Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Clive Weighill. I'm the chief of police for the city of Saskatoon.
For those of you not familiar with Saskatoon, it's the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan, with a police service of over 600 sworn and civilian staff. I'm very pleased to provide information to the committee regarding gang and organized crime in the province of Saskatchewan, and in particular in the city of Saskatoon.
Generally, Saskatchewan is not facing many of the organized crime issues that some provinces are encountering, or the larger cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, or Winnipeg. We have chapters of outlaw motorcycle gangs in Regina and Saskatoon, and in recent years, because of the booming economy, we have seen the beginning of gang activity coming to the province from British Columbia and Alberta.
Most of our gang activity, however, is predominantly attributed to local aboriginal street gangs. Gang activity started in the early 1990s, with inmates within the correctional centres who, upon release, remained affiliated.
I would suggest to the committee that the primary reason for enticement to gang life is the marginalization faced by the aboriginal population in our province. A large percentage of the aboriginal population is living in poverty in poor housing, facing racism and the continued fallout from the residential schools and the restrictive Indian Act.
Prior to the formation of street gangs, the inner city sex trade and drug activity was run by family lines to protect their turf. This has now changed dramatically, such that we now have approximately seventeen confirmed street gangs in the province of Saskatchewan, with seven known gangs in the city of Saskatoon alone.
Most of the gang structures are very fluid, with cross-membership on occasion when alliances are beneficial. They have not reached the sophistication of traditional organized crime, but they have a hierarchy with enforcers. Drug trafficking is a prime motivator.
If I may, I'd like to provide the committee an image of a very general, stereotypical lifestyle that entices youth to join the gangs.
A youth wakes up one morning wondering where his brother is; he may have been picked up by the police the night before. The youth goes downstairs for breakfast. He finds no parents home, or possibly he has a single parent with many children to look after. He looks for breakfast and finds little or no food in the house. He begins to get dressed but finds little clothing, or little clothing that's been laundered properly, so he picks the best he can and goes off to school. He looks around for his school books. He may not have done his homework the night before.
On his way to school, his biggest worry is that somebody will stop him and try to steal his lunch money, or maybe just chase him around for the fun of it.
When he arrives at school, he may not be prepared for the day. He may not have studied for the upcoming exam, may not have done his homework, and is probably not doing very well academically. And he doesn't feel as though he really is welcome or fits in.
He leaves the school and meets a few guys who suggest they might want to rob somebody on the street for some beer. He starts to find that violence, drugs, and alcohol provide some excitement and power. He gets enticed by gang members to join their gang, to start running drugs, enforcing debts, intimidating victims and witnesses.
Soon he has a position of power and belonging that the family or the school cannot compete with.
The gangs have become far more structured and violent in nature. In 2006 there were four homicides linked to gang activity; in 2007 three homicides; in 2009 four homicides.
We've also seen a steady increase in the number of home invasions linked to drugs and gang affiliation, as well as assaults and robberies. Most recently, we've experienced innocent people not associated to any criminal activity being stopped on the street and having their faces cut by broken beer bottles by youth attempting to show their bravado in order to be accepted into a gang.
Unfortunately, intimidation is occurring on two fronts: criminal and social. In relation to criminal activity, victims of crime are threatened with harm if they report their crime to the police. Witnesses are threatened not to cooperate with the police. It's not uncommon to witness someone giving testimony in our court, only to have a few gang members sitting in the back of the audience gesture in a shooting motion to their head or a motion that their throats are going to be slashed. It doesn't make one want to cooperate with the police, and quickly one's memory fails. Our investigators spend countless hours reassuring witnesses and protecting them prior to and after their testimony.
On a social side, there are many excellent citizens living in the inner city. When they come forth to provide some social activism to enhance the community, and possibly point out some gang problems, their house are broken into, they may be assaulted or intimidated, and now they're afraid to come forward and promote a healthy community.
Our service works with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, the Saskatoon Tribal Council, the Central Urban Métis Foundation, Saskatchewan justice, social services, health, and education, and community-based organizations to create strategies of prevention, intervention, and enforcement to reduce the level of gang activity and involvement.
I must say, Mr. Chair and committee, that hiring more police is not the solution to this problem. Three strikes and you're out is not going to solve the problem. Longer jail sentences aren't going to solve the problem. Until we can tackle the social problems that are the contributors to crime—poverty, poor housing, racism, addiction, and abuse—gang activity will flourish and gangs will remain a viable option for those who are marginalized. We can lock gang members away, but if, when they are released, they return to the same environment they came from, it's very probable that they will once again re-enter their former lifestyle.
You know, from time to time I go out on patrol with the patrol officers. I take off my rank—I just look like the oldest cop in Saskatoon—and go out on day calls. Not long ago, we were working in the inner city and we had just pulled to the side, writing up some reports. A group of about 17 or 18 little kids came running up to our police car. They were in the range of eight, nine, ten years old. Some young fellow in their neighbourhood had been chasing them around with a BB gun and shooting them.
We looked around at the neighbourhood and I thought to myself, God, who is going to help these little kids? There were 17 or 18 of them there, most of them aboriginal, some non-aboriginal, very shabbily clothed. You could see the houses they were living in, and the torment of the lives they were living. You wonder: how is this ever going to change?
Those are the problems we're facing in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, northern Alberta, and the northern territories. We have a problem with a large marginalized population.
I talk about this time in and time out, Mr. Chair. If we cannot tackle the social problems that are driving this, a million cops aren't going to fix it.
Thank you very much for allowing my comments.