Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 14 - Evidence - October 28, 2010
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, met this day at 10:32 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. We are continuing our study of Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
For our first group of witnesses this morning, we have, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Assistant Commissioner Stephen White, Director General, Financial Crime; Superintendent Eric Slinn, Director, Drug Branch; and, from Public Safety Canada, Yves Leguerrier, Director, Serious and Organized Crime Division. By video conference, from the Halifax Regional Police, we have Superintendent Don Spicer, HRM Public Safety Officer. What a wonderful title.
Thank you all so much. Mr. Leguerrier will go first.
[Translation]
Yves Leguerrier, Director, Serious and Organized Crime Division, Public Safety Canada: Madam Chair, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today about the Government of Canada's efforts to combat the production and distribution of illicit drugs through the Enforcement Action Plan, one of the three priority areas under the National Anti-Drug Strategy.
Public Safety Canada chairs the interdepartmental working group that oversees the Enforcement Action Plan. The working group is made up of departments and agencies whose purpose is to proactively target organized crime involvement in illicit drug production and distribution operations, including marihuana grow operations and clandestine laboratories.
Our partners include the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, Justice Canada, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Health Canada, the Forensic Accounting Management Group (a group of forensic accountants attached to Public Works and Government Services Canada) and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC.
The Enforcement Action Plan has a number of components. We have expanded the RCMP's dedicated anti-drug teams to help locate, investigate and shut down organizations involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs.
We have also provided resources to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to enhance our ability to effectively prosecute those involved in drug trafficking activities.
We have increased the number of Health Canada inspectors and investigators to ensure accurate and timely analysis of suspected illicit drugs seized by law enforcement agencies.
We have also taken action to stem and seize the flow of drug-related proceeds of crime.
Last, we have augmented law enforcement's capacity to inhibit the cross-border movement of precursor chemicals and illicit drugs, as well as improved the ability of Canadian law enforcement agencies to conduct joint investigations with law enforcement partners in the United States.
Bill S-10 represents one more measure to enhance enforcement efforts by ensuring that strong and adequate penalties are in place for serious drug crimes.
While Canada has done much to combat the illicit supply of drugs, we know that work remains to be done. As you may know, in recent years Canada has been identified as a producing and international trafficking country for MDMA, or ecstasy, and methamphetamine, including, unfortunately, in the United Nations World Drug Report.
[English]
To address this problem, the synthetic drug initiative was launched in August 2009 under the auspices of the National Anti-Drug Strategy. Led by the RCMP, and in coordination with other federal departments including, again, Justice Canada, Health Canada, PPSC, Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Canada Border Services Agency, foreign affairs, international trade and Public Safety Canada, this initiative is designed to combat the production and distribution of illegal synthetic drugs in Canada and to reduce the overall influence of organized crime on drug trafficking in this country.
The synthetic drug initiative represents the government's first strategy to focus on a single class of drugs. It targets the illicit synthetic drug industry under the three pillars of enforcement, deterrence and prevention. Activities include detecting and dismantling clandestine laboratories around the country, measures to inhibit the diversion of precursor chemicals from foreign and domestic sources, including collaboration with the chemical industry to encourage the reports of suspicious activities, as well as legislative amendments including the reintroduction of Bill S-10, the subject of our gathering here this morning. To advance the initiative, a synthetic drug working group continues to meet quarterly for the sharing of information and to foster proactive collaboration across departments and agencies.
[Translation]
In closing, I would like to reaffirm that our federal enforcement partners remain committed to working with municipal, provincial/territorial and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies to combat serious drug- related crime which compromises the health and safety of our communities, both in Canada and around the world.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Leguerrier.
[English]
Stephen White, Assistant Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Good morning and thank you for inviting us here today. With me is my colleague Superintendent Eric Slinn, who is the director and officer in charge of the RCMP's drug branch. It is our pleasure to appear before this committee and to have the opportunity to participate in this discussion on Bill S-10 and the National Anti-Drug Strategy.
[Translation]
Please let me start with a brief overview of the current drug situation in Canada.
[English]
Over the course of the past five to ten years, the Canadian drug landscape has changed and become far more complex. Although cannabis continues to be the most commonly used illicit substance in Canada, with domestically produced marijuana seizures surpassing other illicit drugs, synthetic drugs have now become another extremely viable commodity for organized crime as the traditional cocaine drug market also remains strong. Canadian-based organized crime now exploits a diverse drug environment which targets not only domestic consumption but also exportation, importation and contraband transits.
Canada remains one of the primary global source countries for MDMA, ecstasy, and methamphetamine. Organized crime groups continue to produce an abundant supply of MDMA and methamphetamine, far surpassing the demands of domestic consumption. This overabundance of supply or inventory is exported primarily to the United States, but also to Asia and Oceania, hence fuelling Canada's status as a source country for synthetic drugs.
It is clear that organized crime has become far more sophisticated over the past decade. We are seeing unprecedented cooperation between different organized crime groups that transcend traditional boundaries of culture, geography and commodity.
There was a simpler time in decades past when law enforcement dealt primarily in the repression of the drug problem. Law enforcement, in order to meet the needs of the communities that it serves, has needed to evolve at an exponential rate. Drug investigations in today's world are multi-faceted in that they require officers to understand environmental issues, to navigate and handle hazardous materials, to manage international implications in both the legal and policy arenas, to foster partnerships and to adapt to an ever-changing community and its expectations.
The synthetic drug problem in Canada and law enforcement's response is a tangible example of how the issues have become very complex. With the advent of super labs and smaller clandestine labs centred in major urban communities like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Edmonton, it is only a matter of time before environmental issues and risks from the hazardous waste dumped into the ground and the public sewer systems significantly impact our city infrastructures and ultimately affect public health and safety. Organized crime groups have no regard for environmental issues or for health and safety issues; they are very goal oriented and profit driven.
In response to these emerging issues of safety in our communities, a cohesive and encompassing National Anti-Drug Strategy, NADS, was implemented in late 2007, aimed at contributing to safer and healthier communities through coordinated efforts to prevent use, treat dependency and reduce the production and distribution of illicit drugs. The National Anti-Drug Strategy funding has contributed to the RCMP's development and support of the synthetic drug initiative, as well as combating marijuana grow operations. Although the synthetic drug initiative has only been in place for a relatively short period of time, it demonstrates the forward thinking and pragmatic approach of the RCMP in meeting the challenges of drug enforcement in today's global village.
The RCMP developed and implemented its synthetic drug initiative in August 2009 to further address the synthetic drug situation in Canada. It is an initiative based on three pillars: prevention, deterrence and enforcement. This initiative has led to significant inroads toward preventing international and domestic organized crime groups from using Canada as a staging area in the production and distribution of synthetic drugs.
The RCMP has also designated synthetic drugs as a national tactical enforcement priority. This is in light of the fact that the number of investigations in this domain continues to rise and grow in complexity, which conversely requires a highly coordinated response. To this end, resources have been strategically allocated based on intelligence assessments to ensure that those resources are maximized and employed to their fullest potential.
[Translation]
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has brought its Synthetic Drug Initiative abroad and initiated constructive dialogue with like-minded countries who share the same challenges Canada faces with regard to synthetic drugs. We participate in initiatives supported by the G8 and Europol. In the case of the G8 countries, we initiated project MOLE — Monitoring of Laboratory Equipment — which will monitor the importation and sale of laboratory equipment. As for our cooperation with Europol, we are participating in project SYNERGY, which ensures the sharing of information on synthetic drugs between participating countries.
[English]
Prevention and education are important pillars in the RCMP's drug strategy and are not exclusive to its synthetic drug initiative. The RCMP provides prevention awareness messaging to those elements of our communities who are the most vulnerable — primarily our youth — relative to the consumption of drugs and the dangers associated with these types of illegal activities.
As a law enforcement community, we face many challenges which are taking us into unchartered waters. It is only through fruitful collaboration with our Canadian and foreign partners that we can look toward success in our battle with organized crime.
Appropriate legislation is an important tool to the National Anti-Drug Strategy and to the synthetic drug initiative. As in any legislation or regulation, organized crime looks to manipulate and exploit any and all loopholes to its benefit. It is therefore important that new regulations and legislation work toward not only reducing or limiting organized crime's exploitation of the illicit drug industry, but also to hinder and impede their manipulation of new regulations and legislation.
Bill S-10 and its proposition of implementing minimum sentences for certain drug offences is an integral part of deterrence. Those persons who are at the lower end of the organized crime hierarchy that are crucial to the support base of these groups' operations may think twice before making a quick dollar if a prison term is an absolute consequence to their involvement.
It is evident that Canadian stakeholders, in the fight on drugs, are now collaborating and working in concert better than ever. The National Anti-Drug Strategy is working because the RCMP and its partners have embraced it and collaboratively focused their initiatives toward its support. Bill S-10 is another piece of that strategy that will better prepare Canada to reduce the impact of organized crime on our communities.
[Translation]
I would like to thank you once again for this opportunity to speak to you. Now I would be glad to answer any questions you may have.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much indeed. Now we go to Halifax. Welcome, Mr. Spicer.
Don Spicer, Superintendent, Halifax Regional Police: I would like to start by thanking the Senate committee for allowing Halifax Regional Police the opportunity to speak on such an important topic.
Halifax Regional Police concurs with the position of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which advocates for a balanced approach to the issue of substance use and abuse in Canada. We also support any measures that can be taken to provide law enforcement with effective legislation to positively affect our efforts toward drug enforcement.
While crime in Halifax trended downward between 2005 and 2008 and held steady in 2009, we have witnessed an escalation in the level of violence in our community. In fact, in the 2009 Juristat Report, the census metropolitan area of Halifax saw an increase in the overall severity of police-reported violent crime, placing us above the national average.
We have seen an increase in gun violence, including daytime shootings in public places, many of which are committed by rival drug gangs vying for a heightened position. The drug trade is at the root of many of these violent crimes. As such, the underlying offence related to that drug trade must bring with it penalties which reflect the significance of the offence and its negative impact on the fabric of our community.
Parliament and society have limited options left to convey messages to the courts of their concern for such crimes. The current sentencing norms simply do not reflect the public's expectations, and the only way for Parliament to achieve balance is through mandatory minimums. We need to send a message to the offenders that drug trafficking and cultivation are serious offences, while at the same time sending a message to our citizens that the justice system takes these crimes seriously.
Drug-related crimes affect all citizens. Police are witness to citizens in urban environments where the neighbourhood is held hostage by street-level drug dealers who are charged with drug-related offences and administration-of-justice charges, but are immediately released back into the community where they often resume their illegal drug activities. We also see suburban neighbourhoods besieged by sophisticated grow operations. This is to say nothing of the negative spinoff effects drugs have on the community, such as the countless break-and-enters and robberies which occur to support drug habits.
