CARS OVER LIVES: CANADA’S CONTRADICTIONS ON ORGANIZED CRIME
Geoff Meggs
Canadians have contradictory attitudes to organized crime.
Violent gangs can engage in human trafficking, kill thousands of Canadians with toxic drugs, shoot innocent bystanders and each other in shopping malls and restaurants, or shake down scores of small business owners in brazen extortion rackets, and the reaction is often a helpless shrug.
But when these criminals start stealing cars from regular folks’ driveways in broad daylight and shipping them around the world in containers, they’ve crossed a line.
No wonder Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hastily summoned a national emergency summit on auto theft last week, even though auto theft rates are well below historic highs and rising sharply only in Ontario and Quebec.
With angry middle-class Canadians waiting on hold to talk to the police while monitoring their stolen SUVs crossing the Atlantic, Trudeau had no choice. His angry keynote address to hastily summoned crowd of police officials, cabinet ministers and auto industry executives promised more money for enforcement, hinted at tougher sentences for thieves and threatened a crackdown on lazy automakers who make stealing a car seem like child’s play.
It was quite a contrast a few days later, when the Ontario city of Belleville experienced a wave of 17 overdoses in 24 hours, with five victims dropping to the ground in a matter of minutes. The beleaguered mayor received only a sympathetic phone call from the Prime Minister. This was, after all, a health care matter that Premier Ford would have to manage.
There was no mention of the illicit opiate suppliers who may have, wittingly or unwittingly, sent near-fatal doses among their customers. Miraculously, no one died during Belleville’s day from hell.
Across Canada, however, about 22 people die daily from illicit opioid-related overdoses, all delivered at high volume and low cost by Canada’s highly efficient transnational criminal networks. As in any profitable business, there’s competition for market share. About one in four of Canada’s 874 murders in 2022 is considered gang related. Both overdose deaths and murders are increasing relentlessly.
Canada’s criminal underworld is so good at procuring, manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine and opioids that we now export to overseas markets like Australia and New Zealand. The Vancouver Sun’s Kim Bolan (who can be heard as a guest on Air Quotes Media’s Hotel Pacifico podcast) recently published a pathbreaking investigative series called “Lethal Exports” that revealed the Canadian leaders at the top of transnational gangs with a global reach.
Our contract killers are so proficient that one, a lifelong criminal with ties to the Hells Angels, the Wolfpack and other gangs, has been charged in the United States with contracting to kill Iranian dissidents on behalf of criminal figures linked to the Teheran regime.
In a criminal economy as large as Canada’s, the drive to grow profits is insatiable. From drug dealing, it’s a short step to wider extortion rackets, like the ones shaking Brampton and Surrey, and then to whatever else could be lucrative, including the mass theft of high-end cars. If fleets of automobiles can be shipped undetected, imagine how much other contraband is on the move.
The close connection between organized crime and threats to Canadian national security was laid bare by the recent conviction and sentencing of top RCMP intelligence officer Cameron Ortis, who sought to sell vital criminal and national security intelligence to the highest bidder. His go-between was the Vancouver-area supplier of encrypted phones to discerning international criminals and even terrorist networks.
These people are not just stealing cars.
Of course, car theft is wrong and capturing some car thieves would be a good thing. What would be better is a concerted effort to rein in organized crime in Canada before more lives are stolen. That’s an emergency conference well worth calling.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Geoff Meggs - Geoff is a Canadian politician, political operative and communications expert, who served on Vancouver, British Columbia's City Council from 2008 to 2017. He was first elected in the 2008 municipal election, and resigned his seat on city council in 2017 to accept a job as chief of staff to John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia. Prior to his election to City Council in 2017, Geoff served as Executive Director for the BC Federation of Labour.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.