BAND-AID PLAN WILL DO LITTLE TO STOP THE CARNAGE

Premier Gordon Campbell's hastily cobbled together plan for tackling
criminal gangs in B.C. is a Band-Aid instead of much-needed public
policy surgery.

The addition of 10 new prosecutors and 168 new police officers over
the next two years will do little to stem the gun violence linked to
the illegal drug trade or cripple the criminal organizations behind it.

Of course, more police and more prosecutors should help, but the
increases announced barely keep pace with the growth of the gang menace.

And for all the rhetoric, a special 10-member police unit dedicated
to seizing illegal firearms is baloney -- every police officer should
be dedicated to that task!

After a spree of assassination attempts across the Lower Mainland,
the initiatives announced with much fanfare Friday at best will take
pressure off the Liberal administration in its run-up to May's election.

But it is not good enough.

In their first term, the Liberals crowed about targeting the top
leaders of organized criminal gangs and vowed to tackle the rise of
Indo-Canadian crime groups.

We still have not seen the conviction of even a single major gang
leader in this province and Indo-Canadian groups continue to be among
the most active of organized criminals. We apparently have more than
125 different gangs today where once we had outlaw bikers and the
traditional Mob.

By any measure, the situation has worsened.

Yet Campbell and his colleagues claim this latest makeshift strategy
will work. I am more than skeptical; I'm incredulous.

Premier Campbell, Attorney-General Wally Oppal and Solicitor-General
John van Dongen obviously think they can distract us with more talk
and promises.

In Quebec a decade ago, the province targeted the bikers, jailed the
leader of the Hells Angels and dozens of others. Last week, hundreds
of police were again dispatched to round up dozens of gangsters.

That's real action.

What do we get? A damage-control press conference and a great
wringing of hands about the need for changes to the Criminal Code and
other federal legislation.

Instead of announcing arrests, our politicians trumpet plans for a
junket to Ottawa to discuss amendments to the Criminal Code. Good grief.

Criminal law changes, amendments to the wiretap legislation or new
bail rules would certainly make life easier for law-enforcement, but
as provinces on the other side of the Rockies have shown, they are
not essential to stopping violence in our communities.

Rather, we need politicians who will quit passing the buck, cops to
do their job, prosecutors to back them up and judges to hand down
stiff sentences for gang crimes -- all of which requires no
legislative changes. Remember the Mafia?

That's what's wrong with the discussion about organized crime in this
province -- it's dishonest.

The Mounties don't report to Victoria so we can't fire the guys who
run E Division for failing miserably to catch the Air India bombers,
stop Robert Pickton, curb Indo-Canadian crime gangs or corral the
Hells Angels. Heck, the attorney-general couldn't even get answers
out of them after the Tasering of Robert Dziekanski.

In spite of these abject failures, no Mountie has been canned.
Instead, our politicians and the RCMP whine about the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms and disclosure rules.

What is missing is not special laws, it's political will,
law-enforcement accountability and candour about the roots of this problem.

The truth is we have a dysfunctional policing regime in B.C. and we
are all paying the price. But we are not seriously having that discussion.

I think there are two keys to solving our gang problem -- one is the
legalization of the illicit drugs that fuel organized crime and the
other is for Victoria to re-assume control of policing in the province.

The Liberals, however, have no appetite for either.

As a result, we have a Band-Aid solution -- one that will perhaps
keep public anger from boiling over until after the provincial
election but that will do nothing to truly eradicate gangs or staunch
the carnage.