We support these enhanced enforcement efforts, but also recognize that enforcement alone is not the answer. We must also focus on prevention. We must encourage Canadians to stay `drug free' and discourage substance use and abuse. It is our position that a broad social marketing campaign is required to change the culture around drugs. We need to send a strong message that drugs are not only illegal, but are socially unacceptable — much like we have done with impaired driving.
It is disconcerting to police that our young people will say that they would never drink and drive, but readily admit to toking and driving. This is unacceptable. Youth-focused programming that discourages involvement in drugs in the first place is essential to preventing the earlier onset of drug use and the harms of prolonged use across one's lifetime.
While the costs of such programming, as well as a social marketing campaign, may be expensive on the front end, our communities cannot afford for us not to make this investment. It will be money well spent, given the costs the justice and health systems currently have to bear due to drug abuse and addictions, to say nothing of the actual effects of drugs on our communities.
Like the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Halifax Regional Police believes in a range of strategies that reduce the harms associated with drug use and abuse, such as needle exchange programs. However, it is imperative that such programs are viewed as a transition to treatment rather than a solution alone.
Halifax Regional Police is also in support of therapeutic courts, including drug treatment courts. We believe they play an integral role in the overall solution to drug use and addiction. While there are good programs in place, the acute problem is timely access to these programs. For therapeutic courts to be effective, there needs to be adequate capacity-of-treatment options available to those who view treatment as a way out of a life of drugs.
Everything I have spoken of here today falls within the pillars of enforcement, prevention and education, transition to treatment programs, and treatment. By adopting a balanced and multi-faceted approach, Halifax Regional Police believes we together can holistically address the issue of drug use and abuse in Canada.
From a local perspective, we believe Bill S-10 will have a positive effect in aiding Halifax Regional Police to decrease acts of illegal drug activity and the corresponding acts of violence in our community. As such, we view Bill S-10 as an important step in the right direction. Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak here today.
Senator Wallace: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations. Thank you as well for the work you do to protect us and our families. It is a tough battle, but we very much appreciate everything you are doing.
When Minister Nicholson appeared before us, of course he is presenting this bill through the Department of Justice, but it certainly seems that the bill was not prepared in isolation. Rather, it was prepared following a lot of consultation with law enforcement and others, but law enforcement in particular.
I am wondering if you could perhaps give us a bit more background on that, to the extent to which your law enforcement groups were involved in providing input into the preparation of Bill S-10. I will direct that to Mr. White perhaps to start and anyone else can comment.
Mr. White: To start, from a macro-perspective, we are always consulted on all legislation that has an impact on law enforcement. We are offered opportunities for input. We were consulted on Bill S-10 on a progressive basis from the start of the development of the bill. I cannot speak for the extent that other police services were involved, but I am assuming other police services and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police had input into this bill as well. I guess the short answer is, yes, we were involved and consulted throughout the process.
Senator Wallace: One of the key elements of Bill S-10 involves mandatory minimum sentencing. We have heard from a number of witnesses, and yesterday we heard from defence counsel representing the accused and the convicted, and I would say they have problems with mandatory minimum sentencing. My impression was that they feel that mandatory minimum sentencing, or perhaps stiffer sentencing in general, would serve no purpose in curbing the illicit production and trafficking of drugs.
I am wondering what your thoughts on that would be, particularly mandatory minimums. Will they be of benefit to you in doing your jobs? Perhaps we can hear from Halifax, Superintendent Spicer.
Mr. Spicer: Whether or not they are effective as a deterrent is something that is left to the academics to determine through research, but we believe that there would be a certain level of deterrence.
You have to weigh the risks and benefits of any activity you involve yourself in. If there is a greater risk, there is a certain portion of that element that may choose not to take that risk. Perhaps more beneficial is the opportunity for people to be diverted to a drug treatment court or a drug treatment program. This may very well encourage some people who may not have gone that route before to actually take that action and thereby change their lifestyle for the future.
Senator Wallace: Minister Nicholson emphasizes the very important point that steps must be taken to disrupt the drug trade, and he is certainly of the view that Bill S-10 would assist in achieving that purpose. I am wondering if any of you would wish to comment on that. Do you support that suggestion?
Mr. White: Carrying on from the previous question, I do think mandatory minimum sentences have the potential to be a significant contributor to disrupting drug operations, primarily because it does have significant potential as a deterrent. If you look at the proposed mandatory minimums for marijuana and cannabis production, for example, it is a progressive incremental scale, anywhere from six months up to three years as a mandatory minimum.
There is a broad scale of marijuana grow operations across the country. From the large-scale operations, you have a lot of individuals who are employed from the outset in terms of planting a crop, guarding it and harvesting it. Once the mandatory minimum is in place, a lot of those individuals will now see that their involvement does have the consequence of a possible mandatory jail sentence and may deter a number of those people from participating. Even the smaller operations, where you may have younger individuals or smaller groups trying to operate smaller grow-ops, previously where they probably thought the consequences would have been fairly minimum, now they realize a mandatory jail sentence in a number of cases will act as a significant deterrent.
[Translation]
The Chair: I note, senators, that there may be a brief additional delay before the translation reaches Halifax.
Senator Carignan: It is not an hour later —
The Chair: Not to my knowledge. Mr. Spicer, do you hear me and are you receiving the translation when I speak in French?
[English]
Mr. Spicer: I have to apologize as my French is not well enough to converse, and I do not have translation available to me here.
The Chair: You are not getting the translation?
Mr. Spicer: No, I am not.
The Chair: Then we have a further problem. We should be able to provide you with the translation. What I had just said with full confidence in what turns out to have been mistaken understanding, I had just said that you would get the translation but with a little bit of a time lag. We will work on providing that to you.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: My first question is for Mr. White.
In your presentation, you seem to say that this would have a deterrent effect on individuals at the lowest level of organized crime. One of the criticisms that the lawyers' representatives made yesterday was that the bill was aimed at the "gardeners" or the more dependent people, and therefore the smaller criminals. They criticized the bill for aiming at that type of individual.
Am I to understand from your presentation that we have no other choice but to aim at the little guys in order get at the big ones? And do you think the bill will also help get the big ones?
[English]
Mr. White: Yes, I do think that the legislation will have a deterrent effect for the lower levels. As I said in my last response, I think the deterrents, for example, for cannabis production of up to three years for synthetic drug labs as well as up to a maximum of a possible three years, is a significant mandatory sentence and I think it will have a deterrent effect for the lower levels.
For the higher echelons of organized crime, they are in it, as I mentioned, for one primary motive and that is profit.
Will a maximum of three years be a deterrent for upper echelons of organized crime? For some, it may be; I would say for a lot it may not be, just because of the potential for significant profits that they can make. They employ a lot of individuals in their organization to basically put up a lot of firewalls between themselves and all the activity that takes place.
Moving forward, as we said, the mandatory minimum is one tool. We still have to put a lot of effort into other components, for example, seizing and forfeiting the proceeds of crime. That is where there is a significant impact on the upper echelons of organized crime. When you start getting individual tools and putting all these tools together, you start to have a good residual impact on all levels of organized crime groups.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Talking about tools, my question will be for all the speakers. Yesterday, in response to a question from Senator Chaput, one of the representatives responded, and Senator Chaput's question was: If you disagree with mandatory minimum penalties because you think they have no effect, what solution do you propose to reduce trafficking and drug production? The lawyer's answer, and I am going to summarize it, was that we should increase the chances of getting caught and increase the number of police officers in the field.
We now have representatives from various police forces, municipal and the RCMP, and we also have the director of transborder services: do you think you have enough staff in the field to do the work? I do not see you asking for any more police officers. We understand from that that you have enough police officers, but what legal tools do you need more right now?
[English]
Mr. White: It is definitely a combination. I always struggle with the question of whether we have enough resources. We do the work with the resources we have. As I am sure you have heard in other forums, here in Canada we have approximately 900 organized crime groups of varying levels, from significant, complex groups down to street gangs. There is a lot of work to do across the country. Would we ever have enough resources to do all the work? No, I do not think so. That is why it is important for law enforcement, whether it is with our marijuana grow operations or our synthetic drug labs, to prioritize and try to go after the biggest criminal organizations.
As I said earlier, the greatest deterrent, without a doubt, is the risk of being caught. The second next likely deterrent of great benefit is mandatory minimums. Would increased law enforcement resources increase the risk of being caught? It would to some degree. Obviously, that would have to be measured.
In terms of drug organizations, the other greatest deterrence, as I mentioned at the outset, is impacting their financial empires and going after their money laundering operations and the vast wealth they accumulate. From what I have seen, that is as much a deterrent as individuals in the hierarchy of an organization getting arrested, charged and going to prison. They are in this for one reason, and that is for financial profit. If you attack that as well, that is the other significant deterrent.
The Chair: Superintendent Spicer, were you able to hear the translation of Senator Carignan's question?
Mr. Spicer: Yes, I did hear it that time. Thank you.
The Chair: Would you like to talk about the impact of more resources as a deterrent?
Mr. Spicer: I agree with my RCMP counterpart. Whether you need more officers is one of those debates that could go on forever. We would certainly welcome them.
More important than increasing the chance of getting caught is increasing the consequences once you are caught. I mentioned earlier that, oftentimes, when people are caught, particularly for street-level drug dealing that involves violence, they can often be back out into the community in a short period of time. This sends a message to citizens that, if we have stronger sentences, we take this seriously.
Senator Banks: Senator Carignan has focused our attention on what I think is the most important part of this bill, which is that it does not attack organized crime at higher levels, notwithstanding that it has been held out by some as a means of doing so. We would all hope that the big bad guys, the proprietors, would be sent away on sentences for much longer times than are contemplated in the minimum sentencing aspect of this bill. We are talking about people at the lower end, as you have put it, Assistant Commissioner White.
With respect to the resources, I have to say that the then-Commissioner of the RCMP told a previous committee on which I was sitting that he had the resources to actively pursue approximately 30 per cent of the illegal drug criminal activity that he knew about, and no means of making that knowledge any larger than it already is.
The object of crime legislation ought, at the end of the day, to be to reduce crime; would you agree with that? We ought to be trying to reduce crime. The minimum sentences here will be given to people, it was suggested to us yesterday, whose shoes would be filled virtually immediately by someone else, by another mule or another carrier.
With respect to the likelihood of it being a deterrent and the end game of reducing crime, do any of you have any knowledge of a study, a statistic, or an indication of evidence, from any source, anywhere, that would show that longer prison terms result in the reduction of crime?
I ask the question because, again, in another committee, we had ample evidence, convincing evidence in my case, that in fact, statistically, longer, harsher prison sentences increase quite substantially the likelihood of recidivism. I am anxious to know whether there is any evidence, anywhere, that can be adduced to show otherwise.
The Chair: Mr. White, you are in the hot seat.
Mr. White: No, I have not. There have been studies. There is literature on that. I cannot speak to the results.
