Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and take part in this debate on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party.
I will begin by commending the Bloc for the impetus to bring this debate before the House. It is certainly very useful and instructional in terms of the commentary that we will be hearing throughout the day. I commend the Bloc's foresight on the use of this opposition day.
With the issues of options and priorities that we have when it comes to the decision that an opposition party must make with respect to the debate that will take place, I find it very interesting that the Bloc decided to choose this matter. It shows that it obviously recognizes the importance and the priority this issue has in Canada.
Yet, at the same time, the Prime Minister has chosen to provoke the Bloc and prefers a self-edifying folly into the minefield of separation. Canadians are very fatigued with the neverending debate. Obviously he is looking for a pedestal or a way to rehabilitate his abysmal performance in 1995 when he disappeared from the debate and left it to the then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party to try and carry his baggage.
We all recognize that organized crime is a threat to all that we hold dear: peace, order and good government. The Bloc Quebecois has chosen to make this a priority and it deserves praise for that. It is something that is very close to home within the province of Quebec because of the competing biker gangs that are playing out their dangerous warfare on the streets of Montreal. We also know that Lennoxville is home to the largest organized crime unit in the country. There is a chapter of the Hell's Angels that operates from Lennoxville. It is very timely that this motion comes before the House.
Before I get into the substance of my remarks, I also want to remind the House about the supply day motion itself and the process that brings us here today, which will culminate next week when the government will be asked for the authority to spend over $4 billion belonging to the people of Canada.
Supplementary estimates are referred to various committees for examination. To date, the government has not produced a single minister at committee to answer questions or offer attempts to speak to the reasoning for this request for supply. It is truly an offence to democracy. It offends people's sensibilities. I suggest that the smallest municipality in the country would not treat its taxpayers and citizens in such a cavalier fashion. This is $4 billion without a single word of explanation.
I will cite only one example of what is at stake when it comes to these types of estimates. The National Capital Commission is asking for $40 million for projects on Sparks Street, only one block away from the Chamber. The National Capital Commission meets in secret. The only public scrutiny of this agency would take place at a committee and it probably will not happen.
Another request is for $35 million for the firearms control program that is presently in chaos and making a black hole out of public money. The minister and officials have been unable to defend in any way their stewardship of this program.
The government has shut down the scrutiny process when it comes to estimates. The Liberals take the position that it is inconvenient for ministers to attend before committees. The ministers have a duty, I suggest, to attend and to give the public and members of the House an accounting.
It is not for the ministers to tell the committees of the House when they can appear. It is a duty they have to parliament to be here and answer questions about supply. Too many people in Canada, and in fact too many people in the House, have forgotten that cabinet ministers in particular are servants of the Canadian people.
I raise this point in the proceedings to give the government fair warning that it is completely dissatisfying the people of the country and the members of the House with its arrogant treatment of committees. To ask the House to approve public spending without an opportunity to question the government is highly unacceptable and inappropriate to everyone in this place. It is time for the committees to do their work. It is time for us as opposition members to hold the government to a greater level of account.
I want to turn now specifically to the motion before the House. It is appropriate to begin my remarks by congratulating the men and women who work on the frontlines of law enforcement. Whether it be police officers, peace officers, customs agents or crown prosecutors, those working at all levels of law enforcement need our support. They need our increased attention and they need resources very quickly. Increasing the law enforcement budget is the only true way to address the problems pointed out very clearly in the Bloc motion.
In essence, what is occurring at this time in this area is that law enforcement agents are simply being asked to do more with less. They have been ravished by government cutbacks and like a tired animal they are asking for assistance instead of having more heaped on to their backs. Unfortunately government cutbacks and slashes over the years have led Canadians to question the commitment and the priority level the government places on this sector of our country.
This ultimately leads to vulnerability to organized crime and increased levels of organized criminal activity. I am talking of Mafia type associations, criminal gangs and street gangs. Whether they be of any origin or national descent they are popping up at a shocking rate in communities around the country.
They are having a field day in the area of white collar high tech crime such as fraud, telemarketing scams, money laundering, drug importation and exportation, particularly on the west coast. They are dealing in pornography and contraband materials such as firearms, trafficking, loan sharking, and influence peddling, another area where organized crime is very active.
It is coming from international and multicultural groups within the country in the form of eastern European gangs specializing in counterfeiting, biker gangs that are mainly Caucasian, guns and explosives being smuggled in, Russian, Italian and Asian gangs, extortion, aboriginal gangs, pornography and firearms trafficking. All these groups are actively involved in criminal activity. However, the highest threat is drug importation and drug trafficking, the most lucrative area of organized criminal activity.
