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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, February 18, 2002

1405

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.))

1410

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.)

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino (Toronto Police Services)

1415

1420

The Chair

Inspector Ron Allen (Greater Toronto Area Drug Enforcement Unit, Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

1425

1430

The Chair

Detective Inspector Signy Pittman (Halton Regional Police Services)

1435

1440

The Chair

Superintendent Bill Stevens (Operational Support, Waterloo Regional Police Services)

Mr. Lee

1445

1450

The Chair

Mr. Henry Watson (President, Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association)

Mr. George Birtig (Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association)

1455

The Chair

1500

Mr. Randy White (Langley--Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

1505

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Inspector Matt Torigian (Operational Support, Waterloo Regional Police Services)

Mr. Abbott

1510

The Chair

Mr. Henry Watson

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

1515

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

Chief Julian Fantino

Insp Ron Allen

1520

Mr. Ménard

Supt Bill Stevens

Mr. Ménard

Supt Bill Stevens

Mr. Ménard

1525

Supt Bill Stevens

Mr. Ménard

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

1530

The Chair

Detective Courtland Booth (Central Drug Information Unit, Toronto Police Services)

The Chair

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Det Courtland Booth

1535

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Supt Bill Stevens

1540

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

The Chair

Det/Insp Signy Pittman

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

1545

The Chair

Det/Insp Signy Pittman

The Chair

Insp Matt Torigian

Mr. Lee

Insp Matt Torigian

The Chair

Mr. Lee

1550

The Chair

Det/Insp Signy Pittman

The Chair

Insp Matt Torigian

Mr. Lee

Insp Matt Torigian

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

1555

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Det/Insp Signy Pittman

The Chair

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Ms. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Det Courtland Booth

The Chair

1600

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

1605

The Chair

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Ms. Davies

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Supt Bill Stevens

The Chair

Det/Insp Signy Pittman

The Chair

Chief Julian Fantino

The Chair

Insp Matt Torigian

The Chair

Insp Ron Allen

The Chair

1615

Mr. Croft Michaelson (Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Branch, Department of Justice)

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

1620

Mr. Kofi Barnes (Senior Counsel, Toronto Drug Treatment Court)

1625

The Chair

Mr. Kofi Barnes

1630

1635

The Chair

Mr. Mike Naymark (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health)

1640

The Chair

Mr. Kofi Barnes

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

1645

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

Mr. Mike Naymark

The Chair

Mr. Ménard

Mr. Croft Michaelson

Mr. Ménard

Mr. Croft Michaelson

1650

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

Mr. Ménard

Mr. Kofi Barnes

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Mr. Kofi Barnes

1655

Mr. Randy White

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Mr. Randy White

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Mr. Mike Naymark

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Ms. Davies

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Ms. Davies

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Ms. Davies

Mr. Kofi Barnes

1700

Ms. Davies

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Ms. Davies

The Chair

1705

Mr. Mike Naymark

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

1710

Mr. Derek Lee

1715

The Chair

Mr. Kofi Barnes

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Mr. Croft Michaelson

The Chair

Mr. Mike Naymark

1720

The Chair

Mr. Kofi Barnes

1725

The Chair

Mr. Mike Naymark

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb (Chair, Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association)

1735

1740

1745

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

1750

1755

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

The Chair

Margaret Steeves (Queen East Business Association)

1800

The Chair

Ms. Margaret Steeves

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques (Queen East Business Association)

1805

1810

1815

Ms. Margaret Steeves

The Chair

Ms. Margaret Steeves

The Chair

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques

Ms. Margaret Steeves

The Chair

1820

Mr. Randy White

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Mr. Randy White

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Mr. Randy White

Ms. Madelyn Webb

The Chair

Ms. Margaret Steeves

The Chair

Ms. Margaret Steeves

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Mr. Randy White

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Mr. Randy White

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

The Chair

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques

Ms. Madelyn Webb

1825

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

Ms. Davies

Ms. Madelyn Webb

The Chair

Ms. Davies

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

1830

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

The Chair

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Ms. Madelyn Webb

1835

The Chair

1840

Mr. Steve Bourgeois (Director, Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association)

The Chair

Mr. Lee

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques

Mr. Lee

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques

Mr. Lee

The Chair

CANADA

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

NUMBER 023

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, February 18, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¸ (1405)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): I will call this meeting back to order. We are the Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs.

We have representatives from three political parties so far at the table. Just to introduce everybody, I'm Paddy Torsney. I'm the chair, and I'm a member of Parliament for Burlington.

Randy White is the vice-chair of the committee and is a member of the Canadian Alliance. He's from Abbotsford, British Columbia. Réal Ménard est le député de Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, du Bloc québécois. Libby Davies will arrive from Vancouver East, and Hedy Fry will arrive from Vancouver Centre, and we have Derek Lee, who is the member for Scarborough--Rouge River. Here's Libby Davies, who is a member of the New Democratic Party.

¸ (1410)

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough--Rouge River, Lib.): I'm just going to maybe say the Lord's Prayer in English here and that way Mr. Ménard will be able to check the interpretation.

Madam Chair, I'm going to raise a fake point of order in English, just to test the microphone, that's all.

The Chair: Why don't I just tell everybody else about it?

There are hearing and interpretation services. Some people will want to use them in the same language, just so that they can hear, and you have to press the start button, turn up the volume, and pick a channel.

We have with us today for this afternoon's hearings, from the Toronto Police Services, Chief Julian Fantino and Detective Courtland Booth from the Central Drug Information Unit. From the RCMP we have Inspector Ron Allen from the GTA Drug Enforcement Unit. From the wonderful Halton Regional Police Services we have Detective Inspector Signy Pittman, from Waterloo Regional Police Services, Superintendent Bill Stevens and Inspector Matt Torigian, and from the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association, Henry Watson, who is the president, and George Birtig.

Welcome.

This session is intended to go until four o'clock. We're hoping you will have about seven minutes of presentation for us. I will give you a maximum of ten and then I will cut off the microphone, but I'll give you a warning at seven minutes. That will allow for questions from the floor, and we'll tell you about that process in a second.

So, Chief Fantino, you have seven minutes.

Chief Julian Fantino (Toronto Police Services): Seven minutes, for such an important subject.

Honourable members, please accept my appreciation for inviting me and my colleague from Toronto Police Services to appear before you to impart some knowledge and information on some of the varied aspects of the non-medical use of drugs.

Last September I had the honour of making a presentation before the Senate committee on illegal drugs. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the same concerns I expressed to the Senate committee regarding illegal drugs in our society.

Let me first begin by expressing my support and adjunct position to that defined by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police respecting illegal drugs. I stand with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police in firm opposition to any type of legalization of any and all current illicit drugs in Canada, including the possession of small amounts of marijuana or other cannabis derivatives.

Having said the foregoing, however, I am in favour of considering and even endorsing sound government initiatives to decriminalize certain offences that relate to the possession of small amounts of marijuana or other cannabis derivatives. This would not mean any form of legalization; rather, a conviction would not result in a criminal record. My endorsement, however, would be conditional on the government's instituting corresponding initiatives, including appropriate programs dealing with prevention, education, treatment, and rehabilitation, along with diversion programs counselling as well as continued enforcement.

Touching on the issue of medicinal use of marijuana and any and all current illicit drugs, I also support the CACP position and concerns about the potential hazards--health hazards, the costs, safe storage, misuse, and other vulnerabilities that must be addressed as well.

If any of the current illicit drugs are to be approved for medicinal use, Health Canada and the Government of Canada must ensure that due diligence is brought to bear in the process, from research to other safeguards. The following are some thoughts, facts, and opinions regarding marijuana, its use, and the processes being established for its medicinal use in Canada.

Does any change being considered compromise Canada's 1988 commitment to the United Nations, as defined in a convention against illicit traffic in narcotics and psychotropic substances, to control illicit cultivation, production, and distribution of drugs and abuse? Canada is presently known as a source country for high-grade marijuana, and this is a matter of great concern to Canadian law enforcement. It also brings into question Canada's reputation and commitment respecting illicit drugs interdiction.

The tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, content of marijuana has increased dramatically over the years. Marijuana should not be considered a so-called soft drug. At present only limited authority and processes exist to compel persons in control of a vehicle or other conveyance to be tested to determine the degree of impairment from the use of marijuana and other substances.

Diversion programs presently in place, such as Operation Springboard at the old city hall courts here in Toronto, seem to be working very well. This fact is validated by the very low recidivism rate of less than 5%. Such diversion programs return valuable benefits to society, including significant cost savings to police services and the criminal justice system as a whole. The distinction of organized manufacturers, importers, and distributors from drug-addicted victims, however, has not been made.

The sentencing of organized drug distributors is inconsistent and many times inadequate, given the crimes committed and the impact of the crimes on the safety and well-being of our society. There are criminals in our community trafficking in crack cocaine that have as many as 54 previous convictions for drug trafficking and other serious criminal offences. I believe that once the distinction is made between a sympathetic addict and a person of obvious career criminal predisposition, the legislature should provide remedies for justice officials to increase sentences or make recommendations that early release should not apply.

The huge growth of hydroponic marijuana sites in the southwest Ontario region presents a wide spectrum of policing issues. In fact, this is a country-wide or North America-wide situation. Police officers are required to be familiar with specialized equipment and the handling practices. The equipment and its upkeep is expensive, and the sheer volume of sites is a considerable drain on policing resources and a very significant safety hazard to all the emergency providers, police and all those who respond, including hydro personnel.

Hydroponic marijuana prosecutions result in sentences in the range of six months to one year, hardly a deterrent to the organized criminal groups that can bring in $400,000 per year from 400 marijuana plants. It is also believed in the policing community that the funds derived from these operations are being used to fund other drug importation, such as that of heroin, MDA, and ecstasy, and other criminal enterprises. A large majority, over 80%, of the criminal organizations are involved in drug trafficking. Illicit drugs are the staple commodity of organized crime enterprises.

Vulnerable communities are particularly affected by illicit drugs, as they are the primary target of drug dealers. Criminal organizations operating in Canada are motivated by the pursuit of profit, a great deal of which is derived through national and international drug distribution networks. A significant amount of community-based ancillary crime, break and enters, thefts, robberies, etc., are directly linked to the drug subculture, in which violence is also a constant in the fight for power and control.

Are the current laws effective? The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, for the most part, is an effective piece of legislation. It has amalgamated legislation, harmonized search provisions, and provided for alternative sentencing measures and authority for reverse sting operations. However, what this legislation does not currently address is a precursor chemical situation, for which Canada has become known as a source to methamphetamine speed laboratories in the United States and Mexico.

¸ (1415)

I just came back from a meeting with major city chiefs in the United States, where certain police departments are racking up hundreds of speed labs on an annual basis. Many of the precursor chemicals originate from this country or are transferred through this country, over which there is no control.

Health Canada is currently working with the RCMP, Canada Customs, provincial and local authorities, including the Toronto police, to develop regulatory powers within this legislation that will allow for reporting and verifying the movement to and through Canada of these precursor chemicals. However, the act still does not provide police with any additional powers to be proactive with clandestine chemical laboratories. We must be able to stop them before they produce not only dangerous chemical substances, but also pollute the ground and water sources that surround these labs. Police also expend valuable human and monetary resources waiting for criminals to complete this process before arrests and successful prosecutions can be made.

The recent passage of Bill C-24, the organized crime bill...it is legislation that was critically needed and long overdue. In appropriate circumstances, this bill will allow police to further penetrate organized crime and facilitate complex investigations by permitting designated officers to commit reasonable and appropriate breaches of federal statutes. Bill C-24 will also bring all proceeds of crime sections into a common piece of legislation. While we are encouraged by the progressive nature of the legislation, it is also too early to tell how this will perform.

What is needed to counter Canada's drug problem? A comprehensive and integrated approach, balancing prevention, education, enforcement, counselling, treatment, rehabilitation, and diversion, is critically needed.

Expand the drug recognition expert--DRE--training program and corresponding enabling legislation to detect and prevent substance users from operating vehicles and other conveyances. Refocus the involvement of the criminal justice system to vigorously pursue, prosecute, and severely punish organized groups that produce, import, and distribute illicit drugs. Implement appropriate legislation and processes that will more efficiently deal with possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana or hashish where no other extenuating circumstances exist. As I said earlier, decriminalize the offence.

Designate drug trafficking as a violent crime category offence resulting in elevated and certain penitentiary sentence provisions. The offence of possession of a weapon in a commission of an indictable offence, rather than use, should be considered. This change would be one of deterrence to the proliferation of weapons, many of which are used by drug dealers.

The ability of local police services to recover assets seized pursuant to the investigations conducted by those services should also be re-examined.

As I close, I wish to dwell on the most important strategy of all in the fight on substance abuse and all of the resulting problems that arise in our society as a whole, that being prevention. Substance abuse prevention is crime prevention, the saving of lives, health costs, productivity, and social decay. In simple terms, substance abuse prevention, in the reality of the day, can have a dramatic positive impact respecting safety, security, and quality of life issues, and of course the circumstances in which society as a whole is affected.

Finally, I cannot help but remark that over my 33 years in policing I have witnessed the steady passage of activities, promises, and visions proffered by so many people about how crime, violence, substance abuse, and victimization were to be eradicated. Today, however, our substance abuse problems are unprecedented, and although I know the police have been on the forefront of the public safety mandate fighting for badly needed laws, programs, and resources to more effectively tackle the drug problem and the great deal of ancillary community-based crime, misery, and disorder, for the most part our pleadings have been ignored, and that too is frustrating to us.

Having said the foregoing, however, I sincerely wish this honourable committee...[Technical difficulty—Editor]...the very difficult and important work ahead. Please be assured of our commitment to sustain and support you.

¸ (1420)

The Chair: Thank you, Chief Fantino.

Now, Inspector Allen.

Inspector Ron Allen (Greater Toronto Area Drug Enforcement Unit, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): I would also like to thank you for providing me with the opportunity to appear before your committee today to speak on behalf of the RCMP concerning our drug enforcement program in the greater Toronto area. Over the next several minutes I'll try to give you a perspective on how the RCMP drug enforcement program is structured in the GTA, the present enforcement climate, and our challenges.

I believe you have had the opportunity to hear from our program managers in Ottawa, so I will not spend any time in explaining our mandate, other than to say that the RCMP drug resources in the GTA give the highest priority to international and interprovincial investigations involving the importation of large-scale trafficking of controlled substances. This has, for the most part, removed us from street-level enforcement, which has placed additional responsibilities on provincial and municipal agencies.

Presently, the RCMP has approximately 130 members divided among five locations around the greater Toronto area, but drug resources are structured to support project-style policing, with the majority of investigations having an international flavour, as well as an organized crime connotation. However, as a result of post-September 11, approximately 50% of our drug resources have been seconded away to non-drug-related activities.

What are the dynamics of the GTA? There are 5.4 million people in the GTA, which includes major centres such as Metropolitan Toronto, along with the regions of York, Durham, Halton, and Peel. Approximately 22% of the Canadian population is estimated to reside within the GTA, which accounts for 42% of Canada's entire urban population, and one-third of Canada's income base is earned with one hour's driving distance of Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport. In a few minutes I'll speak further about the challenges we face at the airport.

The GTA is Canada's largest urban area and is now considered to be one of the 50 largest world metropolitan areas. The GTA is truly a multicultural region and very reflective of our global society. We have numerous organized crime groups operating within the GTA. Some of them are very recognizable and have a long history, while others are still in the infancy stages. Such groups include the organized motorcycle gangs, traditional organized crime, Eastern European organized crime, Asian-based organized crime, Caribbean-based drug smuggling organizations, and South American drug cartels.

Although I can sit here today and place titles on the different groups for clarity purposes, in actual fact, during the course of an investigation, traditional lines have become clouded. In previous times, certain groups were divided along commodity lines and criminal activity. That is no longer the case. The majority of criminal organizations are involved in a variety of criminal enterprises, such as alien smuggling; counterfeit money; credit card fraud; vehicle theft; jewellery smuggling; and drug importation, manufacturing, and distribution, to name just a few.

In addition, there's a willingness among the criminal groups to share resources, intelligence, and expertise. The amount of money generated has the ability to corrupt law enforcement officers, lawyers, justice officials, as well as government officials. They have the power to affect the economy of third world countries and overthrow governments.

Recently we were involved in a major project with a Caribbean country that came to us and the U.S. for assistance in investigating one of their citizens who they felt could overthrow their government if left unchecked.

Though criminal organizations may have diversified, the majority of their money is derived from the drug trade. The GTA has become an important link in the chain of business for organized crime groups from around the world.

Recent investigations have shown the importing of heroin through our Pacific ports into Toronto for further distribution to the New York market. Large amounts of heroin are stockpiled in Canada and then shipped in smaller amounts to the U.S. The routing of cocaine from South American to North American markets was traditionally supported through large shipments by ship, private plane, or container traffic. We are now seeing large stockpiles of cocaine being maintained on different Caribbean islands and then shipped to Canada by commercial aircraft to Toronto, for distribution to the Canadian and northern U.S. markets.

Our present precursor chemical laws are being exploited by organized crime groups operating in Canada and the U.S. The chemicals required for the manufacture of such controlled substances as GHB or methamphetamine can be legally obtained in Canada and then covertly shipped to illicit labs in the U.S. and Mexico for conversion.

There's a large group of pharmaceutical companies in the GTA that have fallen victim to this scenario. These shipments to the U.S. are often measured in tractor-trailer loads. This is a huge challenge for the Canadian law enforcement community, as there is no offence in Canada, but the pressure from the U.S. authorities is enormous to assist with what is a major domestic problem for them.

We are also not blind to the fact that the end product that is produced in the U.S. finds its way back to the Canadian market. In addition, the conspirators in the scheme trade other types of controlled substances with their Canadian counterparts for payment.

Another recent trend that is spreading across the country and taking firm root in the GTA is the indoor marijuana grow. We recently had a one-day blitz called Operation Greensweep, involving over 500 police officers from across Canada, where 189 marijuana grows were disrupted, with the seizure of some $56 million worth of marijuana. This was done to highlight the hazards of this situation.

In the GTA in the past year, police have been involved in approximately 600 marijuana grow lab investigations. Without focusing on the end product, the hazards these grows can cause to communities are of grave concern: poisonous herbicides and pesticides; electrocution; house fires; break and enter by competitors; and the use of violence to protect your operation--booby-trapping. All this is happening next door because most of these grows are located in well-established suburban neighbourhoods. The money generated from these grows is being funnelled back into legitimate businesses and used to support other criminal enterprises.

Another trend that is making world headlines is the popularity of the drug ecstasy. The marketing of this drug has sky-rocketed to the front of the class. There have been several deaths in the GTA associated with the use of ecstasy. Our seizures have increased tenfold during the past year.

¸ (1425)

The majority of the market is still being fed from Europe, but we have also detected several large ecstasy labs in the GTA that were producing the drug for the North American market. What costs as little as 25¢ per unit to produce can be sold on the streets for $25. The GTA is also being used to stockpile shipments of ecstasy from Europe for distribution throughout the U.S.A.

I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about Toronto and the Lester B. Pearson International Airport. At present the airport has approximately 1,100 flights per day, utilizing 56 different airlines, serving 140 destinations in 45 countries, with annual passenger traffic of 28 million people. It's the twenty-fifth busiest airport in the world, with an expected growth to 38 million passengers by 2010. Depending on the time of day, there are between 18,000 and 22,000 persons working at the airport.

Internal conspiracy enables all organized crime groups in the GTA to move both people and large amounts of illegal commodities throughout the world, and more importantly in and out of Canada. We have two groups of resources at the airport involved in drug enforcement: a federal enforcement unit that supports the front-line interdictions made by Canada Customs, and a joint forces drug team that handles major investigations.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of the situation, during 2000 and 2001, 418 kilograms of cocaine were seized at the airport, which could potentially make 12 million dosages of cocaine, generating $125 million dollars. If you add in what other RCMP drug units seize in the GTA, this figure nearly doubles to $250 million, all diverted from the legal economy. Cannabis products seized during the same period at the airport totalled 1,600 kilos, or close to two tonnes. Ecstasy seizures were close to 500,000 units.

No one can report what we are missing, but with the large amount of passenger traffic and commercial traffic flowing through the airport, it's reasonable to say that there are gaps. This is not a reflection of the job that is being done by Canada Customs and the police partners at the airport, but the volume of seizures and the lack of available personnel often precludes investigators from being able to spend the required time to determine who is organizing the importation schemes.

Drug investigations have certainly evolved. What we once were able to achieve with a few investigators and a well-placed undercover operator is no longer viable. There are no direct routes inside the criminal organizations. We are now forced into recruiting criminals inside established groups and using them as a window of opportunity. This often comes with a high price tag and potential horror stories that often make headlines. The use of technology to wiretap phones often does not provide the proper intelligence, which in turn forces us into completing high-risk, covert entries into secret meeting places used by criminals so we can intercept relevant conversations.