There are two things I would like to comment on. First, in terms of the lower levels, we talk a lot about large-scale organized crime groups. In communities right across Canada, there are many one- or two-individual smaller organizations that make up those 900 organized crime groups, which are doing things on a smaller scale. Much of it is in terms of marijuana production for sure. In the current environment, there are many individuals who look at marijuana production, for example, and think that if they do get caught, the consequences will be minimal. Therefore, putting it out there that, if they do get caught, there will be a mandatory period of jail, I am confident to say in a number of cases, those individuals may be persuaded to refrain from going into that activity.
In terms of the higher echelons of organized crime, I would think that in most cases, if they do get arrested, charged and convicted, that their sentence would be far above what is outlined in the minimum mandatory. Dealing with the higher echelons is being dealt with in the current sentencing guidelines.
With the minimum mandatories, we have a tool that can apply to a smaller scope of individuals other than just higher echelons of organized crimes. At the same time, three years as a minimum mandatory for some levels of mid- level organized crime groups may be sufficient. I cannot say definitively, without doing studies, to what extent they would be a deterrence but I am saying confidently that, in some cases, they would be.
The Chair: Colleagues, we are limited in time. We have 34 minutes left with these witnesses and I have six names on the list. I will ask everyone to govern themselves accordingly.
Senator Runciman: Following Senator Banks' line of questioning, I suggest that this is another tool in the tool kit, which I think you indicated in one of your submissions, that will help to combat this significant problem.
I want to compliment Superintendent Spicer. I appreciated all the submissions, but Superintendent Spicer referenced that drug-related crimes affect all citizens. I think Senator Lang was trying to emphasize that yesterday with the defence bar. I think this is a message that must be clearly heard.
I am interested in some of the things you mentioned here with respect to Canada as one of the primary global source countries for ecstasy and meth. Could you speak briefly as to why that is the case? Is it because of the laws the country currently has? Are there other factors that make Canada such an attractive place to produce those kinds of drugs?
Inspector Eric Slinn, Director, Drug Branch, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Perhaps I can address that.
It likely has a lot to do with the organized crime within the country. Whenever they see an opportunity for profit, they will take advantage of that. Some of it may be the availability of precursor chemicals to make those; some may be linked to the level of punishment or the cost for organized crime to produce those chemicals. It could be a multitude of reasons.
In relation to methamphetamine and MDMA, in the last couple of years they have been producing more than what the domestic market demands here. They are seeing an opportunity worldwide to increase their profits. That is why Canada has surfaced to be one of the primary producers of synthetic drugs. They are expanding in that regard.
Senator Runciman: I suspect the level of punishment is the key factor here in terms of the experience that we have seen in this country with the courts dealing with these serious issues.
Is there a profile of the kinds of folks involved in this kind of illicit operation?
Mr. Slinn: In terms of marijuana, we see some cultural groups that tend to gravitate toward marijuana production. That is not to say it is them exclusively, although they have taken a foothold there.
With synthetic drugs, any organized crime group that sees the opportunity for profit will see themselves engaged there. I do not see it as any one particular cultural group or anything like that.
Senator Runciman: Do we have a profile or an understanding — and I am sure this happens within the policing community, maybe you do not want to speak publicly about it — about factors regarding the way we handle deportation, for example, in this country? It is a foot-dragging process in terms of moving some bad guys who are not citizens of this country out.
Going back to the legislation here, you know some of the aggravating factors with respect to the legislation that will trigger mandatory minimums. Are the aggravating factors adequate or are there other factors that you would like to see incorporated into the legislation that are not there currently?
Mr. Slinn: I think they are adequate. From the RCMP's perspective, it really is public safety. It goes beyond growing the marijuana in the house or in the clandestine lab. It is the threat to the neighbours on both sides, kids across the street and kids playing on the street. When we are dealing with synthetic drugs, we are dealing with volatile chemicals and the danger is extreme. The same is true for marijuana grow operations. We are concerned about children inside these grow operations or clandestine labs. We need to emphasize the danger to public safety.
Senator Runciman: The defence bar suggested yesterday that the bill will interfere with the Crown's ability to take advantage of offenders who wish to cooperate with the police. I am not sure how they reached that conclusion, but could you speak to that? Do you see that as a concern?
Mr. White: We have to define what "cooperation" would be. Is it cooperating to work with the police? Is it cooperating to reach agreement on a plea bargain, for example?
Senator Runciman: In working with the police, they were suggesting that they would be obligated to go through with the mandatory minimums and end up in a jail where lives could be at risk. That is the sort of thing they were talking about.
Mr. White: Without getting into the details of how we deal with human sources or individuals who work and cooperate with the police, obviously this does not take away from the dialogue relationship between the police and the prosecutor. As we do our investigations in today's environment, especially in large-scale investigations, for the most part we are in full communication with the prosecutor before charges are laid. We will have the opportunity to discuss those types of scenarios. If we see an opportunity where we would like to have an individual try to cooperate with us, I think we still have room for that discretion with the police working together with the prosecutor.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: We can see from your presentation that it is not just trade that is globalizing, but crime as well. It is disturbing to see that Canada has become a champion producer of drugs, both chemical and marijuana. And a champion producer is no doubt a champion exporter.
What percentage of those drugs do you think is exported mainly to the United States?
[English]
Mr. Slinn: The U.S. receives quite a bit of synthetic drugs, but they are not an exclusive area of the world. We are seeing it in Australia and in Japan, where there are large seizures of MDMA. There seems to be a strong demand for that product there. Essentially, those areas are where we are seeing MDMA from Canada shipped. Those are the two areas.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Mr. Leguerrier, when a country that produces illegal drugs like Canada, with relatively little deterrent legislation, associates with a country like the United States, which has much more deterrent legislation, what impact does importing have on crime when we have very soft legislation, whereas our neighbour has more coercive legislation?
Mr. Leguerrier: The idea is to ensure there is a balance. We ensure that our laws are appropriate. The example we have, and this is one, is that we are also working with the industry, for example. We have to set guidelines so the industry does not take advantage of opportunities or so the industry is not unknowingly taken advantage of to establish those laboratories.
We have to work with everyone; cooperation is important, both with the Americans, if the problem is with the Americans, and with the industry here. For enforcement, we have lab specialists who ensure that we nevertheless have control. Can we cover everything?
Senator Boisvenu: The United States enforces much tighter and tougher legislation on production, for example, whereas Canada enforces weaker legislation. Does that have the effect of attracting those producers to Canada?
Mr. Leguerrier: In principle, I believe it does. That could have an impact. That is why we are working with the Americans. We are ensuring that our laws and our sentences are appropriate, and we are doing what is in our power with regard to prevention, investigation and prosecution.
Senator Boisvenu: The bill provides for tougher sentences for drugs and rape, among other things. I think that is the most insidious and cowardly drug because we know the victim will not remember because memory is impaired, and the victim will thus be able to testify only in rare instances, if the criminal is prosecuted, as a result of the effects of that drug on the victim's memory.
In Sherbrooke, in 2002, there was one case involving the date rape drug, whereas there were 70 last year.
Mr. Slinn, in your opinion, since you are somewhat familiar with crime across Canada, how has the rape drug evolved in the past 10 years in terms of the number of victims it generates per year in Canada?
[English]
Mr. Slinn: With respect to GHB, from what we have seen in the last few years, it is relatively stable. It has not replaced MDMA, ecstasy or meth, but it does exist. We are not seeing an increase of it; it is relatively stable. What we are seeing is chemists looking for alternative precursors, because we are choking with the choke points. We are seizing some chemicals and they are using different chemicals and mixing them.
Our youth do not know what they are getting, in some cases. They may be getting GHB, meth or ecstasy and it is held out as different things. However, with respect to your question, GHB seems to be stable. It does not seem to be increasing in terms of labs that have been seized.
Senator Baker: Of course, under this legislation, ecstasy is now raised for trafficking from a schedule 3 drug up to schedule 1, which is life imprisonment.
Let me give you an opportunity to describe to the committee your concerns about what your function is and how it is relating to these laying of charges and the completion of the prosecutions in courts; I am talking about serious drug crimes.
We have seen, of late, several of these very serious drug crimes being simply erased. The person has gotten off scot- free because the trials have taken too long under section 11(b) of the Charter. This bill will, according to the evidence, make trials more complex. They will go on longer according to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Is there any solution to this complexity of the trials as it relates to disclosure?
You people do all the investigation. You have your drug squads and they go out for four or five years investigating conspiracies. You bring the charges and then your work begins. You have to produce all the disclosure and evidence, and now you have the McNeil decision breathing down your back. That determination is new. For every officer who gives evidence now, if there is anything in their past that can question their credibility, it has to be disclosed.
Do you have any answers for us here as to what can be done to lessen the overload that you have in relation to disclosure on these serious crimes? How are you dealing with this most recent requirement that you disclose everything about your investigating officers to the court?
Mr. White: Without a doubt, disclosure is probably the biggest challenge for law enforcement in our major investigations — length of investigations and prosecutions, the cost and disclosure.
We have migrated over the years since the Stinchcombe decision — which basically compelled us to provide all relevant disclosure — to where we are today, where everything in an investigation has to be disclosed. If you look at the progression of investigations over the last 10, 15 years, investigations today, because of the increased complexity of the organizations we are investigating, are no longer uniquely domestic. It is rare to find an organization that is based solely in Canada. There is a component in Canada, but there are probably several other components around the world. That adds to the complexity of the investigations, the length of investigations and the techniques we may have to use to get enough evidence to go after the hierarchy of an organization.
The investigation will take multiple years. We may have to intercept private communications over a period of one or two years, depending on the size of the organization. Thousands of telephone intercepts may have to be transcribed in the disclosure. It is a huge cost and huge time. We try as best we can to provide full disclosure upon the laying of criminal charges. Sometimes it is not always feasible or possible to do that.
With regard to the issue of disclosure — do we need to get back and revisit the definition of relevant disclosure — I think we may need to open a dialogue on it because relevant disclosure has become, in today's environment, full 100-per-cent disclosure.
As law enforcement, whatever we are required to give, we will give, but the rest of the regime will have to set expectations because of those increased demands on police, and because of the increase in the length and complexity of investigations in terms of length of time for disclosure and length of time for prosecutions. I think we need to start looking at the balance between the two.
McNeil is the same, it will increase the —
Senator Baker: What do you have to do now?
Mr. White: Now we need to disclose on our investigators who have participated in the investigation and the prosecution.
Senator Baker: Halifax has instituted special measures. They immediately did it after the decision. Go ahead.
Mr. Spicer: In reference to the McNeil decision? We immediately reviewed the decision and created a policy that sees us partnering with the Crown prosecution service. We review, in advance, any wrongdoing or charges or Police Act charges against any of our officers that might call into question the credibility of that officer in each particular case. Once that is done, it is kept on file. When that officer is involved in an investigation further down the road, that information is disclosed at that time.
Senator Lang: I appreciate you gentlemen coming before us and giving us your view on what is happening out on the street, and what you and your officers face on a daily basis.
