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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Randall Garrison

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • NDP
  • Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $148,586.11

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)
Mr. Speaker, I want to start tonight by stating something that is particularly obvious to most people, which is that “tough on crime” is a slogan and not a policy that contributes to keeping communities safe. Dealing effectively with crime requires a laser focus on the reality before us. Exaggerating crime statistics to promote fear brings us no closer to solutions; in fact, it often leads us to counterproductive measures. As such, I would ask everyone to beware of those who cite percentages when we are talking about crimes. It is an easy way to distort the situation we are facing, and the most basic example of that is that two is, of course, 100% greater than one. I am not in any way saying we do not have a problem with extortion. We clearly do, but to combat it, we must understand what is actually going on with extortion in this country. Last month, media reports identified 74 active investigations of extortion in three provinces. What do all these investigations have in common? All the extortion cases targeted South Asian businesses. Whether they were restaurants, laundries, bakeries or convenience stores, they were all owned by members of the South Asian community. All these cases used the same methods: letters, phone calls and social media messages threatening arson, drive-by shootings and even kidnapping if protection money is not paid. All the included messages threatened bullets, rather than future messages, if the police were contacted. Clearly, there is no coincidence here. This is organized crime at work, targeting the South Asian community. There were incidents last November in White Rock and Abbotsford of threatening letters that gave a month to pay up. In December, shots were fired into at least one home in White Rock, while there were two shootings at homes in Abbotsford and one case of arson. In Ontario, Peel Regional Police opened 29 investigations in November and, as in B.C., Peel Regional Police reported several shootings in which multiple shots were fired at homes and businesses. There were 34 identical incidents in Edmonton. Some arrests have been made, including two in Surrey, seven in Edmonton and five in the Peel region. The RCMP has created a task force, which it calls the RCMP national coordination and support team, to share information and coordinate efforts to combat what is clearly a targeting of the South Asian community by organized crime. Delivering resources to those local police forces and the RCMP, so they can share information and coordinate their efforts, is key to combatting extortion. In February, in the midst of these instances in Surrey, the Conservative leader delivered a speech where he laid out the three things proposed in the bill before us: imposing a mandatory minimum of three years for extortion and four years if using a firearm, as well as adding arson as an aggravating circumstance. He called these additional tools for police to use. Here is the problem with this proposal and the reason the NDP will be voting against Bill C-381: The evidence is clear that mandatory minimums are not effective as a deterrent. As a tool, mandatory minimums do not deter people from committing crime. No criminals sit around at home thumbing through the Criminal Code to see what possible penalty they face, before deciding whether to commit a crime. What they do evaluate is how certain they are to be caught and prosecuted, so devoting resources to enforcement and prosecution are the keys to deterring offences such as extortion, which are clearly premeditated and planned. There is another problem with this, of course, and that is the unintended consequences. The member for Kingston and the Islands clearly identified that mandatory minimums disproportionately impact those most marginalized in society: the poorest in our society, indigenous people and racialized people. However, there is a second unintended consequence that is often missed, and I know about this from my experience as a police board member and from teaching criminal justice. If we have a mandatory minimum, then the prosecutor cannot really plea bargain. That is important in extortion, because the people who most often get arrested in extortion investigations are the ones who do the drive-by or throw the firebomb. These are most often young men who have been pressed into service by gangs. If we want to get at the organizers, the people who hired them, in effect, to carry out these crimes, we have to be able to use plea bargaining. However, with a mandatory minimum, where they know they are sure to go to prison, we have no way of getting at the people who actually organize these crimes. As such, it is an unintended consequence of mandatory minimums that obstructs the investigation and prosecution of crimes such as extortion. I will not go on at great length here, because we have had to make these arguments many times. It is clear that mandatory minimum sentences do not work to deter crime. It is clear what works, and that is the devotion of resources to enforcement and to prosecution. We have to understand that although the Conservatives like to situate us in some great, huge crime wave that is sweeping the country, extortion is a particularly focused campaign by organized crime to target the South Asian community in this country, and we have to respond appropriately.
899 words
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