Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun THE TENTACLES OF CRIME Politicians were naive if they thought none of the drug money washing through B.C. would land on their doorstep The only evident "crime" so far in the investigation that led RCMP to search two offices in the B.C. legislature is politicians' naivete. It's no secret that billions of dollars worth of illegal drugs are grown and sold in British Columbia each year. Forbes magazine estimates the marijuana crop alone is worth between $4 billion and $7 billion US. Add cocaine, heroin, crystal methamphetamine, ecstasy and others, and it may be closer to $10 billion. The B.C. Organized Crime Agency estimates the B.C. marijuana industry employs as many as 100,000 people, more than work in logging, mining, and oil and gas combined. That an illegal crop is such an important part of the provincial economy is a political failure of huge proportions. It speaks to a breakdown in the rule of law -- a tenet of democracy on which Canada has prided itself internationally for upholding and promoting. Yet here people are. They are growing rich breaking the law, while politicians refuse to provide either money for enforcement or enforceable laws. None of the politicians seems to have thought that with all that drug money cycling through the B.C. economy, some of it might wash up on their doorsteps -- with or without their knowledge. It doesn't seem to have crossed their minds that some day the big players in one of the province's biggest industries might even try to exercise some influence. With politicians musing about decriminalizing or even legalizing marijuana, it could substantially affect some drug lords' business plans. Politicians would expect to hear from corporate bosses if substantial policy changes were made in any other industry. Clearly, nobody gave much thought to any of this. Had they, the RCMP might not have been able to get search warrants for the offices of two ministerial assistants in the legislature, a lobbying firm and a fundraiser with strong ties to both the federal and provincial Liberals or had reason to search the home office of the deputy premier's husband, Mark Marissen, the federal Liberal's campaign readiness chairman. The only evidence that politicians have given much attention to B.C.'s drug problem is Vancouver's four-pillars program. But it primarily deals with victims rather than victimizers. Opening North America's first safe injection site in the Downtown Eastside garnered lots of publicity for politicians last fall. But the other three pillars remain largely unsupported. There has been no substantial increase in the number of detoxification and rehabilitation beds. When police increased enforcement last fall, politicians mostly ran for cover. What was everybody thinking? That if we just gave addicts a safe place to shoot up, the bad guys would go away too? In the past five years, violent crimes in Canada have increased even though Ottawa has spent $1 billion forcing honest people to register their firearms. In Vancouver, there have been more than 20 gang-related murders in five years. Six people -- including innocent bystanders -- were gunned down in Gastown last summer. The only possible excuse for B.C. politicians not knowing about organized crime, drugs and violence is that, safe in the legislature bubble, they read only the selection of political news that is clipped and put on their desks every morning. But that doesn't explain why Gordon Hogg was at the funeral of a former Hells Angels member, Mervyn Mayes. Hogg's ministry of children and family development deals first-hand, daily, with the fallout from drugs, prostitution and violence. It was without irony that Hogg went on to say Mayes "touched so many lives." Hogg, it seems, didn't realize how far their paths should have diverged since they played Little League together. That many of Canada's gangsters are homegrown should have heightened, not lessened, the attention politicians pay to the line of people wanting to immigrate here. Yet, a number of high-profile gangsters and their families have legally entered Canada because politicians didn't provide sufficient resources for immigration and police officers to do extensive background checks. Those mistakes have been compounded by Ottawa's refusal to conduct a full inquiry into alleged corruption in the Hong Kong High Commission or follow up with criminal charges after firing a Syrian employee at the Canadian embassy in Damascus who tried to get a Canadian visa for a man suspected of crimes against humanity. But it's not just the politicians who are naive. Who hasn't wondered how a stagnant provincial economy can churn out so many people who can afford fast cars and luxury homes without ever appearing to work? We are like Mark Twain's innocents abroad except that we are innocents at home, believing the tour-book descriptions and refusing to see what's there in front of us. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake