Maybe we have just too many wars on our hands. Who is the victim when someone grows their own pot in their back yard and smokes it on their own deck after work?
While some are working hard to get you to think that all drugs are as widely used as Pot, it's not true. Pot is every where. You might as well try to ban rain for the amount of good it will do you. All those resources tied up in the war on drugs comes from somewhere. In this case, it's comes from the money that would be spent on stopping car thieves from ripping off your car and shipping it out to another country.
We should be spending money where we get the biggest bang for the buck. Trying to punish people for something that is prevalent as Pot is in all of North America is a waste of money that could be better spent on crimes that result in a victim.
Like car theft. We all pay more for insurance because of it. It affects everyone.
The government doesn't have to get into the business of selling Pot, it just has to get out of the business of trying to punish those who use it. Once that happens, organized crime will lose a major funding element thus reducing all other aspects of organized crime.
Then maybe we can afford to pay to battle the real criminals who are stealing cars and hurting people.
Brett Popplewell
Staff Reporter
Conservative and Liberal leaders expect new laws will be in place this fall that should stop countless vehicles stolen in the GTA from being shipped abroad.
"The laws (that deal with auto theft in Canada) are out of date," said federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. "The Star identified that quite clearly, and that's certainly the feedback that we have received.
Nicholson's comments follow a Star investigation that found more stolen vehicles in the GTA are being shipped abroad than ever before.
Two factors have exacerbated the problem: Canadian border officials don't routinely check shipping containers to see if the cars inside are stolen, and police auto theft squads have been emaciated.
The Star found many instances of stolen cars being shipped overseas in cargo containers by companies using falsified documents.
Parliamentarians on both ends of the political spectrum say they are frustrated by lax laws that allow auto theft rings to ship stolen vehicles abroad with relative impunity.
Both sides say they hope the recent media spotlight on the issue will lead the Senate to pass Bill C-26, which would amend how the Criminal Code looks at auto theft.
If passed, Bill C-26 will add a new offence to the Criminal Code: theft of a motor vehicle. A third conviction would get a mandatory prison sentence, while those convicted of trafficking stolen cars could get five years in jail. Altering a vehicle identification number would also become a crime.
The bill would also allow the Canada Border Services Agency to prevent cross-border movement of property obtained through crime.
While Bill C-26 (awaiting approval by the Senate, which is in recess until September) will make border agents responsible for stopping stolen vehicles from leaving the country, critics worry it will do nothing to stop the bleeding of police resources away from auto theft.
"If we're scaling back our capacity to deal with these crimes, then it is going to become an incentive for criminals to ramp up their activity," said MP Mark Holland, the Liberal party's public safety critic.
On Saturday, the Star reported local police feel increasingly powerless to stop the estimated 2,100 people involved in the organized theft and smuggling of vehicles from the GTA.
Nicholson hopes the new legislation will address that: "There is discouragement within law enforcement agencies (over auto theft) because of the gaps in the law."
But that discouragement is more severe than previously thought.
The Star has learned that the Provincial Auto Theft Team – a joint task force involving the OPP, the Insurance Bureau of Canada and local police forces – is going through a restructuring that will see a further decrease in the number of officers investigating auto theft in the GTA.
PATT, which has already seen the officers attached to it drop from 48 to 15 in recent years, is eliminating three full-time OPP officers assigned to auto theft in the GTA.
"(PATT) is certainly not being dismantled," said OPP Insp. Stuart McDonald, project manager for the auto theft team. "We're just restructuring our investigative areas and deploying them where we think they would be more effective across the province."
That means of the five OPP officers assigned to auto theft in the GTA, only two will remain stationed here. One will be transferred to Eastern Ontario, another to Western Ontario. One will be dropped from the unit entirely.
Criminal Intelligence Service Canada believes auto theft gangs work mainly here and in Montreal.
Asked how reassigning resources will affect the team's ability to fight the theft gangs in Toronto, McDonald indicated not everyone in policing sees auto theft as a priority.
"Auto theft being a $1 billion a year industry, of course I'm concerned. But there are also a number of other criminal happenings going on that I'm concerned about as well. So we have to put our resources where we think they are best," he said.
That, to Holland, is cause for concern. "Government has to assure that police forces have the appropriate resources to combat this type of crime," the Liberal MP said.
"You can't tell police how to do their job, but you can tell police we need to see a clear plan to deal with auto theft, and there is concern that the programs don't seem to be getting the support they need."
Auto theft in Canada totals $1.2 billion a year. More than 20,000 stolen vehicles are shipped abroad every year.
Auto theft rings in Toronto routinely steal cars, transport them by rail to Montreal and then ship them abroad.
Some even wind up in the hands of Al Qaeda and other terror groups, which use North American cars as bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
