Mr. Speaker, I understand there will be only one other speaker after me in this debate, barring any last minute changes. I am saying this for the benefit of our security people, those who work in the cafeteria and our pages, who just started working today. Surely they will find it was a rather hard day's work. I want to assure them that it is unusual for the House to sit until 12.30 a.m. on a Monday night.
I did not want to miss tonight's debate even though today's legislative menu was rather substantial. In 1996, as the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, I was the first member to introduce an anti-gang bill. The government used 80% of my bill in its own legislation.
I mention this because in 1997 we were all convinced that we were doing the right thing. It was not a partisan debate. The Canadian Alliance, the Progressive Conservative Party, the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois and the government acted quickly to pass that bill. We did it in two days, which is rather exceptional.
There was a climate of terror at that time. In 1995, in my riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, a car bombing had claimed the life of an 11-year old boy, Daniel Desrochers. At the same time, biker gangs were trying out a new strategy based on intimidation of the people within our justice system. Some people had been shot to death in our prisons. More importantly, for the first time in our history, biker gangs were using explosives on a large scale.
That is why Bill C-95 contained nine very important provisions. The first one—I will list them rapidly—was to create a “criminal organization offence”, which we included in the criminal code, whereby profiting from a crime or committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization was a new offence punishable by a 14 year sentence. Possession of an explosive substance was also liable to imprisonment for 14 years. There was an obligation for the solicitor general to report to the House once a year.
There was another extremely important provision which I will have the opportunity to come back to: the possibility of obtaining from a judge wiretapping warrants for more than three months, from three months to one year, in fact. This provision was welcomed by the judiciary community as it hampered investigations to have a warrant for one or two months and then to have to go to court to ask for an extension. At the time, the legislator was extremely well-advised to allow wiretapping warrants for one year.
There were also more generous provisions concerning searches and, of course, allowing a judge to subpoena individuals where there were reasonable grounds to fear that they would commit a crime, to issue probation orders, and to order them to keep the peace.
Bill C-95 was good legislation. I am convinced that, as parliamentarians, we went as far as we could in view of the information we had.
Bill C-95 contained another feature, that is to not allow a criminal sentenced for gangsterism to be paroled before having served half of his sentence.
What I would like to remind the House tonight is that we must talk about these issues with serenity, of course. We must talk about these issues on the basis of all the information available to us and we must do so in a non partisan manner. We in the Bloc Quebecois are all doing this and I am convinced that our government colleagues are doing the same thing because the lives of our fellow citizens are at stake. And it is more fundamentally the way in which we want to see democracy.
It is not possible for us to be members of parliament while outside, in communities, there are people who get away with bearing the colours of the Hell's Angels, the Rock Machine or any another criminal biker gang, and these people can make terror reign in communities. It is not possible that, year after year in February, we pass a budget, parliament's budget, and that, parallel to this an underground economy is put in place.
I remind hon. members that the underground economy, the activity of the underworld on the Canadian territory, is estimated at $200 billion.
I want the debate to proceed with serenity as much as I am convinced that we must act quickly. We do not have much time in front of us.
In 1997 when we passed the anti-gang bill we took stock of the state of the underworld at the time and especially the criminalized biker gangs. Everything has changed since then. As parliamentarians, we should know that as long as we do not outlaw criminalized biker gangs, our legislation will have an extremely limited impact.
Why is that? It is because the underworld is very dynamic, well informed, extremely rich and powerful. We should be talking about the way the underworld operates in the year 2000.
Bill C-95, which created a new offence concerning gangs activities, prescribed three things. The organization had to have at least five members. It had to have committed five crimes punishable by five years in prison, under the criminal code, in the last five years. What did the underworld, the Hell's Angels and other criminalized biker gangs do to circumvent this new provision? They made sure those who committed offences associated with gangs by planting bombs, killing people and benefiting from the underground economy did not have a criminal record. People who did not have a criminal record or previous sentences under the terms of section 487.1 could not be brought to court.
As parliamentarians, we should give serious thought to the fact that since 1997 not a single crown attorney in Winnipeg, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or Newfoundland has succeeded in getting a conviction under that provision. And that is not because of a lack of skill, hard work or knowledge of the law.
None of the attorneys was able to lay a charge so there was no trial in Canada and therefore no sentence, since no charges were laid. This is the worst part about the way organized crime operates in the new millennium.
It does not mean we should throw in the towel and capitulate. Fatalism would then be our worse enemy. It means we must seriously consider invoking the notwithstanding clause.
