TRACKING ILLICIT EXCHANGES

Regrettably, the 49th parallel is no longer the friendliest undefended
international boundary in the world.

Good citizens and businesses of Canada and the United States are
dismayed over our once easily crossed border being transformed by
intense scrutiny and security measures to curtail cross-border
trafficking of illicit drugs and to minimize the potential of another
9-11 terrorist attack.

While we sit and wonder if we'll ever again enjoy easygoing cross-border
neighbourliness that characterized the last half of the 20th century, a team
of students from Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in Tacoma has produced a
documentary, Illicit Exchanges: Canada, the U.S. and Crime. Their mentor and
indefatigable leader: communications professor Robert (Rob) Marshall Wells.

It all began when Wells heard a comment by a Vancouver police officer
that 90 per cent of handguns used by criminals in Vancouver come from
the United States.

He mused over this with his students. "How does this activity relate
to the relationship between the two countries? What about the threat
we pose to each other?

"It got me thinking, so we got in a minivan and started asking
questions."

Wells and his students soon zeroed in on the connection between
American handguns being smuggled into Canada and our export of B.C.
Bud with its $6 billion profit and consequent gang activity, violence,
murder and money laundering.

In January 2008, Wells and his students spent weekends in Vancouver
interviewing police, customs and immigration officials, U.S. and
Canadian consulates, and drug-user groups. They walked Skid Road in
Vancouver and researched grow-ops in Surrey.

"We were really able to see how drugs and violence affect people,"
student-editor Melissa Campbell told Steve Hansen of PLU's Campus
Voice. "And it isn't all one-sided -- there's a real conflict here. We
(the United States) have a problem too, and it is affecting our
neighbours. We have to account for that."

In May, they headed east by minivan doing research and interviews in
Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Detroit, New York and Washington, D.C.

I was completely unaware of Wells and his documentary initiative until
July 2 when I received his request to do an on-the-record video
interview explaining Canadian law and how it compares to and differs
from the U.S. criminal justice system, especially with respect to
violent crimes.

Wells explained his belief that one of the best ways for young people
to learn is through actual experience and exposure to the real world.
He said that they had interviewed dozens of law-enforcement officials,
crime victims and their families, former and current gang members,
social service providers and criminologists, but not one judge. I was
intrigued and couldn't resist.

About 10 days later we met and talked frankly and without reservation
about the commonalities of crime on each side of the 49th parallel. At
one point I said that by failing to rein in hydroponic production of
B.C. Bud, British Columbia is no longer a good neighbour to Washington
State and other western states down the coast; that we have become a
world-class major exporter of drugs with no end in sight.

On Oct. 4 in Seattle's Museum of History & Industry this student odyssey
ended with the premiere showing of Illicit Exchanges: Canada, the U.S. &
Crime.

I sat transfixed by the work of these PLU students. They have produced
a documentary worthy of airing on public service television.

And it expresses the Canadian perspective objectively.

Afterward, I joined Professor Darryl Plecas of the University College
of the Fraser Valley and Vancouver's Sandra Martins-Toner of Families
Against Crime & Trauma in a six-member panel discussion chaired by
Wells.

On a stormy drive back to Vancouver one thought kept running through
my mind: Robert (Rob) Marshall Wells -- teacher and mentor -- a
remarkable man.