The hon. Liberal member across the way says that it takes a Bloc Quebecois member; even he has understood.
There is also another point on which I do not think we have gone far enough. We will vote in favour of Bill C-24, but I believe we could go a little further. We are going to monitor how it will be applied, we will watch how the police forces and the government are going to apply this law. In due course we will review the situation, since we consider it one of our priorities, both before it is passed and after as well. The matter of reversal of burden of proof is the aspect relating to the proceeds of crime that we believe needs to be taken further. It is still too easy to get around this.
There are many cases I could cite. For instance, when someone declares an income of $13,000 for the previous year and is driving around in a Jaguar, frequenting the most chic Montreal restaurants almost nightly, and lives in a $350,000 house, I think there is something fishy going on. The law needs to be strengthened in this area.
The government should also amend certain federal laws relating to taxation. As Canada has a police force specializing in organized crime, there should be special investigators to enter organized crime, investigate and build files. We do not have this at the moment, and millions of dollars are slipping through our fingers. We will study that closely and come back to it if the government drags its feet once again.
We will not wait for the Liberal members from Quebec. We know they never do anything. We will take the initiative and continue to defend the matter as we have done from the start.
There is also the question of financing. I know the member for Provencher, a member of the Canadian Alliance, mentioned this in his remarks earlier. He is right, especially since I put the question to the minister. I asked her, “Of the $200 million that you say you will make available for the implementation of C-24, how many millions of dollars will go to Quebec, because the provinces will apply it on a daily basis? The provinces will be going after organized crime. How many millions of dollars will be coming to Quebec?”
Do members know what the answer was? It is perfectly splendid “Zero”. The $200 million is for the federal government, for the machinery. for adjustments, for training, for application purposes, not for those working on location. And yet we know that a lot of money is needed there.
We know because we carried out operation Printemps 2001 in Quebec. We conducted the biggest operation against organized crime that Canada has seen. I no longer know how many gang leaders and members in good standing were arrested, and how many warrants were issued. I think there were about 40 in approximately 77 municipalities. So it was quite a large-scale operation.
Operation springtime 2001 alone cost the Quebec treasury around $15 million, and that does not include all the future court costs. If close to 50% of all those accused end up behind bars, several prisons would have to be adapted, because they could not all be incarcerated immediately.
In addition, we saw what it cost in terms of adapting court houses, conducting trials, and so on. The costs were enormous. The federal contribution needs to be rethought, because no funding has been planned for Quebec or the other provinces with respect to enforcement of this legislation.
This is very important. We know that enforcement is what will make the difference. Even if we have the best laws in all the world, if we are unable to enforce them, if we lack the staff or law enforcement officers, where will it leave us? In the wonderful Canadian system in which we live, it is the federal government which makes certain laws and the provinces which enforce them.
It seems to me that there is something wrong. The federal government is the lawmaker and it has money coming out of its ears, but it decides to make cuts and to look after its own interests. Fine. But we have to see about the implementation of the act as such, which is very important.
Right now, what the minister is telling us about funding is not reassuring. We will have to check and to monitor this very closely to ensure that Quebec, among others, gets the necessary funds. This will not be the first issue over which we fight. Indeed, the Bloc Quebecois has fought a number of battles to ensure that the federal government gives us the money that belongs to us, the money owed to the province under certain programs and following Ottawa's withdrawal from certain programs, including in the area of justice. We fought; we went and got money for Quebec, and we will continue to do so.
We will not wait for Liberal members from Quebec, because they never say anything in the House, they are too afraid to get any money. But not us Bloc Quebecois members. We will continue to protect Quebec's interests and to go and get the taxes that we paid.
I will conclude by saying that for us the most important issue that is still unresolved is that of making it a crime to merely be a member of a criminal gang. This is not in the bill, but I still believe in such a clause and the government is making a mistake by not taking the Bloc Quebecois up on its proposal.
We said so in 1997, when the Minister of Justice brought in amendments to the criminal code. We told her—or rather him, since the federal Minister of Justice was a man at that time—that it was a mistake. But he did not heed us. He had indeed made a mistake. Today we still feel that not making mere membership a crime is again an error on the government's part.
There is the whole matter of the Canadian constitution. Is it or is it not constitutional to make mere membership in a gang an offence? There is agreement on the definition of a gang as being a group of individuals who join together to commit crime and to live off the proceeds of crime. Such a definition naturally excludes such groups as the Knights of Columbus, the Daughters of Isabelle, the Optimist clubs, the Club Richelieu and so on. Does this respect the Canadian constitution or not? I believe that it does. I believe we have everything we need in the Canadian constitution to create legislation in this area that respects jurisdictions, that respects the Canadian constitution.
That was my opinion before, continues to be today, and likely will be tomorrow as well. For the worst case scenario, that it does not respect the Canadian constitution, we have the notwithstanding clause in section 33 and it can be used in such a case. It is not true that the constitution is there to protect gangs. It does not do so in Bill C-24.
We will be voting in favour of Bill C-24 because it offers additional tools. It may not be all we wanted in such a system, but in large part it reflects what we were calling for. We are going to vote in favour of this bill. But it will have to be monitored very closely and we will not hesitate in the least to revisit the matter. We will not hesitate to invoke the notwithstanding clause if need be. In any case, there are reference procedures. We could have checked the legality or illegality of a bill that used the definition of organized crime as we understand it.
The government opposite knows about that, since it has already used the reference procedure. The Liberals were a little short on guts politically. They did not go that far. We will follow this. We will check it and closely follow the laws daily application. We will no doubt be back if certain points are not well applied, and the criminals still get away with it.
We know that criminal groups are well informed in legal terms. They are sometimes said to be better equipped legally than the crown prosecutors. They are obviously going to examine this bill and find its weak spots, try to get around it.
We will follow the law's application. We will work, as we always have, with the police and the justice system and, once again, try to bring the issue of organized crime before this House. We will try to convince the minister to go further in the procedures we raised with Bill C-24.
Probably, one day or other, the government opposite will tell us we were right, as we were right in 1997 to complain about the bill it tabled. One day or other, I am sure, the government will say it will have to go further, because the bill does not provide what Canada and Quebec need to fight organized crime.
Once again, we will be there for the people of Quebec. We will rise, unlike the Liberal members from Quebec, who say nothing in this House. From this side of the House, we will defend the interests of Quebec, because we were elected to do that.