#fearlessgirl -
best speech in Parliament ever... by a 17 year old girl.. newest
#CanadianCitizen VIDEOS:
Malala Yousafzai, honorary Canadian, challenges Canada to lead on education
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1. Fighting For Our Sons In A Culture That Seeks To Destroy Them ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fighting-for-our-sons-in-a...
o Cached
Sep 02, 2016 · Fighting For Our Sons In A Culture That
Seeks To Destroy ... about all the wickedness in our society, ... in our
country, not because it is ...
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1. We Owe to Our Sons What We've Given Our Daughters ...
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-men-dont-write...
o Cached
We Owe to Our Sons What We've Given Our Daughters. ...
according to some articles men are falling behind because our society has ...
(essential for our 21 Century ...
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1. Womens Issues and Fathers abortion rights - abortion myths.ca
www.abortionmyths.ca/...issues_fathers_abortion_rights.html
o Cached
In Canada, fathers have no legal rights over their
unborn children.(1) On one hand, ... This is what some men have to say about an
abortion in their past:
Abortion Myth #7
Abortion is a woman’s issue.
Abortion is a woman’s issue.
Abortion Facts
Abortion is not only a woman’s issue. It affects fathers, siblings, friends, family members, the medical profession, and society as a whole.
Abortion is not only a woman’s issue. It affects fathers, siblings, friends, family members, the medical profession, and society as a whole.
Since men
are not the ones who get pregnant, society tends to suggest that abortion
concerns only women. In Canada, fathers have no legal rights over their unborn
children.(1) On one hand, men are told that they should take
responsibility for an unwanted baby by giving the mother financial help and
emotional support if she chooses to give birth; on the other hand, men are
legally denied a voice if the mother chooses to abort. The father of the child
is equally responsible for that child’s very existence. As a parent of that
unborn baby, he deserves a legal voice.
The father
of an aborted child will often regret the loss of his child. Even years after
the abortion procedure, men often face intense feelings of guilt and sadness as
a result of their partner’s abortion. “The anger and frustration of not being
able to protect and provide for his unborn baby because of abortion can
manifest itself as alcohol abuse or a drug addiction, ‘workaholic’ tendencies,
failed relationships due to resentment and mistrust towards women, homosexual
experimentation, poor decision making skills and several sexual dysfunctions.”(2)
This is what
some men have to say about an abortion in their past:
Paul Chimera, a Williamsville independent
journalist and teacher:
“Long after the abortion was carried out, the emotional fallout continues, at least for me. I still occasionally have sleepless nights, thinking about what we did and why.... Who was the child we never knew? Would he have been my son? What would he or she be like today, at 20 years of age?... The pain of that decision and the regret, linger.”
“Long after the abortion was carried out, the emotional fallout continues, at least for me. I still occasionally have sleepless nights, thinking about what we did and why.... Who was the child we never knew? Would he have been my son? What would he or she be like today, at 20 years of age?... The pain of that decision and the regret, linger.”
Phil McCombs, United States:
“I feel like a murderer, which isn’t to say that I blame anyone else, or think anyone else is a murderer. It’s just the way I feel and all the rationalizations in the world haven’t changed this. I still grieve for little Thomas. It is an ocean of grief.”
“I feel like a murderer, which isn’t to say that I blame anyone else, or think anyone else is a murderer. It’s just the way I feel and all the rationalizations in the world haven’t changed this. I still grieve for little Thomas. It is an ocean of grief.”
Abortion Affects Society
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Mahatma Ghandi
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Mahatma Ghandi
“A society
will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the
most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.” Pope John Paul II
(1) Chantal Daigle case July 27, 1989. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a father has no right to prevent a mother killing their unborn child by abortion.
(2) Mattes, Bradley. The Impact of Men. Life Issues Connector, June 1996
--------------
We #love you so
much #NorthPreston
#NovaScotia
Scores turn out for healing service after Nova Scotia church fire http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifax/2017/03/26/hordes-turn-out-for-healing-service-after-nova-scotia-church-fire.html …
----------------
#VictimsMatter
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#ChildAbuseMonth
- Daddies matter so much.... to
social fabric of family... PHOTOS
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#WhereAreTheDads .....
Grieving mother holds vigil as gun violence mushrooms in
#TO
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/04/13/grieving-mother-holds-vigil-as-gun-violence-mushrooms-in-toronto.html … pic.twitter.com/LKaAo1fvvc
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CANADA
Former child refugee fights
to stay in Canada from prison
Abdoul Kadir Abdi was six years old when he fled Somalia with his sister and
two aunts, after most of his family, including his parents, had been killed in
the ongoing conflict that has torn the country apart for decades.He arrived in Nova Scotia as a child refugee, sponsored by Sydney River United Church, in August 2000 and received permanent resident status.
