WE MUST ENFORCE THE LAW, EVEN AGAINST 'PETTY' TRANSGRESSIONS

To say that the Lower Mainland has a crime problem is like saying that
the Port Mann Bridge has a problem with traffic. It doesn't even come
close to describing the situation.

If it's not drug-running gang-bangers gunning down youthful
competitors, it's drug-addicted low-lifes carting away child carriages
and bikes -- and anything else they can lay their hands on.

And as investigative reporter David Carrigg has found in The
Province's fascinating Undercover series, there is invariably a buyer
for the "salvaged" material, whether it's a few metres of telephone
cable or a whole Telus phone booth.

The authorities, it seems, pretty much turn a blind
eye.

As one Surrey bylaw officer said of the local scrap dealers: "It's
tough. On the one hand, they're giving these people a way to make some
money picking up stuff that's lying around. But on the other hand it
encourages theft."

Tough? Is it really so tough to enforce the law against
theft?

Clearly it is, because if it weren't, we wouldn't have so much of it
in this province.

But that should not be the case. And the argument from politically
correct "experts" that thieving drug addicts deserve only our pity,
not our blame, won't wash any more.

A crime is a crime, even if it only involves stealing some wire. Just
ask the victim of that theft.

These days, the law seems to be all we have that separates us from
anarchy. B.C.'s justice system should stop offering up excuses for it
being broken -- and enforce it.