When we're involved in international investigations, there's huge pressure placed on police budgets to support the required travel. Laws in many countries we work with prevent the utilization of certain evidence and intelligence in preparing action plans. In other situations, some of the countries we work with cannot support the prosecution of the accused in their countries.

When we actually get to the point where we are about to conduct a high-level transaction or a takedown, we are required to employ surveillance teams, emergency response teams, cover teams, monitors, specialized financial groups, and investigators. We can no longer put two officers in the car and ask them to make an arrest. The very nature of the drug business, with the key motivator being money, has certainly raised the stakes for everyone involved. I have not even touched on what pressure our present disclosure laws have placed on police budgets and resources and how that has hampered the use of certain techniques.

Having said all this, the police forces and related agencies in the GTA enjoy the fact that they have some very keen, dedicated people in drug enforcement. We are able to make a difference in disrupting some major criminal organizations each year.

Thank you.

¸ (1430)

The Chair: Thank you, Inspector Allen.

From Halton Regional Police Services, Detective Inspector Pittman.

Detective Inspector Signy Pittman (Halton Regional Police Services): Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity.

As a member of a medium-sized police service serving the communities of Halton, a region that has the distinction of being the safest community in Canada with a population in excess of 100,000 people, my perspective is limited and perhaps naive when the breadth of your research thus far is considered. Halton Region is comprised of the city of Burlington and the towns of Halton Hills, Milton, and Oakville, with a combined population of 375,000 people. Our communities are both urban and rural, and we're located on Lake Ontario between the metropolitan areas of Toronto and Hamilton.

Our service has a uniformed officer strength of 509 members. Like many of the police services across Ontario, we are desperately recruiting for competent candidates to fill vacancies that exist and that continue to grow. There are six officers dedicated full time to drug and morality investigations, a unit that could easily deploy four times the staff and not be short of enforcement work.

As noted in the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, levels of police enforcement directly influence trends in drug offences. This is very much the case for Halton, in that we have seen a significant increase in the number of complaints about hydroponic marijuana growth in the region, and thus enforcement has increased. In the last six months we have investigated 22 complaints, seized 7,000 plants, arrested 22 people, and have 73 charges before the courts. We have leads on the existence of an additional 35 grow houses that are waiting to be investigated.

For us, the enforcement against hydroponic marijuana growing operations is beyond our resource abilities. We are not unique in this position, as recently demonstrated through Operation Greensweep. Operation Greensweep originated with York Regional Police—they're located north of Toronto—in an attempt to be proactive in the fight against the onset of a proliferation of marijuana growing operations. Seventeen police services from across Ontario, as well as another seven from across Canada, agreed to execute simultaneous search warrants on hydroponic marijuana growing operations in their communities. The primary objectives of the operation were to show our commitment to reducing the supply of marijuana and to educate the public, the judiciary, and politicians on the issues related to marijuana growing operations.

The secondary objective was to generate the interests of stakeholders to pursue a solution to this problem. The fact is that these operations are a lucrative, organized criminal activity that can yield profit in excess of $1 million per growing operation per year. They are run by unwelcome criminal entrepreneurs who rarely own the middle- to upper-class houses. These individuals tear through walls and concrete floors to bypass the hydro meter. Illegal wiring presents a serious fire risk not just to the growing operation house and its occupants, but to the neighbouring homes. The creative gas venting systems that are used set the stage for carbon monoxide poisoning and other related disasters.

There are other hazards present that put the occupants and others potentially at risk. They are established in neighbourhoods, thus our eternally curious children are at risk, as some of these houses are booby-trapped to administer electric shocks to anyone venturing too near. There are risks to emergency services personal who are, in some cases, responding to extinguish a blaze, to investigate an unknown situation that is called in by the competition, or to investigate a growing operation.

In many cases, these homes have children living in them when we raid them, leaving one to wonder how the futures of these kids will be affected vis-à-vis what their tolerance and acceptance of criminal activity will be. They are a source for the substance cannabis being found in our high school and elementary grades at more than double the rate that was evident eight years ago, according to Ontario studies.

They are against the law. As such, they require extensive police and support resources to investigate them, and ultimately to process them and their occupants through the judicial and social processes.

Operation Greensweep resulted in the execution of 189 search warrants, with 37 children found inside the residences, 162 people arrested, 367 Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act charges laid, and over 56,000 plants with a street value of $52 million seized. Of those warrants, 112 were executed in Ontario, 40 in British Columbia, 29 in Quebec, and the remainder throughout Canada. This project was pulled together on short notice because of our desire to get ahead of the situation. For that reason, participation by more agencies was not solicited.

We've seen what has happened in British Columbia. We're told by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada that one in eight homicides is linked to a growing operation; that weapons seizures are commonplace at growing locations; that drug rip teams are becoming commonplace; that 95% of the trade is controlled by organized crime; and that the profits associated with drug growing operations are in the billions of dollars.

We believe we were successful in this operation. We have heightened awareness of the problem in our communities. We have the support of many local councils. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario is asking the provincial attorney general and solicitor general to become involved by reviewing our proceeds of crime revenue and how it is dispersed, and by reviewing the penalties given for this type of activity in an effort to establish a deterrent value for the penalty versus a cost-of-doing-business value.

We are also working with other impacted agencies and organizations to develop creative solutions to the problems: electrical distribution companies, electrical safety authorities, fire departments, fire marshals, the Department of Justice, the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, the Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario, the RCMP, the OPP, and municipal police services.

This type of cooperation and coordination has been an example of how we can come together for a common purpose and have an impact.The impact will be greater and perhaps even sustaining should future projects be community-centred and cooperatively coordinated either provincially or otherwise. They also must be politically, judicially, and financially supported. Part of getting to that stage will be educating the stakeholders on the issue.

What does this have to do with your committee's mandate? We believe the significant escalation of growing operations in Ontario and across Canada is an excellent example of an underlying factor related to the non-medical use of drugs. It's organized, it's dangerous, it's profitable, and it's against the law. The dimensions of the problem impact on several agencies, and we believe that by determining who has responsibility for what, communicating that, and then planning a coordinated response versus a centralized response, we have a viable option for success.

You have posed several questions related to Canada's drug strategy, a strategy we were unfamiliar with until last week. We view the strategy as multi-faceted enforcement, harm reduction, and communication of a national message, all of which should be audited to determine effectiveness in a timely and cyclical manner. The role the federal government could play is one of developing those practices; communicating the national message through the development of proven educational programs and other means; facilitating the data collection and analysis; and supplying the equipment and technology needed to pursue the national strategy. Health Canada could provide the marketing and education needed to deter individuals from drug use.

¸ (1435)

What role should law enforcement agencies play in harm reduction? It's important that the role of the police not be muddied. The Police Services Act of Ontario requires police services to provide adequate and effective police services in accordance with its community's needs. These services must include, at minimum, crime prevention, law enforcement, assistance to victims of crime, public order maintenance, and emergency response.

Police agencies are the social agency of last resort. Others with expertise and training need to play the primary role of harm reduction. Currently, it is a challenge for the Halton Regional Police Service--I know we're not alone in this service--to deliver these mandated services. Just this past summer we had to redeploy staff from the drug bureau and other functions in the service for an extended period of time simply to meet the investigative needs of a homicide investigation. Most recently, we had to swear in new recruits early so as to have the safe number of officers available to support a takedown of five grow houses.

Resources at the front line are stretched beyond their limits. The judicial standards to which we are required to comply and the influx of technology used by organized crime and other criminal entrepreneurs both play a role in how efficiently we provide our services.

Although technology and the use of it is still very new, it has proven to be a challenge to us in how we do our investigations, how they are prosecuted, defended, and, ultimately, how they are judged. Police agencies will have their greatest success when they are not required to be all things to all people.

Funding. The federal government directly finances the RCMP. The reality is that in Ontario, where the RCMP don't provide municipal or provincial front-line services, the municipal police services have a more direct impact upon their community's drug use and abuse than do the federal police.

Is direct funding for drug investigation initiatives to municipal police services an option? Does prohibition at least discourage use among the general population? We believe it does, but deterrence is mitigated when societal tolerance to the substance is increased. The push to decriminalize cannabis has reduced the deterrent value and the factor of prohibition and impacts upon organized criminal activity related to cannabis.

What about educational programs aimed at preventing or reducing the consumption of illicit drugs in Canada? We value education and we'll support being part of its delivery. Again, staffing for emergency response is our first priority, with the investigation of crimes that impact on our community's quality of life being second. Education services is the last area to be cut in support of our first and second priorities, and we have now had to reduce our services in that area. Resources are at issue again.

Having said this, you might wonder what impact the Halton Regional Police Service is having on other forms of non-medical drug use such as cocaine, heroine, and ecstasy. Limited, at best.

¸ (1440)

The Chair: Thank you, Detective Inspector Pittman.

From the Waterloo Regional Police Services, I'm not sure, is it Superintendent Stevens speaking?

Superintendent Bill Stevens (Operational Support, Waterloo Regional Police Services): Yes. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. Having only received the invitation Friday, we didn't have a lot of time to prepare.

It's a joint presentation on behalf of Inspector Torigian and I, and our focus will be on the current non-medical use of drugs, with specific emphasis on cannabis/marijuana.

We felt it was important to draw to your attention the realities and the social implications associated with illicit drugs in our region and throughout Canada. We will offer several recommendations based on the committee's terms of reference.

Within the region of Waterloo, we are experiencing an increase with the use of the following illicit drugs. One drug is cocaine, also in the form of crack. Crack, cocaine, and heroin continue to be the hard drugs of choice by users in the region.

Methadone. Methadone clinics were introduced into the region over the last year to deal with a high number of heroin addicts, which include numerous high school students. This has created a black market for methadone, which has resulted in two confirmed deaths that are a direct result of having taken the drug, along with several near fatal overdoses.

Heroin. One of our local high schools, Waterloo-Oxford, was recently plagued with heroin use, and many of the students were addicted. Through a community mobilization approach, including professionals, doctors, lawyers, parents, police, teachers, and social agencies, the epidemic was checked and students were helped into rehab programs.

Ecstasy. It seems to be the drug of choice for the younger crowd, generally sold at nightclubs. It's an extremely dangerous drug, which appears popular with the under-thirties. In our region, there have been three deaths and two VSA people, who were revived, and numerous incidents of bizarre, violent behaviour.

Seizures of ecstasy have increased substantially over the last several years, both locally and across the country. Locally, we have not made significant seizures, although intelligence indicates there are numerous high-level dealers operating in the area. A recent RCMP investigation discovered a University of Waterloo student was producing and distributing significant quantities in this province and also trafficking into the United States.

There is an explosion of the marijuana growing industry across Canada. Since May 2001 our police service has conducted over 100 search warrants. These grow operations are sophisticated, well-organized, and reaping billions of dollars for organized crime cells.

The costs to our communities are staggering in terms of danger to emergency services personnel, resource commitment, revenue loss, social implications, and related criminal activities: property theft, prostitution, robberies, home invasions--and 95% of residential break-ins can be attributed to illegal drug use. These crimes are the non-conventional means by which to gather money for the drug industry.

The profusion of marijuana grow operations across Canada is staggering. We are not talking about individuals growing a plant or two, but rather major, well-organized, structured groups. In the province of Ontario it's a billion-dollar-per-year industry and getting bigger. In British Columbia it is a $6-billion empire, which is surpassing the lumber industry.

To draw public attention to the magnitude of the problem, police services across Canada, as you've already heard, coordinated enforcement initiatives and on January 30, 2002, conducted Operation Greensweep. This resulted in: 150 warrants; 46,800 plants seized, at a value of $47 million; 136 arrests; 290 charges; and equipment seized valued at $3,239,000. Twenty-eight children were placed with family and children's services. I submit we've only scratched the surface.

In the U.S.A., the DEA, the drug enforcement unit, has labelled Canada as a major trafficking source for marijuana. There are obviously international issues and consequences with narcotics. The United Nations has also named Canada as a source country for marijuana. The cultivation and trafficking of marijuana has become such a problem in our province and country that in Waterloo region, local government, regional government, and our police services board have recognized the criminal aspect, the residual effects, and the impact on our communities as a result of this illegal business.

Local municipalities have recently passed resolutions directed toward provincial and federal legislative changes, recommending increased penalties. Further recommendations focus on streamlining the effectiveness and processes associated with proceeds of crime legislation and further recommend not to pursue the decriminalization of marijuana.

I might add that our police services board recognizes the distinction between simple possession and the magnitude of the criminal activity we are experiencing. In all cases, local municipalities and our police services board recommend legislative changes are urgently required to ensure effective deterrents are in place, not only in the form of incarceration but also in the form of substantial financial penalty. General deterrent sentencing must occur in order to promote safety and security, not only in our community but in all communities.

Concerning the legislative problems associated with drug investigations, at present, proceeds investigations are extremely lengthy and difficult to substantiate when assets are intermingled with legitimate funds. A system where it would become a reverse onus offence and the burden of responsibility was on the accused to demonstrate they acquired the money or property legally would greatly enhance proceeds investigations.

Redistribution of assets seized by police, which would allow local municipal police agencies to benefit from seizures made on local levels, would greatly enhance local drug investigations.

In sentencing, minimum mandatory sentences should be considered for a variety of drug offences, including trafficking, possession for the purpose, and production. The present system of sentencing with maximum sentences does not seem to deter any of these activities.

The definition of organized crime in legislation will be changing in the future, which should make it easier to investigate organized crime groups. Disclosure rules as they presently exist make conducting long-term covert investigations into organized crime groups, where seizures of drugs or arrests for other offences as a result of information gleaned from the investigation are made, very difficult.

The recommendation that we have one body not dissimilar to the DEA should make it possible to manage a strategy based on three objectives: namely education, enforcement, and treatment. Interdiction cannot have a policy based on the philosophies or exigencies of provincial or municipal police services. One single entity should act as the source of coordinating all information relating to federally, provincially, and municipally funded programs that are consistent with a nationally endorsed and communicated drug strategy.

I hope those of us around the table have given you the impression that we think law enforcement is the front line on this issue. But as we look at the whole spectrum of what's going on here we see some black holes--the discontinuities and ineffectiveness of various elements of the public policy.

I want to ask a question in relation to law enforcement. What proportion of your resources do you target...? Maybe you don't even target; maybe you just spend because you have to spend. But what proportion of your resources in the drug enforcement envelope would go to enforcement of a drug offence involving an individual--a possession offence, as opposed to the crime syndicate category, where you're targeting a larger criminal operation? Have any of your forces ever analysed how many of your resources are just focused on the one guy with marijuana, as opposed to the bigger enterprise crime package?

¸ (1445)

Federal intervention in the area of enforcement should take on the form of housekeeper, with secondment from police agencies throughout the country. The federal government needs to take a lead role in implementing, communicating, and managing Canada's drug strategy.

Criminalization does not contribute specifically to the harm associated with drug use, but it may contribute adversely to social status. It is important not to overthink issues in an effort to minimize mitigating circumstances, for example, decriminalization.

Needle exchange programs may be in conflict with educational strategy. Presently, we have a fragmented approach to administering a drug strategy for the nation, where conflicts between different agencies are predominantly and physically resource- and technology-based.

Law enforcement agencies need a role in all three areas of harm reduction. There are innovations in jurisdictions within Canada that require a centralized platform for evaluation, dissemination, and consistency.

Canada's drug strategy must complement the strategies of other forward-thinking nations, such as Great Britain and the United States. There are significant links between organized crime, domestic and international tourism, and the drug trade. As state-sponsored tourism decreases, tourist groups will find alternative sources of funding. Drug use, drug abuse, drug trafficking, importation, and cultivation comprise, in large part, a crime of economics.

We thank you for the opportunity today.

¸ (1450)

The Chair: Thank you.

Finally, we have the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association. Mr. Watson, are you speaking?

Mr. Henry Watson (President, Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association): We'll both be speaking. I'll just do a very preliminary introduction. I thank the committee for the opportunity to present our position, as front-line firefighters, with respect to clandestine drug labs and marijuana growing operations.

I think it's important for the committee to have an understanding of what the front-line emergency workers, whether they're firefighters, police officers, or emergency medical services workers, face on a daily basis in dealing with clandestine labs and marijuana growing operations, and the spill-over effect that has onto our communities, our citizens, and certainly the children of Ontario and Canada. We're very concerned about these operations, and they pose a significant danger for firefighters in the province of Ontario.

I'll ask my colleague George Birtig to give a brief report on what we find when we approach these operations.

Mr. George Birtig (Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association): Good afternoon.

Acetic anhydride, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, methanol, ether, lithium, aluminum hydride, phosphorous, explosion hazards, inhalation hazards, high voltage electrical hazards--at first glance, you would think I was describing a highly regulated and controlled chemical production facility located in any industrial city or town in Canada. And there's the possibility of booby-traps, such as chemical bombs, trip-wired hand grenades, light bulbs filled with ether, or holes cut in floors, and you would think we were working our way through the Afghani caves that once housed the terrorists of the al-Qaeda network. Now imagine that, unbeknownst to you, these hazards were located in the house next to yours on your quiet suburban street or the apartment down the hall in your high-rise condo. The reality is that this is a rapidly growing phenomenon in our towns and cities, brought about by the existence of clandestine marijuana growing operations and drug labs.

I hope today to outline some of the concerns of 9,500 firefighters across Ontario with respect to the hazards we might face if we encounter a growing house or drug lab.

Drug labs pose serious hazards to emergency response personnel. Besides the obvious concerns posed by illicit drugs and drug users, these hidden, makeshift operations may also endanger the residents of our communities, and they have the potential to contaminate the environment. It's important to note that there are no rules when it comes to where we might encounter a drug lab or growing operation. They can be found in fixed locations, such as homes, apartments, mobile homes, warehouses, sheds, or abandoned structures. They can be portable operations located in delivery-type vans, motor homes, travel trailers, or even boats. The possibility also exists that these operations may be protected by surveillance and defence systems that would hamper our response to an emergency or even seriously injure response personnel.

Booby-traps that could be activated by first responders entering a structure or the presence of guard dogs or snakes add an additional element of danger to an already dangerous profession. These people have also been known to cut holes in floors of these homes to injure or trap unwanted guests.

Clandestine drug labs present hazardous materials concerns that might be present in drug extraction or synthesis operations. Usually, the operators of these labs do not have a chemistry background. They have learned their trade haphazardly from others or perhaps even the Internet. Their knowledge of the chemicals and processes they are employing is limited.

Their purpose is to manufacture these illegal drugs as economically and as quickly as possible, with no regard for public health, safety, or welfare. Chemicals, toxins, and/or radioactive materials can be present and pose a threat of an acute exposure through inhalation or absorption through the skin that could have immediate or long-term effects on the health of first responders.

The chemicals I mentioned earlier are only a fraction of what could be found at a lab. An explosion hazard could exist due to the presence of these chemicals that, if not handled properly, could have devastating effects. This is the case at a lab explosion that occurred in Oshawa that took off the entire front of a two-storey home in that suburban community. If a fire explosion occurs like the one in Oshawa, responders and citizens alike could be exposed to the chemically laden smoke that would be present. The environment would also be affected by the run-off created by the water used to extinguish the blaze.

Indoor marijuana grow operations pose some serious hazards as well. In their efforts to avoid detection, the operators of these establishments have resorted to bypassing hydro meters to provide the electricity required to operate sophisticated series of grow lights that provide artificial sunlight for their plants. These makeshift electrical systems often start fires in these homes. Then, to make matters worse, responding firefighters or even hydro personnel are unable to properly shut down the electricity to allow for safer operations.

We all know that firefighters use water to extinguish fires and that water and electricity don't mix. There have been cases where the water that has accumulated from firefighting operations in the basement of a grow house has been brought to a boil due to the flow of electricity.

Since proper ventilation is also a concern for these growers, these homes have been altered to allow for duct work that runs from the basement to the attic. This is great for the plants but dangerous to the firefighters, because these alterations speed fire spread throughout the structure and might place us in greater danger during firefighting and rescue operations by cutting off avenues of escape.

Normally, as firefighters responding to a call, we have a relatively good idea of the type of incident we are about to deal with and prepare ourselves accordingly with regard to the tactics we might employ and the protective equipment required for a particular type of incident. The clandestine nature of these operations serves not only to hide the illegal operations, but also prevents firefighters from really knowing what they're getting into. Usually, we have an indication that we are dealing with a hazardous materials incident by the presence of placards, warning signs, the type of facility or vehicle incident that we've been dispatched to. We've been trained to respond by properly protecting ourselves, activating our hazardous materials teams, or simply isolating or evacuating the area to protect the public.