RELATED:
- Young man headed to prison for ‘vicious’ handgun attack
- Man charged with attempted murder in shooting near Halifax hotel
In February 2016, around the same time Abdi was transferred from a maximum security penitentiary to the medium security prison where he currently resides, he was informed by the Canadian Border Services Agency that he was considered “inadmissible to Canada” because of serious criminality and could be deported.
Abdi, who spent most of his life in and out of foster placements, group homes and homeless shelters, has a long history of criminal activity. According to his criminal profile report, by age 21 Abdi had racked up 180 incidents resulting in more than 100 charges. During that time, he never officially became a Canadian citizen or obtained more than a Grade 6 education.
In 2014 he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault — he beat a man with the handle of a gun following an altercation and the victim required 14 staples to close his head wound — as well as assaulting a police officer with a car, theft of a motor vehicle, and dangerous driving and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. These were Abdi’s first convictions as an adult. Several violent infractions while incarcerated have extended his term.
At first glance, the case against Abdi seems uncomplicated. According to Canadian immigration laws, if the CBSA has reason to believe a person should not enter or remain in Canada, they can be ordered to appear at an immigration admissibility hearing, and a member of the Immigration Division will then decide independently if the individual will be deported or refused entry.
There are a number of reasons why someone might be inadmissible to Canada, including having been found guilty of a serious crime resulting in a sentence of six months or more, or for an offence which carries a maximum term of 10 years.
Abdi received his hearing referral in July. In the referral letter, the minister’s delegate cited a number of reasons he should be considered inadmissible to Canada, mainly that Abdi has been convicted of “multiple, very serious crimes,” because he has a lifelong pattern of criminal activity, and because that criminal behaviour continued while incarcerated.
In December, Abdi sought an Application for Leave and Judicial Review in federal court against Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale, hoping to overturn the recommendation and remain in the country he has called home for most of his life.
“I have been in government care for 16 years and Canadian life is all I know. If I am deported, I will certainly face death,” Abdi wrote in a two-page submission to the CBSA. “I have no family, friends or a means to support myself. I have forgotten the language and the customs.”
As part of his defence, Abdi’s lawyer argued that if citizenship had been rightfully sought on his behalf when he was a child, he would not be facing deportation at all.
Earlier this month, an Ontario senator proposed legislation that would make it possible for minors to apply for citizenship separately from their parents, which would avoid future situations like Abdi’s, where under normal circumstances the individual would already be a Canadian citizen.
Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic, a free legal resource for refugees, said her organization sees similar cases regularly, raising questions of how Canada should deal with refugees and other newcomers who come to Canada at a young age but fall through the cracks.
The most recent publicized similar case was that of Fliss Cramman, a 33-year-old Nova Scotia woman who moved to Canada from England when she was eight, spent most of her time in the care of the state, and was incarcerated on heroin trafficking charges. Cramman, a mother of four, was at risk of being deported back to the U.K. but had a humanitarian compassionate appeal application approved by the federal immigration minister on a special emergency basis.
Chamagne said Abdi would not have access to that appeal process because of the length of his incarceration. Unless the federal court rules in favour of overturning Abdi’s admissibility hearing referral, Chamagne said he will likely be issued a deportation order.
While noting that the vast majority of refugees pose no safety threat, Champagne said in some cases a traumatic childhood can lead to criminality, and situations like Abdi’s.
“I think it’s a big integration failure, and a failure of the state and particular agencies in some situations,” she said.
When Abdi arrived in Canada with his family, he and his sister were almost immediately taken into care by the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services. By age eight, he was a permanent ward of the state.
When he was nine, both Abdi and his sister were placed with a Somali family in Halifax.
In a February 2017 affidavit filed to federal court and obtained by the Chronicle Herald, Abdi said he was abused physically and emotionally by his foster family. About a year after being placed with the family, his sister was abruptly removed by community services after making a credible allegation of sexual abuse against the family.
“I remained with this family because I was too scared to talk to community services about what was going on and I did not think there was any other people that would take me,” Abdi said.
“I tried to run away from my foster family on a number of occasions. Each time I was returned to the family and the abuse continued.”
When he was 12, Abdi attempted to run away again, this time stealing the family car to drive around Halifax and search for his sister. Police found him and returned him to his family. This was his first run-in with the law.
