:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't know whether it's an honour or not to be here this afternoon. It was three weeks ago today that I ceased to be the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. Compulsory retirement is at 75, and so I obeyed the law and retired. Up until that time, of course, I could not appear before a body such as this to give you my views, whatever they may be, as they relate to organized crime, particularly what we see of it from the point of view of the bench in Edmonton and Alberta.
I was invited late on Thursday to be here, and I said I could make it. I did a little work with one of our students and circulated a little bit of a paper that you have before you as to where we stand in Edmonton on the matter of organized crime as we see it.
I think we have to go back a little bit. You have to remember that we're a court of general jurisdiction. So my jurisdiction was not only to take care of the civil procedures in court but also the criminal procedures and to assign the judges. The only authority I had was to tell judges where and when to sit. What we tried to do when we got these complex cases relating to organized crime was to assign a judge who had some considerable experience in the area.
The big case that came before the courts in Alberta was Regina v. Chan about five or six years ago, when 30 were arrested. We didn't really know how to handle this because we didn't have the capacity within the courtroom to handle it. This resulted in our building a courtroom for about $2.3 million, fully equipped with adjoining cells in the basement of the courthouse in Edmonton. We had studied what was done in Winnipeg when it had a very similar case starting before ours. Winnipeg had moved its courtroom into an old mill, I think it was, about three or four miles away from the courthouse. We were satisfied to handle a mega-trial of this type, which we'd never had the experience of doing in Alberta before. We had to try to see if we could keep it within the courthouse for security and other reasons.
That trial became very complicated. There were a good number of lawyers. It finally got severed. Most of the accused pleaded not guilty. A few pleaded guilty. The proceedings then commenced and the case collapsed under its own weight, because it was under the section relating to organized crime. Regrettably, the prosecutors weren't really trained to handle that, as it was new to them. There was application after application, including all kinds of applications for particulars and further and better particulars. Finally, these charges were stayed. By that time, probably three years had passed and the people who had pleaded guilty were already back out on the street, while others were still being tried. When they severed the two trials and they were stayed, the crown never appealed. It was a well-learned lesson about gang trials and procedures.
The result is that we have since probably had three trials proceed under that section as it relates to organized crime in Edmonton. One of the trials was called Park, which dealt with a big fraud relating to mortgages. He was acquitted of the fraud charge and also of the charge of receiving benefits from criminal organizations.
There's one that's ongoing called R. v. Alcantara, which is a criminal organization. However, this trial is not proceeding under the organized crime section because the prosecutors feel they can better handle these cases without going under that particular section.
We have another case called the Caines trial, with Caines being the co-accused of Alcantara. He will probably be pleading guilty because of a deal that I think is going to be made.
That's the extent to which we have been involved with the organized crime trials that have come before us.
You will see some remarks from a Mr. Finlayson in the paper that I've circulated. It's somewhat interesting, because he gives reasons for not proceeding under the organized crime sections. He says to sever when you possibly can sever, and to lay specific charges because they can be handled a lot more expeditiously, in particular when it comes for demands for particulars and for full disclosure.
I know that the prosecutors would be reluctant to come before this committee at this stage because they're active in these cases, but you at least have the benefit of what a prosecutor has to say to me. This is from the justice department in Alberta. Some other comments in the paper may also be of some use to you.
Organized crime has been with us, in one way or another, for a long time. When I grew up there were zoot-suiters. They were more into mischief than into trying to get proceeds out of organized crime. Organized crime, as I see it in this particular city--and I think this feeling is shared by a lot of my former colleagues--isn't big, because the genesis of the organization does not take place here. It's probably Vancouver. In Ontario it's probably in Toronto. However, the individuals who are organized here are making other people rich. We have to read between the lines and make some inferences, but this is what we see during the course of the trials we conduct. We really don't see that much of it in comparison to other places.
We have a specific problem in Wetaskiwin because its jurisdiction takes in Hobbema, and there is organized crime among the native gangs in Hobbema. That may be one of the areas where there is more intense activity by way of organized individuals; the other place would be Fort McMurray. Once again, they are usually identifiable groups. A lot of them are immigrants. A lot of these immigrants come here with a lot of talent and add to our culture, but at the same time they bring their baggage. Sometimes their baggage is the fact that they've been involved in some type of organized crime activity back where they came from.
As an overall assessment, in Alberta and in Edmonton in particular we're not having any problems now in being able to handle these cases. We recognize that the prosecutors still have some considerable problems in supplying the information that they're obliged to provide under Stinchcombe. These are not easy cases and they're usually adjourned. On a few occasions it was to ensure that all the particulars were given in disclosure. A lot of these prosecutors are young and still learning their trade, and it's not an easy job for them.