In the case of clandestine drug labs or grow operations, we could be responding to a medical emergency with our EMS counterparts and inadvertently find ourselves in the midst of a very dangerous hazardous materials situation. Standard protective equipment for these medical calls would consist of surgical gloves and perhaps safety glasses. This type of protective clothing would do little to protect us in the event of an explosion set off by turning on a light in a flammable environment. We could be responding to a structural fire and get caught in an explosion that might kill us instantly or cut off our ability to escape from the resultant inferno.

In some cases, the chemicals that may be used in these labs are reactive to water that might serve to turn a relatively minor incident into a major one. The electrical hazards associated with growing operations might turn our first step into the basement of a home into our last.

I must mention that fire departments are also requested by police to respond in a backup capacity whenever a drug lab or growing operation is being raided. We are there to provide rescue and/or firefighting protection for police personnel during the dismantling of these operations. Joint cooperation between agencies is an important aspect that must be considered when preparing to deal with this issue. Many fire departments are already liaising with local, provincial, and federal law enforcement and other government agencies.

One of the dilemmas that has arisen is the fact that police departments may have these labs under surveillance, and the secrecy surrounding their investigations precludes them from informing fire departments of their locations. We hope we can find a way to flag the premises housing these clandestine labs so that responding firefighters or EMS personnel can be made aware of the hazards they might face prior to arriving on location at a clandestine lab or grow house.

I hope I've been able to convey some of our concerns regarding clandestine labs and marijuana growing operations. The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association is doing all it can to educate its members on the hazards posed by these operations, and we are encouraging them to have their respective fire departments implement strategies to protect firefighters and the public. Clandestine lab recognition, safety for first responders, and multi-agency cooperation and planning are vital elements in helping us to deal with these instances.

¸ (1455)

The Chair Thank you. And thanks to all of you for abiding by our current law. Everybody got in within their time limit, which is helpful, because now we have an hour for questions and answers.

We'll start with Mr. White. He or any of the committee members may pose a question directly to somebody. If you've something to add, just indicate, and I'll keep track of who wants to get in on the questioning. But keep in mind that we have about ten minutes per member of Parliament around the table.

Randy.

¹ (1500)

Mr. Randy White (Langley--Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance): Thank you. I'm only going to ask one question, and it's the same question for each of you. I was going to ask you if you knew what Canada's drug strategy actually is, but I think the answer is no, you don't. I was then going to ask whether or not it's working, and I think the answer is obvious. When I ask myself that now, I ask if it is any wonder. We go across the country, we have academics and social workers providing responses to questions, then we have the enforcement folks in providing answers and comments, and to a large extent, they are not the same. I can see why there's no common drug strategy, because there's no common answer to it.

I'm just going to ask you for some of your thoughts. The police talk about marijuana a lot, actually, even here today, more than about what this committee seems to concentrate on. The senators are talking a lot about marijuana, while I think this one is getting more into the cocaine, heroin, and so on, without excluding marijuana. But the police talk a lot about marijuana, as opposed to the other types of drugs. The academics and social workers seemed to talk to me about heroin and cocaine a lot more. The police talk about enforcement, the academics and social workers talk about legalization and decriminalization. The police talk about more money to provide more enforcement, the academics and social workers talk about less money for enforcement and more money for things like harm reduction and so forth.

And on and on it goes. I don't know if we'd get any agreement among you folks about safe injection sites. Well, you'd probably get the same comment and answer, whereas academics and social workers have a completely different perspective on it, it seems. Furthermore, police talk about fighting crime, and academics and social workers basically say crime is a result of prohibition. So why then do we need to fight crime? Why don't we just eliminate prohibition?

Given all that I've said, and as many people say putting money into enforcement is a black hole of spending money and police have lost the battle on drug enforcement, could you explain to me how we can ever get a drug strategy, when there's such a difference of opinion?

The Chair: Were those comments specifically addressed to any one individual you wanted to start?

Mr. Randy White: Any one or all of them.

The Chair: Chief Fantino.

Chief Julian Fantino: Thank you.

I suppose the one comment I want to start off with is that the police haven't lost anything. We've been at the forefront of our mandate and will continue to be so. We operate within the laws of the land, and we can't be held accountable for all the social ills that have driven society to where we're at. Drug use, abuse, and all of those issues, dependence, if you will, are symptoms of problems beyond our control and our ability to reverse what's happened here. So all we're dealing with is the aftermath of so many things that have gone wrong, policies that have been implemented. So many promises have been made, so many resources dedicated to this, that, or the other thing, and at the end of the day, all you get from us is basically a holding pattern.

We can't pretend, nor should we, that we're responsible for the problem that now exists, nor can we hold out to you any promise that we, within our mandate, can turn it around. I'm asking where everyone else has been, certainly over my 33 years in policing, when the problem was relatively minor, although there was a problem, to the extent where today you have....

In one situation here in Toronto we had a gang of drug dealers--organized criminals. In 1994, for instance, we arrested an organized crime group that was dealing cocaine in amounts like 5,000 kilograms, Mr. White. These criminals were convicted and sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from 14 to 22 years. These persons served their sentences and, with early release, were out from custody in 1998. And they went right at it again--they got out of the cocaine business and got right into the ecstasy business.

So we can't be held accountable for what's happened here. All we're saying is that if you want us to do our job, then we need the tools, resources, and legislation necessary to do our mandated piece, which is enforcement. Someone else is going to have to worry about the other stuff and kick in, because I believe law enforcement in this country is doing its utmost best to deal with the after-effects of so many policies, so many promises and hopes held out that were never realized.

¹ (1505)

The Chair: Thank you.

Inspector Allen.

Insp Ron Allen: I certainly echo what Chief Fantino has just said. Our plate is extremely full. And I think a lot of people around the room certainly do understand their responsibility toward Canada's drug strategy.

Again--and I will tell you, you've heard a lot of things in the last 20 or 30 minutes on marijuana--by no means are we taking away from the focus on heroin and cocaine. They are very serious problems. It just happens that right now there's a trend, and the trend is marijuana growth. The popularity of marijuana has certainly put it at the forefront. By no means will that take away from the other dangerous substances that are out there.

In relation to the social ills, the supply and demand, the prevention, the education, they all play part of each other. The RCMP, which you are familiar with, certainly does have a drug prevention program. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it was a successful program, or that our enforcement program is having the success it needs to have. I will say that it takes a community to raise a child. That responsibility cannot be placed on the police alone. And if we stand before anybody guilty of not doing our part on the social side of the ledger, then I will tell you we stand guilty with everybody who's involved in the community.

The Chair: Thank you.

Inspector Torigian.

Mr. Randy White: I hope you didn't take my question incorrectly. Having been the Solicitor General critic for eight years, I certainly know where my heart lies. I'm trying to point out to you that we're trying to develop a national drug strategy, and there are two different opinions--diametrically opposite in many cases. There's yours, and there are social workers' and academics', and it's damn hard to get some kind of agreement on where this thing is going. That was the source of my question.

The Chair: Okay. Just a second. First we're going to have Inspector Torigian. Then...I'm not sure if Mr. Watson was in, and then Chief Fantino.

Inspector Matt Torigian (Operational Support, Waterloo Regional Police Services): Thank you.

Mr. White, you and the members of the committee do have a commendable task ahead of you. It's quite the challenge, given your broad mandate, that you have to find the factors really contributing to drug use in our society.

I don't know if we misinterpreted your comments. I may have misinterpreted one statement you made, but I thought you said when you listened to the police agencies around the table that there is no common answer. We really do have a common answer when you dissect what's being said. I think, given all the topics and our areas of concern with respect to police agencies in Ontario and throughout the country, you'll find we are all trying to address the root of the problem. Perhaps marijuana is very topical right now, as Inspector Allen suggested. It's a trend we have to address, and we seem to recognize not only the social ills of it, but also the concerns we have for fellow emergency personnel, ourselves, and the community at large.

Marijuana is also, as we describe, an entry-level drug, and unfortunately, we recognize that if you want to get to the root of the problem, we have to address some of the issues there. We see marijuana as being predominantly used, first, by 95% of the people who eventually move on to cocaine and heroin. It would probably be prudent on our part to address that. But we can't. As Inspector Allen and Chief Fantino and others have suggested, we're backing off from the other areas as well, because we have to go at this with a multi-dimensional approach. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why, when it comes to the national drug strategy, which, you're right, is not very well communicated or well known, there may be a lack of congruency at times among the agencies out there. We have to have a more coordinated approach and to knock down the silos that obviously exist in this country.

¹ (1510)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Watson, and then Chief Fantino.

Mr. Henry Watson: Well, I can honestly say I'm not very well informed on Canada's drug strategy, not being in police enforcement.

But just to comment on the dynamics between front-line emergency workers and academics and social workers, from our perspective in the crack houses we see, with needles strewn about the floor, when firefighters go in their bunker, gear can be punctured and can be exposed to any kind of disease: HIV, hepatitis C....

I think it all boils down to money and the fact that it's a lucrative market for these clandestine lab operators or marijuana grow operators. Whether it's decriminalized or whether we remove the prohibition, the fact of the matter is as long as there's opportunity for money to be made, that's what's going to take place. I think we have to bear that in mind.

I think it's important to understand, from what we hear from police enforcement officials and others, that these labs are now in every one of our communities across the country. We certainly have been made well aware through the media. The latest marijuana grow labs--what do you call them? Is it take-downs? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the police lingo, but these busts have shown just how prominent it is.

Friends of mine live in a community and had a house across the street from one that was one of the ones raided. It certainly sent shock waves through the neighbourhood to see police coming into their residential street and uncovering a marijuana grow operation that no one knew existed at the time.

It's a significant problem. I think sometimes we have to look at it on a broader base than an academic level.

The Chair: Thank you.

Chief Fantino can finish.

Chief Julian Fantino: Thank you. I did understand your question, Mr. White. It's the dilemma we're all facing. We're all over the map. That's exactly what the problem is here. We have been for all these years.

The policy-makers need to take charge and control of this and be accountable for the outcome. The drug strategy as we know it is a great philosophical document, but that's all it is. It doesn't really empower us or enable us to attain any results. We can't be writing all kinds of wish lists--“We will do this, we will do that”--and then that's all we do. There have to be the tools and the resources and the commitment. The strategies have to be realized in significant outcomes. So we have a drug strategy in this country, but it's a philosophical document; that's all it is.

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you very much. You have ten minutes, Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, BQ): Can I put my questions without knowing that, or must I keep...?

The Chair: It would be preferable to ask your questions.

Mr. Réal Ménard: I have two questions for the three witnesses. I'll start with the Toronto Police Chief.

Since one quarter of Canada's population resides in the metropolitan Toronto region, can you tell us how much a police service such as your own expends on fighting drugs, just so that we have a reference point?

My second question is also for the Chief of Police. In your submission, you stated that you stand with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police in opposing the legalization of marijuana. However, you don't believe that conviction should result in a criminal record.

What type of distinction would you draw between possession and conviction?

May I remind you that one of our colleagues, Keith Martin, tabled a bill calling for just such a distinction to be made. Therefore, that's my first question. I have two more for the other witnesses.

¹ (1515)

The Chair: The first question is for Chief Fantino.

Mr. Réal Ménard: I'll have two more questions later.

[English]

Chief Julian Fantino: The issue in support of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police's position is not to do anything other than decriminalize small amounts of marijuana when there's no other situation that prevails, just a small possession amount. We want to find a way of still creating an offence, but it won't be a criminal offence, per se. It would be a ticketing offence or something along those lines.

So that's the position. If I can explain it better than that, I'll try. But in essence, that's what we're looking at. We're not looking at legalizing it. I'm totally and absolutely opposed to legalizing it.

The other question is, I can't even begin to tell you how much money we expend on our fight against drugs. In the greater Toronto area we have a population of some 5.4 million people. Collectively, because of the movement of people coming and going, we all expend a great deal of money. And what is not talked about very often is the ancillary impact of drugs on community-based crime, the kinds of things communities have to deal with: the dealing of crack cocaine at the most vulnerable level in our communities; the addiction of young people into drugs, and then prostitution; and on it goes.

So I don't have a specific amount. All I know is that we work drugs, along with our colleagues, in the greater Toronto area. We work independently of them. We have street drug units that are working flat out. There's a lot of money being expended. But what has to be remembered here is it's not so much what we're expending, it's what we, as a society, are losing. And I talked about those issues earlier.

Insp Ron Allen: Thank you.

The organized crime legislation that was brought through that permits us to use part VI--intercept application--for one year has been used very rarely. If you understand the encumbrances that come with a part VI application--the sourcing, the back-stopping, the disclosure of all the information that is required to go into a part VI--you'll see it becomes very difficult. You have to go back on an organized crime group to get a wiretap for a one-year period, based on an approximate five-year history.

The wiretaps we use now are good for 60 days. And I will tell you those documents usually, at the front end, number 300 or 400 pages. By the time we do renewals, they average in the thousands of pages. If we were to even put a wiretap product on the table with an organized crime group, I would suggest that the affiant would be out of the police services position for years. It's just almost impossible to deal with. The encumbrances that are placed on you by the legal system on full disclosure make it not workable.

In terms of the second part of your question, I didn't want to even suggest that there were any pharmaceutical companies in Toronto that are conspiring with the people in the United States to produce methamphetamine or THP. What I am saying is that the pharmaceutical companies in Toronto make certain chemicals available that are not scheduled and have no reporting requirements and they sell those chemicals to who they think are proper buyers, people who are going to use them for the reason they should be using them for, like cold medicine, or whatever the case may be. Once they are in the hands of these individuals, they are then covertly shipped to the United States. It is not the companies themselves that are the criminal element. It is the buyer who the company does not suspect is anything other than a legitimate customer. In actual fact, they set up front companies so they can obtain the drugs.

¹ (1520)

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Thank you.

Can I ask Superintendent Stevens one final question?

You stated that heroin use is a growing problem in high schools. Of course, committee members want to get a grasp of the situation. Can you give us some idea of the extent of the problem?

You also spoke of reverse onus, because it's rather difficult to conduct investigations into drug trafficking. What kind of legislative amendments or arrangements would you like to see introduced?

Regarding reverse onus, as a member of the committee that examined bills C-24, C-95 and C-36, I observed that we heard this point mentioned very often by different chiefs of police. However, reverse onus is not consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It would be extremely difficult to prosecute on that basis. Therefore, perhaps you could tell us exactly what you mean by this?

[English]

Supt Bill Stevens: In response to the first question, which was on the heroin use, this was a rural high school and we had approximately ten students who were addicted to that narcotic. The community had never faced a drug problem of that magnitude, and although it was only ten, it was a fairly substantial magnitude.

What we found was that many of the students were addicted and some of them were in fact trying to escalate the problem by selling heroin within the school.

Does that answer your question, sir?

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Yes.

[English]

Supt Bill Stevens: In answer to the reverse onus situation, yes, I agree with the last part of your comment there. We're finding it very difficult to prosecute those cases involving proceeds. The general opinion out there, of course, is that it would be much easier for us to prove those offences if it was a reverse onus, as it is in the United States. I realize, as you said, that would go against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; however, we're having a great deal of difficulty in tracing properties and moneys associated with organized crime, certainly across Canada.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: The committee looking into organized crime heard how a drug investigation can easily last three years and cost several million dollars. It was told of the Stinchcombe decision pursuant to which all evidence must now be disclosed, including the notepad used by the police officer the night the witness was questioned. We're dealing with a certain legal infrastructure and with the extremely difficult process of presenting evidence in a court of law. All partisanship aside, organized crime has been on the political agenda. A total of eight bills have been brought in since 1993 to give the police additional ammunition to deal with the problem. With the exception of a few amendments, these bill were endorsed by all parties in the House of Commons.

Using the legislative arsenal at your disposal since 1993, are you able to go forward in court, conduct a genuine investigation and bring drug traffickers to justice?

¹ (1525)

[English]

Supt Bill Stevens: Could you repeat the last sentence for me, please? Are we able to make the connection?

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor]

Supt Bill Stevens: In rare circumstances we can make that conviction. Generally, sir, the answer is no.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Despite the fact that we have amended the legislation eight times...As lawmakers, we have amended the Criminal Code, as well as the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Witness Protection Program Act. Provision has been made for a new offence, namely gangsterism. A total of $250 million was allocated to the RCMP in the last budget and in spite of the legislative arsenal at your disposal - and it's important that committee members have this information - you maintain that it's very difficult for the police to get drug trafficking charges to stick. That's what I inferred from your testimony.

[English]

Supt Bill Stevens: We're finding that organized crime today is very adept at hiding funds and we are having difficulty in tracing it.

[Translation]

The Chair: I believe there's Chief Fantino, as well as Mr. Booth and possibly Mr. Allen.

[English]

Chief Julian Fantino: Perhaps I can also elaborate. Although there have been a number of bills passed, some of them have been very inadequate. I have to disagree about the consensus. Bill C-95 was totally inadequate. In fact, in this country, since it was enacted, there's been no clear and distinct prosecution involving Bill C-95. There have been some guilty pleas that have been negotiated, but there hasn't been any out-and-out, full-blown investigations that resulted in trials, that resulted in convictions.

You can enact all kinds of legislation, but if the resources aren't there to keep pace with the extraordinary advances being made by organized crime in terms of their globalization, their use of technology, their sophistication, we're always operating behind the eight ball. Although there have been some good pieces of legislation—I can refer to Bill C-24 as a good piece of legislation; C-36 obviously will be with regard to terrorism—the problem we've had is that at the very same time court rulings have handcuffed our hands more and more so that those tools have, if you will, evaporated.

We'll have to wait and see how the future holds with regard to Bill C-24 and Bill C-36. But Bill C-95 has gone nowhere, really.

Although this is off topic somewhat, the bill dealing with the international sexual exploitation of children--I believe it was Bill C-127 or thereabouts. There haven't even been any investigations in regard to that bill.

The Chair: Inspector Allen.

Insp Ron Allen: Thank you. I would suggest that I'm one of those people who are involved in the investigations you're referring to. Many of our investigations do actually take two and three years to run, and they are very expensive. Some of the cost that some people may not even be aware of is that when you do a part VI investigation, which is interception of private communications, it's the cost of intercepting those communications.

People involved in organized crime are global travellers. They travel all over the world. So it's not simply a case of starting an intercept here in Canada. You have to bring on the other countries you work with. All of a sudden you find your travelling criminals doing three or four continents and you're doing wiretaps in three, four or five countries around the world. On top of that, to pay the interpreters, the translators, it amounts to millions of dollars each year; that could be in a single investigation alone.

In obtaining convictions, we have had some success ourselves. I'm speaking from the RCMP perspective in the GTA, of getting convictions against the organized crime people, but I will tell you that it is not done easily. The money flow alone that the organized crime people have enable them to hire some pretty high-priced defence counsel, and they can use every piece of legislation that's available to them to prolong the investigation, using the disclosure laws, sometimes to the absolute infinite of value.

I can give you a case of one investigation where there was in excess of 10,000 phone calls, and defence counsel was making motions to have at least 6,000 of those calls translated and disclosed to them, even though their relevancy was somewhat questionable.

I do echo the comments around the table. And when we do have the successes, it is only done through hard work and sometimes luck.

¹ (1530)

The Chair: Thank you, Chief Fantino.

Detective Booth.

Detective Courtland Booth (Central Drug Information Unit, Toronto Police Services): I'd like to add that with regard to the interception of private communications, as new persons come into the investigation, new orders are necessary to identify those persons. I know that for officers of the Toronto Police, and I suspect the RCMP and other services, these documents are months in preparation, and for each one of them, as we rewrite them to better describe the criminal activity and the persons involved, we are required to draw up new orders. That makes the process a lot more difficult.

With regard to proceeds, these people are very good at what's called comingling these funds. I've personally investigated drug traffickers who've moved 1,300 kilos and laundered $25 million out of the Toronto area over a period of eight months. What came out of that proceeds investigation is very little, in that most of their properties are leveraged to go back and get them. They're getting good legal advice on how to frustrate the legal system. And what was said about, again, legal assistance--we've had organized crime send lawyers in from out of the country who wish to go through a preliminary hearing just to see what went wrong with the organization. They're not really worried about the conviction and the outcome. They just want to see what went wrong. It's sort of a problem-solving venture for them rather than anything else.

The Chair: Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Ménard.

Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): First of all, thank you to the witnesses for coming today. I've certainly recognized that the police departments across the country, the RCMP, have a certain mandate--you have a job to do--but I can tell you that a couple of weeks ago, when we had representatives of the Auditor General's office come before us, referring to the report they had done late last year, it was really quite a damning report in terms of looking at the so-called drug strategy and looking at whether or not there had been any effectiveness and whether or not we were making any progress. I think they had incredibly serious questions about where resources are going. In fact, in their report they point out that 95%, I think, of federal expenditures are going to enforcement. Yet, in reality, on the streets and in local communities, the problem is getting bigger and more difficult. So I think they had questions about whether this is an effective use of resources.

