TIME TO STOP CRIME IN ITS TRACKS

From drug lords to motorcycle hoodlums, Canada is faced with a burgeoning
crisis in crime. To start combatting it, police must be given better
resources and laws must be strengthened.

Canadians for too long have viewed the world through rose-tinted glasses.
But we have been transformed from a nation of innocents into a nation of
marks, and it's time we did something about it.

The Wall Street Journal is no canary in a coal mine, but its recent
coverage of organized crime in Canada serves a similar purpose. Money
laundering is reportedly at epidemic proportions. The Russian mob has
infiltrated stock markets. Asian gangs are terrorizing inner cities. And
Hells Angels have become an underworld version of London Drugs.

In the first six months of this year, 201 people died in Vancouver from
heroin overdoses blamed on more potent, less adulterated products available
on the streets as a result of fierce competition among dealers. Yet
law-enforcement agencies appear impotent, or tainted, in the face of this
insidious growth industry.

In spite of B.C.'s expensive, much-publicized and coordinated police
efforts, there has not been a single significant conviction. No ranking
Hells Angel, despite their putative involvement in so many unsavory
activities, has been charged and convicted. The execution-style slaying of
the Dosanjh brothers is unsolved.

A systemic and massive crackdown on marijuana operations has barely dented
the export of B.C.'s powerful and sought-after home-grown. And immigrant
gangsters are operating with apparent impunity.

One of the men charged in connection with a recent homicidal home invasion
in Vancouver has been convicted three times since arriving in Canada from
China in 1990. Although ordered deported in 1994, the low-level soldier
remains a menace and a continuing burden to all Canadians.

Whether they are big-time drug dealers, international embezzlers and stock
cheats or our own indigenous motorcycle hoodlums, Canada is facing a
burgeoning crisis.

Dealing with these organized crooks is not easy. Immigration and criminal
laws must be changed to eliminate loopholes. Extradition treaties must be
signed with countries such as China to allow the deportation of thugs
hiding behind refugee and immigration claims.

Law enforcement agencies must be given the resources they need to
accomplish the job, and judges must stop mollycoddling offenders.

It is not enough for police to address the cosmetic crimes -- burglary,
car-theft, robbery, possession of narcotics. These are symptoms of the
underlying cancer that must be attacked via a multi-jurisdictional
strategy. Police must root out the bosses.

The day when Canadians could assume the neighbourly unlocked-door attitude
emblematic of Leacock's Mariposa has passed. Still, the canary's song is
not a dirge, it is a call to action.