The law has changed since Stinchcombe. The law has changed since the charter. I've been a judge for 36 years, and pre-charter it was easy doing criminal cases; if the policeman didn't beat the living daylights out of someone or else promise him everything that you could imagine, the evidence was admissible, but with the charter and the rights that are now given under the charter, it has become very difficult for judges. Judges have a tough time handling the charter.
We're getting better. When I went to law school, the charter was sections 96 and 97 of the BNA Act, and that was it. In 1982 to 1985, we started to learn about the charter. I had a landmark decision in the Bridges case; I had to impose the charter, and the Bridges case changed the warnings that the police had to give all across Canada. We had to advise them of the availability of legal aid.
To be quite frank with you, I hated it, hated doing that. I knew this guy maybe wasn't guilty, but boy, he was involved: scot-free. The police weren't used to dealing with individuals and applying the charter at that stage either, because they were still from the old school.
That to me was a very good example of where I as a judge, who all of a sudden, after sitting for about fifteen years.... You don't like to change, but you do change; you say, the charter is the charter, and that's the law now.
We're getting better at the application of the charter, and I think prosecutors are getting better at disclosure. Cases are running quite smoothly. These cases take a little bit longer, and we often adjourn them, but at the same time, we can give, in Edmonton and Calgary, a trial within seven months or six months after preliminary has been concluded and the person has been arraigned. We're pretty proud of that record. Maybe it's in part because the crown is now proceeding as I indicated.
Thank you very much.
:
Thank you, Chief Justice. I have read about your career and your sense of humour and your accomplishments in the legal field. I'm very impressed.
I am from New Brunswick. The eastern part of Canada has a different sort of criminal mindset, for sure, and what we are discovering in this tour around the country is that there are different problems in different locations. But there are some constants, and one thing that we grapple with and that divides us sometimes is the usage of judicial discretion. Some offer solutions, as legislators, to legislate and to bring in mandatory minimums or very strict directions to judges of the first instance as a way of helping situations of leniency, increasing deterrence, and generally making the criminal element be more regulated.
I would be interested in your perspective on whether there has been too much judicial discretion. We had witnesses this morning from the police community who suggested that the system is not working in part because judges are not paying sufficient heed to evidence in bail hearings, show cause hearings. I know that as a chief justice you may not be in the provincial courts of first instance that much, but the mistakes generally trickle up to where you were for so many years.
It's a general question. As I say, I'm a big believer in judicial discretion, but as with apples, there are some judges who don't get it right. Presumably courts of appeal and Canadian Judicial Council hearings help with that.
The other aspect I'll ask you about is along the same lines. There have been suggestions at this committee, and I have been here for four years, about judges being totally unaccountable. We don't get to interview many of them. The idea is that there is the Canadian Judicial Council and there are the criminal courts to take care of judges, but that you are not as accountable as a group as we are, let's say, because every so often we have to knock on doors and be rejected or not. In some cases, if you don't go door to door, you do better, but....
Do you think judges are accountable enough, and do you think judicial discretion is way overboard?
:
We're a human system. We've created a human system in our judicial system in Canada. In a human system you're going to get strengths and you're going to get weaknesses.
It would be easy to get rid of judicial discretion by having a grid system like the one they have in California and say “three strikes and you're out”—third time with a loaf of bread, 21 years.
Judicial discretion, in my view, goes part and parcel with judicial independence. You can make mistakes at a trial level, and the solace is this: that they can go to the court of appeal and be straightened out. But I find that judges, generally speaking, are very careful when it comes to judicial discretion. If it's exercised, it's exercised for a good purpose. It's exercised because they feel the consideration not only of punishment, but that the person has some redeeming qualities and may be able, over the course of time, to do something about straightening out their ways.
We get this criticism all the time, that we're not hard enough. We could be hard enough; it's easy to be hard enough. Then we're in a new business, and that's building prisons. We have a prison population right now.... In Alberta we have 3.8 million people, I think it is, and Holland has 14 million people, and we have twice as many people in prison. It's easy to be hard; it's hard to use discretion.
Discretion used by individuals who are properly appointed—and usually the people who are appointed are of the best from the profession and are very careful when they use judicial discretion.... The matter of accountability is that we are accountable as judges. We are accountable first of all to our own conscience, and that's most important. The people who are there are there with a conscience. Once again, the solace is that if we are wrong in the decisions we make, the court of appeal is there to straighten us out, and the crown usually then appeals those decisions.
Accountability is something that I feel we have in Canada; we are accountable as judges. The Canadian Judicial Council receives complaints, probably 150 to 175 a year. We've never in Canada had anybody thrown off the court by Parliament. We've been close on a couple of occasions. We have 1,200 judges, more or less, in Canada in the federal system and have about 120 to 170-some complaints. California, which has a population the size of Canada's, has more than 3,800 complaints each year. There are full-time judicial councils and sub-councils sitting to hear the complaints. Where do the complaints come from? Usually they're from elected judges. We've done a pretty good job of appointing judges in Canada; we really have. Your government has; prior governments have.
