Canada 'welcome wagon

for criminals'

Country urged to suspend rights of organized crime members

By Stephen Thorne / Canadian Press/ The Halifax Herald

OTTAWA – Canada should suspend charter rights to members of organized crime groups, say an expert who adds the country is far too soft on the underworld.

“Canada is a welcome wagon for criminals,” Antonio Nicaso said Monday after addressing the Canadian Police Association.

“The system doesn’t have the power to screen criminals and practically every major organized crime groups is active in this country.”

Nicaso, author of 10 books on the subject, told the association’s annual conference that Canada is the only country that guarantees freedom of association to criminals. It needs to follow Europe’s example and limit such rights.

“Freedom of association should be guarantee for religious, political, recreational, cultural, commercial reasons, but not for criminal reasons,” he said.

On the eve of the police group’s seventh annual lobby day, when it planned separate meetings with 150 parliamentarians, the Toronto-based expert said there are 18 different organized crime groups operating across Canada.

Nicaso said Canada needs a national strategy to combat organize crime. Criminals regard it as one of the best places to operate in the world because there is a lower risk of prosecution and detention than elsewhere.

He said the law needs to be revised and toughened, enabling authorities to go after criminal assets, and parole boards to treat drug traffickers as dangerous offenders.

In an afternoon speech to the 130 conference delegates representing 30,000 police officers, Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay said the federal government is doing its best to address the problem.

“Fighting organized crime…remains my No. 1 law-enforcement policy,” said MacAulay, who announced a new Governor General’s award for police. “And we will continue to do whatever we can to make sure we win this fight.”

He cited a vague commitment made in the last throne speech and the National Agenda to Combat Organized Crime, approved in September, which proposes co-operative measures between the federal and provincial governments.

He said talks continue on intimidation of criminal justice officials, the proceeds-of-crime regime, and the legal definition of a criminal organization.

Nicaso described the government’s actions so far as lip service.

“We have politicians who like to play with words,” he said. “They keep promising they will be tougher with organized crime but we’re still waiting for some change in C-95, the anti-gang legislation.”

He said the law as it stands is “very difficult to use,” in part because of its specific definition of what constitutes a criminal organization.

Michel Auger, the crime reporter with the tabloid Le Journal de Montreal who survived five gunshot wounds in September 1999 after reporting extensively on biker gangs, also addressed the delegates.

“There are some politicians who say (Canada) is the best country in  the world,” Auger said. “Criminals seem to think the same thing.”

March 20, 2001