Why should we consider using this clause? Because we have considerably amended the laws over time. We amended the criminal code at least eight times. And they were not minor cosmetic changes or marginal amendments. We substantially amended the criminal code and therefore our criminal system.
We amended the Witness Protection Act to ensure better protection for informants. We know quite well that, in the area of criminal activity it is impossible to complete an investigation without some kind of co-operation, without the help of informants.
We modified the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act to withdraw the $1,000 bill from circulation. If we were to ask police officers or those present in the House how many have a $1,000 bill in their pocket, very few would raise their hand. Casinos, travel agencies and people doing cross-border trade were compelled to report suspicious transactions.
On eight occasions extremely significant amendments were made to the criminal code. Despite all that, organized crime has never been as powerful as it is now. This is why it would be very unwise to refuse to consider invoking the notwithstanding clause.
I want to remind hon. members that the notwithstanding clause is a legitimate one. We are not breaking the law and we are not violating the constitution by using the notwithstanding clause. Under the Constitution Act, 1982, we can restrict some freedoms that are considered fundamental, but not just any one of them.
For instance, we could not restrict the judiciary guarantees provided for in sections 7 to 14 of the act; we could not limit language rights nor mobility rights. But very conveniently it was provided in the Constitution Act, 1982, that under certain extreme circumstances we could limit freedom of association.
This is precisely what this is all about. The Bloc Quebecois, the Fédération prpofessionnelle des journalistes du Québec, as well as other intermediary bodies asked the government to create an offence of association. Thus, membership in a gang such as the Hell's Angels, the Rock Machines or any other criminal group known to the RCMP or CSIS would be forbidden by the legislation. Membership in those gangs, working for them or acting in such a way as to making them richer and benefiting from membership in those gangs would be forbidden.
What is the objective of the legislation? It is not merely gang membership. If members of the Hell's Angels, the Rock Machine, the Bandidos or any of the others joined together to do sports or some other activity, as legislators we would not be concerned.
We know very well that these people are joined together for illegal gains. What must be banned is membership in these biker gangs, linked with illegal gains, and thus with the acquisition of property, and of course the laundering of the proceeds of crime. I do not believe that there is anything excessive in this.
At any rate, the notwithstanding clause needs to be renewed after five years of use. We could very well use the notwithstanding clause. I sincerely believe that the bill must define the gangs currently referred to.
“In particular” could very easily be added, along the lines of section 15 of the 1982 Constitution Act. Some may say “Yes, but if an explicit reference is made in a bill to the Hell's Angels, the Rock Machine, the Dark Circle, or any other biker gang, they are just going to reorganize under another name”. If they did so, but continued the same type of activities, recourse to the phrase “in particular” would enable us to prosecute them.
I believe the question we need to ask ourselves is this: If we do not act now, how far is this going to go? We are familiar with the strategy used by the biker gangs. They began by infiltrating the economy. Then they infiltrated major law firms, followed by major accounting firms. In the last three years they have deliberately set out to intimidate the judiciary.
After that it is very probable that the strategy of intimidation will extend to judges. They could very well go after a judge, a parliamentarian and finally a head of state. If we do not take tough action immediately, we can bet that there will be no limits on their strategy. As we know, these people are driven by the desire for gain.
Once again, I repeat, we must act quickly, with vigilance and diligence. There are enough good jurists and the legal community has enough talent and experience to come up with a bill whose wording is sufficiently precise to allow us to achieve the goals we seek.
The Bloc Quebecois wishes to work together with all the opposition parties. In the past, when we made gains in the struggle against organized crime it was because we worked in a very consensual manner.
I am thinking back to when the bill on the collection of DNA material was passed. It was when young Tara Manning had been brutally murdered and all parties in the House worked together in a very mature manner. That was how gains were made.
In conclusion, I will say that the best thing we can do for the security of our communities, for our senior citizens, for our young people who are listening to us tonight and waiting for us to take concrete action, is to recognize, with all the serenity that must characterize our decision making, that we are now at a point where the only way we will win the war against organized crime is by invoking the exemption clause, which is a legitimate clause, a tool that exists in the constitution of 1982.
After having struck down the leaders of organized crime we will be able, in a few years, to re-examine the situation. I am convinced that we will win the battle against organized crime and once that has been done, it will be much easier for our fellow citizens to reconcile themselves with our democratic institutions and to have confidence in our decision-making process and, hence, in our parliamentary process.