I'm from Vancouver, where we've had a very serious problem, as you probably know. I think one of the things on which a lot of the jurisdictions have come together--the three levels of government, including the Vancouver Police Department--is around what is called the four-pillar approach.

I don't know if you're familiar with that, but I'd be interested in your reaction as to whether it's really an attempt to look at a balance between or an emphasis on prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement, not just enforcement.

I noted that Chief Fantino didn't mention anything about harm reduction, but in Vancouver the police department has actually adopted this in a fairly significant way, because I think they've come to the conclusion that they're police officers. They can't deal with this as a complex social issue. They can do some things, but they're basically chasing people around the streets and in and out of the justice system.

I'd be very interested to have any of your opinions as to whether or not you have read anything, or if you have any opinions about this four-pillar approach, particularly in terms of what has been addressed in Europe, where I think there has been far greater success with an approach that's based on health measures and where they've been able to minimize the impact of the illegality of the drugs through things like drug maintenance programs.

Anyway, if you have any reactions on the four-pillar approach and whether or not any of your departments have considered adoption of a similar measure, I would like to hear them.

The Chair: I have Detective Booth and Superintendent Stevens, and then I'll look for other hands. I am sorry, I also see Inspector Allen.

Det Courtland Booth: I have read the document you're referring to, the four-pillar approach from Vancouver City, and I know that Vancouver City is looking at a drug treatment court. Going back to another member, I have read Canada's drug strategy. I'm familiar with the document.

There is no doubt about it, in the approach to the better health, quality, and safety of our society, all our hopes, as the chief said, cannot be pinned on enforcement alone. This is a multifaceted problem with a multifaceted answer.

Whether or not sufficient funds are being expended on drug education, drug awareness, harm reduction.... The term “harm reduction” covers a lot of ground. And to have it properly identified...it can be childproof bottles, safe injection sites, clinically administered heroin, or safe crack houses. It covers a broad spectrum.

I sat on the steering committee for the drug treatment court here in Toronto. I sit on the Toronto research group on drug use. So I run into treatment providers, educators, the coroner's office, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Toronto. And yes, there are points where the police become polarized by people who in their harm reduction approach say “What is the safe method of ingesting ecstasy?”, or “What can you do to reduce the harm of taking ecstasy?” When it came to raves here in Toronto, it was drinking lots of water. In raves in the States, they've done some testing right on site to see if the pill contains only MDMA, MDMA and PCP, or MDMA and any other substances.

Harm reduction covers a lot of ground, and the Toronto police and the RCMP play a role in this as well.

I've been involved in meetings with people across the spectrum to try to get an answer in the Toronto area, and I know Vancouver's been wrestling with it as well. They have had huge numbers of persons dying with regard to heroin overdoses and things of that nature, and all the related problems.

I could go on, but I'd just like to go back to something the chief said earlier, which was that there's so much to be said here we haven't talked about--GHB and date rape, and all the other things that go with the broad spectrum of drug problems.

I don't want to monopolize this too much, but I hope that's helped you out.

¹ (1535)

Ms. Libby Davies: From what I've read and from what I've heard from other departments, particularly in Europe, the thing that made a significant difference was when local police departments went beyond their traditional view of enforcement and actually worked in very close cooperation with local community groups, with municipal councils, and so on, and had a much more comprehensive approach.

For example, in Frankfurt, it was actually the police department that led the way to close down the open drug scene and put in its place a much more medicalized approach. The police were part of that; they actually led that effort. I think I see signs of that happening in Canada. Certainly it's happened in Vancouver to some extent. But I really don't know if it's happened anywhere else.

So I'm curious to know whether any of you are talking, not just to treatment people but to people--they're not really social workers, as Mr. White said--who have experience in advancing other kinds of models that the police department should be very interested in. They actually will be helping you in your work, from what I've seen.

The Chair: Superintendent Stevens, and then Inspector Allen.

Supt Bill Stevens: I think the model the Waterloo Regional Police Services adopted seems very similar to the one in Vancouver. We moved from community policing, which we've done for a number of years, to community mobilization. And I echo your comment that the police services cannot do everything. They cannot be the answer to all of society's problems. But what we did with mobilization was to go into a neighbourhood.... One that comes to mind was a neighbourhood with a lot of crack houses, absentee landlords, and transients who were living there.

I remember the community writing literally hundreds of letters to both the police service and the mayors of two cities--because the area was in the adjoining parts of those cities--about the problems I just mentioned to you.

As a police service, we used mobilization to go in there with a couple of officers, combined with a lot of enforcement, to try to resolve the problems. We got the drug rehab people, family and children's services, bylaw personnel, the schools, the fire departments, and the health unit involved. We got the neighbours themselves involved in addressing the problems and talking to some of the neighbours they typically avoided because of the problems they had.

After about 12 to 15 months, instead of getting hundreds of letters we received one. That particular letter was in the form of a certificate of appreciation to the police department for leading the way. So there are other ways to do business, and that's the method we have adopted. It worked for us in this case.

¹ (1540)

The Chair: Inspector Allen.

Insp Ron Allen: Thank you.

The problem we're talking about is so large, and I think those of us sitting around the room all feel the same way.

We certainly have extended ourselves into many different programs. When I was in Cape Breton, I was one of the people who sat on the original board to bring the needle exchange program to the island. Again we were not so much dealing with the issue of the drug itself, but the harmful effects of the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.

I presently sit with Courtland Booth's boss on a board in Toronto. It is rolling out a program on the study of the use of medicinal marijuana by HIV people. So we are not completely blind to the other side; we are out there.

No one will disagree that we need a renewed focus on the addict, on the abuser, but it cannot be at the expense of the enforcement of the criminal enterprises that are taking advantage of their misfortune. There is, no doubt, a renewed approach, but we cannot counterbalance and take away from the enforcement side to do something on harm reduction and prevention. That also needs to be properly resourced and budgeted for.

The Chair: Finally, before I turn to Mr. Lee, we'll hear from Detective Inspector Pittman.

Det/Insp Signy Pittman: In Halton, we are not necessarily experiencing the kinds of activity you've heard around the table today, but certainly on a smaller scale, and perhaps on other issues as well, we are trying to do that kind of approach. As Inspector Allen mentioned, we all try to get involved with the various services. Operation Greensweep is an example of that, where we're drawing in other people to help us problem-solve the situation.

As far as Halton is concerned, when I look at even the safe school legislation that's coming into our communities, they are challenged with the very issue, as we've learned from Waterloo, of what to do about situations involving drugs in the schools. I think that kind of legislation coming in is allowing us an opportunity to meet with different people to problem-solve. But as Inspector Allen has indicated, Canada's drug strategy--my recollection of it--has about seven prongs to its approach, and one of those is enforcement, and that's our responsibility.

You spoke of the Auditor General's report that 95% goes to enforcement. It would be interesting to note following up on that, as we have committed to do in Operation Greensweep. Once those charges have been laid and once we've invested what we have to get to that point, we plan on reviewing, on a cyclical basis, where these people are in our judicial system and develop some understanding of why they are reoffending, where they're going, etc.

I think building in some accountability on what happens with our enforcement, once we've fulfilled our prong, might also provide an interesting picture and have some positive input into the four-pillar approach.

The Chair: Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Davies.

Mr. Lee, and then Dr. Fry.

Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

I couldn't help but think today that maybe we made a strategic error 75 or 100 years ago when we decided the drug issue should be dealt with as a criminal matter, with prohibition. Ever since then there's been this template that has seen drug enforcement as a major piece of our society's response, because it's really unfair to look to law enforcement to deal with that.

¹ (1545)

The Chair: Inspector Pittman, and then I think Mr. Torigian.

Det/Insp Signy Pittman: We don't have a lot of our resources, out of our six-person bureau, dedicated to the one-person possession. Again, it's frustrating from our perspective, when we look at some of the investigations we stumble onto, that we are clearly not equipped to take them any further.

As recently as about eight months ago, we stumbled onto a very significant seizure, something we had never fathomed or seen before. As a result of that, I was able to call in the Toronto Police Service, the RCMP, the OPP, and the neighbouring police services to ask how they could help us out. But the reality is, speaking on behalf of the smaller police services, our resources to look at the bigger picture are not there. We really rely on passing on some of that information and investigative intelligence to Toronto, the OPP, and the RCMP to further it.

As a local police service, part of what we look at is how much of a resource strain this investigation will be. If it won't necessarily meet the needs of our local communities, the likelihood of us proceeding will be thin to nil. We may try to contribute, perhaps with a staff person, to another larger service for the greater good.

The Chair: Thank you.

Inspector Torigian.

Insp Matt Torigian: You're asking what percentage of our drug investigation unit would be spent on simple possession offences, as opposed to trafficking.

Mr. Derek Lee: Yes, that's pretty close.

Insp Matt Torigian: A simple answer to that is probably zero. The majority of our simple possession offences occur, more often than not, when somebody's arrested for impaired driving. In searching that individual we'll come across, let's say, a bag of marijuana, and an additional charge of possession of marijuana will be made against that person.

But the actual resources dedicated to going out and finding people who are in possession of marijuana are zero. We identify and target the traffickers. People are charged with possession, as a result of those investigations, but the possession charges aren't the focus of the investigation.

The Chair: Mr. Lee, for clarification.

Mr. Derek Lee: As a counterpoint, Detective Inspector Pittman said her force didn't have the resources to do the big stuff. I took that to mean she might focus on the little stuff. If that's true is it really little stuff, or is it medium stuff?

Second, if you're correct, sir, that you don't do a lot of the little stuff--the one-off, one-guy thing--then why...? I may be misinformed, but I have the impression that a whole lot of this is showing up in drug court, and that a whole lot of convictions for simple possession are going on. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I had just assumed that we were getting so many of these one-off possession convictions, with people accumulating criminal records for what is arguably small stuff--even though it is, arguably, a gateway drug--because resourcing had been targeted this way. But maybe that's not the case. Can you explain it?

¹ (1550)

The Chair: Just to clarify, it's Pittman and Torigian, and then we'll go to Allen, Fantino, and Booth.

Det/Insp Signy Pittman: In the last six months we've taken 56,000 marijuana plants out of the region of Halton. We are a medium-sized service to some extent. When we look at how we deliver our service, we can't take on the international drug trade, but certainly what we can do is gather our intelligence and take our investigations to those who we think may be able to provide this service.

Part of what we are delivering in the Halton region, with 500 people doing the job, is gathering intelligence, meeting the needs of our community, and forwarding our intelligence to the larger organizations that can take those investigations forward. As well, we are contributing resources to support them in their initiatives. We would like to view ourselves as part of the bigger picture, certainly of a local flavour, and beyond.

The Chair: Thank you.

Inspector Torigian.

Insp Matt Torigian: Please don't confuse individuals in drug court standing up to face a charge of possession of marijuana, for example, with people who have been targeted by investigators in a drug investigation, because there's an effect.... What happens is that if someone is charged with assault, arrested, and found to be in possession of marijuana, then they're going to go through drug court, charged with possession of marijuana. So the amount of resources dedicated to charging somebody with possession of marijuana is minimal.

We spend our resources as a drug unit. You have to remember, there are also front line investigators or front line officers in the field who are going to come across people in possession of marijuana, for whatever reason, as I described--impaired driving or assault or whatever. Then, subsequent to arrest, they're found in possession of marijuana. There is no greater amount of resources spent bringing those people before the courts. Discretion is a big part.

Mr. Derek Lee: They're freebies.

Insp Matt Torigian: What do you mean by “freebies”?

Mr. Derek Lee: In terms of your drug arrest statistics they're freebies, because it's your traffic unit who finds the guy with the marijuana. That's what you're saying. He lays a charge of possession of marijuana instead of one for driving at 70 kilometres an hour in a 50-kilometre zone.

Insp Matt Torigian: Sure, it could be any officer within the organization who's going to find someone. But you have to understand, our resources are also dedicated to the residual effects of drugs. A great deal of our front line officer's time is spent investigating break and enters, robberies, prostitution offences, and thefts, and all of those are residual effects of the crime, of the social ills, of illicit narcotics. We haven't even touched on licit narcotics, on which we also spend a great deal of our time.

You have to appreciate that as officers we have discretion, and the courts also have discretion, as do the crown attorneys. Very often, too, some “possession for the purpose” offences are downgraded to possession offences. So you may be seeing some of those statistics in there as well.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'll turn to Inspector Allen.

Insp Ron Allen: Thank you. I won't take too much time. I have a basketball game at seven o'clock, and I don't want to miss it.

I'd like to reiterate that some people use the stats to say that the incidence of marijuana arrests is increasing. There is no doubt that it is, but it's not as a result of the targeting of people who are using cannabis. As was suggested, it is as the result of investigating other criminal activity that the marijuana is found.

So the individual targeting of the user is not there. I will tell you from an RCMP perspective, in the province of Ontario we have about 1,200 members. Of those, 200 are dedicated to drug enforcement. It would be to the chagrin of any of the supervisors or team leaders to find any of those people out there targeting people who are possessors or addicts. That is not our mandate. That is not our focus. There isn't.... If anyone is doing that, it would certainly be contrary to policy.

¹ (1555)

The Chair: And in Toronto?

Chief Julian Fantino: Many of the points have already been made. I think it needs to be said, though, that unless you look at each individual case, the outcome in court doesn't tell the whole story. I think that has been pointed out here.

There are many deals struck. Many charges are reduced. There are many diversion programs applied. There are many circumstances that play into each and every case. As a premise, we do not target individuals. We come upon a lot of these things as opportunities, if you will, for the lack of a better word--coincidental or incidental, ancillary to other things that are happening.

Moreover, the drive today is to optimize our scarce resources. Much of what we are endeavouring to do is intelligence-driven, target-focused, going after the high-end importers, distributors, the organized crime element. Of course we also try to seize the profits derived, which don't even come back to us at the end of the day, which is another problem.

The Chair: Thank you.

Just before I turn to Dr. Fry, do any of the three police forces do sweeps of schools?

Detective Inspector Pittman, do they sweep schools for drugs in Halton?

Det/Insp Signy Pittman: I'll note first that part of what we do in Halton is provide education.

We did have a program in place where we used a drug dog, but what would happen is we would make those arrangements, we would come in on the request of the principals, but we found it to be very ineffective when we learned the principals were making announcements in advance of our arrival. It was really turning out to be an extremely poor use of resources. We have that available, but it's not something we use on any regular basis.

The Chair: Okay.

Supt Bill Stevens: I won't use the term “sweeps”, but occasionally we do get called to various schools. What we generally do is set up surveillance on the targets and the areas used by them, and do it that way. But I don't recall the last time a principal asked us to come in and do a sweep.

The Chair: Chief Fantino.

Chief Julian Fantino: No, we don't, again, for many of the same reasons--the unfair practices we would be accused of, the fact that some parents would love it, but many wouldn't, and so on. So we just don't.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Fry.

Ms. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.): I have two questions. The first one has to do with something Inspector Torigian talked about, which was that obviously a strategy must be multi-disciplinary. You are dealing with the enforcement component of it. Therefore that's where your expertise comes in.

Even though you're dealing purely with the enforcement component, if we look at a strategy being comprehensive, as Detective Courtland Booth said, you're going to have to look at prevention and education. You're going to have to look at treatment and rehabilitation. You're going to have to look at harm reduction, and obviously enforcing--the fourth piece.

If you follow the usual corrections model, which is that you find somebody who is an offender, you look at how you prevent offences similar to that, and you look at how you rehabilitate the offender, how much then of your enforcement budget do you spend on prevention, education, and rehabilitation, if any?

The Chair: Detective Booth.

Det Courtland Booth: To answer your question, first of all, our responsibility as we see it as police is enforcement. Our dollars are well stretched to provide that alone.

What do we provide for education, rehabilitation, and things of that nature? Subject-matter expertise usually, and help in identifying where the problems are. In some senses we assist, for example, in the needle exchange: we use discretionary enforcement where addicts may be attending there to get their clean needle and their fix and go elsewhere. There's some discretion applied there, and things of that nature. But we don't really.... We're just doing the enforcement portion of all these things, and providing some statistical data and problem solving. That's about where it goes.

The Chair: Chief Fantino and then Inspector Allen.

º (1600)

Chief Julian Fantino: We do quite a bit in the schools working with educators in all kinds of quality of life programs, from “Say No to Drugs” to you name it. All of those things are done, and that to me is a very worthwhile application of our scarce resources. We should be working a lot harder, all of us, collectively, to educate our children especially so that in the future they don't even have to contend with the drug issue.

We haven't talked a whole lot about that, although we've talked a whole lot about the after-effects. If you look at enforcement, which is our mandate, it's basically a sign of failure on the part of society. What we haven't talked about is how to get ahead of this issue and how to ensure that we don't need all of these other post-event situations to kick in, including enforcement.

We do a lot of things that we normally don't even get credit for. We're in the schools and we do a lot of programs with young folks at the various grade levels. We of course participate with community groups who are very active in trying to deal with the social aspect of this insidious problem, and the business of helping to rehabilitate disenfranchised communities that are plagued and virtually held hostage by the drug dealers who target the most vulnerable people in our society. There's an awful lot of work being done.

All I can say to you is that we're managing the problem, we're not solving the problem, and that's what we need to get talking about in this society. We may have lost our whole generation. I may have wasted 33 years of my career doing law enforcement. Maybe the next generation of law enforcement people can be far more successful. All I'm saying is that it may not be to everyone's expectations, but we're working flat out with what we have, within our mandate.

We have to be careful, in this whole business of harm reduction, that we don't start interpreting harm reduction as a freewheeling doing away with the offence, where if you have no harm, you have no statistics and therefore no problem. That's flying the white flag of surrender up the pole, by the way.

The Chair: Thank you, Chief Fantino.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I wasn't meaning to suggest that you weren't doing prevention. I just wanted to know what percentage you were doing in terms of prevention, rehabilitation, and harm reduction in the corrections system itself. When you have people there who are in for ancillary reasons but who are also substance abusers, what are you doing within the prison system with regard to harm reduction--needle exchange, bleach, and that type of thing--if anything?

The Chair: Does the Toronto police force operate jails?

Chief Julian Fantino: No, we don't, but we have a drug problem in the jails, federal and everywhere else.

The Chair: Which we've heard about.

Chief Julian Fantino: The point here is that no matter what else we in law enforcement do, we don't do rehabilitation. That is not part of what we can do, should do, or have the expertise for, and on it goes. But if you look at how the system really works, we're basically recycling many of the same people over and over and over again. And it's a sign of failure when we as a society can admit, as we have today, that we have a drug problem in the maximum security institutions. I mean, something is not working, and I don't know what the answers are.

The Chair: Thank you.

Inspector Allen, then Superintendent Stevens.

Insp Ron Allen: I'm probably going to reiterate what you've already been told, but on the supply and demand side, from the RCMP perspective we have two separate budgets. We have a budget that deals with the enforcement side and we have a budget that deals with the drug awareness side. The balance of human resources is certainly out of whack. As I said before, we probably have 200 people involved in the enforcement side, and across the province we may have--again, don't quote me on this--less than five full-time drug awareness people. But they also draw on the expertise at the unit level.

Again, as Chief Fantino said, the police are not recognized for a lot of the things that go on in a community. We have a lot of people involved in coaching sports in the community. We have people who are part of school councils. We have police officers who are part of youth groups. We have a peer sponsorship program going on in the minor hockey program. We have parent-teacher associations. We go to your schools and give direct presentations to your children's classes.

Those types of thing are being done, on a daily basis, by every police department across the province of Ontario. That statistic is not captured anywhere, but believe me, we are out there.

As a quick response to the jail question, I don't know if you're familiar with Maplehurst or not, but Maplehurst is a jail that just opened up in Inspector Pittman's area. It's a model for super jails at the provincial level. The Province of Ontario and the Halton regional police and the RCMP and the OPP are starting a pilot program. We don't know where it's going to take us, but we recognize that the police are trying to get involved in the prisons. We don't know where the program is going to take us, where it will be copied or where it will be expanded to, but we also recognize that harm reduction is in the process.

º (1605)

The Chair: Thank you.

Superintendent Stevens.

Supt Bill Stevens: If I could respond as far as the percentages go, we spend approximately 40% of our time in the education field with the drug problems. Every week we're doing presentations at the schools, to sports teams, at service clubs. We use former addicts to accompany our police officers, so they can give a direct perspective on how it's affected their lives. We have several good programs, one of them being “Racing Against Drugs”, which we run annually. We bring all the schools in from the region.

I think every police service is doing their own thing, so to speak, as far as education goes. Perhaps we need a national strategy for education in this area.

