Justice Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So we should perhaps have harsher sentences for anyone who is doing that?

[Chief Clive Weighill]

Absolutely, because without it we're in pandemonium.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you agree with that, Inspector Poole?

[Insp Jim Poole]

Yes, I do.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

All right.

We talked about guns earlier but didn't hear from the Canada Border Services Agency. I'd like to hear their views on what more resources they need to help stem the flow of these illegal handguns and other weapons coming across the border.

[Kimberly Fussey]

I can get the information for you, but unfortunately my program deals specifically with IRPA and not with the Customs Act.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay, but obviously that is something CBSA is involved in.

Inspector Bazin, do you have a view on that?

[Insp Robert Bazin]

Yes. We work very closely with CBSA for obviously the smuggling of weapons across the border. Some of them come through the ports, but the vast majority come between the ports. So within our—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Unprotected border crossings, that's where they're coming across?

[Insp Robert Bazin]

Some of them do come through manned border crossings, smuggled into vehicles and various other methods, but the vast majority come in between the ports, where you smuggle them across an unmanned part of the border. We have many more miles of unmanned than we do of manned borders.

So we work very closely with CBSA, who is also a member of our integrated border enforcement teams, as well as the Americans, to try to find out the intelligence, to work with the legitimate gun stores on the U.S. side to find out who's buying large quantities of guns. They generally have straw purchasers, and there are methods by which to do that—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's one way, but it's very hard to stop them right at the border, whereas—

[Insp Robert Bazin]

Exactly. And sometimes, you know, if they feel that they're really going to be questioned at a port of entry, then they'll go a mile off the port of entry and try to sneak across in the middle of the night.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Can I ask you to describe for us just briefly how these weapons are distributed and sold? How do they get from the importers into the hands of the street gangs?

[Insp Robert Bazin]

A lot of the smuggling is coordinated by the gangs themselves. So they make the contact on the U.S. side with the movement of contraband. And the general supplier of contraband...they have a source on the American side who they coordinate the shipment with. They make the exchange at the border, or in fact the Canadian gang member will sneak across the border, go into the U.S., make the exchange, and actually bring the weapons and the guns, and that's where they end up in the cities. They bring them into the cities and usually distribute them from there. But there are various ways to do it and there are various methods they use—perhaps too long to get into here—but it's not terribly difficult given the vastness of our border with the U.S.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay. Thanks.

I have just one quick question for Mr. Bonnefoy. What percentage of the offenders in your institution are members of gangs before they come to your institution versus what percentage joined while they were in your institution?

[Robert Bonnefoy]

I don't have that information.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

We've been told by some other people earlier today that a lot of young people go into the institutions and that's where they actually join some of these gangs, especially in the case of aboriginal gangs.

[Robert Bonnefoy]

And we focus a lot of our energy on preventing recruitment. It's more difficult, when someone comes in who is already a member of a criminal organization, to disaffiliate them. If they come in and we can prevent them from joining a gang...which does happen; there is recruitment in the penitentiaries. I just don't have the actual number for you.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

All right. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Ms. Mendes, five minutes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all for being here.

I'm going on a totally different track, if I may. I'm very fortunate to have chosen Canada as my country. It wasn't my country of birth, and I absolutely love this country.

Now, starting with that, in the past 20 years or so, have criminal numbers, criminal incidents, increased, decreased, stabilized, changed in any way in a manner that really threatens our security, our youth's security? Is that really what is at risk here? I'm referring especially to organized crime.

[Insp Jim Poole]

I think with regard to the increase in firearms offences, now it's the norm versus the exception. When we review our nightly incidents from the day before at our morning meeting, when we review major incidents and arrests, the number of weapons offences has dramatically increased. Whether some are shooting at people or at houses, the likelihood of an innocent bystander being hit has really increased. So it's a threat to the general population of the cities.

[Chief Clive Weighill]

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. We see youth carrying machetes on our public streets. We see youth carrying knives. We see knives in the schools. You know, crime has come down in the last 15 years or so, overall across Canada. Property crime has come down, and the numbers of violent crime have come down. But the amount of violence used in the crime that is still left is much more severe than it ever was, much more severe.

[Insp John Ferguson]

I think it may be more a question of the impact. Crime is having a greater impact today than, possibly, in years past.

With respect to organized crime groups, the challenge we have is that they've become more sophisticated. They've insulated themselves. They're using the law and technologies to make it more difficult for us to investigate them and to go after them. That's the challenge we have with organized crime groups.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

One thing mentioned to us yesterday concerned the whole process of disclosure; precisely, that it provides criminal organizations with information they otherwise wouldn't have.

Is that something you yourselves have faced?