Madam Speaker, organized crime is a major problem in Quebec and Canada, but particularly in the Quebec City area, where my riding of Charlesbourg is located.
As my hon. colleague from the Reform Party mentioned earlier, there was another murder in my riding last week, in a family restaurant. As families were enjoying a quiet evening meal at the restaurant, they witnessed the cold-blooded murder of a man. This dramatic incident is but one example of the kind of violence biker gangs are responsible for in Quebec. It has reached such proportions that recently—two weeks ago I think—the Lloyds Insurance Company of London announced its intention to no longer insure bars in the Quebec City area. This shows how bad the situation is.
The party that has been asking this government to do something about biker gangs since 1995 is our party, the Bloc Quebecois. After the Bloc Quebecois put a great deal of pressure on the government in Ottawa on behalf of Quebeckers, the government started to act in April 1996, but that was not enough, because too many unfortunate incidents have occurred in the past year.
As I referred to a while ago, there is a very heavy concentration of biker gangs in Quebec. There are, of course, the Hell's Angels, but there is also the Rock Machine, which is apparently about to join forces with another biker gang, an international one this time, called the Bandidos.
It is very clear that the government does not have the desire to put all of the law enforcement resources necessary in place to deal with this problem.
In his speech, the minister claims that he has restored security in the border communities where the goods were crossing. As recently as this fall we witnessed the aborted raid at Kahnawake, where there were sizeable stocks of arms brought in from outside, and it was not the Quebec Minister of Public Security who was responsible for aborting the raid, either. This one very recent example can make us doubt the desire of this government to fight organized crime effectively.
One can also ask oneself the following question: Is the antigang legislation the government across the floor wants to see passed sufficient? Is it stringent enough? According to the Bloc Quebecois, even the definition of a criminal organization, referred to a moment ago by my hon. colleague from the Reform Party, still does not go far enough. Vagueness remains, and this could lead to challenges of the constitutional validity of this legislation.
The act also authorizes the seizure of goods that have been used by criminal organizations. Although it is a nice initiative, a look at the concrete facts points to some shortcomings. Consider the cases where the police moves in to make a seizure. Two weeks ago there was a raid at the Hell's Angels hideout in Saint-Nicolas, near Quebec City. When the police arrived at the bunker, they took it over, but there was almost nothing left.
Is there not a way to ensure that the police can act more quickly so that these seizure operations can really be effective against organized crime? This is a legitimate question.
Concerning Bill C-95, the Minister of Justice at the time said that the object was to hit the master minds behind these criminal organizations. But at that time, the bill was not at all that clear, and I remember a discussion between my colleague for Berthier—Montcalm and the minister. My colleague had difficulty finding in the bill what was meant by a master mind, and these people were not mentioned anywhere in the bill. So this is another weakness in the bill.
The minister also wants to give the police more flexibility to carry out investigations on money laundering. This is an excellent initiative, but we have to go further than that. We should also consider parole because, beyond these gang problems, there is for instance the Lagana case, where the lawyer succeeded in getting him paroled after he had served one sixth of the sentence. The minister will have to tighten up the law generally and also the Parole Act so as to prevent this type of criminal from going on parole so soon.
In this regard, I will be introducing in a few minutes a bill to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act so as to make it clearer. Its purpose will be to amend section 103 of that act so that appointments to the National Parole Board will stop being subject to the political patronage they are exposed to nowadays and will instead be made under supervision by the people, and through the people under the supervision of the elected members of this House. In this way, impartial people will be appointed and they will have the necessary background to deal with this type of problem.
In conclusion, many other efforts have to be made in the fight against organized crime. The government must act and it must act quickly to reassure the public, which is frightened. They have reasons to be frightened when violence reaches people in a family restaurant in a quiet and prosperous suburb. The government must come to realize that its laws and its commitment to deal with this issue are not clear.
One reality that the government does not seem to recognize is the fact that biker gangs, to take only this example of organized criminal groups, are growing, and that every day there are more and more people joining these gangs.
The Bloc Quebecois doubts that the government is willing to commit the necessary resources to the fight against organized crime, and we expect initiatives that are much more concrete than those that the minister is proposing today.