Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unlike Mr. Froese, I didn't have the luxury of travelling on a motorcycle in Nevada and California over the last five days, but I did spend the weekend in an arena at a hockey tournament. Good morning, I am Inspector Don Perron with the Ontario Provincial

Justice committee  I understand. My apologies. I have submitted a copy of my speaking notes. In our communities, criminal organizations pose a significant threat to the safety and security of our communities. One of the primary motivators of crime is profit. Depriving criminals of wealth acquired

Justice committee  What I said, Honourable Lemay, was that there are three legislative processes we access when we conduct an investigation. In the Criminal Code and the CDSA, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, one is the proceeds of crime. We have to demonstrate that the properties we're try

Justice committee  We utilize those provisions. We have obtained several restraint orders, special search warrants, without giving notice to the accused. We often do that when we take down large projects. The application, supported by the affidavit provided by the investigator, is made by the prose

Justice committee  Regrettably, I don't have the accurate numbers, but I'm comfortable saying that the federally prosecuted matters are greater than the provincially prosecuted matters. That's specifically in Ontario with the marijuana grow houses that we're having difficulty with; we're seizing a

Justice committee  I believe that would be a fair comment, yes.

Justice committee  This would have been for the last five years, meaning 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005.

Justice committee  That is combined. That was all the seizures and forfeitures from the three legislative processes--provincial, federal, and civil.

Justice committee  Yes, that's correct.

Justice committee  You have to recognize that the $155 million is money that we froze and seized. A lot of that money will go back to innocent third-party interests--a lot of it. Some of it would go back to--

Justice committee  Not victimized...some of them were. Some of them participated in activity unknowingly. For example, take a grow house that's worth $500,000 and there's a $250,000 mortgage on the house. We've taken the position that we've taken $500,000 out of that criminal economy. Obviously, yo

Justice committee  Yes. They can make application to the courts.

Justice committee  Yes, when we plan large investigations, when we target organized crime, obviously we go through a process of planning the investigation. Sometimes our lead into starting an investigation may be something that has a lead that we would be consulting with federal prosecutors on. As

Justice committee  I'm not certain of that, but I believe that's what it would take, yes.

Justice committee  Yes, there is a legislative regime that talks about the sharing of forfeited proceeds, and based on the contribution of the various parties or stakeholders or police partners to resolving that forfeiture, they would be assigned a certain percentage. It's outlined in the forfeited