Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.
I am pleased to participate in the supply day motion of the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition of Canada.
Last year I asked to ride along with Vancouver police to experience first hand the illicit drug infested area of east Vancouver. I did this for a few hours one night before I could not take it any more and returned home. What I saw was an appalling and shockingly dreadful experience of life.
Many young and old people were injecting drugs in back alleys which were littered with needles and condoms. Dirty hotels and dormitories looked extremely unhygienic and were full of drug addicts sitting or lying on the floor.
So-called refugees around 20 years of age, mostly from Honduras, were selling cocaine and heroin. Almost all of them had about $200 in their wallets in assorted denominations, were carrying refugee ID cards and had business cards for the same lawyer. They wore jewellery and designer clothing and had stereo Walkmans.
When they spotted the police in civilian clothes and cars approaching them they blew whistles to warn their colleagues. As soon as the police stopped them they stuck out their tongues, spread their arms and hands, and made themselves ready for inspection.
Some attempted to swallow drugs they had wrapped in plastic. Many tried to hop on the skytrain to escape and sell drugs elsewhere. Their suppliers were hiding in nearby restaurants. In the area where illicit drugs are sold there are pawn shops to make it convenient for drug addicts to sell stolen items such as TVs, stereos, computers, et cetera. Restaurants, back alleys and other facilities in the area are like one stop shopping centres for drug addicts.
The government and the community have completely neglected the issue. What I saw in Vancouver was the rule of the jungle. All three levels of government have talked and studied too much. They are all talk and no action. They have no effective plans. The future for those people looks bleak, and that is a pity. It is certainly not the Canada I dreamed of before immigrating here.
I also visited the port of Vancouver where there is no effective control of drug imports. They are not even minimized, let alone stopped. Less than 3% of cargo containers arriving at the port are examined. Of those that are, many are found to contain drugs. The government disbanded the Vancouver port police. It should have strengthened and supported them by co-ordinating their activities with the coast guard and other law enforcement agencies. Instead it abandoned them.
It is no wonder the lower mainland of B.C. has the highest needle exchange rate in North America. Our law enforcement agencies are stripped of resources to fight crime and illicit drugs. Our laws have no teeth. The government has no vision, no plans, no priorities and no focus. Illicit drugs are even available in government controlled prisons where criminals are supposed to be punished and not entertained.
I have visited schools in my riding. The students tell me they can purchase drugs faster than they can have pizza delivered. In a 1999 survey, 53% of students said cannabis was easily or very easily available. That is almost double the 28% recorded in 1981. Some 36% of students in 1999 said someone had tried in the last year to sell them drugs, while 32% said they had observed someone selling drugs in school.
It is no wonder the Marijuana Party received 3.5% of the votes in last night's B.C. election. About 100,000 people in B.C. supported the Marijuana Party. That tells us a great deal. Marijuana growing operations can be found on every third block or so. These grow-ops are a huge money making operation. Marijuana is traded pound for pound with heroin south of the border.
Motorcycle gangs are expanding their operations. Other organized criminals are thriving. They have excellent houses, cars, boats, planes, cutting edge technology, equipment and appliances. The government gives them passports. Instead of spending time in prison they go on cruises and exotic vacations, things the ordinary taxpaying citizen finds it very difficult to do.
Proceeds of crime are not confiscated from drug dealers and organized criminals because we have no effective laws with teeth. While money is the motivation, the lack of tough penalties is no deterrent.
I had an opportunity to visit a couple of harm reduction clinics in Surrey that are professionally managed by Dr. Anna-Marie Maguire. I was disappointed to see a large number of patients there but was encouraged to hear their success stories. One patient told me he had been on drugs 15 years and had never been home to see his family. He said he was completely changed after receiving treatment and had met with his daughter for the first time in 15 years. He had tears of regret and joy in his eyes when he told me the story.
Another individual had been on drugs for many years and had stolen car stereos and women's purses to finance an expensive drug habit. He also repented and was a completely changed individual.
To my surprise, the city of Surrey was reluctant to renew the clinics' operating licences. I noticed no support for the clinics from the community or from any level of government. I understand that there may be problems. However there must be a solution as well. The seriousness of the issue should not be ignored.
A head start program would help the early detection of children susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse and other anti-social behaviour patterns. A head start program could offer more effective treatment. Although a motion was unanimously passed in the House I have seen no action from the Liberal government. It lacks vision and political will.
More resources should be allocated to detect drugs which cause impaired driving. A breathalyzer may show no alcohol but a driver may still be under the influence of illicit drugs.
Illicit drugs are not only unregulated; they are in many cases lethal. The increased purity of heroin and other drugs is causing deaths. In Vancouver there are on average 147 deaths per year due to overdoses of illicit drugs.
In 1998 Canada's long term drug strategy was to reduce the harm associated with alcohol and other drugs to individuals, families and communities. The strategy accepts that eradication of the problem is impossible and that we must simply live with the problem.
Strategies always talk of damage control, harm reduction, cures, intervention, needle exchanges, et cetera, but not preventive measures. The solution is to stop illicit drugs from being manufactured and imported into Canada. We need to protect our borders. We need regular inspections at our borders and ports. The coast guard, surveillance planes, port authorities, local police forces and others must work together and with the tools and resources they need.
A national drug strategy in partnership with federal, provincial and municipal governments must work at the community level to reduce drug use.
We need to infiltrate gangs and criminal organizations. The RCMP and other law enforcement agencies have trouble getting permission to use wiretaps and other surveillance efforts. It takes about 1,500 pages of petition to get such permission. Even then the monitoring period is limited to 90 days. The whole process must be restarted after the 90 days expires. The investigation suffers in the meantime.
During this process codes need to be broken, languages on surveillance tapes have to be translated, and other such work needs to be done to complete the investigations. Our law enforcement agencies need the high tech tools. However the criminals have money and state of the art technology while our police struggle to maintain 20 year old technology.
Money is the motivation for criminal activities. Their money and assets should be confiscated and turned over to our law enforcement agencies to be used to fight crime. We need tougher laws and we need to have them enforced. We need the punishment to fit the crime.
This would establish tough deterrent measures and not encourage crime with the lax laws and lax sentences that the Liberals allow. What we have here is a Liberal government that lacks a will and a vision to address these things. It has been the cause of the problem for so many years.
Now is the time to set up a committee to look into all these things so that something effective can be done. I appreciate speaking to the motion and I look forward to all members of the House supporting the Canadian Alliance motion to set up a committee on the non-medical use of drugs.