He was removed from his foster home after that, and spent the rest of his childhood bouncing from group home to group home and, after 17, homeless shelters.
“I became close to the other children I had met in group homes; they became my family. I started getting in trouble as a young teenager with those friends from the group homes,” Abdi said in a two-page admissibility statement to the CBSA. “I had no parental guidance and being young I did not think twice about my actions.”
As he seeks a second chance in Canada, Abdi says he stopped engaging in violent criminal activity and has worked hard to be transferred from a maximum to medium security prison. He said he learned from his mistakes and now knows what a life of crime can take from a person. When he gets out of prison, Abdi said he wants the opportunity to be there for his daughter, who he has maintained a relationship with prior to and during incarceration.
“I would do anything for her not to go through the experience I had of growing up in care. I want to be there for her and support her once I am released from jail. If I had to work three jobs to help her have a different life than me, I would do that,” he said in the document.
Abdi’s case will be heard in federal court in June.
Minister Goodale's office declined comment on the matter as it is before the courts
--------------------------
#Black History #NovaScotia #Canada honour, duty and
pride - these postings r fm 2009 n some from 90s #GibsonWoods
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/02/canada-military-news-black-history.html
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2015/02/canada-military-news-black-history.html
-----------
'Times are changing:' Anti-violence activist in Halifax hopeful one year after gun-related homicides
Carlos Beals of CeaseFire Halifax believes last year's spate of gun violence has led to increased dialogue and community engagement.
Almost one year after a single week of gun violence took the lives of three young black men, a local anti-violence activist believes there’s reason for optimism.Of the 12 homicides that happened in Halifax in 2016, six of the victims were black men under the age of 30. Four of those murders took place in less than one month, between March 29 and April 23.
So far this year, there have been no homicides in the city.
“I think we’re moving more towards a place where residents now understand that we all have a role to play in reducing the amount of homicides,” said Carlos Beals, an outreach worker with CeaseFire Halifax.
“I’m happy to see that sort of cultural shift in terms of people understanding that we have a ‘responsibility’ for safer streets and not a ‘right’ to safer streets.”
Beals believes everyone, from residents to the business community, need to play an active role in helping address some of the root causes of the gun violence that plagued the city.
“I think unfortunately when you see what we saw last year, that’s what prompts the conversation. We’ve seen young people being oppressed for so long, especially different marginalized communities,” he said.
“They have been oppressed for way too long and so now we’re just starting to see the discourse and people starting to dig deeper and to figure out what the root cause of all of this is.”
Beals said last year’s spate of gun violence prompted more people to become involved. He believes appropriate resources must be allocated to ensure a proactive, not reactive, approach.
“We need to make sure we have a robust solution in dealing with violence and crime in our streets,” he said.
“I think times are changing…Let’s hope it stays on the path of no homicides.”
Halifax Regional Police said the majority of last year’s homicides were not random and involved people known to each other.
Const. Dianne Penfound said when police become aware of individuals or groups resorting to violence, they “relentlessly pursue them.”
“Our goal is to change behaviour so we can suppress the violence. We also reach out to citizens and community groups who may have influence, with the hopes of diffusing hostilities,” she said.
“We can't change behavior but being intelligence-led, we try to suppress violence before it occurs.”
The Consequences of
Single Motherhood. ... By 1970,
over half of all
American women were ... we should demand more of fathers. We have already tried
tough ...
------------------------
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/.../brampton-a...of.../article30273820/
3 Jun 2016 ... How Brampton,
a town in suburban Ontario, was dubbed a ghetto Add to . ... Who needs a neighbourhood 7-Eleven
when all my favourite comfort food is a stroll away? ... As a South Asian
Muslim, Indian on my dad's side, Pakistani on my .... “At what point do I get
freed and get to be seen as Canadian?
1 Nov 2004 ... I
was born in 1944 in the so-called Jewish ghetto in downtown ... I
vomited all over my teacher on the first
day of class. ... My father organized for Fred Rose, the first Communist Member of ...
developed by anti-poverty organizers in the American urban ghettos.
.... (My mother would have been proud of me).
-----------------
5 Jul 2009 ... If
ever all these ethnic groups mingle into a single entity, Canada
would have ... Markham have little
interaction with the Indians of Brampton or the Pakistanis ... has given them enough incentives to stay in their ghettos
with a ...
https://www.parrysound.com/.../6261007-bloomfield-immigration-turning-canada-into-a-third-world-ghetto/ - Cached
3 Feb 2016 ... I am
not against immigration as we all were immigrants as. ... the Government
of Canada (all parties) have allowed an average of 250,000
immigrants per year. ... in our economy such as: a)
homeless Canadians, elderly care and poverty, ... they exist – just look at
Vancouver, Toronto, Surrey and Brampton.
