BC MIGHT AS WELL MEAN BIG CRIME

The headlines last Friday in the cluster of newspaper boxes at
thenortheast corner of Howe and Cordova in downtown Vancouver said it
all.

Three newspapers, three different exclusive stories all heralding our
homeas a haven for criminals.

The Province had a front page headlined Chasing a Dragon, which told
thetale of our failed attempts to get rid of an alleged Chinese
mobster who hasbeen in the country for over 15 years, apparently
dealing dope and livingoff welfare.

The Vancouver Sun, not to be outdone, had fresh details about the
BaconBrothers, a well-known crime family in Metro Vancouver. That
headline read:Brothers in Crime.

The Asian Pacific Post had an exclusive gleaned from an Australian
reportheadlined, High Seas Mafia. That was a story about the
infiltration ofoutlaw motorcycle gangs and other organized crime
elements into the PacificNorthwest fishing industry.

Looking at the newspaper headlines, you could easily think you were
inColombia not British Columbia.

British Columbia is definitely the best place to live. For gangsters
anddrug dealers that is.

Not a day goes by now without a gang-related shooting - and before you
cansay 'meth-lab,' there are reports of retaliatory murders.

We have the dubious distinction of having over 25,000 active
marijuanagrow-ops in the Metro Vancouver area, and together with
marijuana farmsacross the province, B.C. Bud churns between $5 billion
and $7 billion intoour economy.

Throw in our money laundering casinos, violent groups of teens, easy
accessto guns and the billions brought in by manufactured drugs such
asmethamphetamine and ecstasy, and we are now a Superpower in the
world ofcrime, according to our national magazine Maclean's.

So what are the cops, judges and politicians doing about all
this?

Nothing effective.

The cops blame the judges for being too lenient.

The judges blame the politicians for not enacting tougher
laws.

The politicians, well they are too busy thinking about getting
re-elected togive a damn.

Sure there are announcements all the time about task forces and
millions ofdollars going toward fighting crime. But has anything
really happened tomake B.C. a safer place to live, other than
ballooning overtime bills forcops and prosecutors?

The bottom line here is that local thugs and their
internationalcounterparts all know that crime pays in B.C. and that
they can get awaywith it.

Police constantly remind us that taking down gangs is becoming
virtuallyimpossible because of their small, fluid structures which
allow them to workindependently in cells.

They have their own priorities, targets and operational set-ups, not
unlikeour Metro Vancouver law enforcement apparatus.

We have five municipal forces with an array of Mountie detachments
policingthe Lower Mainland, all with their own priorities, targets and
operationalset-ups.

Did we hear someone say Lower Mainland Regional Police
Force?

Did we hear someone say disorganized policing is no way to fight
organizedcrime?

It took a massive terrorist attack in the United States before
itscompartmentalized law enforcement silos were broken down and
reintegratedfor the greater good and protection of America.

British Columbia needs a unified approach to fight the menace that
stalksour streets.

If we don't do something now, our province might as well be B.C., for
BigCrime.