The one area that I wanted to pursue a little bit further was the concept of mandatory minimum sentencing, and how you feel it will help and assist your organizations — and most importantly, the officers who are doing the day-to- day job that we are asking them to do.
My understanding in talking to some officers is that their morale is not that high at times. They work very hard to put a case together; they bring it forward, he or she is found guilty, and yet because of the method of sentencing, the offender is basically back on the street — in some cases, within days or after a very short period of time of incarceration.
Mr. Spicer, could you comment on what this will do for the morale of the law enforcement officers out there who are doing the job?
Mr. Spicer: Thank you for that. Yes, it is a question of morale for the officers. In some cases, they feel frustrated. They almost feel that, by the time they get their paperwork done, the offender is back on the street. They therefore question the value of that paperwork. Not only will it help with the morale of officers, but I think it will help to restore the citizens' faith in the system.
I believe there are a couple of other factors with the minimum sentencing that we need to look at. One is we need to do a better job of what we do with those offenders when they are in custody, and work on some reintegration strategies to help them reintegrate back into the community.
From a very local perspective and in my own personal experience, what I find beneficial is when those offenders are in jail, it gives us and other community associations time to help build the capacity of the community that they came from, thereby allowing that community to better handle the fact that they are coming back.
Senator Lang: If I could pursue another area. I think it was mentioned a while ago, I am not sure by whom, but perhaps it was Superintendent Spicer, the fact that there are 900 organized crime organizations in the country. That is quite a staggering figure, when you think that there are only 35 million people in Canada and there are 900 quasi- companies involved in this business, both providing for consumers locally and, as was stated earlier, being in the export business now. Things are successful.
Perhaps you could inform us — has this been a stable figure, 900 organized crime organizations across the country, or have we seen an increase over the last couple of years as far as moving into Canada?
Mr. Spicer: That information was provided by Assistant Commissioner White.
Mr. White: Again, those are approximate numbers. Over the last few years, we have seen an increase to some degree, and it varies probably between 700 and 900 in terms of how we calculate or classify organized crime groups, such as minor, mid-level or the upper echelon. Over the last few years, yes, we have seen a slight increase in the number of organizations.
Senator Cowan: Thank you for your appearance here this morning. As Senator Wallace said at the beginning, we appreciate the work you do and how hard you work to make our communities safer. As legislators, we obviously want to do everything we can to provide you with the resources and the legislative framework that you need to work effectively.
However, as we all appreciate, particularly in this environment, resources are scarce, and it is up to us and it is up to you to ensure that we use those scarce resources as prudently as we can. It follows from that that we obviously need to deal with reality and not with perception. The perception out there clearly is that the longer you throw people in jail for, the safer everyone will be. However, that is not the reality.
Going back to Senator Banks' question at the beginning, I was surprised to learn that none of you could point us to any evidence or any studies anywhere, at any time, that would indicate that this — I do not think that the mandatory minimum sentence aspect of this legislation and of other legislation in the government's anti-crime agenda could point to anything that says that this actually works. I approached this initially from an understanding that it would work. I was surprised in the studies we have done of this legislation and other previous bills that there is no evidence that has been presented to us that would indicate it does work. Indeed, as we know in other jurisdictions, in the U.S. particularly, they are moving away from mandatory minimums.
I want to give you another opportunity to come back perhaps to address Senator Banks' query, because it seems to me that absent that evidence, we have to be very careful and leery of going down this line.
My other question, perhaps it was Superintendent Spicer that addressed this, he talked about these programs being transitional to treatment. I know there are drug treatment courts in some parts of the country, but I would like some idea about how widespread they are. If we are talking about this being a reality, then would we be better to put our resources into expanding the network of drug treatment courts and other treatment, rather than relying so entirely on this perception that mandatory minimum sentences will deal with the problem that we all want to have dealt with but in a most effective manner?
Mr. White: Again, I cannot comment on any specific study or the results of those studies. From my perspective, the bill before us, mandatory minimums, I think has the strong potential to be a deterrent for deterring a number of individuals from becoming involved in the various forms of criminal activity, whether trafficking, import, export or production. That should be our number one goal, prevention and deterrence.
Regardless if the study only shows that mandatory minimums deter a small percentage of people, I think that is a positive thing. As I mentioned at the outset, this is one tool amongst many others. We are not walking away from prevention, awareness or other enforcement efforts. I think it is a positive tool that has good potential as a deterrent. Again, like any new legislation that is coming in, it will have to be measured, and we will have to look at the impact if it does come into effect.
Senator Cowan: This is not the first time that a mandatory minimum regime has been introduced into legislation. We have experience with mandatory minimums in other legislation. Can you not give us any indication as to what effect that had?
Mr. White: I cannot speak to that, unfortunately.
The Chair: Superintendent Spicer?
Mr. Spicer: I am not able to speak to studies either, but can I talk from a local perspective? From our experience in one area of Halifax not far from headquarters here, was a case where we were able to get enough evidence together to get some drug dealers off the street for a fairly significant amount of time. As a result of that, we saw violent crime in the area actually go down 19 per cent in less than one year from the time they were there. It was during that time that we also spent building the capacity of that community.
From a local, on-the-street perspective, we believe that incarceration does work. It works for the community. It may not necessarily work for that particular individual, but I do see that there is a benefit.
Senator Cowan: I did not get an answer on the drug treatment courts, so I would like someone to perhaps —
The Chair: Very rapidly.
Mr. Slinn: I am afraid I cannot comment on the drug treatment program.
Senator Cowan: Can you provide the committee with an indication as to where the drug treatment courts are available across the country?
Mr. Slinn: I do not have that knowledge now, but I can provide that to you.
Senator Cowan: Thank you.
The Chair: We can certainly provide you with that, Senator Cowan.
Senator Hubley: Thank you for your presentations this morning. It has all been helpful.
Statistics show that Aboriginal offenders are already overrepresented in Canada's criminal justice system. I think drugs are a major component to that.
Will the addition of new mandatory minimum sentences to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal offenders? If you believe that, what can be done to mitigate it?
Mr. White: The legislation will apply to everyone. In terms of measuring whether it will be disproportionate for Aboriginal communities, I cannot say without doing further research into it.
Senator Hubley: That was a short answer.
On the educational end of this, I would like to direct my question to Superintendent Spicer. You mentioned that youth-focused education is an important component in combating the drug trade. Are you involved in that through the RCMP or are those programs directed through the educational system?
Mr. Spicer: We actually partner with the educational system in HRM, Halifax Regional Municipality. Police officers are in the school system and in the communities delivering those types of messages, and going through experiential learning programs with the youth to try to divert them from drugs in the first place.
Senator Hubley: What would be the earliest age for which you would present a program?
Mr. Spicer: We start in elementary school, in grade 3, and we develop a program around what we call medicine cabinet safety, because they could actually be involved with legal drugs from the medicine cabinet in their own home. From there, in grade 6 we introduce an actual drug prevention program, another one in junior high, and then follow up with a final program in high school.
Senator Mahovlich: My question is similar. In your view, is the criminal law enforcement model found in Bill S-10 the most helpful approach for young people, as opposed, for example, to education, prevention of drug use, and treatment?
Mr. White: As I stated earlier, this is one component and we are definitely not putting any reduced effort into education, awareness and prevention. To give you an indication, in 2008-09 we did over 3,000 awareness presentations across the country, targeting over 124,000 people. We did 117 drug and organized crime awareness sessions. We dealt with over 6,000 partnerships and we distributed over 200,000 publications. Our drug abuse resistance education in schools is ongoing and is as strong as ever. We have the drug endangered children program, the Aboriginal shield program, the drugs and sport program, and the kids and drugs prevention program, which is in close cooperation with parents. With all these initiatives, we have made significant efforts over the last year. We have the drug awareness officer training and the synthetic drug Initiative, which is a video that is going out right across the country.
We have a lot of everyday education and awareness sessions, which we strongly believe in. As we move forward, we will be putting as much effort in those areas as we ever have.
Mr. Leguerrier: There is another component that the RCMP is involved in. The National Anti-Drug Strategy has a major component on prevention, administered by my department, the national crime prevention centre, and the Department of Justice. It is a major component of the National Anti-Drug Strategy. They have numerous prevention programs for different clientele, from elementary school, to high school, to university, and to vulnerable populations. There are many projects.
The Chair: I have a quick question for Superintendent Spicer. This bill talks about offences that occur near schools. Can you tell me how, on the ground, your people would be interpreting that?
Mr. Spicer: Geographically speaking?
The Chair: What does "near" mean?
Mr. Spicer: It would be where the schoolchildren gather and where they basically congregate on their way to and from school. It would be the geographic area surrounding the school and, in fact, the school grounds themselves, because we do experience a fair amount of drug trafficking in the schools.
Senator Lang: Superintendent Spicer, could you elaborate further on the level of violence that we are starting to see in the day-to-day drug trade? This was highlighted in your comments, so perhaps you could go a little further on that.
Mr. Spicer: The level of violence in the Halifax area has increased greatly in the last number of years, and most of it is attributed to the drug trade. We have a lot of drive-by shootings, actual people being shot at, that 99 per cent of the time are rival drug dealers who are fighting with each other. In some cases, this is in broad daylight. In fact, one case was at the front entrance of the children's hospital here in Halifax, where one drug dealer shot another drug dealer right in the entryway of the hospital.
This is a huge problem, the violence around drugs. We believe that the more we address the issue of the drug problem, the more opportunity we will have to reduce that violence.
Senator Wallace: Superintendent Spicer, you mentioned that recently you had taken action in a particular neighbourhood in Halifax to get drug dealers and traffickers off the streets, and that there was a benefit to the community in terms of violence and crime reduction generally in the neighbourhood. I think you used the figure of 19 per cent.
Is there anything more you can provide to us in writing on that? Was there a study done that would support that? If so, that would be helpful to us.
Mr. Spicer: I can absolutely send that to you. It is a combination of a police report along with a report from public housing. This was a public housing area, so we get anecdotal observations from the community as well.
The Chair: Senator Banks, we are losing our video conference. We are going to the other end of the country for another video conference, which is why we have to be so rigidly respectful of time.
I apologize more than you can believe, because it is so important to us and so interesting for us to hear from all of you. We thank you very much indeed.
Resuming our proceedings, we continue our consideration of Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
For this part of our meeting, we have from the Canadian Police Association, Charles Momy, president. From the Ottawa Police Services, we have Jamie Foley, detective. From the Vancouver Police Department — from one end of the country to the other, Halifax to Vancouver — we have Sergeant Peter Sadler and Sergeant Neil Munro. Thank you for joining us, gentlemen.
Mr. Momy, the floor is yours.
Charles Momy, President, Canadian Police Association: Thank you very much. First and foremost, I have to say that I am glad that we are joined today by three detectives, two from Vancouver and one from Ottawa, who will undoubtedly give you their front-line experience when it comes to drug investigations.