Every so often something happens. You tell your Chief Justice Smith in New Brunswick that he was a mistake. Just tell him I said that.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
:
I can't answer for the justices of the peace, and you have recognized that. It's a relatively new procedure that has occurred with the justice of the peace, within the last three or four years, as to how bail is handled at that level.
Appeals that come to our court, which are bail reviews, have increased substantially over the course of time, and they are now much longer. It's the obligation of the crown prosecutor to bring forth the reports. If he fails to bring forth the information, the police or the public suffer the consequences by reason of this person's probably being released when he should not have been released.
A good example of that was a case here in Edmonton called Martin, for an individual who killed his wife when she was pregnant. He was released by a judge from Calgary on the bail review. If you read his judgment, you could understand why he was being released, because all the reports weren't in at that stage. He was released, and there was a hue and cry about this, but it could not be publicized and no information could be given about why he was released. But subsequently, when you read the judgment, you would ask why you would keep the guy in jail in light of the information that came before that particular judge at that time. The court of appeal reversed it, but by that time we had more information.
The feeling I get is that the general public would like to see these people incarcerated until they get to trial, but we have some very practical problems in the remand centre and the capacity in the remand centres. I've done a lot of bail reviews in my time. In fact, one of my decisions really set the guidelines for bail reviews. That was on Lysiak. Lysiak only stole $17 million from the Bank of Montreal—no petty cash--but I released Lysiak on bail. But I tied him down so that he had to live with his brothers in Mundare, and he surrendered his passport. I allowed him to go to church on Sunday. I asked him what church he went to. I knew from my own practical knowledge that this church was only open once a year—so he went to church once a year.
You can really tie up a person. You spend $13 a day, I think it is, for him to be monitored by a parole officer, while you spend $130 a day for him to stay in jail. You have to be practical about this. In this day and age, with monitoring with bracelets and other mechanisms, you can save a lot of money. Unless there is a very good reason to lock up an individual—usually it is for crimes of violence—I'm a great believer that we can release a lot of these individuals and save ourselves a lot of money and get around the problems we have in the remand centres of overcrowding and yet have these people attend.
:
Following upon Mr. Rathgeber's point about interlocutory measures, let me follow up with pretrial measures.
As you know, on the civil side of things there's usually a pretrial conference judge who is not to hear the actual hearing so he can deliver an unbiased view of it; also, his decision is just for the motion itself. Would you recommend more of those types of procedures?
Secondly, it's the overall role of the prosecutor, the defence attorney, maybe the judge, and the police in a criminal process.... There was some discussion this morning, and there's been some discussion for years, about how these are all the players.
Now, I can tell you that our experience, in the four years I've been here, is that we very rarely hear from prosecutors. Point number one is that they work for government, so they're a little reticent; two, they don't make the money, probably, that defence attorneys do, so they can't really afford to fly off to Ottawa and gab; three, maybe they are busy. And I think there is an overall reticence to speak out about the process. So we don't hear that.
We never hear, as I mentioned, from judges—twice in four years. The last one passed away about a year or two after, so be careful driving home today.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Brian Murphy: I'm just kidding.
But we hear from defence attorneys all the time. Mr. Rathgeber and I share the view that as members of the Canadian Bar Association—and I've spoken with the Canadian Bar Association about it--the only filter we seem to get....
They're very good lawyers. They're criminal defence attorneys. But they are the squeakiest wheel, and they tend to make other people think that's all lawyers think about.
The question is this. How different, really, do you think, in your experience, prosecutors are from defence attorneys in viewing these pretrial procedures and these interlocutory motions to narrow down the discovery process? How far apart do you think they would be, if you could get them into a room?
:
We have pretrial conferences in all criminal trials that are going to be three days or more. Generally speaking, there is cooperation as between the two individuals, or it might be three defence counsel and one prosecutor. Sometimes when you add another defence counsel, then the complications arise.
It is a lot better now than it has been in the past. I think that lawyers, generally speaking, feel they have an obligation to ensure that these matters are proceeded with as expeditiously as possible and within a reasonable time.
So a lot is accomplished in a pretrial conference: no, you don't have to call that witness; just read in his statement, because I'm not going to cross-examine him anyway.
A lot of things can be done at these pretrial conferences. Pretrial conferences are very effective. One of the problems is that the crown doesn't have the resources to conduct them in all occasions, or sometimes they have to send someone who's not going to handle the trial, so it's not effective. It's a staffing problem that causes that problem. At the very same time, we are a little bit proactive: Can we resolve this case? He's been charged with assault causing bodily harm. It was a black eye. Can we bring this down? Can we save a couple of days?