The Chair: To clarify, you had a sports program. Is that because there's a specific issue of steroid use in Waterloo?

Supt Bill Stevens: No. In answer to that question, not that I'm aware of.

Ms. Libby Davies: I have a second question, Madam Chair.

The Chair: There really isn't time for a second question round; there's only time for one. I still have Inspector Pittman and--

Ms. Libby Davies: Can I get a clarification? Did you say 40% of your budget or 40% of your resources on education?

Supt Bill Stevens: Resources within the drug branch. But our community resource officer helps out with that, too. Not 40% of the budget, no.

The Chair: How big is your drug branch?

Supt Bill Stevens: Fourteen officers, and we have six on the community resource branch.

The Chair: Detective Pittman, I don't know if you're able to answer that, but perhaps you can give us that information on Wednesday.

Det/Insp Signy Pittman: Certainly.

The Chair: Thank you.

One final question. Perhaps, even for this program at Maplehurst, are there specific moneys from the National Crime Prevention Council or from the national drug strategy that any of your forces get for pilot programs on drug issues specifically, that you're aware of?

Chief Julian Fantino: Certainly not at Toronto that I'm aware of.

The Chair: Okay.

Chief Julian Fantino: But we're open to offers.

The Chair: Why did I not doubt that?

Yes.

Insp Matt Torigian: The money for a community mobilization project doesn't necessarily target drugs specifically, but it is in high-risk areas, and of course that would tend to...[Inaudible—Editor].

The Chair: Okay.

Inspector Allen.

Insp Ron Allen: From an RCMP perspective again, you'd have to deal with our policy people in Ottawa. I know there is money that comes in for different programs, and we also have the RCMP Foundation that we utilize the money from for different programs in the community.

The Chair: To all of you, thank you very much. Thanks to most of you for coming on fairly quick notice. I think all of you had fairly short turnaround times for getting your presentations together, and we really appreciate that. We really appreciate the work you do each and every day in all of our communities, particularly in your communities, and we wish you continued success with that.

This committee will be hearing testimony from witnesses until probably the end of June. If there's something that comes up in the next little while that you want to communicate to us that's happening in your area or that you want to elaborate on, please feel free to give us that information through our clerk or through our researchers. The information will get to all the members of Parliament, in both official languages, and will be very helpful.

Again, we appreciate the time you've spent with us. Chief Fantino, I guess you have had a very difficult day as well, and we express, on behalf of all the committee, our sorrow for the loss of an officer today.

Thank you.

We'll suspend for about five minutes so we can get our new witnesses. There will be a video in the next one, colleagues, so you may want to position yourselves for that.

º (1605)

º (1612)

The Chair: I'll call this meeting back to order.

We are very pleased to have with us this afternoon, from the Toronto Drug Treatment Court, Kofi Barnes, senior counsel; from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Mike Naymark; and from the Department of Justice, Croft Michaelson, senior general counsel, criminal law branch. Welcome.

Gentlemen, we have about one hour, so I would propose that we hear from you, first of all, with roughly a ten-minute presentation. Is that agreeable? Then we will have some opportunity for questions and answers from our colleagues.

You may have missed introductions earlier. I'll go through those quickly.

Randy White is from the Canadian Alliance. His riding is Abbotsford, B.C.

Réal Ménard is the member of Parliament for Hochelaga--Maisonneuve--so that's Montreal--from the Bloc Québécois.

Libby Davies is from the east side of Vancouver, Vancouver East, and is a member of the New Democratic Party.

Derek Lee from Scarborough-Rouge Valley, Dr. Hedy Fry from Vancouver Centre, and I, Paddy Torsney from Burlington, are all representatives of the Liberal Party. But this committee is actually fairly non-partisan. We're trying to work through the issues together.

I will turn to you first, Mr. Barnes.

º (1615)

Mr. Croft Michaelson (Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Branch, Department of Justice): Actually, if I could just make some introductory remarks....

The Chair: Apparently we're turning to you, Mr. Michaelson.

Mr. Croft Michaelson: Thank you.

My name is Croft Michaelson. I am the director of the strategic prosecution policy section, with a mandate for prosecution policy for the federal prosecution service. I was involved in the inception stages of the drug treatment court when I was here in Toronto.

Kofi Barnes is the senior counsel with the federal prosecution service and our policy adviser on drug treatment courts. He has been involved with the drug treatment court from the time it moved to implementation. He's our technical expert and is one of the most knowledgeable people in Canada on drug treatment courts, if not the most knowledgeable.

Mike Naymark is the manager of treatment services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. They're the treatment provider that works with the Toronto Drug Treatment Court.

You may recall that I appeared before this committee in the fall. At that time I indicated that the addict offender poses a unique challenge to the criminal justice system. We now have two drug treatment court pilots in place: one in Toronto, one in Vancouver.

The Toronto drug treatment court has recently completed its third year of operation. The Vancouver court began operating in December of 2001. Both those courts are funded through a combination of contributions through the National Crime Prevention Centre as well as from provincial and/or municipal governments.

What we refer to as a drug treatment court in Canada is known as a drug court in many other jurisdictions. It's a special court that's given a responsibility to handle cases involving drug-addicted offenders through an extensive supervision and treatment program. There are in excess of 600 drug courts operating in the United States now and approximately another 400 in the United States at the planning stages. Australia is now piloting the approach in four jurisdictions.

The strength of the drug treatment court is that it features a multi-disciplinary approach that partners the criminal justice system with treatment providers and a variety of other important resources in the community that attempt to address the underlying factors contributing to an offender's drug addiction. The evaluations of drug treatment courts in Canada and elsewhere are suggesting that the approach is a promising complement to the traditional criminal sanction.

Mr. Barnes will now give some remarks, and I understand he's got some clips of a video that may help the committee better understand the process.

º (1620)

Mr. Kofi Barnes (Senior Counsel, Toronto Drug Treatment Court): Given the time constraints, I am going to focus on giving you a sense of how a drug treatment court works. A drug treatment court was set up to address the issue of the revolving door--the drug addict who continues to commit offences and goes to jail, doesn't get treatment, and comes back and commits offences again.

The way in which the court works is to engage in what I call a marriage between the court system and treatment. I'm going to try to give you a sense of how that works. Perhaps we can start with the video. What I propose to do is show just very quick clips of a video to show different phases of the process. Perhaps we could put number one in.

Before we do number one, actually, I will set it up. Number one demonstrates to you how the court process and the treatment process talk to each other and work together to try to solve a participant's problem. So you're going to see what we call a pre-court conference where you're going to observe multi-disciplinary cooperation.

[Video Presentation]

What you have observed is defense counsel, crown counsel, treatment providers, probation, and these days the police working together as a group and adopting a problem-solving approach in terms of trying to solve the addict's problem and recommending solutions. So they've had a pre-court conference.

Let us now look at how that is actually addressed in court by the judge. We'll go to tape two. I'm trying to move quickly. You see there the multi-disciplinary approach. One of the criteria in drug treatment court is regular court attendance during which the judge gets information on how the person is doing and holds the person accountable.

I have another tape, which I am going to skip over. It shows that the court also tries to motivate people. You've seen people who are getting into trouble, but the tape I'm going to skip over shows people applauding and encouraging people who are actually doing very well.

Because of the time limit, please show tape four instead of tape three.

º (1625)

The Chair: Before you do that, for colleagues around the table, it has just been brought to my attention that as we are having lunch tomorrow with the people who are appearing before us, we might cut down our question-and-answer time and let them make a more fulsome presentation so that tomorrow at lunch we'll have a better chance to ask questions.

So if you do want to go with tape three, I'll let you roll.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: That is perfect.

Please go back to tape two.

Before you play tape two, I just want to say that what I'm trying to point out is the strength of the court. The strength of the court is the multi-disciplinary approach toward trying to solve problems. You saw different people, whether it's for probation or treatment, get up and give the judge some information on the person.

Another component of what you observe in drug treatment court is a set of sanctions and incentives to try to motivate people in terms of their behaviour. Ezzard Pratt was sanctioned because he missed his probation, so he may in fact come to court a bit more often, instead of maybe getting a break and coming every second or third week.

Now, what is different about sanctions and incentives? It's that they're done in consultation with the treatment provider. You recognize in the pre-court conference that the case would have been discussed. The judge would have been given advice as to what motivates Ezzard. For example, if Ezzard were suicidal or something, and it was felt this type of sanction would be a problem, then they would come up with a new kind of sanction. The sanctions and incentives are always structured to try to motivate the person before the court to try to deal with their problem. It's tailored toward their specific needs.

The next tape is going to be somebody who is actually doing well--tape number three.

[Video Presentation]

Before we see the last clip, I will comment that at some point you take a look at our materials. At tab one there is a detailed description of the drug treatment court and how it works. That was prepared by the United Nations.

To summarize, the dug treatment court focuses on a marriage between treatment and the court process, assuming there's early identification and screening of people who are drug addicts, who qualify. There's intensive and continued judicial supervision. There's frequent random drug testing. There's a coordinated, comprehensive, and appropriate response and substance abuse treatment for people who need help, as well as ancillary services.

For example, the Toronto drug treatment court is partnered with about 46 community agencies in the city that will help with housing, job training, education, employment--whatever the person needs. If the drug addict has some specific need with respect to their own unique circumstances, referrals will be made. There are regular court appearances and regular sentencing hearings. That's what you saw--the pre-court conference and the court attendances.

There are also appropriate responses to offender non-compliance. We call them sanctions and incentives, but they are geared toward assisting persons to be motivated to deal with their problems. They're called therapeutic interventions. There are also a lot of linkages with probation officers and police, who are very much involved in the process.

Initial evaluation results seem to indicate that the drug treatment court for some people has reduced crime among repeat offenders and has reduced substance abuse use among offenders. We have the situation in which persons who go into the program and complete it seem to have better psychological and physical well-being. These are some of the attributes.

º (1630)

Now what I would like to end with, because I know there may be some questions, is to hear what the drug addicts have to say about the court. That will be the last clip.

[Video Presentation]

Okay. Perhaps we could just stop here and move on to the next person. There may be some questions I could answer later.

º (1635)

The Chair: Mr. Naymark, do you have anything to say? We have.... Just don't touch.

Mr. Mike Naymark (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health): I'll just add a few remarks, specifically with relation to what Kofi described as a marriage between the treatment and criminal justice systems. It has been three years, and we are still talking to each other, which I think is a pretty good track record compared with some marriages.

As a treatment provider I can really attest both to the uniqueness and the unique effectiveness of the drug court program. I worked as a therapist, as a frontline staff in addictions, for many years. I think I can really say that a drug treatment court has definite advantages over the conventional treatment approaches.

For one thing, in a conventional treatment approach clients are just not going to address criminal behaviour issues in treatment in the same way they can in a drug treatment court treatment program. The criminal behaviour issues are completely tied in with the substance use issues. They need to be discussed in a situation where clients feel free to talk.

Clients in a conventional treatment program just wouldn't stay, wouldn't be maintained in treatment for as long as they would in drug court programs, especially with cocaine. With cocaine clients in particular--that's an area I've worked in for a long time--after getting past an initial crisis and going through an intensive treatment phase that may be several weeks long, the retention rate in standard programs is typically very, very low. In our drug court program, even for clients who may not make it all the way through--they may be in treatment for six months or longer--we know that length and time of treatment are definitely correlated with successful outcomes.

They also, in a drug treatment program, get the kind of advocacy and support from their treatment providers in relation to the criminal justice system that they wouldn't get in a standard treatment program. I think Kofi has really emphasized this. One of the exciting features of a program like this is the way treatment and justice collaborate, together with community service providers. But the perspectives of the treatment system and the court system are just so different. To have them actually working together and collaborating has created synergies we can really take advantage of. It's very unusual.

I'd like to address a couple of broader issues. One has to do with funding for the drug court programs.

Certainly the need for sustained, ongoing funding--permanent funding--has been addressed by the United Nations. In the paper you see at tab 1 of your packages by the extra working group on drug-abusing offenders, if you, in your leisure perhaps, turn to page 5, item number 11, you'll see that sustained permanent funding is one of the success factors for court-related treatment programs.

We are really hoping to soon have permanent funding. We'd like to see permanent funding for our drug court program.

I'm a member of the community advisory committee, and as Kofi said, we have a large number of community partners who work together with the drug court program. Any number of times I've heard numerous representatives of community agencies and service providers talk about their wish for permanent funding for the drug court program, because as community representatives they see it as something of value.

Certainly since December 2000, when the then Minister of Justice announced her intention to establish drug courts across the country, we've seen a sustained interest in a number of jurisdictions nationally in developing drug treatment court programs. I think permanent funding for drug treatment courts would be an indication to people who are potential supporters and developers of drug treatment court programs that it's a priority of the government.

I'm getting the hook.

I would just like to address the need for legislation. It may sound funny for a treatment provider to bring up this kind of issue. I know there are issues of legislation--regarding court procedure, for example--that are important, but from a treatment provider's perspective there's legislation that could govern the sharing of information. For example, on some aspects of the teamwork that goes on between court and treatment, it would be useful to have in place, in terms of who can speak in court, the standards of evidence that needs to be presented in drug court programs. We need legislation that would allow us, the court and treatment together, to create creative sanctions and incentives. There needs to be legislation that looks at eligibility criteria, and legislation around funding for drug courts and grants.

So I think there's a lot that can be done in this area. Again, if you have a chance to look in the package we've provided, at tabs 10 to 12 there are some examples of legislation provided--for example, the legislation that was passed in Australia.

I think a national drug court strategy would be useful in coordinating some of these efforts, in terms of legislation and of funding.

I want to end by returning to the message that both clients and public safety benefit when there's the kind of collaboration the drug courts provide for between treatment, the justice system, and the community.

Thanks.

º (1640)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Barnes, did you have anything further?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: I think we're ready for questions. We want to make sure you have enough time for questions.

The Chair: Okay.

We could run over for about ten minutes if we wanted. Mr. White, I wonder if we could let Mr. Ménard go for the first one, because he's actually about to leave.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Merci, Mr. White. I apologize, but I have to catch the train back to Ottawa. I'll be back tomorrow evening.

This is the first time I've heard speak of this and it intrigues me. I must have missed the announcement. You say that this initiative was introduced in the year 2000. I'm not sure whether Parliament passed legislation of some sort. Sometimes, even lawmakers miss certain things.

Could you recall for us the specifics of the legislation, if in fact we're dealing with legislation enacted by Parliament?

Secondly, could you tell us a little more about how the program works?

These are special courts, then, criminal courts operating under federal jurisdiction. Could you explain briefly how these courts work? I hope you are as outraged and disappointed as I am that there are no such courts in Montreal, a city with serious drug problems.

Can you tell me if the document that was circulated to committee members was financed by the Justice Department and if so, could you possibly obtain a copy of it in French for me?

º (1645)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Michaelson.

Mr. Croft Michaelson: In terms of the questions, the drug court pilots in Canada have not been established pursuant to any particular legislation. We did not see that legislation at the outset was required. Most of the drug courts in the United States have been established without any legislation, as well as some in Australia. So there's no specific act that created the drug courts. They're pilot projects that have been established.

With respect to the question about the document you're referring to, and if you could obtain a copy in French, I'm not sure what the reference was to.

Mr. Mike Naymark: It was really pulled together by the community advisory committee. But I would think we would be able to put together a document in French.

The Chair: Some of them are actually studies from different published journals, so I'm not sure how that.... Some of them are American university documents.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: It's not a big problem if the document is unavailable in French. However, I do want to understand. The court hands down decisions which are binding on the parties. It is guided by the principles of natural justice and must follow the same procedures as other courts of law. These are specialized criminal courts. Is that correct? I'm merely trying to understand how this all fits in with the judicial hierarchy. For instance, these are not administrative tribunals?

[English]

Mr. Croft Michaelson: If I may answer, I apologize, there was a second part of your question I forgot to answer.

In both Toronto and Vancouver they are provincial criminal courts of law. There are procedural guarantees as a pre-condition to entering into the court. The accused has to indicate his or her consent to go into this court and enter into this treatment program.

There are different types of offenders. Low-level offenders will typically be treated the way we would treat them in the ordinary courts. They're essentially diverted to this particular court, and at the end of it all, if they've achieved success, there will be a non-custodial resolution, typically a stay of proceedings. Those are low-level offenders.

The more high-risk or serious offenders would typically be required to enter a guilty plea at the outset. They'll be subject to stringent bail conditions, and one of the conditions of their bail is that they abide by the terms of the drug treatment court. Then they're monitored, but it is a criminal court of law.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: For example can I compare these courts with the now defunct citizenship courts?

These specialized tribunals hear cases involving criminal offences linked to drugs and the like. If courts of this nature were introduced in Quebec, it would be through the criminal courts. However, they would specialize in handling drug-related offences.

The committee that looked into organized crime recommended that special courts be set up and judges assigned to fight organized crime. A recommendation of this nature has already been made and followed up on.

Is my understanding of the situation correct? The two parties come up before judges, not commissioners or evaluators?

[English]

Mr. Croft Michaelson: If I've understood your question, certainly in the pilot projects the individuals who essentially run the courts are judges. I'm not sure if that's responsive to the question you were asking, but they are criminal courts.

We have specialized drug courts in Toronto that just handle drug offences; similarly, in Vancouver there are specialized courts that just deal with drug offences. The drug treatment court is essentially an adjunct to that approach.

º (1650)

The Chair: Is there a court in Quebec that deals just with drug offences?

Mr. Croft Michaelson: I'm not really that familiar with the situation at the local level in Quebec, because most of the drug offences that are prosecuted in Quebec that would be dealing with addict offenders are prosecuted by the Quebec Attorney General. I recall at the federal prosecution service we would only prosecute cases investigated by the RCMP, which would typically be organized crime figures who aren't drug addicts.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I have one final question. You're asking us to believe, as committee members...What makes the formula unique is the specialized nature of the court. Earlier, however, Mr. Barnes said that the combination of justice and prevention through treatment made this approach unique.

In reality, how does this initiative affect the relapse rate and does it really steer people away from the path to delinquency?

[English]

Mr. Kofi Barnes: I think you're referring to the relapse rates of people using drugs. What I can indicate to you is that the Toronto drug treatment court is at the current time being evaluated by an independent evaluation group that is made up of the Department of Justice and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. It's an evaluation that's going to span over four years.

We have been getting interim reports. Every four months we get a bit of a report. What I can tell you is that the evaluation at this current time indicated there is a significant reduction in drug use; that I can tell you. I cannot give you exact figures at the current time because, as I said, the evaluation is not done.

I do know from experiences of drug courts in, for example, the United States, where they have several drug treatment courts, that some have reported relapse rates as low as 20% compared to persons not in the drug treatment court field. But in terms of the Canadian figures, we have to wait. All we can say is I'm told that the rate is significantly reduced.

The Chair: Merci, Monsieur Ménard.

And now Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White: Thank you, Paddy.

My experience in the courtrooms in this country with victims has been considerable over the last eight years, and none of it has been pleasant. In fact, it's been extremely unpleasant watching the courtrooms and very frustrating for the victims when you look at delays and backups, deferrals, postponements, stays, and on and on it goes, with lawyers arguing over the technicalities of the law rather than the common sense of the common law.

What is the difference between that scenario and drug courts? I think we're going to see the drug courts here this week, but are we going to go into a room where lawyers are fighting over the technicalities of the law and the poor victim is sitting back and saying it's just another courtroom?

The Chair: Mr. Barnes.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: There are a number of issues I think I should indicate here. In Toronto, in terms of the Toronto pilot project, it was a pilot project that was spearheaded by the federal government. In Ontario the federal government prosecutes the drug offences, unlike in Quebec, where the provincial government prosecutes the drug offences.

The court in Toronto is geared toward people who are charged with trafficking of cocaine or heroin, or people charged with possession of cocaine or heroin, or possession-related charges. So you don't have your victim in the normal sense, per se, in Toronto. I can, however, indicate a number of things.

We have a screening process in place that ensures that any offences that relate to crimes of violence or to people being treated in a horrendous way do not qualify to come to a drug treatment court. What I can talk to you about is drug treatment courts that do in fact take those types of cases in the United States. I can tell you that in the United States, in the types of drug treatment courts that would take in offences that have the typical victim you are thinking of, dealing with the victim is part of the process.

The thing about drug treatment courts is that they try to adopt a holistic approach to solving the problem. They try to get the offenders to take responsibility for their actions and to be accountable for their actions, whatever they may be, whether it's trafficking or a crime that has a direct victim attached to it. Dealing with a victim will be a necessary component of any drug treatment court that has that type of scenario.

With respect to lawyers and technicalities and that sort of thing, all the technicalities that relate to drug treatment courts or that apply to normal criminal law apply before the person comes into the program. Before coming into the program they will have a chance for counsel to advise them and give them their full legal rights. They know what they're getting into. But once they are behind the program, we have a set of rules they deal with, and we focus more on what can be done to assist the person than on technicalities.

