SPEAKER CALLS FOR LEGAL SYSTEM REFORMS

"Some people can't understand why British Columbia has more hydroponic grow
operations than anywhere else in North America. Why is that? It's because
B.C. has the laxest laws and softest sentencing."

That's the evaluation of Serge LeClerc, a motivational speaker who appeared
at local schools last week to talk about drug awareness. LeClerc gave
students some tough talk about his time as a drug dealer and the 21 years
in jail he spent as a result, but he saved some of his toughest comments
for a luncheon with the executive of Clearwater Crimestoppers on Monday.

"You have the worst judges and the worst prosecutors in Canada," LeClerc
told the local executive members.

"I know how the system works. I've been through it on both sides," he said.

He gave as an example a recent court case in which a person was caught with
a large grow operation and two loaded firearms in his house. The accused
received a suspended sentence. In any other province the punishment would
have been a minimum of five years in jail, he said. In the United States,
the sentence would have been even more severe.

Judges and prosecutors should be elected, as they are in the U.S., LeClerc
believed.

Citizens should volunteer to serve on Courtwatch organizations. These
groups are found in various jurisdictions.

Their members spend time in the courtrooms, making notes of what happens
and making sure the public knows if there are problems. "The judges and the
lawyers like people to think they are not welcome in court," he said.

"They want you to feel that you need them and that no one can understand
what they do. They don't want people to see the deals being made. They
don't want people to see the judge asleep on the bench, or taking
instructions from the prosecutor."

Looking back at his own career in crime, LeClerc said it would have been
better for himself and for society if he had received a 20 year sentence
for his first offense.

The primary purpose of prisons should not be rehabilitation or deterrence,
he believed. Instead, the first reason for incarceration should be
protection of the public by placing the criminals where they cannot hurt
others.

"As long as that guy is not in your community, he's not committing a
crime," he said.

LeClerc was born in Toronto as the result of a rape of a 14-year-old Cree girl.

He was a young offender and a prison inmate while battling a drug addiction
for over 20 years.

He has been alcohol and drug-free since 1986, and was released for the
final time from prison in 1988.

He now has three university degrees and works as a substance abuse
therapist. In 14 years of making presentations across the continent, he has
spoken to over 3 million people, two-thirds of them young people.