Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the motion before the House today.
I do want to clarify a couple of things. I find it interesting that the member opposite says that we do not want to go ahead with too little study on this issue. I can assure her that this issue has been studied and studied to death. I have reams of information if she would like to have it on drugs in this country, on trafficking, on organized crime and on the effects of heroin and cocaine on our lives and on our people.
That is what is so disappointing about the House of Commons. We get into this place and someone says that we have to do a study, we have to take our time, we have to look at it and we have too little information. The fact is, we have an abundance of information. It is a matter for all parties in the House to act.
I see it from two different levels. I wish the hon. solicitor general could hear some of these things. He mentioned $50 million to fight organized crime in airports. At the same time, this is the government that disbanded the ports police. Just exactly where does the government think drugs come into Canada on the west coast? They come in through our ports. Since the ports police have been disbanded the situation has become much worse.
In order to fix the problem, the reaction by the government is to say, “We'll throw $50 million into fighting organized crime at airports”. On the other hand, it disbands the ports police. That is not consistent at all.
There is $78 million to fight smuggling. That is nice, but on the lower mainland between Vancouver and Hope there are numerous open trails. One in particular is called the Ho Chi Minh trail which I was on the week before last. It is a smuggling trail. The police know about it. I was with the police when we were on it. I have been on it a number of times. There are a number of trails, beaten down and four feet wide between Canada and the United States on which illegals come across, guns come across, money is laundered across, marijuana goes south and heroin and cocaine come north. Seventy-eight million dollars would not even touch that area because we have a maximum of six RCMP officers, and one is an administrator, working on it. It is just not enough.
The minister talked about proceeds from crime legislation. However, the proceeds from crime are not effective. The solicitor general talked about how effective anti-gang legislation is but has refused to acknowledge, because I have talked to his people and the solicitor general himself, the drug cartels in prison. The commissioner of corrections refused to even acknowledge it, but it exists.
If we look at the national drug strategy that was put out by the PCs in the eighties, not too much was done as a result of that. Then we look at the national drug strategy that was developed last year by the Liberals and compare them, which I have. They are virtually an overlay of one over the other. Nothing has changed in their opinion. The problem is that a great deal has changed.
In one outlet alone in downtown eastside Vancouver last year, 1.5 million needles were issued to over 6,000 addicted people. Yet we are still talking in the House of Commons about a committee, about talking and about researching. No damn wonder it is so frustrating in this place.
Yesterday I asked the solicitor general why he was building a research facility in his riding for $2.5 million to study drugs in prison. He said “You can study it anywhere”. But he missed the point. That $2.5 million building has a life expectancy of 25 to 50 years. Will he study the issue for 25 to 50 years? If he has to study the thing, which has been studied so often, why can it not be done in one of the many government buildings that have been vacated? Chilliwack, British Columbia, has a whole military base right smack dab in the middle of all the prison problems, drugs, cartels and organized crime. He could use the Aldergrove base, which has been closed.
That is what tells me the government is not sincere about the issue. One of its ministers says that he is building a building in his riding to study it, when we know darned well that it is basically patronage. There is more interest in looking after the riding than in solving the drug problem.
The opinion across the country is that not enough is being done. An article in the Ottawa Citizen stated:
Organized crime in Canada is now so pervasive that police have been reduced to putting out isolated fires in a blazing underworld economy.
That is true and the government knows it.
An opposition party raised the issue and said it should go to committee. The government thought that was a good idea. Another government member said that we should study it and that we need dialogue and consensus.
I want leadership, and I want it now, not later. The problem is here. I have dealt with enough people who are addicted to know they have all but given up hope of getting anything from the federal government. Those people who are working with young teenagers who are addicted have all but given up hope of this place doing anything.
A government minister, the solicitor general in particular, said that the government gave $78 million or $50 million to fight organized crime. Is he kidding? That is petty cash in Vancouver. Lots of dealers have $50 million. Lots of them in my community have that much in assets.
I am splitting my time and I note that I have two minutes left.
Members might sense that I am a bit frustrated with the government on this issue. I worked with an organization that is trying to get a rehabilitation centre for young teenage girls who are addicted. I went to the Minister of Health to tell him they need some help. I was put off to a bureaucrat in Vancouver who did absolutely nothing, and yet we have more teenage girls who are addicted in our little community than we can handle.
I dare say that Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam and all of these other places have more than we do in the Fraser Valley, and yet an opposition party has to tell the government to get off its butt, take this issue to committee and do something about it. It is terrible.
All I can say is that I do not believe the government is sincere. If it was sincere something would be done. While I applaud the Bloc for bringing this up, I equally say to the Liberals, shame. There are a lot of people across the country who are depending on 300 members of the House to take some action, to stand together and deal with this issue. It is lack of leadership that is the problem. If the government said “We will go to committee and we will come up with a national drug strategy that will really work at the street level”, I would be the first one applauding it. I have taken the government's national drug strategy, and everywhere from Sydney, Nova Scotia, right through to Vancouver, British Columbia, when people looked at it they said “This is meaningless. This is not helping us here. We are issuing needles. We see drug addicts every day. Take your document and go away”.
I do not have confidence that the government will do anything. I applaud members of the Bloc for bringing it up, but good luck trying to get some help from those folks.