We triple-book criminal trials in Edmonton. Some are adjourned, some plead guilty, and yet we have enough judges and all the trials are heard notwithstanding the fact that we triple-book. We have eight judges, and we have about 24 cases that we book each day. We weed them out through pretrial conferences or whatever it might be. Very seldom do we have to send anybody home. I think it was twice last year. They got a trial the next week if they wanted or when it was convenient to them.
We've done very well by what we call these kind of reforms, which are our own initiatives: the effective use of pretrial conferences and the criminal appearance court, and what we call mini-trials. Those mostly are civil cases, but the odd time they have also been criminal cases.
I think that the bar now is cooperating. There used to be a time when it was such an adversarial position that they adopted, they wouldn't even speak to each other until they got before the court. Judges would then start court a little early and ask if they'd spoken to each other about this. The answer would be no.
We're in a more civilized era now than we used to be. The adversarial system also demands that there be cooperation.
:
When I started as a judge, it was a nine-to-five job with no heavy lifting. That was back in 1974. Judging has completely changed: completely changed. With computers and the changes in the law and the shift in domestic cases and the way there are more long trials, it's a completely different kind of profession, or part of the profession, from what it was 30 years ago. If you go down to the courthouse now, the parking lot by eight o'clock is filled. Back 30 years ago, there were maybe two cars, and they were all waiting until ten o'clock, because all they did was just their cases and nothing more.
With pretrial conferences, case management, and with preliminary applications, the hallways are very busy. We're packed to the roof in Edmonton now; we have no room for anybody else. We have one judge for every 54,000 citizens in Alberta. Back about 1993, there was one judge for every 43,000, more or less. We were fifth in Canada at that time. We are now number one in Canada. Ontario and Quebec and British Columbia are behind us by way of the ratio. But our judges are working to full capacity.
In my case, I haven't had a holiday, because the foreman who's on the job.... If you have six people with shovels, you're going to have to have a foreman; if you have 60 people with shovels, you still have to have a foreman. I haven't had a holiday of more than ten days in over 20 years. One of the reasons is that we've had to try to maintain what we call that “lead time” that is respectable. We've been able to do it; we've been innovative. If we have to sit on Saturday, we'll sit on Saturday.
Judges are now very busy. Had it not been for the assistance of some legal students and legal counsel to assist us, we would really be behind the eight ball. In Edmonton, when I left, there wasn't one judgment that was not rendered over four months--not one. Calgary's a little different
An hon. member: There's always that rivalry.
Hon. Allan Wachowich: I'm just telling you now that judging has changed.
:
I am not going to accuse the Supreme Court of Canada of political decisions. I think that when the Supreme Court of Canada made the decision as it related to the impracticality of these mega-trials, the court realistically saw that they were in fact that. We found that out first-hand in Alberta.
There has to be another way. I'm not too sure what the other way is, but if we clog up our whole system with mega-trials in Quebec, Alberta, and Ontario, we frustrate the whole judicial system. It undermines the whole system. One way or another, we have to find a way to deal with these kinds of trials in a way that allows us to bring them to a conclusion in one way or another. I think Alberta in part has done some of that.
We've had conferences. I was on the reform committee for the justice department. It consisted of three members of the Canadian Judicial Council and attorneys general in Canada. One of the big things we were dealing with was the mega-trial. We studied the mega-trial. There's a good paper on the mega-trial out of that committee. I think that committee is still meeting. I am not on it any longer, but I was on it for about five years; there was Justice Kennedy from Nova Scotia, me, and Associate Chief Justice Pidgeon from Quebec.
So this is being studied from the judges' point of view as well. We're also studying case management, which I think will solve a lot of the problems. We're also dealing with possible reform of the jury system, which we haven't looked at for years.
Justice reform is going on at the same time that your committee is studying one aspect of it. This is relatively new, and I'm pleased that a committee of Parliament is looking at this issue, because if we had organized crime in this country of the type we have in some other countries, God help us.
I'm a proud Canadian. My grandparents came here from the old country. As far as I'm concerned, we're living in the best country in the world. I've taught in Russia and I've taught in the Ukraine, and boy, we're ahead of everybody. What did the Ukrainian judges do after the fall of the Iron Curtain? Out of all the countries, they came to Canada, because they said they wanted to adopt a system that was similar to Canada's. They went to Hamilton. They went to Winnipeg. They went to Edmonton. There were 30 of them. They came back two years later, after going back to Ottawa to review what they had learned, and said we were doing great in Alberta and that they were coming back to Alberta. In a way they adopted us.
