Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Windsor for making reference in his comments to the terrible time that we have had in the province of Manitoba, which I suppose leads toward the argument for the need of this bill. Until now and until the time we get this bill passed, it does concern me that organized crime is laughing at us. It really is.
In my industry of construction, we have now learned that to a huge extent the bikers, especially, have infiltrated it as a perfect way to launder drug money. These guys have warehouses of $20 bills that they cannot use because they are hot dollars. They are called “labour pimps” because they become labour brokers. They contract out 20 or 30 illegal immigrants to legitimate contractors as cheap labour. They pay them $20 an hour with drug money, half the going rate, and then get reimbursed by the contractor with real dollars. It is ubiquitous across British Columbia. It is undermining the integrity of the entire tendering and contracting process in British Columbia because if contractors do not use the biker “labour pimps”, they will not win a contract because their labour costs will be legitimate while their labour costs are paid with drug money.
The biker trial, the “show trial”, in Manitoba collapsed under its own weight. Could the hon. member assure us that this bill that we have agreed to fast track and support will ameliorate this embarrassment where these bikers are thumbing their noses at Canadians knowing full well that we do not have the capacity to bring justice through our court system as it currently stands?