Intimidation of witnesses has been touched upon by a number of previous speakers. Intimidation of juries, officials and law enforcement agents very much undercuts and undermines the pinnings and the very cornerstones of our criminal justice system. If those working within the system are feeling hard done by and put upon by members of the organized community, they will not be able to do their jobs effectively. Insidious efforts to permeate and pervert our justice system are happening as we speak. Many of these threats to the justice system have come as a direct result of negligent underfunding on the part of the current government.
We know that many coming from outside the country are from very tumultuous and sometimes wartorn backgrounds. When they come to Canada they are overjoyed, if they are involved in criminal activity, at the lax approach that is sometimes taken and the blind eye that is sometimes turned to organized crime.
These criminals are professionals. They come to Canada oftentimes with quite a knowledgeable background of how to circumvent the law. There is no code of conduct or unwritten rules of conduct among the criminal element in this country. It is not like the old Hollywood movies and the gangsters who sometimes had a code of thieves. That does not happen.
Gangs are growing at an astonishing rate. I spoke recently with an undercover officer from the city of Montreal. He gave me some statistics and spoke of personal accounts of how gangs were cropping up in different parts of the city of Montreal and around the country at an astonishing rate.
In 1999 a CSIS annual report stated that Asian based criminal organizations would continue to pose challenges for police and agencies across the country because of their abilities to function as tightly knit units. The agencies we have in place to fight organized crime are aware of the syndicates that are cropping up. Yet they are increasingly frustrated because they do not have the resources to react.
The same report stated that the Hell's Angels had almost doubled in size in the province of Alberta in the last two years since coming to that province. In 1997 there were 26 members. In 1999 there are 46 members. As I have said, we have seen the numbers of chapters in and around the city of Montreal double in the last number of years.
To combat this new form of organized crime, police officers and CSIS agents need to be high tech. They need to be on at least a level playing field and working together with a common goal to try to stop the expansion of organized crime. In order to protect the public they need at least the equivalent tools and at least the equivalent resources.
Instead we hear that the RCMP is unable to investigate fraud cases in the province of British Columbia because of lack of resources. We know that in British Columbia close to 400 RCMP officers are needed to fill vacancies as we speak. The closing of government RCMP training academies in the last year even temporarily was a severe blow to the police. The elimination of ports police increased drug and human smuggling in our coastal communities. The Quebec Mounties have been ordered to stop recruiting. There are paid informants to help investigations. Real problems are happening out there.
In particular, organized crime involving drug importation is on the rise because the force is simply running out of money. It is not able to get people involved because it cannot pay them. Sadly one of the most effective tools the police have to infiltrate organized crime is to pay informants or the informants are not willing to inform. Similarly they are not getting the same level of protection under the Canadian witness protection program because of a lack of funding. Many investigators are unable to use wiretaps because the force cannot afford the computer time and the cost of transcribing tapes.
The solicitor general refuses to take responsibility for his department's actions when it falls down and documents go missing, but we know from the same internal reports put out by CSIS and the RCMP that it is not co-operating. It is not exercising the discretion to share information for a common goal because it is competing for resources. This should be very alarming. This rivalry is actually costing investigators and potentially putting lives at risk.
Groups like the Asian triads involved in the smuggling of individuals, of human bodies into the country, is on the rise due to the poor situation at our borders. There is a suggestion that many criminal gangs in Canada have links to the Chinese military. I was about to say Canadian military, and there is some suggestion of that too.
We know of the sidewinder investigation that took place and exposed a far-reaching, insidious plot to set up more organized crime in the country. Yet, because of a lack of resources among other problems, the sidewinder investigation was put aside. We will be hearing more about this issue. I suggest there will be shockwaves throughout our entire political and justice systems when it comes to the sidewinder investigation being brought to the forefront.
Gangs in Quebec have been growing marijuana in farmers' fields, intimidating farmers to remain silent, intimidating families and intimidating members of parliament. I congratulate the member who was threatened for his courage in continuing to fight for activity that will lead to the breaking of these types of crime syndicates.
It is not the fault of our law enforcement agents. The hardworking men and women involved in this battle continue to put their lives on the line. They continue to risk their own safety even in the face of this lack of government support. They need greater funding. They need greater support. They need greater surveillance. They need equipment, helicopters, patrol boats to monitor and actively take part in the effort to stem the tide of criminal activity.
Some may argue that it is too costly. The Liberals and the solicitor general himself can say that it is too costly. However, we know that they do not have enough money on occasion to fix patrol cars. They do not have enough money in some instances to provide adequate firearms for our officers. A shocking situation is developing.