What it really indicates is that our system is imperfect--it can't be perfect unless we have a dictatorship--but we can be very proud of our record when it comes to handling cases. We should be prepared to adapt and adopt and to change if necessary, and change is necessary in this particular area. I'm therefore very pleased that something is being done.
:
Thank you for inviting me to this event.
I know that this committee is focusing on justice and human rights. In our community, when it comes to justice, we always look to the social issue side.
Today I am speaking on behalf of Alberta's Somali community to share our experience and the nightmare that we have been through and are still going through.
The Somali community left their homeland for fear of persecution, for fear for their lives and the lives of the other members, but the community finds themselves once again in this position: they feel they are back where they came from--from the nightmare of terror, fear, and the reluctance to trust anyone. They feel they are back in Somalia.
The Alberta Somali community is undergoing growing pain relative to being new immigrants in this part of Canada. There are many obstacles preventing full integration of the larger Alberta Somali community. However, the deaths of Canadian men of Somali heritage in Alberta in the last three years have changed our community life forever as we know it as Canadians. We also mourn deeply not only our young men but also the loss of a sense of security as citizens of Canada, the sense that somehow we were protected from this kind of terrible attack. In many ways the impact has been felt even more deeply by many of our members who have been mischaracterized, with our human rights protection eroded, which is central throughout this country.
We are experiencing youth violence and recruitment by organized crime organizations. We are deeply, deeply seeking peace and safety, as are all other communities. Some of my members are saying enough is enough--enough with the victimization, enough with the injustice.
Somehow we feel that we are foreign to our country. We are Albertan. We are Canadian. We feel we are here for the same reason that our ancestors came here, for fear of persecution, for freedom of religion, and so on, yet our community does not experience the core value of being Canadian, which is freedom and justice for all. I am hoping that this committee, at the end of the day, will do something about this.
To give you our brief history here in Alberta, we estimate that the Alberta Somali community is between 30,000 and 35,000. We live mainly in Calgary, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, and Grande Prairie. About 50% of our community are first-generation immigrants and 50% are Canadian-born; 84% are younger than 35 years of age, and 97% of us are Muslims.
In Alberta, Somali history is that 70% came between 2003 and 2005, and 18% arrived between 2006 and 2009. The majority of us are second-generation immigrants from other provinces, mainly Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. There are others who came as refugees or through other steps.
The biggest challenge of our community at present is lukewarm to hostile reception in Alberta. Despite the fact that we were allowed into Canada in the beginning as an invitation, we feel that the other door that leads to full participation has been closed to us.
There is a Somali proverb that says you don't enter an open door, you enter because there is an open face. This open face is not here for our community. After we came through the first gate, our welcome ended there. It has been a struggle ever since.
Some in our community say that the challenge, after full 30 years of living in Canada, 10 years in Alberta, is how to deal with the systemic barriers that block opportunity, not only from the first generation of Somali Canadians, who were trained in Somalia, but also the young generation who went to a Canadian university and are still not finding opportunities for employment in Alberta.
Then you run into difficulty. For example, your children could be integrated faster than you, through knowing the language and so on. You want to teach your children the culture and to help them adjust in a new environment, but when you are working long hours with no support, that's difficult to do.
Also, when parents are frustrated by unemployment or underemployment, that affects the children. If they see their father, who is an engineer, doing a minimal job, then the kid will probably ask why they should go to university if it didn't help their father or their big brother. So that is a factor.
If 80% of our members are below the age of 35, then there is a critical need to focus on youth. Youth are disillusioned by the fact that their fathers are unemployed and working in a minimal job, despite their having several degrees, while many in the mainstream are prospering. In frustration, the young men drop out of school, feeling there is no point in getting an education.
Or even worse, they are in trouble with the law. One of the things that happen is that because the home area becomes so violent, it's affecting the youth, especially the boys, so some parents send their boys back to Somalia. It's interesting to see parents sending their sons to the unsafe environment that they themselves ran away from. They believe that in that environment at least their children won't be involved with the criminal justice system and organized gangs. A good question to ask then is what that says about Canada.
I interviewed one of the young men, and this is what he told me: The term “Somali” does not make sense to me. I grew up in this culture, where I was known, so I have my identity intact. I don't think that label describes me. Therefore, I disregard it when I hear it. However, I'm worried for my children. They are growing up in this society, and I'm afraid that they will internalize the negativity that comes with this term, “Somali”, not “Canadian”, and it will limit them somehow.
There are theories that say it is quite important in socializing youth for children to know their background so they have a sense of belonging, because they won't see themselves reflected in the social structure they live in right now, in other areas of society. But when young people identify with their parents' homeland more than they identify with where they were born, this shows that they don't feel acceptance in their country. In other words, it's not that young Somalis don't want to be Canadian; they feel they are not accepted as a Canadian by their government and their peers.
