CANADIANS WANT CRIME CRACKDOWN, POLL FINDS

Civil Libertarian Wonders If Ottawa Is Using The Survey To Justify Its Plans

OTTAWA -- Canadians want a crackdown on organized crime and
overwhelmingly support police officers breaking the law to infiltrate
gangs, a new federal government poll indicates.

The national survey, conducted for the Department of Public Safety,
also reveals that a majority of Canadians believe organized crime is
"as serious" a threat to Canada as terrorism, with seven of 10
wanting improvements in the federal government's current level of
effort to combat it.

A remarkable 48 per cent of Canadians responded that organized crime
had an impact on them personally and identified drug trafficking as
the crime with the highest level of correlation to the criminal
activity. And more than half (54 per cent) agree that members of
motorcycle gangs should be prosecuted based on participation alone,
regardless of whether they have committed a crime.

"The majority of respondents believe that undercover police officers
should be permitted to commit certain crimes in order to infiltrate
gangs -- 40 per cent strongly agree and 35 per cent somewhat agree,"
said the survey's executive summary.

But Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties
Association, wondered if the Conservative government was preparing
legislation giving police greater powers and was using the survey to
create the need for new laws. He warned that the issue is not as
black and white as presented by the survey, and that police already
have sweeping powers to battle crime.

He said the association's position on the issue is nuanced, and it
acknowledges that there are "extreme" situations in which the case
can be made to allow police to break the law.

"In the past, they've argued for these powers at a time when you were
reading in the newspapers about police conducting busts here and
busts there, and busting up that ring and this ring, and you start to
wonder, if they are doing so well with all these powers, where is the
argument for anything new?" said Borovoy.

"So they may want to legislate and they have a survey now that
demands that they legislate. This is a marvellous way to run a country."

The executive summary put out by Public Safety Canada with the poll
said it was conducted to "examine public perceptions of the
prevalence of organized crime, the perceived risk of victimization
and how Canadians view efforts to combat organized crime in Canada."
Conducted between March 15 and 29, involving 1,337 telephone
interviews with adults aged 18 and over, the poll has a margin of
error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It
cost taxpayers $47,650.

The RCMP, which is required by law to disclose annually their
law-breaking activities, authorized undercover agents to break the
law with immunity from criminal charges 11 times in 2005-06, during
investigations into drug trafficking, counterfeiting, alleged
corruption of public officials and tobacco smuggling. The number of
cases was up from seven in 2004-05 and six in 2003-04. All the
reported cases last year were carried out by civilian agents of the
police, who are typically undercover informants, rather than the police.

The "law enforcement justification provisions" for officers were
enacted in 2002 following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that said
police did not have carte blanche to break the law in the line of duty.

The poll found that 84 per cent of Canadians view organized crime as
a serious issue in Canada, with the two highest responses of "very
concerned" being linked to child pornography on the Internet (79 per
cent) and identity theft (75 per cent).