For my part, I certainly do not have expertise in the drug area. My expertise has, for the most part, been in interrogations and polygraph examinations, which I do not think need to be discussed here today.
In saying that, I will open with a statement that I believe all of you have a copy of with regard to the Canadian Police Association's position on Bill S-10 before you.
[Translation]
The Canadian Police Association is pleased to have the opportunity once again to testify today before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs as part of your study of Bill S-10, which provides for mandatory minimum sentences for serious drug offences.
The Canadian Police Association is the national mouthpiece of 43,000 member police officers across Canada. Through our 160 member associations, the Canadian Police Association represents staff operating in Canadian police departments, serving both the smallest villages and large urban centres, as well as members of the provincial police forces and the RCMP.
The Canadian Police Association is recognized as the national mouthpiece of police staff on reform of the criminal justice system in Canada.
We are motivated by a firm desire to achieve the following aspirations: to enhance safety and raise the quality of life of the citizens of our communities, to share the invaluable experience of our members in the field and to promote government policies that reflect the needs and expectations of law-abiding Canadians.
Our goal is to work together with the elected representatives of all parties to implement major reforms that will ensure the safety of all Canadians, including those who are sworn to protect our communities.
[English]
Everyday our members see the devastating effects that drug traffickers and producers have in all of our communities. Those police officers, like those assisting us here today, are the ones that constantly have to arrest the same drug dealers and producers over and over again and stop them from poisoning our children and our grandchildren and robbing youth of their future.
Whether these criminal organizations are in larger urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, or in smaller communities like Saint John and Gander, front-line police officers see on a daily basis how organized crime, and I do say organized crime, supply dangerous and illegal drugs with not only disregard for the law, but having no consideration for the lives and families they destroy.
When I say dangerous, I say this because the drugs that exist today are often even more dangerous than years past, oftentimes laced with a variety of different chemicals to make them even more potent.
For a number of years, the Canadian Police Association has been advocating for a national drug strategy that incorporates a balanced approach to reduce the adverse effects associated with drug use by limiting both the supply of and demand for illicit drugs, enabling an integrated approach to education, prevention, treatment and enforcement.
In our view, this legislation is critically important in addressing the enforcement component of this strategy.
Some officials and academics that you have already heard from I am sure are often prone to argue against minimum sentences. They advocate greater discretion for the judiciary, alternatives to incarceration, and an emphasis on rehabilitation.
Violent offenders are not deterred by our current sentencing, corrections and parole policies. Chronic offenders understand the system and work it to their advantage. Criminal gangs have taken over prisons and some neighbourhoods. We need stronger intervention that combines general deterrence, specific deterrence, denunciation and reform.
Canada's experience with impaired driving legislation over the past three decades demonstrates that mandatory minimum sentences have had a deterrent effect, both in general terms with respect to potential impaired drivers, and in a specific respect with regard to repeat offenders. Mandatory minimum sentences for serious drug crimes will help in our fight against organized crime in the trafficking and production of drugs.
Whether it is by keeping dealers and producers off the streets and out of business, or by serving as a deterrent to potential dealers, Bill S-10 will help our members in doing their jobs and keeping our communities safe. In simple terms, keep these criminals in jail longer, and you take away their opportunity to traffic in drugs.
There has been a considerable amount of debate about the use of minimum sentences and the frequency of repeat offenders. Make no mistake about it — repeat offenders are a serious problem. Police understand this intuitively as we deal with these frequent flyers on a routine basis.
Statistics released by the Toronto police homicide squad for 2005 demonstrate this point. Among the 32 people facing murder or manslaughter charges for homicides in 2006, 14 were on bail at the time of the offence, 13 were on probation, and 17 were subject to firearms prohibition orders. The revolving-door justice system is failing to prevent further criminal activity by these repeat violent offenders.
I want to provide a few scenarios, real scenarios that illustrate how provisions in Bill S-10 are seen from a front-line police officer's perspective.
[Translation]
Minimum one-year prison term for selling drugs such as marijuana, where they are sold for the purpose of organized crime or where a firearm or violence is involved.
Scenario 1: In a number of cases, organized drug traffickers often have weapons. Recent investigations into mid-level drug traffickers who have been arrested have shown that those mid-level traffickers were armed with weapons provided by the criminal organization to which they belonged to assist them in collecting money owed for drugs. Under the executed warrants, weapons, drugs and bulletproof vests were seized. Certain individuals who were charged and convicted received limited prison terms of less than two months.
Scenario 2:
[English]
A Kitchener drug dealer moved to British Columbia where he learned to grow marijuana. After his arrest in British Columbia for operating a home grow operation, he returned to Kitchener and started a garden supply business where he set up a network of grow operations.
While being investigated in Kitchener for his illegal operation, he returned to B.C. to plead guilty of production of marijuana and was placed on house arrest. He returned to Kitchener unmonitored, where he was once again arrested for production of marijuana. This person was responsible for introducing sophisticated grow operations to the Region of Waterloo, which quickly spread from Ottawa to Windsor.
This male's activities would have been thwarted had he been incarcerated: A two-year mandatory prison sentence for the offence of running a large marijuana grow operation involving 500 plants; with health and safety aggravating factors, it would have gone up to a three-year mandatory prison sentence.
In the third scenario, children are also the victims of grow ops. In one such incident in Kitchener, a marijuana grower was living in his grow house with his wife and two children. During the night, the house erupted into flames due to a defect in the illegal electrical bypass.
The flames spread quickly due to the intricate ventilation system installed in the grow room. The male fled the house by himself, leaving his family inside. Neighbours noticed the blaze, arrived and rescued the woman and children from the inferno.
Firefighters arrived on the scene and extinguished the blaze. One of them described fighting this fire as trying to put out a fire in a high-efficiency wood stove. The fire burned uncharacteristically hot, causing concern and danger to neighbours and responding emergency services workers. Unfortunately, Canadian communities from coast to coast to coast are plagued with this type of criminal activity on a daily basis.
As police officers, and more so as members of your communities, it concerns us that our youth and many adults have been getting the wrong message on drugs. The use of drugs has been trivialized by what people see on TV, but also by misguided public policy. What they do not see at the beginning is that drugs will most probably take over their lives, and the message to our youth should be clear: Drugs are dangerous.
The production and trafficking of illegal drugs go hand in hand with other criminal activities such as prostitution, extortion, human trafficking, homicides and violent sexual offences. Drug and sexual assault investigators say that date rape drugs such as GHB are often used to rape and assault unsuspecting victims. Producers and traffickers of these types of drugs are therefore directly linked and responsible for serious sexual and often violent offences.
Organized crime is a very lucrative business and it is run in that manner. They are very knowledgeable about the revolving-door criminal justice system we now have in Canada. The message to drug dealers, producers and organized crime has been that, even if you get caught, chances are that you will be back in business in a matter of weeks or months.
With this bill, the message to drug dealers and producers is clear: Bill S-10 is part of a well-coordinated assault on organized crime. Cutting off the production and distribution of these dangerous and illegal drugs takes away the lifeblood of organized crime.
On behalf of the Canadian Police Association and our over 43,000 members, we strongly encourage all senators to pass this bill and give our officers the tools to keep your communities safe.
Jamie Foley, Detective, Ottawa Police Services: I am employed with the Ottawa Police Services and I am in my 15th year of policing. In the last four years, I have been assigned to the drug section. My area of specialty or expertise is indoor marijuana grow ops.
The Chair: I am sure we will have questions; but before we get to that, we will turn to Vancouver, where I believe we do have statements from Sergeant Sadler and Sergeant Munro. Which of you wishes to go first?
Peter Sadler, Sergeant, Vancouver Police Department: I am a sergeant in the Vancouver Police Department in the drug squad. I have been there for a considerable time.
I wish to speak briefly on Bill S-10 as I believe it is a positive step that will assist law enforcement in the targeting of criminals that perpetuate the cycle of crime, violence and victimization in our neighbourhoods.
The current Controlled Drugs and Substances Act has sentencing provisions which range, in theory, up to life in prison. Perhaps that is an admirable intention, but drug sentences in reality come nowhere near the maximum ranges. Combined with sentencing in the low range of options, currently there are no mandatory prison terms for serious drug offences.
I work in a beautiful city with the highest property crime problem in Canada, fully 80 per cent of which is a result of substance abuse. Depending on the source, there are 6,000 to 12,000 drug addicts in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, with up to 4,000 in the downtown east side of Vancouver. The drugs that enslave these people are imported, exported, produced and trafficked by criminals with little fear of law enforcement.
I believe Bill S-10, the mandatory prison sentences, will give a tool to law enforcement that is currently lacking. It targets criminals who are operating the business of drug trafficking.
Traffickers do not work in isolation. A large network of people is involved in drug trafficking, each with a goal to making money — something they do very well.
The importers, couriers, financiers, enforcers, traffickers and many others contribute to the end result of drugs on the streets. Police investigations into these criminals are hampered by the criminals' knowledge that very few, if any, members of the network will face jail time.
The process of criminals rising from street-level traffickers to upper-level traffickers and importers does not happen overnight. As in legitimate business, it is a learning process — and often a very violent one.
Once they are upper-level traffickers, they have little to fear from law enforcement, shielding themselves with layers of underlings who do the dirty work. The best opportunity to disrupt this cycle of violence is to arrest traffickers when they are at a lower level, and then keep arresting and imprisoning the criminals. The mandatory sentences will ensure there is a minimum sentence handed out, acting both as a punishment and a deterrent to others contemplating the lifestyle.
Drug trafficking is the primary revenue source for criminals, with large financial rewards for those willing to risk the violence it entails. At no time in my experience of 29 years has a trafficker expressed a fear of the courts as a reason to stop trafficking in drugs.
Gang members in British Columbia have grown steadily both in gang size and the scope of criminal activity. The fighting over drug monopolies has spilled into the communities, with citizens terrified of gangsters and retribution. In 1999, there were five gang murders in British Columbia. Last year, in 2009, there were 35. Fully 20 per cent of the murders in British Columbia are gang related.
I do not believe that the sentences of one, two or three years will necessarily make a major impact on the cycle of violence in drug trafficking, but I believe that Bill S-10 is a good start to taking back our streets and reducing the violence in our communities.
Neil Munro, Sergeant, Vancouver Police Department: I am Sergeant Neil Munro with the Vancouver Police Department. My unit investigates illegal marijuana grow operations within the City of Vancouver.
The proposed changes in Bill S-10 are consistent with the Vancouver Police Department drug policy and the City of Vancouver four pillars drug strategy in relation to marijuana grow operations as well as the other drugs.
Allow me to briefly outline the structure of the marijuana industry. The marijuana industry is organized much like a legitimate agricultural business. Marijuana is grown and then brought to a transfer house, which can be likened to a grain elevator. There, the marijuana is graded, payment is obtained and arrangements are made to transport the product to the local, national and international markets.