Internationally we are increasingly vulnerable because of the erosion of policing agencies. Other countries have recognized this point. CIA and FBI reports have said that the United States of America is increasingly vulnerable because of the breakdown of law enforcement agencies in Canada. This is something that we should all be ashamed of, quite frankly.
I need not go into detail about the morale that exists within law enforcement agencies. That is at the point where it is bottoming out as well to match the funding. In April 1999 the chairman of the U.S. judicial subcommittee, Republican Lamar Smith, said that Canada was being used as a launch pad for middle eastern terrorists, biker gangs and crime families that use Canada's borders to sneak persons into that country.
Earlier this year the government put a little money back into fighting organized crime. In government terms it was $15 million per year for the RCMP to target organized crime at three international airports: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. As was previously mentioned Halifax was left out of the equation. It also put $19.5 million per year into Canada's anti-smuggling initiative.
I commend the government for recognizing the need to put in the money, but oftentimes we see that it puts in money over a long period of time. It makes a great deal out of the announcement, just like we saw in the throne speech and the red book before it. There were all kinds of promises about commitment but in the short term we need to stop the bleeding. We need to put in the money now.
This recognition by government is only the first step. We know that law enforcement officers need that money now. The DNA databank and the reopening of the RCMP training facility are great moves. We commend the government for them.
The solicitor general spoke in his remarks about changes in legislation to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and changes to the court system which would enable police officers to get witnesses before the court and provide them with greater protection to encourage them to testify.
There is one glaring omission. I can sum it up in a very simple phrase. We cannot keep people in prison longer and we cannot get them to court with greater ability unless police officers are able to catch them in the crime, bring them forward and get them into the system. That simply is not happening.
The Canadian police information system was recently upgraded by the solicitor general. With great pomp and ceremony he said that $150 million were being put into the upgrade. We know, and RCMP officers themselves have stated it, that $280 million were needed for the upgrade to be effective. Less than half the money required was put in by the solicitor general.
In the face of making these announcements about government spending, it is very apparent it has been spread far too thin over far too long a period. The solicitor general always says that fighting crimes is their number one priority. We on this side of the House are questioning that statement because it appears a lot of number one priorities are fighting for attention.
We hear a plethora of platitudes from the solicitor general denouncing criminal activity and talking about changes in organized crime strategy, but all we are seeing are increased levels of bureaucracy and ossification from the solicitor general. I truly question his grasp of his own department.
We see that there is not a co-ordinated effort. Our agencies are not working together at the level that they should be because they are not getting leadership from the top. They are not receiving leadership from this department. They are not receiving leadership from various agents at the top like the director of CSIS who completely abdicated his responsibility with respect to lost documents. Recently a CSIS agent was actually brought to task, but the CSIS director was completely untouched and, it appears, was complicit in the act itself and in the cover-up.
Although the solicitor general has made promises to modernize the department and do everything he can to increase the funding, it is not happening quickly enough.
The member spoke of the anti-gang bill and the CCRA review. Again these are pale in comparison to the priority when it comes to the need to inject real resources, real quick. Opposition parties, and I would suggest, provincial governments recognize this, and it is high time the government recognized it.
I want to commend the Bloc Quebecois as well. I want to commend the member for Charlesbourg who sponsored a private member's bill to get rid of thousand dollar bills, which are very popular among the drug trade. As well, I again reference the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot who stood up to real threats from drug producers in his part of the country. I commend the member for his courage.
There are various elements of the criminal justice system that have to continue to work together, such as information sharing. Earlier in questions and comments I spoke about the privatization scheme which may be coming forward. I hope that is not the case. The Liberals continue to pat themselves on the back for creating initiatives, but this self-aggrandizing and plagiarising of policy is the trademark of the Liberal government. We have witnessed the GST, free trade and others. It was the Conservative Party which actually kick-started many of the initiatives dealing with organized crime.
In 1989 and again in 1993 a former Progressive Conservative government passed four major pieces of legislation to assist our law enforcement community. In 1989 the Conservatives passed proceeds of crime legislation, which was a first in Canadian criminal law history. They passed legislation to help officers trace the flow of money diverted from criminal activities. The former government passed the Proceeds of Crime Act in 1991.
The Progressive Conservative Party also brought in legislation which dealt with the seizing of property. A final initiative that I would reference is that of the organized crime bill, which had far-reaching implications and modified our Customs Act.
There is no doubt that this government has a high standard to live up to. The solicitor general needs to recognize that more can be done by his department. I hope he will do so.
I again cry out for the solicitor general to bring more tools, better and adequate legislation to address many of the problems. I thank the Bloc Quebecois and commend it for recognizing the need to discuss this matter now, ahead of an onerous, divisive debate which the Prime Minister would have had had he been able to provoke the Bloc in the way he tried.