º (1655)

Mr. Randy White: Then you must be handling more cases, really, in the run of a day, and there must be more situations going through than through an average court, which is really slow.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: Not necessarily. Whenever a drug treatment court comes into a new courthouse, there will be an advent of people applying, thinking that it's a way to get out of jail, which is what we experienced in the beginning. But once the word gets around that it in fact requires you to deal with your addiction, because people actually wanting to change and deal with the addiction.... It's not easy.

What we're beginning to find is that more and more people are saying they'd rather do time in jail than go through a program that requires them to sit down and really take stock of their life. So you tend to get, at the end, among the people who make it, people who are really motivated. We are not seeing the flood you expect to see.

Mr. Randy White: Finally, do you see a prostitute as a victim or a criminal?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: I will limit my answer to things I know about. What I know about are drug-addicted prostitutes who commit the offence to deal with their drug addiction. I think for persons in that particular case, the focus in the drug treatment court is to try to address the root cause of the problem, which is the drug addiction, and to assist the person to go in a different direction. That's what I know. And that's what I was thinking, too.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Randy White: That's your answer, and you're sticking to it. That's a good answer, actually.

The Chair: Mr. Naymark.

Mr. Mike Naymark: May I just maybe clarify what will happen tomorrow, what you can expect to see in the court, because the drug court sessions aren't really meant to deal with any of the technical legal aspects of a person's case.

Clients come to talk about their progress in the program. We could have anywhere from 20 to 30 clients coming in on a given afternoon to stand in front of the judge, who addresses them by their first name. Clients talk about what's been happening in terms of their drug use, their progress toward any of the goals that are there for clients and, if they want to complete the program, how they are doing in establishing stable housing, in getting a job, or in retraining activities. So there are a lot of clients coming through on any given court day. It's dramatically different from a standard court session.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Naymark.

Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: Thank you, Paddy.

I'm going to try to unstick Kofi from his answer. First of all, did you say the independent evaluation includes the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: Yes.

Ms. Libby Davies: Aren't they part of the program? They're in your binder here.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: They are, but they are a research body. In fact, the way we run the court in terms of the people who do the research is that it is very separate from the day-to-day activities.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay. It's just that the organization as a whole and the Department of Justice are both involved in setting up this program, and they are both part of doing the so-called independent evaluation. Is there anybody else who's absolutely not connected with it?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: We have an independent evaluation advisory committee made up of representatives of the court and the community. They review the evaluation on a regular basis and have input on the way in which the evaluation is being done and what is being tracked.

In addition to that, we have a community advisory committee that is not simply a group of people who provide services; they are very much involved in the day-to-day policies of the programs. So we have those two bodies.

The final body that also examines closely what's being done is the National Crime Prevention Centre, where the money comes from.

Ms. Libby Davies: I wrote a letter the other day to a community paper in east Vancouver that did a story on the Vancouver drug court. One of the things I put in my letter--I'm very skeptical of the drug court--was that the day we set up smokers' courts is the day that maybe we should consider drug courts.

Just looking at your material here, I see in your first tab a reference to the UN drug control report. It says:

“Why actively involve justice systems in treatment and rehabilitation programmes?Experience shows that the public pays a high price for untreated dependency of drug abusing offenders, mainly through the direct and indirect costs of ongoing crime to finance drug abuse.”

This is my point, that people go into a drug court for treatment, but they're only there because of what they're engaging in--that is, criminal activity. Coupled with that, I see a program that's very discriminatory. It says here, right from Judge Bentley's introduction:

“This project is targeted at prostitutes, youth and visible minorities, although other offenders with drug-related offences are eligible to enter the program.”

My other question is, how many of the clients are people who are in regular-paying jobs, who are professionals, etc., and who are also engaging in criminal activity? I guess I'm really putting to you a challenge of the premise of what this program is and the good things that come from it. Those are good things that come from treatment, so why does it have to be done through a justice system?

I think this actually gets to Randy's question of whether or not, when a prostitute is involved, you see that person as a criminal or a victim, as someone who needs to be assisted. I'm not disputing the need for treatment and all the good things that come from monitoring and supporting and finding the housing, but why are we targeting certain people and saying they have to go through drug court and other people don't, when really it is based on the criminal activity?

So I don't know how to reconcile that if we're saying that we're dealing with a health issue. Otherwise, why aren't we sending smokers to court?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: I have to give you answers based on the world I live in, and in the world I live in, I can indicate to you that nobody is discriminated against in a.... I'm a crown counsel, and I personally take care of screening everybody in the program. There are no quotas, and we are not targeting anybody in practice. So it may have been an idea that popped up in the early days, but in practice it has never happened.

» (1700)

In terms of the other issues you raise, you raise larger issues. As Mr. Michaelson said, the drug treatment court is a complement--and I think it's very important to point this out--to existing programs. It is not a panacea. It is not intended to replace existing programs, and it shouldn't.

I can tell you, I have been a prosecutor for some ten years, and during that ten-year period I had great satisfaction when I went into court and dealt with cases dealing with organized crime. I felt really sad when I came into court at the old city hall and observed people who I had been prosecuting when they were kids finally enter the adult court because they were drug addicts. All I know is, maybe there was something in society; there may have been some problems somewhere that brought them to the courthouse, but they needed some help.

The next thing that became clear--it has become clear in the video--was that because of their drug addiction, many of them were not following through with traditional treatment. So they became the targets.

We work in the criminal justice system, and in the world I live in we can only address those issues recognizing that they are serious societal problems, which I'm not denying, but here are these people and we have a choice. We can send them to probation, because we've done that ten or twenty times, and they keep coming back. This program tries to bring the two together, to work together.

I'm not an expert in treatment. All I know is this when you have a program in which 46 community agencies, on their own, are prepared to participate, we see a benefit with this specific population. By this specific population, we're talking about drug addicts and hard-core offenders for whom other forms of treatment have not worked. When you see someone who came into the program a drug addict, a recurring offender, and you observe that person over a period of time get clean, get a job and become a drug-addiction counsellor, you feel that you are doing something. But in so doing, we would be naive in thinking we have all the answers.

The persons who have attacked drug treatment court in the past have always seen it as an either/or. It's almost like, if you're going for drug treatment court, the other approaches did not work.

I know this is a bit of a long answer.

Drug treatment courts may not be appropriate for the person who is working on Bay Street, who is picked up with a small amount of cocaine, who already has a job, stable housing and enough supports in their life to make them want to deal with their addiction, because in Toronto you will get a fine, and maybe the thought of losing their job or losing their house could be an incentive. They're not at the bottom yet.

Ms. Libby Davies: Does the law not treat people equally? I mean, if you get picked up on a traffic violation, you don't say, well, because you are from Bay Street, you get x, but because you are from Parkdale, you get y.

I can see that you see this as an improvement over what there was, from your role in the prosecutor system, but I really think there are some serious questions about who's being targeted and how the law is being applied to people.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: Just a couple of things.... And by the way, if the president of Bay Street wants to come to the program, he can. I'll just give an example.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, but he's not exactly being drawn in, though.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: But I guess what I'm saying is that it is a complement, so it should not be viewed as an either/or scenario.

For instance, if I attend the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health for treatment, but at the same time the other people who are not in drug treatment but who are getting treatment.... It is targeted toward the hard-core, drug-addicted offender who has lost so many supports that he needs some kind of structure to assist him.

Ms. Libby Davies: Can I ask one other quick question?

The Chair: I just have a quick one on yours, though.

The person from Bay Street who is picked up for the first time for a small amount of drugs is different from these clients. Aren't the people who are at your drug court people who have a whole series of convictions?

» (1705)

Mr. Mike Naymark: Theoretically, we could be seeing both kinds of clients. Croft Michaelson was talking at the beginning about the two different tracks we have: one for people with a less serious record, who have been charged with possession and can plead not guilty; and then there is a track for people with a more serious record, or people who have been charged with trafficking. In practice what happens is that we get very few of the track-one clients because the program is really geared toward people who are desperate, who've been in either multiple treatments or no treatment at all because they have no understanding of what treatment is about, who've been through the court system time and time and time and time again.

It's ironic--in some sense we're looking at this as better than the alternative for most of the clients we see, better than just going through the justice system and going to jail, using in jail, coming out and using again, and not getting hooked into the social service system at all. Again it's a voluntary program.

And ironically too, the criterion of prostitution as an offence is one of the eligibility criteria. This was meant to open up the program more to people who otherwise might not be able to get involved in it because they don't necessarily have a specific drug charge among the charges they've been arrested for--and again it's voluntary.

The program, in terms of its length and intensity, is really directed towards people with long-term, serious problems. In working with people who have cocaine or heroin addictions over the long term, there really is evidence in the literature that the treatment needs to be intensive, focused, specific to the drug of abuse, and long-term.

Ms. Libby Davies: I think as long as we recognize that the whole justice system is designed and set up in such a way that the person on Bay Street doesn't come in contact with it, it's the prostitute on the street.... Their chances of actually being caught in the first place are far more remote than someone who's on the street and is highly visible. Visibility has a lot to do with it.

The Chair: And where are the social supports for them?

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, people who can in effect hide their addictions or have resources and don't come in contact with the law basically are outside of this system. It's the visibility on the street.

The other question I wanted to ask you....

The Chair: Okay, but you're at fourteen and a half minutes, if you could keep that in mind. We have to go over here and then we're out of here.

Ms. Libby Davies: All right, I'll try to come back.

The Chair: And we will have lots of time tomorrow. So give a quick answer from the table, then it's Dr. Fry and then we have other witnesses.

Mr. Croft Michaelson: I just wanted to make it clear that from a policy perspective in terms of the way this drug treatment program was set up, it's not discriminatory and it's not geared to or targeting any particular segments of the population. Any individual who is charged with a drug offence is eligible for the court if they have a substance dependency.

What we're talking about is other factors in the lives of these individuals that may or may not cause them to exercise this choice. Some individuals will choose to enter the program; other individuals may have sufficient supports outside that they choose not to. Similarly, other individuals are going to say they would rather do their time or pay their fine and not go into the program. It may well be that we don't see them until three or four times later, down the road.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Just to be clear, on tab two, page five, under the paragraph on the motivation for the Toronto drug treatment court, the second-last sentence is “This project is targeted at prostitutes, youth and visible minorities, although other offenders with drug-related offences are eligible to enter the program.” You may not have targeted, but someone thinks it's targeted.

Mr. Croft Michaelson: Those are remarks by Judge Bentley in June 2000. But the participants in the court go well beyond Judge Bentley. And from the perspective of the Department of Justice, we're not targeting individuals.

The Chair: And who is Judge Bentley?

Mr. Croft Michaelson: Judge Bentley is one of the two judges who preside over the court. But on the selection criteria in terms of the eligibility, Mr. Barnes, who's sitting to my right, is our gatekeeper.

The Chair: Okay. We have confidence in him.

Will it be Dr. Fry or Mr. Lee? You pick.

» (1710)

Mr. Derek Lee: If I could just stay on that point, the reason we seem to have focused on this issue of who the drug courts are targeted at appears to come from one of those bafflegab government press releases written around 1998 by the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General. It says that the court was specifically designed to meet the needs of non-violent offenders who are addicted to cocaine or opium, with a focus on youth, women, and men from diverse and aboriginal communities as well as street prostitutes. If the focus is on youth, men, and women from diverse backgrounds, that's everybody. There is no focus. So either for the purpose of acquisitioning a funding envelope or for some other governmental reason, we're pretending that we're focusing on something when there is no focus at all, and we're back to cocaine and opiate addiction, which is what you've introduced us to here.

I appreciate all of your novel work and all of the success you're having in the lives of the parties who go through successfully. And even for those who don't go through successfully, there's still some success. But where's the payoff for the taxpayers of Canada? Measure it however you like--and I may sound overly skeptical--but tell us where the payoff is. That's my only question. By the way, I support the court. I just want to know where the payoff is.

The Chair: He wants to know so he can tell the Canadian Alliance members in his riding.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: The drug treatment court is currently under evaluation. I have anticipated this question, and I have to say that we are waiting for our cost analysis figures to come in.

If you go through the literature I provided, you'll find that in the U.S., where there are several drug treatment courts, the cost savings to the taxpayers, which are being reported as a result of surveys, are significant. In your materials there's a paper by a person named Finigan who looked at a drug court in Oregon and came up with savings in the $2 million range just for the justice system, and in the $10 million range for health care, loss of property, and that sort of thing.

But there's also a human aspect to all of this. People are reunited with their families, they have better health--we already have that from my evaluation--and those who succeed return to being productive members of society. One example I gave you was the woman who was a drug addict and who is now an addictions counsellor at CAMH. She was the first drug treatment court graduate

Also, there should be savings to the justice system in terms of not having to process persons on a regular basis and savings to the prosecution, law enforcement, health care, and corrections.

In terms of the actual dollars, I'm giving you figures from other jurisdictions that have done it. In terms of the Canadian experience, we'll have to wait for our evaluation to be done before I'll be able to answer that question in financial terms.

Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Fry, quickly.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I don't want to belabour this point, but I'm going to do it anyway. You don't seem to have any clear criteria for who enters the drug court. We've just debated that, and we found out that there are no clear criteria, that anybody can enter the court.

When you evaluate, are you going to be comparing yourselves with other modalities that also don't have criteria and that have a high percentage of high-risk or chronic offenders and not merely first-time offenders? How can you develop a good evaluation when you don't have a clear sense of your criteria as to who's coming in and how they compare with other groups of people?

» (1715)

We can look at the United States as an example of drug courts that have worked. I don't know, overall, if the United States is a good example of systems that have dealt with addictions and the drug problem in a successful way, where the outcomes per se have been good enough for us to look at the United States as a good model. There are other places we might look where there are models with higher success.

Are we just saying the United States is good? When you have no criteria, how can you set up your database in order to evaluate it? Who are you comparing it to so you can say it is better than the systems we have in place now? At the end of the day, what you have to do is tell us this is a better option, not only in terms of human outcomes, but in terms of cost savings. If you don't have clear information in the data that is kept, how can you compare?

The Chair: Mr. Barnes.

Mr. Kofi Barnes: First, we do have criteria in terms of who comes into the program. Obviously, funding is an issue. The criteria with respect to the nature of the offence are possession of heroin or cocaine, trafficking of heroin or cocaine, or the police lay charges. We have criteria with the pilot project, and we have some limits.

We also have criteria with respect to the degree of violence and whether the person is a violent offender. We have criteria with respect to whether or not the offence is committed for a commercial purpose or is the result of addiction. We also have in place an intensive screening process where we apply the criteria. Even though I'm the gatekeeper, there are police officers, probation officers, treatment providers, and family doctors. Very intensive screening criteria are in place.

In terms of the evaluation, we are not comparing court effectiveness to other jurisdictions. At the same time, we are trying to find out how effective we are ourselves.

We have two groups we compare. We compare persons who have come into the program based on criteria and entered the program. We call it the experimental group. We compare them to persons who were screened as eligible to come into the program, went for an assessment, and did not show up. We try to do our comparison in terms of having similarly situated people with similar characteristics when trying to determine the impact of the program.

I am told by our evaluators that the effort is made to make sure the comparisons are as similar as possible. We compare within the criminal justice system. We want to be able to determine whether or not this form of intervention for persons who go through the program makes any difference when compared to similarly situated people who do not go through the program.

Ms. Hedy Fry: It's not a valid comparison. If someone has an intervention and someone else doesn't have one, obviously the person with an intervention is automatically going to do better. It stands to reason. I think you have to compare it to other interventions if you're going to have a valid answer.

The Chair: Mr. Michaelson.

Mr. Croft Michaelson: Perhaps I can say that one of the challenges at the inception stage was that the researchers and evaluators wanted to have a control group. They wanted to have a control group of individuals who will be addicts and substance-dependent. They'll go into the normal court system and they'll be the control group. Then you'll have a valid comparison group.

At that stage, from a Department of Justice perspective, we said we cannot have a control group. You cannot say to individuals they're not going to be allowed into the program because we want to have the best possible evaluation or scientific research.

It may not be we don't have the most scientifically rigorous evaluation or research done at the end of all of this. There were other considerations of equity and fairness in dealing with accused persons that were paramount.

The Chair: Mr. Naymark.

Mr. Mike Naymark: It's obviously an important question. I know in the United States, with all the differences in the justice system, there are studies comparing the outcomes of clients going to drug court, similar clients going to something like probation, rather than in a more closely supervised program such as a drug court, and clients who are in other kinds of diversion programs.

» (1720)

So there's that kind of empirical evidence in the U.S. about the relative higher effectiveness of drug courts with similar kinds of clients. Obviously, it would be important research to be able to do here in Canada.

To return to what Croft said, in terms of the evaluation we're doing, I think it's actually quite a rigorous evaluation. Because of ethical considerations, we can't simply randomly assign people to drug court or to no program at all. I think it will still tell us something about what happens with people who don't go into a drug court program.

In fact, and again this is American research, most people who go into drug court programs have not been in diversion programs before, so comparing an intervention to no intervention is actually quite realistic. They've either not been in a program before or they've been to multiple programs, because I think drug courts see clients who either don't get engaged in treatment or don't stay in treatment. So there are some comparisons that I think we can do in the future that would be really important. There's some research in the U.S. that gives us some indication, and then there's the control group that we have with our evaluation study.

The Chair: Thank you. We will have a chance to delve into some more issues tomorrow when we visit you.

The one concern I have is.... Mr. Barnes, you mentioned there's a whole series of supports that are put together, housing and some work opportunities, perhaps. I have two questions. One, if people are appearing at least every week or every couple of weeks, how do they maintain a job? Second, for people who end up accessing housing services and perhaps a job, or skill training, or some social services or bus tickets, or whatever they were talking about, are they doing that at the expense of other people who are trying to get those services?

Certainly in my work with young offenders I've seen situations in which parents have said “My kid had to commit a crime to be able to get rehab. Why couldn't I just access the rehab?” Or, “I'm paying for the rehab because I have no other way to access it because my kid didn't commit a crime.”

Is there a problem here? Or is it that there's actually finally better coordination?

Mr. Kofi Barnes: Obviously, a situation in which resources are provided to persons who enter the criminal justice system at the expense of persons who don't enter the criminal justice system is problematic. That's the reason why, for example, when setting up a drug treatment court, funding was found to create a whole new treatment regime rather than trying to access existing treatment services.

In terms of the 46 or so committed agencies that are at the table with us, many of them take in persons voluntarily, and many of them take in persons who probably would have been seen anyway, because in practical terms what happens is if somebody comes before the judge and that person needs drug addiction treatment or something.... Even before drug treatment court, sometimes judges will send people for treatment or may make it part of a conditional sentence order or that sort of thing.

The reason why these agencies are at the table voluntarily, because they don't get any extra money from the program itself, is because some of them recognize that when these people come on conditional sentences, as they normally would come, there's no real supervision, because the probation officers are overworked. So I like the fact that when the court sends this person down I can report to someone of the person's progress and the court can actually do something.

What I see indicated is that whenever you try to do something different, like a drug treatment court, it causes problems. It always does. It's a challenge to everything that exists. In the beginning, it was a challenge to my idea of what a prosecutor should do. What am I doing this type of stuff for? It was a challenge to treatment provided, saying “What are you doing in schools, this forced treatment?” You're saying to the police officers, “What's going on? You're being soft on crime.”

» (1725)

These 46 people we're talking about from the agencies did not come to the table from the very beginning. They came to the table when they began to see some progress in people who were in the program.

Also, one of the biggest challenges that occurred was that it was hard to fathom how you could possibly apply harm reduction in drug treatment courts. That is why I'm very glad that you're coming to see it. The whole idea of courts raises connotations of coercion. It doesn't make sense until you've seen it. So these agencies have sort of come together for that reason.

With respect to the question of how somebody can get access and where, that sort of thing, Mike can speak to that. The program is in phases. When you enter the program, there's a three-week period when you probably cannot work. It's very intensive. But after that, it is phased out and people are able to start to work as time goes on. At the end of the day, you come to court less and you are able to get a job, get stable housing, retraining, and that sort of thing. Those are objectives.

The Chair: Mr. Naymark, quickly.

Mr. Mike Naymark: I think we're learning as we go about what's effective, what makes most sense procedurally and programmatically. It has been kind of a conundrum for us. Somebody who comes into the program and is employed would have difficulty because the intensity of the program in the earlier stages and the frequency of court attendance that's required does mitigate against keeping a job. Given that one of the requirements for graduation from the program is having a job, there's a certain contradiction there.

