Mr. Speaker, early yesterday morning RCMP responded to a report of shots fired in the Fraser Heights area of Surrey. A residence and parked vehicles had been struck by over 60 bullets.
No motive has yet been established and there is absolutely no suggestion that anything untoward was occurring at the residence, whose occupants are cooperating fully with the police. This was a drive-by shooting in a quiet neighbourhood, but the area does harbour a number of grow operations.
It occurred only hours before I questioned the Solicitor General at the justice committee about his government's failure to address the marijuana grow op issue in Canada. It was little more than a month after the same Solicitor General visited Surrey to learn at first hand from the RCMP about the problem. It was about six months after the Solicitor General received and sat on an RCMP report informing him of the grow op epidemic, in their words.
Lax laws, lenient courts and under-resourced enforcement are the reasons why criminals come from all over the world to set up marijuana grow ops in Canada. This is about public safety. The citizens of Surrey want action now.