Currently the attitude toward the police is not seen as...the attitude toward the youth, the attitude toward the police, is not seen as universally helpful. Many in the Alberta Somali community have concern, especially with the disproportionate number of Somali youth in jail. People believe there are three reasons for that: racial profiling, lack of programs, and poor opportunity for an economic advantage. However, some progress has been made in Edmonton in working with the police and RCMP. In Edmonton, the police are working to reach out to the community.
We are trying to reduce the youth violence in our community by trying to include ourselves in the mainstream society. However, we are trying to address enhancing the supports in terms of social issues by enhancing supports for individuals and families and community to experience inclusion and increase their access to resources and opportunities--building an inclusive environment of support and network.
We are also trying to educate them and empower them by focusing on the various fora that animate the criminal justice system--the school system, the social system, and the justice system.
On the other side, we are trying to enhance the support for increasing first access and resources for opportunity--developing youth strategies to enhance opportunity for Alberta Somalis, giving youth better access to community programs, and providing increased availability for cultural components of health.
However, our community is building a positive future here in Canada. Despite all the trials and turbulence we're facing in Alberta now and have encountered in the past--and will probably encounter in the future--that positive outlook does prevail, as does our ability to give to society itself, not just in the community existing amongst ourselves.
Alberta Somalis are future-oriented. Much importance is placed on the success of the children and youth in the community. A better future is what they are looking for: hard work, pooling resources, community asset building, mentors, and also better financial security.
You can see all of the work the Somali community is doing without any outside help. The community is now moving forward. We are getting used to the idea that we are here to stay, that we need to work harder to make Alberta and Canada our home, and to put in place an institution that will support our community.
After 30 years, people are finally saying they have to unpack their bags, buy homes, and make permanent plans for their future in Alberta and Canada.
Thank you.
:
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for the invitation to be here. My presentation today will focus on whether youth gangs are progressing into criminal organizations.
The level of youth gang organization varies from gang to gang. Therefore, the approach to dealing with them should be regional, and, more importantly, age-specific. This comes from my research as a doctorate student with the youth gangs in Saskatoon and here in Edmonton, which were predominantly aboriginal youth gangs, and exposure to Calgary gang scenarios in the last two years.
Youth gangs continue to be a pervasive problem. They add to the violent crime, instill fear, and engage in a range of troublesome behaviours that can be anywhere from gang graffiti to drug dealing.
Gangs have been around for a long time. It is possible that at least some of these gangs are changing and developing into criminal organizations. From the law enforcement perspective, youth gangs are changing in many ways that create problems. Earlier, many gangs were widely described as disorganized groups. However, under optimum conditions, loosely organized groups can naturally evolve to a mature form.
Research on the evolution of organizations suggests that successful organizations grow in size and become more organized, but can this be applied to youth gangs? There is very little gang research from a Canadian perspective, and within that, very little attention has been paid to the mechanism of how gangs evolve over time.
Classic research addressed this briefly and indicated that specific street gangs have integrated into criminal organizations, but this does not appear to be a predominant pattern. One example of such transformation is Fresh Off the Boat and Fresh Off the Boat Killers in Calgary. These groups exemplify the evolution from a relatively less organized group of high school kids involved in dial-a-dope operations to a formal criminal organization. Police and media reports suggest that these groups are viewed as organized crime threats because they are heavily involved in illegal drugs and use violence in pursuing their objectives. Their activities as always have resulted in criminal networks that cross regional and national boundaries. They use modern weapons, communication technology, and sophisticated armoured transportation in their operations.
On the contrary, most aboriginal street youth gangs in Saskatoon and in Edmonton are very loosely knit. A reason for group cohesion among them is commitment to their 'hood and resistance to the outsiders. Leadership is mostly less centralized, less radical, and even situational at times. It is created based on age, and older gang members serve as their role models.
Much of the indication that gangs may be transforming into criminal organizations is subjective. It has been either suggested by media coverage or the reactive approaches of law enforcement agencies. High-profile cases, such as Jackie Tran's here in Calgary, last year's New Year's Day shootings in Calgary, and Alberta's...enforcement of Victims Restitution and Compensation Payment Act reinforced these concerns.
The media coverage of youth gang violence and political reaction contribute to perceptions that gang problems are becoming increasingly serious and more organized. Youth gangs are not committees, teams, or task forces. Young-man members are close to each other to fulfill individual needs, many collective and some contradictory. They do not assemble to achieve or share previously...[Inaudible--Editor]. The group rewards like status, excitement, recreation, and protection are imperative motivations for joining a gang. Gangs offer, along with money, fun and excitement through hanging out together and attending parties, as well as opportunities to fit in with the popular kids. Activities and contacts are highly valued during the teenage and adolescent years.
