MUNICIPALITIES DESERVE SHARE OF CRIME BOOTY

Local Police Do the Work, Federal Gov't Takes the Proceeds

The money being made by organized crime in B.C. is obscene.

Police say it's not uncommon to find $50,000 or more when they search
the home of even a mid-level marijuana broker.

Organized crime gangs are awash in cash. Their problem is not making
money, but what to do with it.

Hard-working taxpayers, on the other hand, are repeatedly reminded
that the justice system is starved of funds. City police departments
complain they are short-staffed.

It's time to end this discrepancy by making career criminals pay by
forcing them to hand over the proceeds of their crime. That's why we
applaud the federal Crown's recent seizure of a $439,000 Surrey home,
used by its owner as a marijuana-grow operation. RCMP say the
forfeiture is a first for B.C., and only the second time in Canada a
home has been confiscated as a proceed of crime related to a grow-op.

The grab was made possible by recent changes in federal law which
allow seizure of all property used to commit crime, rather than that
which was built or modified in order to carry out an offence.

Several other Surrey grow-op homes are now under restraint, the first
step in the forfeiture process. "Grow-ops are all about profit ... and
this has taken the profit out of grow-ops," said Mountie Tim Shields.

The money from the sale of the Surrey home will now go to Ottawa,
since the forfeiture was the jurisdiction of the federal Crown.
Neither police nor municipal officials receive a share of the revenue
- --although it could be argued they bear the lion's share of the cost
of policing the illegal drug trade.

Indeed, as Surrey councillor Gary Tymoschuk points out, Ottawa covers
only 10 per cent of Surrey's law enforcement budget. Property owners
foot the bill for the remainder. Tymoschuk wants the funding split
reflected in the divvying up of the proceeds of crime.

We believe it's only fair that the feds share crime proceeds and while
officials are at it, they should make the labour-intensive seizure
process less cumbersome to eliminate incentives for criminals and to
ease the burden on taxpayers.

What do you think? Leave a brief comment, name and hometown at:
604-605-2029, fax: 604-605-2099 or e-mail: provletters@png.canwest.com