At the same time, I think a number of people who apply for whom that's an issue--and it may be that people self-select out of even applying because they know about this--say they really want to come into the program but they have a job. What can they do? It's really small in practical terms.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Just for my colleagues' benefit, since you may not know this, tomorrow we leave here at 11:30 to come over and see some of the pre-conference meetings. We'll be observers and sworn to secrecy, I guess. We will have a chance to have some question and answer sessions over lunch with our panellists from today.

Thank you all very much. Of course, we'll spend all evening studying this so that we have a million more questions. We're really grateful and it's wonderful to have all this information as back-up. We do appreciate that.

I for one want to offer up my French video because I'm not sure I'll watch it in both official languages. If anyone wants to return anything to you, I'm not sure if you're leaving with goods or if we're bringing them, but we'll sort that out.

I'll suspend for literally enough time for these people to get up from the table and for all our next witnesses to sit down at the table. If I could ask the Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association and the Queen East Business Association to come to the table, we'll have all the presentations and then we'll have the question and answer after that.

We're suspended for two minutes.

» (1728)

» (1732)

The Chair: We're back to order.

We have with us this afternoon the Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association, or TEDNA. We welcome Madelyn Webb and Steve Bourgeois. From the Queen East Business Association, or QEBA, we have Margaret Steeves and Hélène St-Jacques. Welcome to all of you.

I think we'll start with you, Madelyn.

Ms. Madelyn Webb (Chair, Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association): Thank you very much for having us come today. I'm really pleased to see that the federal government has placed an emphasis on this whole issue. We've been lobbying Bill Graham for many years, and he has done quite a bit to move us in the right direction. We're glad to see there's more continuing on.

The Chair: It was Mr. Graham who asked that we accommodate your appearance today.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Right.

I just have a bit of background on our organization. For 12 years, the Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Alliance, as we call ourselves now, and its predecessor, the Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Residents' Association, have been working to create a healthy neighbourhood in one of the most active illegal drug markets in downtown Toronto. We called our area a drugstore until we started cleaning it up.

The boundaries of our neighbourhood are Yonge Street to Sherbourne and Gerrard to Queen. I believe Hélène has a map, and she can show you later where that is.

In 1989 there was an explosion of the crack cocaine trade. Within months, the area changed from a quiet, low-income residential area to a major hangout for drug dealers and prostitutes active at all hours of the day and night, a destination for johns and drug users from all walks of life and from all parts of the GTA. That's why we called it a drugstore; people came from all over the GTA to get their drugs in this area. The main corner was Jarvis and Dundas.

In response to the crisis, the neighbourhood organized what was basically a grassroots organization. One person, Michael Thomas, led it and organized the residents to work with police and three levels of government. In our neighbourhood, we have many institutions. We have a lot of churches, we have tons and tons of social service agencies, we have many agencies that serve the homeless and marginalized. We also have Ryerson University, and of course we have a lot of businesses.

Our effort then was to calm the neighbourhood. The focus of the work was and still is a monthly neighbourhood council meeting. We believe we've developed a model for this kind of work to be done.

» (1735)

We have a monthly meeting, the neighbourhood council, the first Thursday of every month, at the same place and time. It has been going on there for over ten years. At this meeting the residents, the police, business owners, local councillors, politicians from provincial and federal governments, or their staff, and others with a stake in the neighbourhood, including the church, Ryerson, as I said, and social services, meet to address the issues.

The first reaction we had when we first organized this whole thing was from the police--they were the first group we had to work with and educate about what was going to happen. They said, “Why don't you move?” Of course the problem was a lot of people had bought--it was at the height of the market--and we just couldn't move. The other thing was a lot of people were in co-ops, and security of tenure is one of the premises of being in a co-op, so once you land there, you basically can't move. There were a lot of positives, of course, to living in the neighbourhood, mainly some conveniences.

So that was the first reaction of the police, but it soon became apparent that the involvement of the residents was very important in assisting the police with their work. We acted as the eyes and ears. We reported each month to the police. We usually reported more frequently, so they encouraged us to phone them. It took many years, actually, to build a rapport with the police and get them to focus on the issues the way we needed them to focus on them.

Our main method of being involved with crime prevention was through our community walks. We would have these twice a week, often late at night, sometimes starting at ten, twelve, whatever we needed to do. We walked in groups at night. Usually the police were there, but we sometimes went on our own. We just witnessed the drug trade and we videotaped street crime. Just by our presence, we acted to discourage and disrupt the drug trade.

This is one thing I really want to emphasize. At the current time, our group feels that the only tool we have to deal effectively with the drug trade is to disrupt it. The only thing we can do is chase drug dealers around so they do not self-organize and then just have a drug store right on the street. This is our main approach. We do not feel this is an adequate approach. And a lot of people do not like that approach because they want to contain the drug trade, so it can be more easily policed. But we feel that if we let drug dealers self-organize in our neighbourhoods, it is just a recipe for disaster.

We have actively mobilized the police. That's a bit arrogant, but we've basically said this is what we want. We've said that to our councillors, too--that we need to disrupt this trade. Then we've gone out and marched on the street ourselves. Sometimes we've actually occupied a whole corner--we've done this with QEBA and the other neighbours--let's say at Dundas and Parliament, maybe outside our neighbourhood, and we've rotated that corner. We've stood there for hours at a time to basically change the use and disrupt the drug trade. We've actually had other residents come to us and thank us for being there on the corner, so that something else was happening other than drug-dealing.

We've had to use those kinds of techniques. They're extremely time-consuming, extremely onerous to residents and those of us who are active. I have been active for over ten years, and believe me, it's a career-limiting activity. It's very difficult to incorporate this into your day-to-day life without it costing you a lot.

We discovered information that we never thought we would need, and many of us have become what I call “accidental experts” in the drug trade, the regulation, or lack thereof, and the legal and the non-policing means to discourage participants.

We focus on non-policing. Of course, we get the police to do their job, and we help them by identifying where activities are taking place. One of the things that frustrates us is that the police can act only once there has been a major crime, so we identify hot spots at our meetings.

We want something to be done. We were optimistic at first, but what happens is usually there's a shooting, a death--some kind of major crime--before we actually get the places shut down and calmed. After that has happened many times, we've actually been able to get a faster response to some of these crises that take place. So instead of it taking weeks and months to shut down a place, we've actually had one place secured within 48 hours. We feel we're getting a little bit more credibility in the eyes of the police, and also the coordination we do helps us. We have a good communication going.

We've developed methods for working with the management of problem establishments, such as rooming houses and restaurants, to encourage stakeholders to take measures to calm their premises, reduce crime, and make them safe.

» (1740)

We've actually had to shut down what we call “drug-dealing restaurants”. This has been an extraordinary effort. We had one restaurant catering to the drug trade. We had to get 125 criminal charges against them before the LCBO, the liquor board, would pay any attention.

People were putting their lives, really, or their health at stake by going in. One guy went in disguise to collect evidence. The police told him it was too dangerous. Then an active police officer, thank goodness, came, took over, and spent six months gathering evidence.

Even the day before we were going to the hearing, the lawyer of the restaurant was phoning and asking for a two-week suspension. When they saw the thick documentation at the hearing, they realized they were going to have to listen.

It was shut down. Then we had to go back to another hearing to get the two-year irrevocable suspension. It is the first time it had happened in downtown Toronto. It means no one can have a liquor licence there for two years. We were the first ones to get it. Believe me, it was like war on the street.

One night there were 85 drug dealers on the corner. The police could only get on their horn and ask them to disperse. They wouldn't get out of the car, as it was too dangerous.

This is the kind of stuff we've been dealing with. This restaurant was shut down in 1997. There's still no one occupying the area right now, and the place has been calmed. New uses have come in. Now there's a hotel across the street and what have you. We were relying on development to come in and change the use of our area.

Believe me, we're dealing with extremely serious matters here. We have shootings on the street. We have people being stabbed right in front of where kids are living. In downtown Toronto, where the turnover is taking place in housing and redevelopment is happening, the non-profit housing and co-ops have gone in first and paved the way for condos and developers to come in and make a whole bunch of money. Before that, they put in low-income housing.

We have a mixed neighbourhood. We want to retain it. We feel the mixed-income neighbourhood is good. The thing is, the fallout from the drug trade is completely unacceptable.

We can claim many successes now, but it's been a very persistent effort. We have between 20 and 50 very active volunteers every year. We feel we have to maintain a vigilance, continue to take measures to ensure the neighbourhood continues to improve, and calm the hot spots.

There is one thing I want to say about the drug court, having heard the testimony. The problem is, what was the alternative? We see, as residents, the courts being a revolving door for drug dealers. We see petty criminals, people who have not had one advantage in life and might have been caught with three grams of crack or whatever, end up in drug court.

I had to personally be a witness against a person. As I was in the situation, I felt terrible being a witness against a person who had no advantages whatsoever and ended up with this little bit of crack cocaine, in the court system and going to jail. It's just not doing the job. These people need other help.

The other thing is our community witness statements. I've attached them to our briefing package. It gives you the flavour of what people are living with day to day. Community witness statements don't need to be taken into consideration by the judges in the same way as victim impact statements. In other words, unless you're actually the one who is assaulted, if you can't sleep every night and do your job because of yelling on the streets with people screaming for their drugs, fights, and all that kind of stuff, it does not count. The judge does not have to take it into consideration in terms of any sentencing. Then the sentencing is such that usually people are out within a few days.

The time is very short. I've probably gone over already, but I want to address some of the issues in your terms of reference. One of them was determining the ways in which substance abuse interferes with the health and security of the communities in which the users live. I think it's where we have the biggest contribution to make.

As I've said, I've attached the witness impact statements. We have a system at our meetings. I have attached what we call the “street steward report”. We actually have a form. You fill it out when there has been a disturbance or any kind of problem activity, we categorize it, and you tick off whether it's a fight or whatever.

There was one guy on a particularly bad street, Pembroke Street. He used to write it up. I included the first page of his May report from last year to give you a flavour of what people are dealing with.

I also included a letter to Chief Boothby from 1996 talking about what we have to do in terms of the police when the police services decide to change their methods of operating. Right now, they've taken everyone off the street and put them into cars. You cannot police our area with cars. People are on foot and go into back alleys. This is not appropriate. We have to deal with it. We have to write to the police and say it is not going to work for us.

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The good news is that because we've spent all this time, we do have a rapport with the police. We can say to the police we need this, that, and the other. Often they can respond. Right now, we are getting some pretty good cooperation with the drug squad, the way the drug squad is working.

Even after we shut down this drug-dealing restaurant, we now find the police are taking the same measures and the same methods, on their own initiative, and we don't have to get involved. That's great, because we do not have hundreds of hours to spend on these things, hundreds of hours educating every cop who comes on. They turn over like crazy; it's beyond the pale.

We have our methods now: we invite them to parties, we make sure they have food, we tell them how cute they look in their uniforms, and we really make sure they like us. You know, whatever works. This is what we have to do, and we've discovered that. Anyhow, some of the methods are formal, others are less formal.

The Chair: That's not the corruption I was referring to.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: I don't think that. We've had some great cops working with us.

Anyhow, I'm talking here about the witness impact statements. My analysis is that the noise that interferes with sleep.... You know, everyone says that drug dealing and prostitution are victimless crimes, but I had drug dealers living next door to me in my condo, and every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night there was a party. If I'm wakened up--probably you've never experienced it, but I'm talking about myself--at one o'clock in the morning or four o'clock in the morning, I cannot get back to sleep. If I'm wakened up at other times, I can get back to sleep.

I had this job with the federal government at the time, and I tell you, I was a raving maniac. I couldn't do the job. One time I went to a meeting and I was just ranting at people. You're sleep-deprived. You cannot function. I've come to realize that this is really the problem you can point to with respect to individuals who are subject to this problem. Noise interferes with our sleep.

There's prostitution, evidence of sexual activities in plain view. People live in places where there are lawns and stuff, pick up their condoms and crack pipes and stuff. Taxis are actually fearing people doing drugs. Children are approached on the street to be runners for drug dealers. I saw that happening the other day on my street. I was horrified. Users are on the street, stoned, and panhandling and this and that. Booze cans operate all night, after-hours clubs operate on the weekends.

In our condo, for instance--this is a personal thing--we had to hire a private police force to get rid of the drug dealers. And that took three weeks. But the regular police could not do it because they were off using their Mercedes and what have you and they couldn't afford an Armani suit and a Rolls Royce to have a guy participate and infiltrate the place.

So city-run housing is out of control. The city cannot manage their non-profit housing, or they're running.... Help me out here, Steve, what do they run--metro housing? It's like a rooming house, only it's city-run. In one place there's a window there and there's constant drug dealing going on. We've complained for about eight years now, and the city cannot do anything about it.

As for new housing, every single new high-rise in our area, whether it's co-op--and some of the private ones, too--I think has had to get rid of drug dealers. Drug dealers have moved in, caused all kinds of problems, and they've had to take measures to get rid of them. Of course nobody really knows how to do it. Sometimes they come to our meeting--we help them--but it's a huge problem. I mean, it's a huge problem for them when they encounter it.

I mentioned the restaurants and bars and the knifings and shootings. We also have a school in our area, and addicts have been found selling crack to public school children through the school fence. That kind of stuff happens.

Another thing we're finding out is that some resident groups are attacking all low-income people and rooming houses as being drug havens and they're trying to shut them down. The thing is, we want drugs treated as a health issue and what have you, but we are not the same as other groups in our neighbourhood. A lot of people in our neighbourhood don't believe in a mixed community; they want to shut down all the rooming houses. We're going through an incident like that right now in our area.

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Those rooming houses hold a lot of Ryerson students. It costs $500 a month to live in a room that's about the size of where these tables are. It's extremely expensive to live in downtown, and we're a block from Ryerson University. We have a lot of women walking on the streets at night to and from classes. We've had to take that into account and take that into consideration.

We have been lobbying for legislative reforms that we think are necessary to reduce the impact of the illicit drug trade, which is also part of your terms of reference. These reforms include the decriminalization of drugs and treating drug addiction as a health issue. We think this is the way you have to go. I know it's complicated. We don't have all the time in the world here, but we do have policy papers on that.

How much does criminalization contribute to harm associated with drug use, and are there ways to mitigate those adverse effects? We feel there's enormous effort on the part of neighbours and the police to deal with the problem, to little effect. It's just over and over. The police get very frustrated. I'm sure they told you. It's just over and over again. We do have an address-by-address approach, but it's extremely difficult. As I said before, usually something has to escalate to a murder or a major disruption before something really can happen and the police can do something. The courts and jails are a revolving door system for drug dealers.

The amount of money at stake makes life attractive to youth who are exposed to it. Did you people see the movie Traffic, where they raise this issue? They say putting black youth.... This is where they see the money is and this is why they go into it. They see the drug dealers as having prestige. This is a terrible situation.

TEDNA actually got some people to come into the neighbourhood to put on some youth programs to get the youth to reflect on their situation and to try to talk about it. They actually expressed it through theatre presentations. It was very interesting.

The guns and knives that are carried by drug dealers.... Some of us see it and some of us don't, but the cops always tell us, “Be careful on your walks, because these guys have guns and knives”. The cops tell us that. We're waltzing around the neighbourhood in the middle of the night.

Ways to mitigate: provide local area neighbours and police with a means to deal with the problem, other than moving drug dealers around. The courts do not solve the problem. I mentioned the community witness programs. Take the money out of drug dealing. Take the money out of drugs. We have to get the money out of the drug trade. It's just too lucrative.

Is treatment for drug addiction or dependence readily available in all jurisdictions? Our area has all kinds of social services for drug addiction, but the problem is that they go out in the street and there are a hundred drug dealers right there. Well, there just has to be one, selling them drugs.

The root of the problem is often poverty and homelessness. These problems have to be addressed for any systemic approach. The lack of affordable housing in Toronto is just beyond the pale. It is a crisis. Nobody wants to spend the money. We can't have people living on the street or they're going to run into these situations. We just can't have it.

In summary, we urge you to look at ways to take the money out of the illegal drug business and to treat addiction as a health problem. Those are our two major messages. As long as there are enormous profits to be made, the problems will remain.

The criminal kingpins control the trade. They are not the ones who are running around in east downtown. Some of them--Hélène maybe can speak to this.... We know that Queen and Sherbourne, which is an area where we overlap, is the place where most of the marijuana is dropped off. They go around in white vans. It's the Hell's Angels. They control the drug trade. You can see their white vans downtown at the spots, Queen and Sherbourne. That's where they do their business. They even have a hangout on Eastern Avenue, which is just east of there, with a big huge sign: “Hell's Angels”. You hear about it. We know; we live here. We know exactly where they are and where and when they're doing their business. Do you think this makes us happy? No. We should not have to live with this.

Do we want to see the criminal element taking over legitimate businesses and integrating into society, the way bootlegging families did in the past? We all know what the thing is. Do we want those criminals now running our society? They'll have a lot of money. They do have a lot of money. Taking the money out of the system by having government control will go a long way to reducing the impact and is the best form of harm reduction. We have to do that.

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There will always be a certain number of people who become addicts. We did a project on this with the Addiction Research Foundation. Don't ask me to quote that, but it was something like 6%. What would happen if drugs were available to anyone who wanted them--what percentage of the population would become hard-core addicts? It was something like 6%. The Addiction Research Foundation provided us with the information.

Then the question would be, if you want to do a dollars and cents analysis, what would it cost us to keep the addicts supplied? What would it cost us to rehabilitate people and provide the programs? Then you can start looking at costs, if you're going to go in that direction, which I hope we will.

Of course, we want prevention programs. We don't want to see all our efforts come to nothing. We feel, as residents, we do more than our part. We need government to support our efforts to rid us of this scourge.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Webb.

I apologize. I smiled a couple of times. It was the waltzing around image.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: The thing is, you have to treat this with a bit of humour.

The upside of the whole situation is that we do have something in common with our neighbours. We all get together once a month. I've met hundreds of people through this process. It isn't the happiest situation, but the outcome has been that we have built a community there. It's the positive.

I go to other parts of Toronto and I see them having problems. We do have methods for dealing with all our problems. We get the police right on it. We go address by address. We have a few more to clean up. It has been a success, but it is inordinately difficult.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now, from the QEBA, the Queen East Business Association, Margaret Steeves.

Ms. Margaret Steeves (Queen East Business Association): Thank you. Thank you very much to you folks for being here and listening to our presentation.

I want to make it a little personal from QEBA's perspective. I am a resident of a business association. Hélène will speak to the impact of illegal drug activity on the business area.

Our association has about a hundred members, comprised of businesses, residents, and social services in the area. Our area is Yonge Street on the west side and River Street on the east side, on Queen.

I'd like to take a short period of time and tell you about me. I am the face of the neighbourhood. I am typical of my neighbourhood. I've lived in the area for about a year. I am a condo owner. I live on my own. I made the choice to move into the area. Many people ask me why I made that choice. I like the idea that it is very convenient to a number of services, entertainment opportunities, recreation, and what have you, in downtown Toronto. It's very accessible to transportation and those kinds of things.

I looked forward to living in the area when I moved in a year ago. What I don't look forward to now is the fear I face when I am on my way home, in my home, and leaving my home. The fear is a result of the illegal drug activities in the area and the resulting criminal activities that have happened of robbery, prostitution, and that kind of thing.

I am fearful leaving and approaching my building. Many times I have to step over crack folks who are doing their business in the lobby of my building or around my building. There are a number of prostitutes in and around the building who, if I'm with a male companion, will approach the male companion and offer their services for a price. I'm very hesitant to invite people to my new home because I'm frightened for their safety in coming to the area. At least I'm a little used to it; they're not. They don't know how to deal with that kind of thing.

The problem at Queen and Sherbourne is described by police as the worst corner in Toronto for drug trafficking and resulting activities. Last Friday night a shopkeeper was assaulted on the corner of Queen and Sherbourne by a prostitute who was high on crack, wanted to purchase something, and wasn't allowed to. Anyway, it was a serious assault.

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QEBA is working very closely, as is TEDNA, with the police. They reported to us that over 142 arrests were made from January 1 to October 15, 2001, and 67 of those individuals had previous convictions for trafficking. That is, of course, given the person power that is available. They're out trying to do the best they can. I use that number to illustrate that, yes, it is a significant number. They tell me that the statistics they're keeping, even after these numbers were calculated, are in the 300-range. Again, the other significant number is that these individuals they are arresting have previous convictions. They are coming back over and over and over again.

I have two examples. A 42-year-old male had 12 previous trafficking convictions, for a total of 62 convictions on his criminal record. Again, there is a man in the area who is trafficking in illegal drugs, and it's important to note that the drug that is such a problem in our area is crack cocaine.

As I'm sure you've heard in other deputations and what have you, there is the resulting prostitution issue. The police have told us that within the last few months 240 johns have been arrested, and these are johns they refer to as coming from the 905 area into our area to purchase sex. Of those 240, it's important to note that those arrests are a result of police activity once a week for a three-hour period using four undercover officers. That is significant, and that is a direct result of the drug activity.