Further, the scarcity of recreational activities in low-income inner city neighbourhoods leaves youngsters to be friends with gang members.
Violence within the context of gangs is an avenue for achieving status and respect in the social setting, where legal opportunities for achieving the same are very limited. From the young gang member's perspective, gangs provide a unique social service to them. The reactive law enforcement approaches fail to consider that.
From a legal perspective, gangs are all about organized crime. The Criminal Code does not provide a definition of a gang. It only defines a criminal organization.
If we look at the definition of a criminal organization, three or more young people who intentionally get together to do a break and enter, or to do a car theft, or to buy drugs in order to sell to their friends at a party, or to take joints to the party are probably involved with criminal organizations. To remain in business, organized crime groups such as drug alliances must have strong leadership, systems of loyalty, sanctions for failure to follow the rules, and business capabilities. On the contrary, many youth gangs are wobbly, with short-lived leadership, transitory membership, and informal rules for the members.
Focusing on the criminal future of youth gangs suggests that law enforcement directed at particular criminal behaviour will work primarily for gangs that are specialized, but most youth gangs are not. Increased prosecution of youth gang members as a direct or indirect result of harsher punishment may be suitable for only a few.
On the contrary, with a loose definition of “gangs”, where gangs are interpreted as criminal organizations by law enforcement and the public, we will once again end up putting more young people in prison, and for longer durations--
:
Yes, I am, thank you. My colleague, Norma, will pick up within our 10 minutes.
We thank you very much for this opportunity. I would like to recognize our two co-presenters and some of the root issues they brought up with regard to some of the reasons young people become involved in gangs. We certainly recognize those too.
Our mandate deals with prostitution, which we define as sexual exploitation of vulnerable people, male or female, in vulnerable situations. We have a real concern about those who prey upon vulnerable people, those who profit from vulnerable people, and those who exploit them.
We know more through story than through exact statistics about the role of different levels of criminal organizations. When I consulted with my Edmonton Police Service vice unit colleague, he said they didn't have the statistics either. This would be an area in which we would need to do more research and gather that evidence, but we all know the stories.
During my introduction into the area when I got involved in the mid-1990s, I met a young woman who had been taken to the island of Macau by the Triad. Her mother had to raise quite a significant amount of money to buy her back and bring her back to Edmonton.
We also know there are different levels of involvement, some at that disorganized street youth gang level as well. It's easy for those young people to be used by more organized criminal organizations.
In Edmonton we have bylaws dealing with massage and escort services and exotic dancing. Our city put those bylaws in place specifically to enable our police and bylaw workers to monitor for the involvement of organized crime to ensure that young people, those under the age of 18, were not being pulled into any of these, and also to ensure there was no pimping or exploiting going on.
We know at the street level as well that there are different kinds of involvement by organized crime, and no one has a handle on what's happening over the Internet.
I'm now going to defer to my board member, Norma, who will speak from some direct experience.
Thank you.
:
Thank you for inviting me.
This is very different for me. I come from that organized crime side. When I was young I ended up with a motorcycle gang, prostituting, finding other girls to work for them, and that kind of thing.
We talk about organized crime. Kate phoned to ask if I wanted to come to speak. I've been off the street for 10 years now. This is an honour for me. But I have direct knowledge of that from my own lifestyle—from being there, being recruited, and being put out.
They traffic these girls. Even if you're picked up in Edmonton you're still trafficked in all these other cities, because when you're in one city too long you become too well known. You're known meat. You're moved to another city where you're not known, so the police don't get to know who you are.
There are drugs. There are all kinds of different levels of organized crime. You start off at the bottom and build your way up.
The people before us spoke about how you get into it. Poverty's a big one--not fitting in anywhere. A child who was always pushed aside is very drawn to these gangs because they now have a family. They're accepted. They're needed. Whether they're needed to do a hit, hurt someone, score drugs, or sell the drugs, as weird as it seems, they're needed and accepted. I guess gang-level acceptance is what it's called. It would be very hard to end all this stuff.
I sit in this room and listen to people talk about what we could do to make it better. I heard what the judge had to say about how it is. That's why there are lengthy trials and stuff, because you want to know who ratted you out. That's the terminology they use. That's why you have these long trials.
I myself sit and wonder, yes, they pay all this money for these defence lawyers and things. But they got the money from people like me, even, who worked the street for them. It was my money that paid for their defence.
There are so many different things I could talk more about. I don't know exactly what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say. I know that we're being recorded and my name will be recorded. I was asked if I was worried about that, because where I come from, it's called wrong to do that. But I don't believe that. I'm not out here speaking about anybody but myself. So I'm really glad to be here.
I'll be more useful answering questions because I don't really know what to say.