The financial gain made by people in the marijuana industry is significant. Indoor grow operations can force plants to a mature stage, ready for harvest in only three months. Therefore, the same site can be used to produce four crops each year.
A 100-plant grow operation, for example, which would require the space of the average bedroom to produce, would provide the sales of four 100-plant grows and give the producer $75,000 at the minimum, tax free, annually. This is double the annual income for the average Canadian in 2008.
By targeting specific criminal behaviours, Bill S-10 supports the strategy in the Vancouver Police drug policy that `stigmatization of a negative behaviour may be viewed as a legitimate means of deterring people, particularly impressionable young people, from engaging in that behaviour.'
Bill S-10 also supports the four pillars approach in the following manner. With respect to prevention, relating penalty to the size of the marijuana grow operation may reduce the amount of marijuana available at its source and is, therefore, the first step in prevention.
Marijuana is often used as a commodity to trade for cocaine, heroin and guns. Targeting marijuana at its roots is also an effective step in preventing crimes related to other drugs and weapons.
With respect to enforcement, Bill S-10 targets those marijuana grow operations related to criminal organizations, violence and public safety. This is consistent with the Vancouver Police drug policy that directs enforcement towards substance abuse affecting children, near schools and involving traffickers who exhibit a higher degree of organization and coordination.
With respect to harm reduction, the fundamental goal of policing is to protect life and property. Since January of 2009, the Vancouver Police have attended to five marijuana grow operations that have started the building on fire. These were normally residential buildings. There were 10 marijuana grow operations we attended to as a result of assaults and home invasions.
In conclusion, the Vancouver Police Department's strategic plan states that, "The proliferation of marijuana grow- ops in the Lower Mainland has generated great distress in communities because of the associated criminal activity . . . Many marijuana grow-operations are run by organized groups. The bulk of the marijuana grown in British Columbia is exported to the United States, either in exchange for cash, for other drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, or for high- quality handguns."
The application of the minimum sentences in Bill S-10 will send a message to those persons who choose to use criminal activity to increase their personal wealth at the expense of public safety.
Senator Wallace: Thank you for your presentations.
As you have pointed out and we have heard from other witnesses, one of the objectives of Bill S-10 is to act as a deterrence, to deter those involved in the production, trafficking, importation and exportation of drugs from continuing in that business.
Around this table, there have been many comments about the need for academic studies to prove that deterrence, in fact, results from mandatory minimum sentences. Not to say that academic studies are not important, but I think even more important are the experiences that law enforcement has on the streets, how you see it in the real world beyond the street level, just what impact that would have on those committing crimes and hopefully deter them from doing so in the future.
Mr. Momy, I might direct this question to you. In your presentation, I am glad that you remind us of the impact of mandatory minimum sentencing in the context of impaired driving legislation. Could you, and anyone else who wishes to comment, expand on the impact that mandatory minimums have had on crimes committed in relation to those impaired driving offences?
Mr. Momy: I can certainly provide you with further detail on studies that have been done over the past several years. In fact, MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Canada was instrumental in some of that information.
What I can say both from a criminal perspective and an administrative perspective — many of you I am sure know that several provinces across Canada have introduced administrative sanctions with regard to impaired driving. It is well known through research in the last few years, as well as some of the recommendations that have been talked about with regard to impaired driving, that with some of those administrative sanctions — we are not talking about criminal sanctions here — we are talking about administrative provincial sanctions when it comes to impaired driving, where individuals have their driver's licence suspended even before conviction. This depends on the amount of times that an individual is stopped and accused of those particular crimes.
You have sanctions in some of the provinces that go right up to 60 and 90 days. We all know that, over the past 20 to 30 years, impaired driving has taken on a much more public form when it comes to deterrence, and the fact that the public is just not accepting of impaired drivers anymore like they used to be.
When it comes to criminal sanctions, certainly when there are drivers' licences, for example, that are now suspended automatically through the Criminal Code, going back 30 years where some of the changes have occurred, there are several impaired drivers throughout Canada who are — basically I am saying that there are fewer impaired drivers that are being charged and convicted in Canada as a result of those minimum sentences.
These are not our studies. These are studies that have been undertaken by MADD Canada over the past several years.
Senator Wallace: Having more severe consequences for that type of behaviour has resulted in lives being saved and families not going through the anguish that drunken driving can lead to.
Mr. Momy: That is what it appears.
Senator Wallace: I do not think there can be many parallels to the issues of drug trade and drug production that we are dealing with here today.
Mr. Momy: Yes.
Senator Wallace: One of the significant objectives of the bill, according to Minister Nicholson, is to disrupt the criminal enterprise of drug production and drug trafficking. We heard others suggest that it would have no hope of accomplishing that. Yet, Sergeant Sadler, I was interested to hear you say in your comments that Bill S-10 mandatory prison sentences will give law enforcement a new tool, and that it targets criminals who are operating the business of drug trafficking.
That says to me that Bill S-10 will definitely have some impact on the continuation of the criminal drug trade and drug production.
Will you expand upon that?
Sergeant Sadler: When I say targets the traffickers, which are the criminals we hope to get, under no circumstance do I think we will be going for the head person of a gang as a direct result of Bill S-10. However, I am hoping we will interrupt a cycle. When these people start off as drug traffickers, that is when they learn what to do and what not to do, and they are well versed when they go through our court system. When they gain their experience, they learn how police do investigations, and they are probably briefed by various members of society on how we do our enforcement. After several years, as in any sort of business, they gain experience and they learn how to shield themselves.
If we can get at them when they are at street level and mid-level as traffickers, that is when they can get time in prison. I do not consider one year, two years or even three years to be much of a sentence when you consider the time that they will actually spend in jail. It might be a three-year sentence, but the actual time served is a lot less. That allows us to interrupt and, in theory, the upper-level traffickers would have no underlings, as I said in my statement, to work for them and they would have penalties involved.
I often find that when traffickers are charged, before they get any jail time at all, currently, they have to have several different charges against them, so it could take several years before they do any jail time at all. I am not saying we should not give people the benefit of the doubt, and I am sure some people get rehabilitated, but in my experience it takes a long time before they do any jail time whatsoever, and I do not think that a one-year sentence is onerous. It then allows us to mention that in our briefs in future investigations and, we hope, interrupt the cycle so they do not develop into criminals with much more expertise.
Senator Wallace: We may all have an opinion as to whether a one-year sentence is onerous, but it is important to realize — I am sure you are aware of it — that that would occur if the aggravating factors are present in terms of drug trafficking. We are talking about violence, use of weapons and involvement of criminal organizations. Those are serious issues, and the result of that could be a mandatory one-year sentence. That hardly seems onerous to me.
Sergeant Sadler: I would agree 100 per cent. A one-year sentence is nothing on the street by the time they get time off for good behaviour or anything else.
Senator Banks: I am not sure how relevant it is to compare a drunk driver with a drug trafficker. Their motivations are different, I think, but I do not know anything about drunk driving, so I will not go there.
Detective Foley, I could leave here and be back in half an hour with a bag of marijuana. Sergeant Sadler, two blocks from where you are, I could leave there and be back in half an hour with a bag of marijuana; is that right?
Sergeant Sadler: I could phone up for an ounce of cocaine, and it would be here in less than 40 minutes. I guarantee it.
Senator Banks: You said, Sergeant Sadler, that at no time in your experience has a trafficker expressed a fear of the courts as a reason to stop trafficking in drugs. I am going to ask you a question, and I do not know the answer to the question. Is that true of people who are susceptible, given what they have been arrested for, to a one-year sentence and also of people who are susceptible to a ten- or twenty-year sentence? I am saying that the people who are up for maybe 10 or 20 years are also undeterred by the prospect of jail time. Am I right?
Sergeant Sadler: I definitely believe that the criminals at the upper level are not scared of our current state of affairs in law. If they have enough money to afford very good lawyers, and if the case is big enough, do they think that they will be found not guilty eventually? I am sure most of them do. I am saying that, if we want to stop them from graduating from the junior executive type into senior management in the industry of organized crime, which it definitely is — it makes more money than any company in Canada — we have to get them when they are at the junior level. That is where we would not only deter them, but the onlookers, who are contemplating making money as traffickers, might be scared just enough that they say, "No, I will not." It will not become the huge situation we have right now where, with no deterrence whatsoever, many people will dabble in it. We have part-time drug traffickers. They come down a couple of days a month, they make money and away they go. They are totally undeterred. That is at street level.
Senator Banks: Following along what Sergeant Sadler has said, Detective Foley, if right now I go to make a connection, get a bag of whatever, and you arrest that person who gave it to me for money, his place in the chain would be filled in how much time?
Detective Foley: There is another guy around the corner who will take his position.
Senator Banks: Therefore, the effect of putting that guy in jail for a year or three years will not have the effect, in the end, of reducing crime.
Detective Foley: You are taking him off the street. Down the street from where we are speaking, there are a number of individuals who sell on the street corners, so you are reducing the number of contacts that you could potentially buy from.
Senator Banks: In an organization, big or small, if I take this guy out, he will be replaced immediately. Is there any prospect of ever taking enough people out to impede seriously the availability of street-level drugs?
Detective Foley: I would say it helps. It will not eliminate. There will always be another person to fill that void, but to eliminate it, no.
[Translation]
The Chair: Once again, in order to check, as a bit of an experiment, I am going to ask the question: are you receiving the translation of the French in Vancouver? I am speaking to you in French. Do you have the translation; that is good.
Senator Carignan: My question is for all the speakers. The bill more specifically targets youth protection. Youth are identified as a vulnerable group and an aggravating factor is added where either a youth is used to commit an offence or the offence is committed near a school, on or near school grounds or in or near any other public place usually frequented by young people.
Is it an urban legend that organized crime uses young people, either as targets to develop their business or as tools to commit their crimes? Are these strategic factors that you see often enough for us to be able to address them with minimum sentences?
[English]
Detective Foley: I believe youth are frequently used in the trafficking of drugs. They are selected because of their age and, from time to time, they do not know the consequences of their actions. Therefore, I do believe they are used by drug traffickers above them.
I missed part of the question but you had mentioned the bill regarding activity around school areas. My area of specialty is the marijuana grow ops. Just within the last year, I executed a CDSA, Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, warrant that was within one foot of an elementary school playground where there was in excess of 500 plants. This marijuana grow op had a hydro bypass, so they were stealing the electricity. Inside, the plants, the electrical was not up to code by any means. They never are. This was a potential fire hazard. It had been ongoing in excess of two years, I suspect.
Mr. Munro: Grow ops are my area, also. We were doing a grow op last summer as a result of the high hydro consumption readings. When we knocked on the door, the mother ran out the back, leaving her 16-year-old son with us. Those are the types of people involved in marijuana grow-op operations.
The youngest person I found in a marijuana grow operation was two weeks old. That was at a 300- or 500-plant operation, I cannot remember. The oldest person I found was in their 80s. At that point, it is a family business and all the children are at risk.
