(This column was published in the North Shore News on April 16, 2003)
Liberals shrug off deportee problem
By Leo Knight
IN the past couple of weeks, we have looked at some of the problems facing the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) from the point of view of attrition losses and rising crime rates.
I also called for the COPE-NDP dominated Vancouver City council to support police Chief Jamie Graham's request for additional funding to try and blunt some of the court imposed decisions which have hamstrung police in recent years.
They did not.
But the VPD launched their so-called City Wide Enforcement Team (CWET - dubbed "Sweat" by police members) regardless of the appalling lack of foresight and understanding by the collection of ideologues occupying the seats around the council table.
Unfortunately the measure launched to deal with the bubbling cauldron of inhumanity that is the Downtown Eastside is temporary, lasting only until early summer when the police resources will have to be returned to the squads from whence they came to maintain minimum staffing levels covering summer vacations.
To kick off the CWET initiatives, VPD announced the completion of Project Torpedo, essentially the latest in "Buy & Bust" undercover drug-buy operations in the Skids.
Torpedo's efforts yielded arrest warrants on 162 people for 234 separate charges of trafficking. Seventy two of which had multiple counts from the operation.
None of this is startling. But some of the figures released by police were interesting indeed.
Most of the offenders are male. No surprise there. Most, 91 per cent, live in Vancouver. Again, not much of a surprise. More than half collect welfare. No surprise, but offensive all the same.
Just under half had previous convictions for the same type of offence, clearly illustrating the real effect the justice system has on the pet mantra of the hand-wringers: rehabilitation.
But the real telling number was the 40 per cent of persons named in the arrest warrants are in the immigration system either as refugee claimants or awaiting deportation.
Bloody ridiculous.
And it certainly underlines some of the problems the federal auditor general outlined in her review of the immigration ministry released last week when she described the 36,000 people under deportation orders that the reality-challenged government of Jean Chretien has simply lost track of.
Where are they?
Who knows?
Setting up big dope deals in Miami or planning the next series of terror attacks in New York: all things are possible.
The federal Liberals simply shrug. They either don't care or they think it's not an issue.
Thirty-six thousand people, all of whom were deceptive in their dealings with Canadian immigration authorities, and Chretien's government acts as though they have simply misplaced a file.
The figure, by the way, of 36,000 has more than doubled since the days immediately after Sept. 11 when they admitted to 16,000 missing deportees.
And we're supposedly on alert now because of the war on terror.
As a side note, VPD also released information on an individual who had a total of 82 criminal convictions in his 35 years of something resembling life. Insp. Bob Taylor stood in front of the press conference holding up a ten-foot-long record of transgressions.
He called the individual a "drug-addicted crime machine" and described a night when the individual was under police surveillance as "he scanned the interiors of numerous vehicles.
"He walked into a parking lot and obviously scanned the interiors of a number of tourists' vehicles. He entered a courier's van, but was challenged by the driver and he withdrew.
"A few minutes later he broke into a family van and was arrested and charged. It is staggering to contemplate the number of crimes that we haven't caught him for," concluded the prepared VPD press statement.
Staggering, indeed. But what wasn't made public by the inspector was the offender's name. Why not? He was charged in this incident and the police routinely release the names of individuals charged.
When asked, privacy issues were cited as his criminal record had been revealed, a record that is made public in court proceedings. Well, that's pure, unadulterated nonsense not to name him at the press conference.
There is no law requiring the police to hold back the name. In fact, doing so blunts the message the police are trying to get out.
Is it possible the police are their own worst enemy in this battle for control of the Skids by not properly educating the public?
The woolly-headed tongue-clickers have managed to take junkies from public disdain to "a health issue." Stuff and nonsense, I say.
Cancer is a health issue. Heart disease is a health issue. SARS and West Nile virus are health issues. Self-imposed damage from drugs is a deliberate waste of a life and should not be accorded any more respect than that deserves.
One does not seek breast cancer or emphysema, those are health issues. Choosing to smoke crack or inject heroin into a rapidly collapsing vein is a horse of a different colour.
Addiction is a result of a bad choice, pure and simple.
Commission of crime to support the developed addiction is the price the rest of us pay for those who choose to defile themselves.
And it is a high price indeed. The police have engaged in an operation to regain control of the bubbling cesspit that is the Skids.
They are being given little more than lip service by Vancouver City council for their efforts.
The people who are the problem are being protected in a variety of ways for reasons that defy logic.
-30-