That's it. Thanks.
:
Yes, I hear a lot of stuff. During my research, I did hear from lots of young people.
I myself am an immigrant, a first-generation immigrant and international student, and am a parent of kids who go to school. Yes, I do experience many things that other speakers have shared with us.
One of the things is characterization or labelling, where we want to put that label on Somalians. That is a problem. So gangs of Indo-Canadians, of Chinese, are a problem; my question is, well, they are second-generation immigrants. Why? Aren't they Canadian citizens?
So that's the problem. Many kids, many second-generation kids like my kids, who were born over here, are being told, “Okay, you're from India, that's fine.” But when will they start to be called Canadian?
I mentioned the gangs that are a huge problem for law enforcement in Calgary, Fresh Off the Boat Killers and Fresh Off the Boat. They are called FOBs. But the media also calls them “Forever Our Brother”. That's not the name that's ever given out or publicized.
What that tells me, and what I grasp from that, is that, well, they were the group that was discriminated against in high school--yes, “fresh off the boat”, push them away. So they are them. But they got together as Forever Our Brother. They grouped together and they stood together. Whatever happened--bad drug dealings that disintegrated--one became an enemy of the other, and they became Fresh Off the Boat Killers. So that's there.
But yes, the label has to be.... They are all born in Canada. Why are they not Canadian citizens?
:
Our organization actually was founded out of Edmontonians saying to our city, our mayor, our justice minister that we have to do something about the demand side of prostitution and exploitation.
I live in a community where street prostitution and drug trade activity had overrun our lives, and we got involved as citizens. Thirteen years later, that is still our cry, that our nation needs to do something about the demand side. It is the demand side that is fuelling the sexual exploitation of vulnerable people and human trafficking.
In 2005, when the parliamentary subcommittee on solicitation was in place, we actually dreamed of a different law than the current law in this country. We said, what would it be like if our nation was so bold that we said we will not, as Canadians, stand for the exploitation of vulnerable persons or persons in vulnerable situations, and we will target those who are profiting, preying upon, and exploiting? That's a visionary statement.
You ask, should prostitution be legalized? We both said no. We would actually like our country to take a different stance with a vision about what kind of a country we wish to live in.
Furthermore, I had the opportunity to go to the Netherlands, which is often quoted as an example, and to meet with a vice detective there. He said they thought they were being pragmatic--making it safer, all that kind of thing--but what they did, he said, was create a haven for the Russian mafia and for human trafficking. He also reflected that when the state legalized and regulated in that way, it let other citizens off the hook to care, to ask questions, to mobilize, and to become engaged in going after the root causes of social injustice and exploitation.
So we are still calling for that different stance where we educate young boys that it is not acceptable to grow up and use young women. Our organization has started what we call a “men of honour” award every year, because we want the men who are honourable citizens of every ethno-cultural community to be celebrated. Right now, the only men who get the headlines are those who rape, kill, traffic, and exploit. We want to be engaged in the education of young people, to hold up a different vision of what it means to be a person and to be in a community.
:
If you go through the community and ask, they will tell you a variety of reasons. One thing I see is that the communities before us had maybe one common issue, so they could successfully integrate into the larger community. Maybe the Vietnamese sort of shared the mainstream identity in terms of faith or another issue that is acceptable. Maybe the Lebanese had a shared faith, but the colour issue came in.
When I ask the community the reason, there are two things. First, we are mostly Muslim--97% or 98%--and second, we are African. Those two--colour and faith--become issues. That means that for the majority of people who are here—we are the largest African diaspora in Canada—nothing has been done to address some of the issues that keep us from becoming Canadians.
What usually happened in Ontario, Quebec, and B.C., where we landed when we came to Canada, was that we were offered services that were culturally appropriate. They were only good for the first five years. What happened next is where the rubber meets the road, which means that nothing has been done in that sense. After 20 years, even though they have been Canadian, when they move outside Ontario and that comfort zone of large, ethnically diverse cities, how do they replace it? What do you have? You are still Somali, even though you've been here for 20 years. And you're afraid that you won't be accepted by Canadians, because Canadians are mostly of cultures based on Judeo-Christian faiths. For me, I cannot call myself a Muslim unless I practise my faith. I have to pray five times a day. Otherwise, I am not Muslim.
What I eat is a challenge. It is a socio-economic issue, because where I shop, it is 25% higher than the grocery stores. So in terms of fitting in....
As well, when we look at those people from other ethnic communities who are involved in the drug trade, usually it is about belonging. That is not the case in our community. The other thing is that it is not about social status within the community. We have people who are very successful and are, I could say, more than middle class. But their kid is still involved in...the issue of the people who could recruit at al-Shabaab. So I think, if that's the case, what I'm saying to you is a lack of integration.