Last week, we attended to a grow op. It was a three-storey, multi-suite building with one suite on each storey. The grow op was in the basement. It started on fire. The people we believe responsible for the grow op were on the main floor. They ran away, and did not notify the upstairs tenants that there was a fire in the building. They noticed it when the fire department showed up.
We need to demonstrate to the people in marijuana grows that others are at risk, whether it be your immediate family, tenants in the same building or those in a school. We have several that are within schools. That is not something we have kept statistics on but we know it anecdotally. If there is a block within a school, it is another indicator that it is a grow. Regardless, these people are putting the vulnerable in danger for their own financial gain.
[Translation]
Mr. Momy: The investigators can correct me, but when it comes to young offenders, I do not think most drug investigators go after young offenders 15, 16 or 17 years of age; I do not believe they are the ones who manage the houses where the plants are grown. They are definitely used to traffic or sell a certain amount of drugs. I worked in the field for a number of years, but in my experience as a police officer, young offenders always sell two or three joints or a number of grams of marijuana. When it comes to young offenders 15, 16 or 17 years of age, they are not really the ones who manage the operations. As the Vancouver investigators mentioned, it is the criminals who manage all that. They definitely hire what can be called gardeners to manage the greenhouses.
But I do not think the purpose of the bill is to start giving minimum sentences to young offenders of 15 or 16. I do not think that is the purpose. As a police officer and representative of police officers across the country, I do not think that is the purpose of our members either.
Senator Carignan: On final question. The defence lawyers and those from the Barreau du Québec told us they wondered about the constitutional validity of certain clauses as a result of their lack of clarity, particularly the notion of proximity to a school, the fact that what is near a school is not necessarily defined. There are various clauses like that.
Have you in the field studied the bill? Are you afraid there may be problems of enforcement or lack of clarity when you have to intervene in the field? Or are the indications you have in the bill clear enough for you to know how to conduct yourselves or what type of charges you will lay?
Mr. Momy: I do not think I could answer you. Perhaps the investigators could answer you. For example, are they having difficulty in the investigations they are conducting, or could they have difficulty under this scenario? I am not a lawyer. If those are the comments they made, I assume that a number of lawyers have examined this bill. When it comes before the court, I hope they will have no difficulty, but I cannot answer.
[English]
Mr. Munro: I think the onus would be on the investigators to demonstrate to the courts that there was a relationship between the school and the site of the drug trafficking or production. The case that Detective Foley explained is the extreme case.
I have had other ones and when we were doing the warrants, we were talking to the kids and they knew it was a grow op and it was en route to school. There is very seldom a drug trade related to a grow op; they want to keep it secret. However, there were other cases where they have come up and they will identify a house that is positioned so that they can deal with the kids en route to the school.
The onus would be on the investigators to show that, rather than a geographic relationship between the school — within 500 feet or something — that the perpetrator set that site up to attract the students or affect the students. That is the way I would look at it.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Foley, did you want to add to that?
Detective Foley: I would just add that, with the current legislation, we use the involvement or the nearby presence of a school as an aggravating factor whenever we create our Crown briefs.
I would agree with Sergeant Munro: It is up to the investigator to explain the totality of the whole investigation. Whether it is a school ground or a place where school-aged persons congregate, it is up to them to explain that situation. I do not know if we could put a measurement regarding the activity happening on or near a school area.
The Chair: Are you saying it would be almost on a case-by-case basis?
Detective Foley: Exactly.
The Chair: You would have to demonstrate there is, in fact —
Detective Foley: I think that is the investigator's responsibility.
Senator Baker: Constable Foley is correct; it is presently in the act, the CDSA, subsection 10(2). It is one of the aggravating factors which you then have to list in your charge. It is already litigated; it has been litigated for 10 years.
I want to first congratulate you people who are on here today for the marvellous job you are doing. You should be paid double the amount of money you are paid.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.
Senator Baker: I would not take the job.
I have two straightforward questions that I will put, but before I do, I want to set the record straight on one thing. Sergeant Sadler would be the right person to ask. I imagine that, in your 29 years, you have been in court a good many times, is that correct?
Sergeant Sadler: Hundreds of times.
Senator Baker: I imagine you have been judged by the court to be an expert in the packaging and distribution of cocaine.
Sergeant Sadler: Yes, I am.
Senator Baker: In fact, I am reading it in front of me in a judgment in which the judge praised you incredibly. Let me put the question to you, the major question concerning minimum sentences. The case I read about you —
Senator Angus: Will you give us the citation?
Senator Baker: Yes. It is R. v. Aguirre, 2005, Carswell BC 3642. The sergeant is nodding his head; he remembers quite well. He was the expert.
In that case, a gentleman was found with two amounts of cocaine in the back seat of a car. You gave your testimony, which was accepted, that this amount of cocaine would belong to somebody who was in the business of trafficking.
The judge concluded at the end in analyzing the sentences in B.C. — this was a first-time offender, but the amount of cocaine was fairly substantial — that the sentences were from three to five years. I think that person got five years. He was in jail for three years waiting for the trial.
In that case, this minimum sentence would not affect him at all. Would you agree?
Sergeant Sadler: One hundred per cent, yes. A one-year sentence, to me, is at the low end of the scale.
Senator Baker: Exactly. I hope I have time left for my question. This is a diversion, but it is an important one.
You take, for example, Constable Haynes, who works with the drug squad — you probably know her. She attended the rave event at the Pacific Coliseum; this was at trial last year, R. v. Chu, 2009, Carswell BC, 644. I should not have given her name, but she was there undercover. She obtained one ecstasy pill.
Ecstasy, in this bill, is being lifted from Schedule III to Schedule I, as you know. The judge's concluding sentence is this, paragraph 51:
The evidence establishes that the accused is guilty of trafficking in ecstasy by "giving" ecstasy to the undercover constable. This conviction is to be recorded.
The reason why people object to the mandatory minimum sentence of one year is because, if that person had repeated that one ecstasy pill after this bill comes into play, that person would be subjected to the mandatory minimum of going to jail for a year.
The Chair: The question is?
Senator Baker: I will leave it there for him to be able to answer, because my major question to him is this: Is there anything this committee can recommend to assist you in your investigations concerning warrants? Is there something we can do to assist you in making warrants available to you? Is there something wrong with the warrant system?
Second, do you think too much time is spent on disclosure for trial?
Third, and I will end with this sentence: The McNeil decision, I presume you know what I am talking about, you all do.
Sergeant Sadler: Yes.
Senator Baker: I am sorry I am so slow at this. I am getting old. Each one of these officers now, their entire disciplinary file is — okay, she wants me to stop. You know what I am talking about. Do you have any comment to make on anything I have just said?
Sergeant Sadler: If I may, Madam Chair, the example of the one pill of MDMA that was sold — and that is how they are sold at a rave — it only took one pill to kill a 15-year-old girl from Victoria who was attending a rave several years ago. That is why we do undercover operations at raves. They do not sell a kilo at a time. It is an extremely strong drug. One is all it took for her to die a horrible death.
Do I think that person deserves a one-year minimum, keeping in mind he will probably only do four months? Yes, I think he did.
In regard to your question with regard to warrants, when I started doing warrants 29 years ago, I could write them on one page in ink, and if I had more questions and information, I just put it on the back, whereas right now, I have a detective working for me and he is up to 180 pages. When we kick in the door tomorrow night, his job will be done and it has caused him considerable grief. Why he has to do 180 pages to get into that house, I do not know, but that is a difference in 29 years. There are 179 extra pages there. I hope that helps you.
Senator Baker: McNeil?
The Chair: That is it, Senator Baker; you are muzzled as of now.
Mr. Momy: I will certainly comment on the McNeil decision. You touched on disclosure as well, senator.
We have all heard of the Stinchcombe decision many years ago, which has had a significant impact on disclosure. It has had an impact in many ways — an impact in taking away the valuable time of police officers to do what they are supposed to be doing, which is front-line police work. It has also significantly impacted police forces across this country monetarily, because there is a cost to double and triple disclosure. That is on the disclosure issue.
We have been talking about McNeil at the national and provincial levels with our members ever since McNeil came out. Unfortunately, as far as we were concerned, it was a bad decision. That has created significant problems for investigators, police services, Crown attorneys and for our members as well. You are right; we now are obligated to provide disciplinary records of our members to criminals.
It is of significant concern to us when it comes to the health and safety of our members. It is of significant concern to investigations, because we have seen several investigations across the country since McNeil that have become problematic because of some of the disciplinary records that have been divulged.
It is a significant issue that still gets talked about today.
Senator Runciman: Sergeant Sadler raised an important issue when he was talking about a 180-page warrant application. That is the tip of the iceberg with respect to red tape in policing and the impact it has in keeping police off the street, let alone all of the other implications related to that. Someone should look at it at some point in time.
Senator Banks, on a couple of occasions, has expressed doubts about this legislation having an impact on the commission of crimes.
Despite the evidence we have heard from the policing authorities and the practical, on-the-ground experience that the superintendent in Halifax indicated, in taking people off the streets, crime rates are reduced, and it gave them in that instance an opportunity to work with the neighbourhood while those bad folks were incarcerated. Could you comment on that element and reinforce it to hopefully convince Senator Banks that it will have a positive impact?
The Chair: What was the question?
Senator Runciman: I asked them if they wanted to comment on that, if you have any practical experience in that respect in terms of reducing crime rates in certain neighbourhoods while you have these folks locked up.
Mr. Foley: My specialty is in marijuana grow ops. In my four years in this position, I have had the opportunity to debrief with a number of individuals who have been charged. The sentences that they are receiving are not a deterrent. They are more concerned about me taking their Mercedes they are driving around in. The two to three to four months they are getting in jail is not a deterrent.
Senator Runciman: That does not deal with my question, but that is fine. You do not have that experience in respect to that area. I share your view. Mr. Momy said earlier these folks are knowledgeable with the revolving-door criminal justice system, and we heard testimony earlier today that Canada has become one of the primary global source countries for ecstasy and meth.
We had testimony from the defence bar yesterday, and it never ceases to amaze me how they are cut from a different cloth. They have to drink the Kool-Aid I think when they become members of the defence bar.
The Chair: Let us not impugn our witnesses, Senator Runciman.
Senator Runciman: They talked about elements of this legislation eroding respect for the law. I want your comment on that, because there was even an editorial comment in The Globe and Mail despairing the judicial decisions with respect to dealing with the criminal element. Could you respond to that, and I will ask a second question of those of you with on-the-street experiences of traps or building of traps. It is part of this legislation as well. Maybe you could respond to those two issues.
Mr. Momy: The one comment I need to make as well in regard to your earlier question regarding mandatory minimums, the fact of the matter is, and Detective Foley mentioned this and the other investigators as well, we will never stop and eradicate the trafficking of drugs anywhere in this world. It will continue because it is a very lucrative business, plain and simple.
