'THESE ARE MAJOR THREATS'

OTTAWA - Calling it an "unprecedented and unspeakable" loss, RCMP
Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said yesterday's massacre of four
Mounties must spark public debate on Canada's drug strategy.
Large-scale marijuana growing operations - often booby-trapped and
linked to organized crime - have become a "plague" on Canadian
communities and led to "incomprehensible" acts of violence, he said.

"The issue of grow-ops is not a Ma and Pa industry," he said. "These
are major, serious threats to our society and they are major, serious
threats to the men and women in the front line who have to deal with
them."

RCMP Cpl. Lorne Adamitz said the RCMP-Edmonton Police Service Green
Team attended a residence "just after midnight, and we left just
before 3 a.m."

Adamitz confirmed the standoff unfolded at the same location, but
couldn't comment on James Roszko's involvement. The Green Team was
called in in a support role, Adamitz said. "We dismantled the grow
(operation). There were members left to secure the scene, to examine
for the chop shop, for the stolen articles and car parts. That's why
the auto theft unit came up."

Officers Ambushed

Sources told various media outlets last night two officers stayed
overnight Wednesday to guard the crime scene and were to be replaced
by two officers in the morning. The first two officers were ambushed
by Roszko in the Quonset hut, who then lay in wait for the two
replacements and shot them as well.

Police confirmed yesterday the grow operation and stolen property
aspect of the raid, but were not commenting on the direct
circumstances of the shootings.

Meanwhile, Zaccardelli wouldn't say if the Liberal government's
proposed pot decriminalization bill will prompt grow-ops to flourish,
but said he hoped there will be more talk of sentencing reform for
perpetrators.

"Hopefully this type of a tragedy will make us review and rethink and
reflect and bring a perspective to some of these issues as Canadians,
because we don't want anybody killed or harmed over these kinds of
things," he said.

But the Mounties wouldn't have had to be there in the first place if
Canada woke up to the fact pot prohibition isn't working, said Senator
Nick Taylor.

"The way we've done it now is marijuana has become the exclusive
prerogative of the criminal element because there's such fantastic
profit in it," Taylor, a former Alberta Liberal leader, told The
Canadian Press. "I'm not saying that the four men would be alive if we
had legalized marijuana, but I suspect they might be."

Taylor said Canada should have learned from the failed Prohibition
era, when the United States tried to ban alcohol, that such measures
only fuel organized crime.

Open to Revamping Bill

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, whose Public Safety portfolio
oversees the RCMP, said the government is open to revamping the
decriminalization bill and will ensure police have tools to fight the
"scourge" of grow-ops.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is eager to entertain recommendations
from the committee studying the bill, she said.

But Liberal MP Dan McTeague, a vocal opponent of his government's push
to decriminalize pot, said yesterday's tragedy is a "wake-up call"
that the bill must be scrapped.

"I think we need to look before we leap now and take a sober second
look at this legislation, particularly as it relates to meaningless
penalties on cracking down on those who provide, make and manufacture
the product," he said.

Last night Prime Minister Paul Martin issued a statement expressing
condolences to the families of the fallen officers.

"Canadians are shocked by this brutality, and join me in condemning
the violent acts that brought about these deaths," he said.

The prime minister was expected to call for a moment of silence today
before delivering a speech to the Liberals' convention.