They sent these three guys there, who must stick out like sore thumbs in Pangnirtung.
I know that none of you are police officers, though we have some police officers coming here later today. Surely there must be something we can do to stop the flow of drugs into a place like Pangnirtung, where there are only three flights a week, I think. The drugs must come in via their suitcases.
Is that typical of aboriginal communities that you know of? What should we be able to do when we see these guys arriving in a community with a suitcase full of street drugs? I realize that it's a tough question--