However, the fact of the matter is that — and I believe it was Sergeant Sadler who mentioned this — because the high-level dealers are so far removed — and correct me, gentlemen, if I am wrong — the majority of the times they are not either arrested or charged unless inside informants are involved and major projects are going on. The reality is that, while these mid-level drug dealers and traffickers, importers, exporters are in jail, we know someone else will take that spot.
However, during that period of time, whether it is a year, two years or three years, they are not on the street selling their wares and doing business. We are cutting them off at the knees, and then let us concentrate on the other guy who takes over. That is only one piece. The enforcement is only one piece.
I heard this committee earlier talk about drug treatment programs and so on. The reality is there are several other components as well that have to be looked at. The enforcement part is really what we are all talking about today but the reality is, when it comes to mandatory minimums, those are minimums and it does not mean that the judges cannot give them the three or four or five or ten years. The reality is it is unheard of for mid-level drug dealers to be sentenced to 10 or 15 or 20 years. It is just unheard of.
Senator Lang: Thank you and I would like to welcome the witnesses.
I will go into one area that perhaps we should hear more about and is a cause of concern to everybody around this table. We heard earlier today in the neighbourhood of 900 gangs are operating in the drug trade throughout Canada. That is an amazing figure.
Then earlier today I think Mr. Sadler pointed out that, in 1999, there were five gang murders in British Columbia; in 2009 there were thirty-five. Twenty-five per cent of murders in B.C. are gang related, and I assume they are with registered guns.
I just want to ask this question because we are led to believe that crime is going down across the country according to whatever media you read, yet here we have these people like yourselves on the front line with the message that things are escalating on the street. Number two it would appear that it is brazen. Earlier today we heard that someone was shot in the front of a public building in downtown Halifax during the middle of the day. Could you comment on the fact that maybe the present laws they way stand are not a deterrent to this type of action? Perhaps I will go with Mr. Sadler and then Mr. Momy.
Mr. Sadler: Do I think the current state of affairs is working? No, I do not. I have been a drug cop for a long time, and in Vancouver we have perhaps the worst drug problem in Canada. If you are going to work anywhere, it is like being a baseball player. Do you want to do it in Yankee Stadium? Yes, because that is where the big leagues are. In the past 29 years, I have learned an awful lot. Perhaps the current state of affairs is not working, but perhaps that is what our lawmakers want. I am not here to get on a soapbox.
However, in regard to the current CDSA, is it stopping drug traffickers? Not one little bit. I have been involved in the arrest of thousands of individuals, and that is not narcotics for personal use and possession. That is for trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking. Of those thousands of people where I have been involved in their arrest, as I said, not one of them is deterred by the current legal system. I might point out that, of those thousands of people, only one of them is still in jail. It is not like there is no drug war out there, never has been, never will be. We give you the service with the tools that we are provided, and we are asking for better tools.
Mr. Momy: I would like to comment on the violence issue. I have the opportunity to talk to front-line police officers across the country, and in fact, our vice-president is from Vancouver. I can tell you in the B.C. area in the last several years, and both sergeants can probably comment on this, there is violence when it comes to gang activity. When we talk about gang activity, we are talking about drug activity and the exchange of guns as well, so you are automatically presuming there will be a significant amount of violence. The sergeants are correct, and we have all heard the news media in the last few years regarding the violence and deaths that have been caused in B.C., and a significant and I would say the large portion of those murders in B.C. in the last few years have been related, or could be related, to drug activity and gun activity, plain and simple.
The Chair: I have a supplemental to Senator Lang's question if he does not mind.
I believe that in law, a group as small as three people can constitute an organized crime group. When you are dealing with organized crime and drugs, to what extent are you dealing with huge organized crime and to what extent is it small entrepreneurs, if you will, to pick up on Mr. Sadler's business model?
Mr. Foley: In the projects I have been involved in, there are a number of persons running the upper level. As you work your way down the different levels, down to the street level, that number grows. Therefore, at the top, you might have three to ten persons in charge of the distribution of cocaine, let us say, and then down at the bottom, all the different runners or drug traffickers, that number multiplies.
Senator Lang: I want to go now to evidence that was given yesterday by the defence counsel. They indicated to us in a very open statement that in the last 10 years, the sentences being handed out by the judiciary are harsher than they were 10 years ago. Yet, today, we are hearing a different position, as I take it from the evidence that has been given.
Perhaps we could have comments, maybe from Sergeant Sadler again because you have so much experience in taking these cases to court and the actual sentences being administered.
Mr. Sadler: I do not want to disagree with the defence lawyer group. I do not have any letters after my name, but I do have a lot of experience.
In my experience, which is considerable, with the current laws and the punishments being handed out, we are basically just treading water and slowly drowning. Do I think that the sentences have had any effect on drug traffickers? No. We have 17-year-olds doing what we call dial-a-dope trafficking, and they are doing so because they do not want to work at McDonald's for $8.25 an hour.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: As Senator Carignan said, the purpose of Bill S-10 is, above all, to protect young people. I have given a lot of talks in the schools in the past three or four years, in Secondary IV and V, which is grades 11 and 12, and in the youth centres. Teachers generally tell me that the primary cause of dropping out of school, youth crime and prostitution among young girls is the use of drugs, mainly marijuana. For those people, selling drugs to children is like social terrorism. Society will have to bear the consequences of that over the long term.
This morning, the Journal de Montréal published a column by Richard Martineau, a well-known journalist, entitled Not So Soft. It was the story of two mothers whose 16-year-old boys had committed suicide after starting to use cannabis. Mr. Martineau writes that cannabis is now a much harder drug than it was 30 years ago.
I am putting the question to all the police officers because you have no doubt had to cover suicide cases. We know that all suicide cases are subject to police investigation to determine whether criminal elements are at play.
These two mothers told how their boys had had no problems until they got involved in drugs and that they committed suicide six months later.
Do you more frequently encounter this kind of situation involving young people who start using marijuana at 14, 15 or 16 years of age and ultimately meet a fate as violent as suicide?
Mr. Momy: Personally, I have had a few experiences where that exact situation, as you have presented it, happened. In one of our cases, when I was an investigator — we are talking about the early 2000s — I remember a young man of 18 or 19 who had been encouraged by a friend to smoke cannabis and committed suicide about a year later.
I also remember a similar case, but, frankly, in the past 10 years, I could not give you any serious statistics on the increase in the number of suicides involving cannabis use. However, as you said, the drug is definitely more dangerous today than it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
Senator Boisvenu: Mr. Sadler or Mr. Munroe?
[English]
Senator Boisvenu: Do you have experience with families with kids who have committed suicide as a result of using marijuana?
Mr. Munro: Could I comment?
Senator Boisvenu: Yes.
Mr. Munro: Previous to being in the drug section, I was a traffic officer for several years. On several occasions, I would deal with young people who would be smoking pot in cars. When I went further in talking to their parents about their children smoking pot and drug use in general, hanging around with the wrong crowd in school went hand in hand.
On probably a monthly basis, I would talk to parents, and they would have a son or daughter who was a regular student going through life with all the hopes that we have, and then all of a sudden there was a change. Drugs were invariably involved, and a change in their friends was also invariably involved.
Fortunately, I was getting them before the stage of suicide by bringing in the counsellors and school liaison officers, by taking the early steps, much like taking a person who is suddenly experiencing problems and are now turning to drugs, thinking that it will make the problem better, but in the end it does not. It is an artificial and temporary solution. I think that is where some of them do not have the opportunity to get the help beforehand and then they go to the stage of suicide.
Senator Mahovlich: I was just curious, there are many grow ops across Canada apparently where, for medicinal purposes, moms and pops would have a little grow op in their basement. If you walked in on a person like that, would you use common sense and determine they are okay as they are not organized crime and just walk out? Would this bill affect that at all?
Mr. Foley: No, I do not believe so. Whenever I am investigating, if I get a tip or source of information that there is a grow op at a certain location, part of my investigation is checking with Health Canada to see if there is an exemption permit that exists for that address or that person. That is not saying that I have not executed an arrest because they are not allowed to sell or traffic in that narcotic.
Senator Mahovlich: If it is just for their own personal use?
Mr. Foley: If there is no trafficking, there are about 15 plants on the certificate they are allowed to have, and if I believe there is no more, that would be the end of my investigation.
The Chair: Senator Baker and Senator Runciman have both asked for quick second rounds. I hate saying "quick," but senators do understand.
For the witnesses, you may be aware that the bells are ringing in the background, which means the Senate is being called to sit, and this committee does not have the right to sit once the Senate begins to sit. That is the clock we are up against here. It is not just my personal authoritarian tendencies.
Senator Baker: I have one simple question. I would just remind you that this is considered under the Criminal Code to be a judicial proceeding, so therefore anything you have said cannot be held against you in a subsequent proceeding, especially in disciplinary proceedings.
My question is this: Very serious offences are being included in this bill, with very serious punishment — life imprisonment, maximum on certain offences now that are only considered to be Schedule III drugs. Do any of you believe that perhaps we should recommend as a committee to the government, in the passage of the bill, if the bill passes and I imagine it will, that an advertising campaign be recommended, aimed at young people? For example, this weekend, Halloween, in the Pacific Coliseum: "If, in the future, you do this and you give someone one of those ecstasy pills, you will be subjected to a charge that could carry life imprisonment." Do you think that would be of value in getting the message out — an advertising campaign?
Mr. Momy: I think that would happen anyway, senator. In saying that, we have school resource officers across this country who go into schools and speak to youth. When laws are updated, on many occasions those officers will advise youth in high schools and colleges. I am sure that some education is even provided at the elementary school level. In saying that, I think that would be a great idea because, again, it is all about educating the public and educating youth. As I have said earlier, the youth are our future and we want to get to those kids.
Senator Runciman: Sergeant Sadler, several things you said were very intriguing. You talked about the current laws, that we are treading water and slowing drowning. In your formal submission, you described Bill S-10 as a good start to taking back our streets.
You may not have time to respond, and you may want to respond in writing, but given your background, I would like to know what else you think government could be doing, not just restricting it to the Criminal Code but perhaps other initiatives that could be taken to address the challenges you are facing.
Mr. Sadler: Thank you, senator. Just to keep this short for Madam Chair, I am an optimist, I am a Toronto Maple Leaf fan, and I think things will work out in the end. I believe this is a good first step. If you were ask me to give you what I would do if I were in charge, I think it would probably be better served by way of written submission to you, sir. I would gladly do so.
Senator Runciman: I appreciate that.
The Chair: Gentlemen, we all thank you. It is always helpful for us to hear from law enforcement people who actually have to put what we do into practice. It has been particularly helpful today. We are grateful to you.
Colleagues, this committee will sit again next Wednesday at 4:15 p.m. in this room. We will be hearing from many witnesses next Wednesday, so plan for a longer-than-usual sitting.
(The committee adjourned.)