Madam Speaker, I was particularly interested in the member's comments in reference to the wonderful job she claims the government and especially the department of revenue is doing on checking the smuggling problem in this country.
I have to be in Vancouver a lot. I have talked to many police officers and many agencies along the border of British Columbia and they have a major problem. In fact, the problem is so great when it comes to drugs that it is now filtering into the rest of the country.
The government's answer to the problem of drugs in B.C. is to disband one of the more dedicated police departments in the region, the ports police. The ports police have made it clear that there is a serious problem with organized crime and that 40 bikers and associates have been engaged in criminal activity on the waterfronts. Most of that activity is of course in drugs. It was the ports police who identified that group of people.
There have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3 million in drug seizures over the last several months and the problem grows. The problem is so great that many people are dying from drug overdoses. In 1989 there were 67 people who died from heroin and cocaine overdoses. In 1990 it was 82, in 1991 it was 124, in 1992 it was 154, in 1993 it was 358, in 1994 it was 311 people. That is a total of 1,100 people in a very short period of time.
The Liberal government's answer to that problem is to cut back on enforcement at the borders and at the ports. I would like to inform the government because it does not seem to want to listen to the police agencies in this country, and so we will say it here in the House. Crime results from drug abuse and abusers. Heroin addicts and cocaine addicts commit more crime than anyone else because that is how they feed their habit.
Now the problem is coming through the port of Vancouver and it is growing to such a degree that heroin addicts and cocaine addicts are being developed right inside our prisons because of the free access to that particular drug. It is coming through the port of Vancouver. As a matter of fact, the port of Vancouver is the central point of distribution for heroin in all of North America.
What does the Liberal government say? It says: "Cut back on enforcement, let us not do anymore enforcement in that region, the matter is not a problem". It is a major social problem in the province of B.C. What does the government do again? It cuts back on the numbers, it keeps decreasing them until what?
I would like to know what the Liberal member who spoke prior to me thinks of the CLEU report that clearly indicates what hacking away at enforcement agencies on our waterfront will do to the country. What is it going to do as far as organized crime is concerned? What is the hon. member's answer to the problem of enforcement in criminal activity, organized crime, if you are going to pull the port's police?