Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me.
My name is André Gélinas, and I am a retired detective sergeant with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal.
During my career, I worked as a patrol officer, trainer, supervisor, investigator, and intelligence officer on street gangs, Italian organized crime and terrorism. I spent four years on secondment at Correctional Service Canada to help parole officers supervise criminals in the community. I also served my country on a nine-month mission in Afghanistan during the war. For the past five years, I have been a police news commentator for various media.
As a general principle, it must be understood that the current system, theoretically and on paper, offers good protection for society, based on the good faith of criminals who must agree to comply with conditions imposed pending trial, following their sentence or during parole.
However, the current system isfar too naive when it assumes that criminals will comply with the various conditions of their release. Unfortunately, we see that a lot of them do not comply. We realize it when a tragedy occurs, particularly when it comes to domestic violence. It is imperative to take action upstream by increasing the severity of release conditions or significantly improving supervision. In so doing, the conditions imposed by courts or by the Parole Board of Canada will be met.
There are a number of crimes or types of criminals for which we must act to protect the public and victims, such as organized crime, domestic violence, procuring, sexual assault, home invasions, illegal arms trafficking, vehicle theft, the production, distribution and sale of drugs, not to mention fraud, both against seniors and anyone else.
In addition, any random and unprovoked violence must be severely repressed, because there is nothing more alarming for the public than to witness random violent attacks on peaceful citizens. The criminal use of firearms must also be punished more severely, whether it involves organized crime or isolated criminals.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention the individuals who work for organizations, criminal or not and who recruit minors to do their dirty work and commit the most heinous crimes.