The Chair: What were those numbers?

Ms. Margaret Steeves: Over the last few months 240 arrests have been made, and those are johns only. The arrests are a result of police activity over a three-hour period, one night a week, using four officers. You can do the math and understand and appreciate that this particular result of the drug activity is incredible in our area.

I'd now like to turn it over to Hélène, who will describe to you the impact of drugs on our business community.

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques (Queen East Business Association): Thanks a lot.

How much time do I have, 30 seconds?

The Chair: Colleagues, with guidance from you, perhaps we can go until 6:20. Is that okay?

Ms. Margaret Steeves: Could I have another few minutes at the end to sum up?

The Chair: Yes, but we would like to have a bit of time for questions, so you can go about four or five minutes.

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: Okay, we're off.

Madelyn has done a very good job of describing lots of the ramifications of living and being in the middle of this business, as has Margaret. I'd like to talk about the upside, not of drug trafficking but what our area could and does represent, and that is business.

I don't know if you know this area. If you're from Toronto, do you know the old eastside downtown? Let me quickly describe it as the last major reinvestment area in the city, aside from the port lands. So here we are, being inundated by developers who are taking old buildings and making them into new media palaces. The per-square-footage cost of real estate in our part of town is as high as some of the towers on Bay Street because of our heritage properties. It is unbelievable. Michael Tippin's property, the Flatiron Building at Wellington and Church, is one of several examples in our area.

So there's huge reinvestment coming in, including developers who are building new, up-to-18-storey buildings, and they are moving east and have gone past Sherbourne Street now. In total, this means thousands of new residents and businesses.

Now, who are the people who are moving in there? This is important to stress. We are waiting for the Statistics Canada data, but we have received funding. Collectively, QEBA works with--we are very well organized in our part of town--heritage groups, residents' groups, north, south. We have worked very hard to form the southeast downtown economic renewal initiative and to date have received $450,000 from HRDC to do a myriad of things. These are planning studies. I could have brought more. They're very impressive documents.

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Why are we doing all this? We're helping the planning department. We're giving vision to the neighbourhood. We're also affecting what the private sector is doing.

[Technical difficulty--Editor]...describe our area as an area for drugs and prostitution, very dangerous. Isn't that a wonderful way of broadcasting to the entire world what we are?

As Madelyn says, we are an outdoor drug supermarket. Walk around and look at the faces of some of these dealers and it's frightening. Not only do they do that, but they assault our shopkeepers. They assault patrons, they proposition them, and they terrorize them. And this is holding back Queen Street. When you're driving around our area, and I really invite you to do so, you will see the money is going to the Esplanade, Front Street, King Street, and slowly moving up. But we are not getting what we need at Queen and Sherbourne. There is a dead zone there, and it is directly because of that drug trade. Everybody knows what's going on.

This is why I want to speak with you, because we have business people who are living literally in terror. Our QEBA meetings are not enjoyable sessions often, because many of our members come and they are fresh from another assault. That's what we're going to be dealing with March 6. Consequently, we can't get on to the vision and plan and think about the very positive things we have started and gotten under way with other neighbourhood and heritage groups and that have been so funded by the federal government. This is a waste of money. This is also hurting the city in terms of its taxation possibilities.

I want you to know that this is going to be a dead zone until something happens and those businesses that are at risk.... It's a very small strip there that is being so adversely affected. They are hanging on. Some of them have been in business for over fifty years, and now are marginal because of this concentration of activities.

One good news thing is that while it's so evident that Chief Fantino comes to visit us and tells us that we should keep working on this, and that's very nice, his second in charge, fortunately, has done something a little bit more effective. Two years ago he walked around.... They come down, I'm very pleased, out of uniform. Mike Boyd was so shocked that he started, on his own back, God bless him, something called the Queen-Sherbourne health and safety task force. This is three levels of government together with QEBA and the agencies in the area.

We have one of the largest shelters for homeless men in the city, the Maxwell Meighen Centre. It's very well run. There are no drugs in there, or alcohol. We have the Fred Victor Centre, which is working with some extremely so-called “high needs” population. They sit on our board and they are part of the task force. We've had long working sessions, over two years, and realized that in order to address, just with the tools we have.... There are lots of weaknesses in the system, as we know.

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We have now hired a full-time coordinator just to work between the police, the residents, the businesses, and the agencies, to use what we can and to create a sense that we're all working from the same page, but also to educate us in terms of what things we can do. We don't want a top-down approach. We are problem solvers at the micro level, and what we learn has applications at the macro level.

Now we have to document them and work more closely, as Madelyn has pointed out, for community-based solutions. We have a problem, and we want to be part of the solution. As you know, top-down doesn't work any more. The power really is at the grassroots.

I will now turn it over to Margaret.

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Ms. Margaret Steeves: The other important victory that I wanted to make mention of--and Madelyn mentioned this--was the community impact statement. Our organization has been working on a community impact statement since last April, almost a year, and we have documented.... There are two individuals who are included in our statement, myself as a resident and a business owner, and we articulate our circumstances and what has happened to us in the area.

The reason I want to raise this with you and point this out is, as Madelyn said, we would like this information to be part of not only sentencing, but processing of individuals who are charged with trafficking offences.

In my dealings with federal crown prosecutors, they very pointedly said to me, “Margaret, get over it; the community is not a victim.” I said, “I have news for you; the community is a victim.” We have people here and in other rooms who can tell you that the community is a victim, and we need to have that kind of standing as it relates to sentencing and what have you.

The federal crown prosecutors will be using these community impact statements, but they have to look for sympathetic judges who will acknowledge that communities are victims, and that's the only way they will be used. So you can clearly help us in recommending that we be acknowledged as victims in the system.

The other thing QEBA would like to point out, as Hélène mentioned--and this clearly echoes what our friends at TEDNA have also said--is community must be involved in the development of solutions: as I mentioned, our community impact statement, our health and safety task force, and the drug treatment court, which I'm delighted you're going to be going to see; I've attended, and I think you'll be pleased at what you see. But the important piece there for us is that community is involved. They have the community advisory group involved in that.

In a number of harm reduction models and pilots that are being developed and implemented, the community is not consulted. I personally have met with our public health nurses on pilot programs where they're giving away free crack pipes, and my question was, “I didn't know about it. Why didn't I know about it? What's this all about?” The community must be involved in the development of solutions to this very important problem.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you all very for some great presentations.

Perhaps, depending on our agenda on Wednesday morning, I can get the bus to drive out past the neighbourhood, because I do know the neighbourhood a little bit. There are a lot of new antique stores and things on Queen Street.

Just before I turn to Mr. White for a quick question, I want to clarify, on the johns, doesn't that work out as each officer busting a john every 12 minutes?

Ms. Margaret Steeves: Do the math; indeed, it's staggering.

The Chair: Okay. Lastly, on the victim impact statements, didn't Tim Murphy have a private member's bill on this? Did it not go through?

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: No, I don't think so, unfortunately. He really worked valiantly at that.

Ms. Margaret Steeves: But we need to have that included in legislation for the courts to understand that the community--I and others--are victims.

The Chair: All right. Thank you.

I did some campaigning in that neighbourhood for Mr. Graham in 1988. Actually, I only had to hold the vote in Moss Park. So I was right down there.

Mr. White.

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Mr. Randy White: Thank you.

The two things you said--take money out of the drug trade and treat addiction as a health problem--are common things that people talk about. How do you take the money out of the drug trade?

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Well, you basically provide addicts with their drugs at low cost. The government has to control it.

Mr. Randy White: So you're suggesting we legalize heroin and cocaine?

Ms. Madelyn Webb: One of the positions we've taken in TEDNA is that all drugs should be regulated, like alcohol is regulated, like we should do with cigarettes--someone was talking about nicotine a few minutes ago--and that they be obtained through a controlled distribution. So if you were an addict, you'd have to have a prescription or something, and you'd also have treatment available. And that's how you'd get your drugs. You would not have to buy the drugs from a drug dealer.

Mr. Randy White: That's a pretty tough sell in this country at this point in time, and I think you'd probably realize that may not happen in the very near future. So if that does not happen, what is the next alternative you would go to?

Ms. Madelyn Webb: I don't think there is any other alternative. As I told you, the best alternative we have is to chase these drug dealers around. One of the reasons they're at Queen and Sherbourne is because the local politicians want them there. They want to keep them there, and keep them contained.

So you tell me what the alternative is. There is no alternative. It has to come down to that, because we have no choice. We can either have a disrupted neighbourhood, we can have the kind of disruption that we live with, or we can have an alternative to people having to be criminals. We can also provide housing. That would help.

This is what's going to happen if we don't decriminalize. The main problem is the U.S. policy on drugs, and I think we should keep standing up to the U.S. on it, because the U.S. does not have the answers. I think we have to take a tough stand. It's not easy, but I think it has to be done. And don't forget, there's methadone for heroin addicts, and what have you. There are methods of giving people drugs so they don't have to get them off the street, and that's what we have to do.

The Chair: Ms. Steeves.

Ms. Margaret Steeves: I would just like for the record to state that QEBA does not support decriminalization of illegal drugs. That's not something we've taken a stand on or even discussed.

A voice: We haven't talked about it. I feel it's important to say that. We are an organization and we--

The Chair: It's not that you're against it, it's that you haven't--

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: Well, I think given that there's such crisis, believe me, when that topic has even started to percolate to the surface, they can't imagine it happening. Do you know what I mean?

Ms. Margaret Steeves: We have never had a discussion.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: I just want to add that we have supported harm reduction activities in our neighbourhood. We do have harm reduction for alcohol and crack going on, right on George Street, at Seaton House, which is the largest men's hostel in Canada.

Mr. Randy White: So you see the difficulties with your position.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Oh, I know what the difficulties are, believe me--I've been doing this for 12 years.

Mr. Randy White: You know, we have 304 MPs in the House of Commons.

A voice: 301.

Mr. Randy White: 301.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: And they're all in the country, right?

Mr. Randy White: Well, we do live in very diverse ridings. Many of them are rural, and many of them aren't like the area you come from. To try a national policy that would legalize cocaine or heroin--or decriminalize them even--would be extremely difficult.

Therefore, we're back to where we were when I first asked the question: how do you live with that in your area?

The Chair: Ms. Webb, and then Ms. St-Jacques.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: If you want to talk about federal responsibilities, what about representation by population? Maybe you need to start at that place, so that we can have more clout on some of the issues. This is a federal committee.

The Chair: Okay. Ms. St-Jacques.

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: Actually, not that QEBA has discussed this in great length, but we have great sympathy for prostitutes. I know Barbara Hall at one point tentatively floated the issue of legalizing prostitution and protecting them, creating an area for prostitutes, as in some parts of Europe.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Don't forget, only 5% of prostitution is street prostitution.

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The Chair: I was about to say, some of them are probably escorts.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Yes.

Ms. Libby Davies: We allowed that, by the way.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: We'd like to protect the women.

There was an assault that happened on Friday. This is not atypical. This young woman, a prostitute who was cracked out of her head, went in to buy a cigar for her pimp. The woman refused to sell her a cigar because she was underage. At that point, the pimp came in and beat up the sales clerk. It was another night at Queen and Sherbourne.

The Chair: I have another comment. Not in your area, but around the YMCA, there are young male prostitutes who have different physical risks, as well.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: Yes.

The Chair: I worked in Toronto for a while.

Libby Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: Thanks, Paddy.

You've heard Randy's view. I think there is a big change taking place.

We heard from the FCM, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. They were in the paper today. I think 80% of Canadians now live in an urban environment. I guess we're grappling with this question.

I represent East Vancouver, and the downtown east side is part of my riding. I know exactly what you're talking about. We're told continually that this is isolated. There's nothing we can do on a more national level. I really feel we have to deal with it, at least in the urban areas.

You have raised questions. Many of us in our community have come to the conclusion that the greatest harm now is illegality. It's overdoses. People don't know what they're taking.

It's the crime. We've had the police department in our community say 80% or 90% of all crime is being driven by the drug trade. It's the reality. I know it's the reality you're talking about.

It seems to me we can get into this big debate about legalization, but with decriminalization or even medicalization, in Zurich they actually cut their crime by 70%. They completely eliminated the open drug market. They cut it by 70%. They were basically able to enroll people, supervise them, and eventually get them into treatment. It's exactly what you're talking about. It was actually led by the police department. I feel we shouldn't give up hope.

I wanted to ask you a question. You talked about some of the barriers that get set up, where it almost becomes good neighbours and bad neighbours and good citizen and bad citizen. We've gone through all of it, too. One of the things that made a big difference in changing the debate was actually having drug users themselves involved in some of the programs going on. For example, there's a group called VANDU that helps to pick up needles. They go to meetings. They have a street program. They're actually very much involved now.

Have you had any experience with that? Has it been a positive experience, or something you've contemplated?

It actually really changed the debate. It suddenly didn't become “them” and “us”. I'm not talking about the very difficult dealers, but the users themselves. It suddenly became something that was more inclusive in terms of the community, as a whole, grappling with the issue.

The Chair: Ms. Webb.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: The short answer is we have so many social services in our area that we know are doing a good job with street health and what have you. We've been very supportive of Seaton House.

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But you know, one of the things that.... Well, this is not something I chose to get involved in. It literally just landed on my doorstep. I was asked to get involved by my neighbours, and we got together and started working. It's not something I really chose to do.

I myself have not gone out and doled out needles and stuff like that, because we need to deal with people who are totally traumatized by this thing. We've even had people come to our TEDNA meeting who were afraid for their lives. They didn't know where to go, so they came to the TEDNA meeting.

Our specialty, really, is focusing on managing the neighbourhood. Let's say you buy a small apartment building or whatever, a rooming house or something. What can you do in order to make it safe for people, to make sure that you do not have drug dealers, prostitutes, and other problems in your building ? We have to have a zero tolerance policy.

Believe me, it's been difficult. We've had to deal with the church. We once had to fax the Bishop and tell him “You guys are letting drug dealing happen in your church, and we can't have this”. We haven't been popular. It's not easy to do this kind of work. It's very, very difficult. We have to help people in the neighbourhood. We have low-income people, and people from all walks of life, and they're just as against drugs as we are. It's been portrayed otherwise, but we have a problem with the drug dealers. And it is the drug dealers who are the problem, not the low-income people, not the crack-addicted prostitutes. I mean, one of them was at a party I gave down at Queen and Sherbourne. We know her. She's on the street all the time. You can't help but know people.

The thing is, that's our specialty. We can't do everything. We're volunteers, and this takes up.... Last spring, when I was very heavily involved, it took up 30 hours a week. I was spending 30 hours a week on this work. It's not sustainable.

The Chair: But is there an association for the people who work, live, use on the street, as there is in Vancouver?

Ms. Madelyn Webb: We met some people from COD, Citizens on Drugs. We met a couple of heroin-addicted people at one of the hearings we went to, I remember, at city hall. But we don't have constant contact with them, no.

The Chair Thank you, Ms. Davies.

Mr. Lee or Dr. Fry.

Mr. Derek Lee: As a Toronto member, I want to say, I've listened very closely to the submissions here.

I have an old file in my office, 12 years old, that I developed at that time as a member of Parliament, and it comes up pretty close to what Ms. Webb was talking about. But 12 years ago this stuff didn't have political legs. Mr. White questions whether it does now. We don't know, but I think members of the committee would like to think we have an opportunity, on a public policy basis, to move the goalposts a little bit here, if not a lot, and see if we can refocus.

I don't really have any questions here. Your submissions have been direct and colourful, and I am familiar with the territory myself, some of the context. I grew up at Dundas and Coxwell, if that's a help. It's a little bit outside the zone, but close enough.

So I just want to say, I've listened carefully, I've heard, and thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

And finally, Dr. Fry.

Ms. Hedy Fry: I just want to say that if you see drug abuse and dependency as a chronic debilitating illness, then you're going to have to look at what you've suggested, which is to deal with it as a health problem. You obviously, at the same time, have to deal with the criminal element. I think you've clearly separated the people who traffic the drugs, who gain money from selling drugs, and the people who use them and are addicted to them, as two separate groups of people.

The idea you floated of medicalizing, as a solution, the whole concept is not a new one. In Britain this was done with heroin a long time ago. I think the thing that has been causing a lot of the medical community some concern isn't how do you do cocaine and how do you do crack--I mean, what do you do with them. I think they're developing now a concept of how you can medicalize--in other words, if you register the addicts. This is a concept that has been floated around by people who were looking at a pilot project on this out of universities right now and out of certain hospitals. You register the addicts and then you have physicians who are qualified and have clear expertise in addiction medicine, who then, by the college, become the people who will be registered for the addicts to go to. And addicts are only registered with one particular person.

Then you do the harm reduction, because you're giving them needles, they have clean needles, and all of their ability to have access to a health care provider, which is a big thing for substance abusers, and you're giving them the drug. In other words, what does the trafficker have to sell? What does a pusher have to sell? There is nothing to sell any more. You have taken the gain out of it, so you've just removed all the incentive for selling.

It sounds like an easy thing. But I want to say, Libby was talking about being on the downtown east side. I've been the federal person responsible for the Vancouver agreement, which is an agreement among the three levels of government and the community and the users, who have been coming together to look at solutions. One of the things that I think is very clear is that with 80% of people living in the cities--and this is a city issue, or mostly a city issue--you're going to have to ask yourself, the people who are living in the cities, who are the victims, as you say, have to be the ones we have to listen to for a solution. That's what we're here to do, to listen to you, and I think you've come up with some interesting solutions, because you're at the heart of it.

I cannot presume to know what it's like to live in your part of the country. Therefore, you have to be able to come and tell us what would work and what wouldn't, because you live with it every day. So thank you for being frank.

The Chair: Ms. Webb.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: You know, it's an urban issue, and most Canadians are living in urban areas, but I just heard at a meeting last week that there are senior citizens in Moncton, New Brunswick, who are on crack.

The Chair: Where did you hear this?

Ms. Madelyn Webb: I heard it at a meeting--actually, it was a Health Canada meeting.

The Chair: We'll have to talk to the Minister for Homelessness here.

Ms. Madelyn Webb: That's what we heard.

And the other thing is there is apparently a small town in Alberta--I don't want to say which one it is--that is one of the biggest recruitment areas for prostitutes. So the rural areas have their problems too. I don't think they can really hide their heads in the sand and say this is just in the urban area and I happen to be in the country. There are issues, and your kids move to the urban areas.

¼ (1835)

The Chair: If you don't solve the problem in the smaller communities, they have to move to the urban areas to get the fix. That's part of the challenge.

Mr. Bourgeois, how long have you been with the organization?

¼ (1840)

Mr. Steve Bourgeois (Director, Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Association): Almost two years.

The Chair: That's good. Now you're officially on the record. You will be in the Hansard record of this meeting.

On behalf of all the committee members, those who are here and those who are not with us but will in fact read the committee record--

Mr. Derek Lee: Madam Chair.

The Chair: Yes?

Mr. Derek Lee: For the parliamentary record, you mentioned the white van and where it came from. Is the address on the record?

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: The Hell's Angels--yes. This is interesting. We watch them. We have a very strong bush telegraph. We were having lunch over on the other side of the Don River, meeting with the local people. They talked about the new vehicles they have now. Hell's Angels used to drive black, and now they've switched to white. Those vans come down to our corner. I've seen the same van. We look at the licence plate numbers and give them to the police.

Mr. Derek Lee: Is there a street address where they stay?

Ms. Hélène St-Jacques: It's on the corner of Eastern Avenue, just to the east of Pape. The police know it--55th Division.

Mr. Derek Lee: I'm sure the police do. I just want to get it on the public record, for what it's worth.

The Chair: For those looking for a quick fix....

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: It's actually a very serious issue. Somebody mentioned the historic roots of the area, with Enoch Turner schoolhouse and some of the theatres on Berkley Street. It's a very exceptional beautiful area, with great possibility. There's a mix of housing, in terms of the co-op housing and the integrated communities. It's actually quite a lovely community to be part of.

I wish all of you well in your work, on behalf of the committee. As I mentioned, some members of the committee are not here, but they will have the benefit of this.

This committee will probably hear testimony until about June. If other things come up, other points of reference, you have our committee clerk's e-mail address and phone number--Carol Chafe. She will make sure everything gets distributed to all the members of the committee in both official languages. If you want to tell us to look for something else or you've heard about a new study, or whatever, you can do that as well.

We really appreciate your efforts in your community. Canada is a collection of communities, and you are clearly living your part of that. I wish you well in your work. Hopefully we'll be able to help you in some way.

Thank you very much for the actual time you spent with us today, as well.

Thank you, colleagues. This meeting is adjourned and will reconvene here at 8:30 in the morning.