------------------
[PDF]
declining “slum,” and
resurgent “village” can have little basis in the social conditions of the time ...
ences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, who funded her .... middle
class in origin, declining to poverty and decay in the mid-twentieth ... historical
character of Parkdale Village in the early 1970s and prevent the.
-------------------------
[PDF]
https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/.../Wilson_Jason_201305_Phd.pdf?...isAllowed...
Records 422 - 846 ...
rude boys and Rastafarians have all been brought together by this
Jamaican music that .... The zenith in
Jamaican migration to Canada came in the 1970s and while some ...... Bob Marley
was indeed a Rasta, but his father was a white ...... outside of Jamaica where there
are real ghettos and real poverty.
-------------------
Canada's crime rate is dropping as immigration increases. ... Canada
has been a popular destination for people fleeing
the ravages of the twenty-six-year ... After all, we're an officially bilingual nation of immigrants; 20 percent
of us are foreign ... immigration since Pierre
Trudeau championed multiculturalism in the 1970s.
The distinguishing factor that
generally constitutes a ghetto
is the prevalence of poverty.
Ghettos
are ... The Germans liquidated all
the ghettos,
... Father
Divine.
------------------
Joe South
WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES...
www.hks.harvard.edu/jeffreyliebman/mixed01122001.pdf
Jan
12, 2001 ... appears to cause parents in ghetto families to focus a substantial
portion of ... poverty that has been associated with the distinct family
protection and child monitoring .... iterative.4 We began by analyzing the
baseline survey data of all enrollees ... baseline survey and previous
literature (e.g., Canada 1995).
-----------------
Poverty in America. by ...
rising from 11.6 percent in 1970
to 23.6 in 2003. 14 Had that proportion remained constant since 1970, the child poverty rate would have ...
------------
www.wisdomforlivingministries.org/p_10.html
... WHERE HAVE ALL THE FATHERS GONE?
... Statistics have
shown that a missing father
is a greater predictor of criminal activity than race or poverty.
--------------
1. Crime in Brampton. Safety in Brampton - numbeo.com
www.numbeo.com/crime/in/Brampton
o Cached
Ask successful people who have gone threw it. ... I
have lived in brampton all of my life ... You dicks. As for calling Brampton a
ghetto, ...
--------------
1. Family structure, childbearing, and parental employment ...
www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc262d.pdf
If the apparent strength of the link between poverty
and family structure seems obvious, ... In 1970, 86 percent of all children ...
fathers, which interact with ...
-----------------
United Way report on Peel’s black youth paints a grim
picture next play ... poverty,
crime, all
of these things will take over ... Where
have all the fathers gone?
-------------------------
Halifax man
charged in human trafficking case involving 14-year-old
A 44-year-old Halifax man is facing charges of
human trafficking, sexual assault and child pornography in a case involving
three girls ranging in age from 14 to 17.
Halifax police said Duncan Robertson Wright
was arrested Thursday after an investigation began on Sunday into allegations
that the man directed a 14-year-old, 16-year-old and 17-year-old girl for the
purpose of prostitution.
Police say the accused faces multiple counts
of sexual assault, making and distributing child porn and receiving a “material
benefit from sexual services,” among other charges.
Wright appeared in court Thursday and was
returned to custody. He’s scheduled to appear in court again April 11.
The arrest comes almost a week after Owen Ross
Gibson-Skeir was sentenced to seven years in prison for forcing a 14-year-old
Halifax girl into prostitution.
When he was charged, an investigator said it
had been decades since such a young victim of prostitution had come forward to
seek help from police. (CP)
Blog:
Canada Military News: CANADA'S GANG VIOLENCE-QUOTE: But there
has never been a better time in history to be black in Canada and it’s time we
start acting like it./#blackonblack Gang Wars #whiteonwhite Gang Wars Canada-2
many innocent Canadians dying! #firstrespondersmatter and #victimsmatter/
Please stop hurting and killing our innocents- and raping Canada of our
innocence and gentle nation of so much good – we deserve better in 2016-
#alllivesmatter/April 2016- Nova Scotia 2 many black sons murdered by black
sons with guns /Keep the peace stop the violence
QUOTE: But there has never been a better
time in history to be black in Canada and it’s
time we start acting like it.
time in history to be black in Canada and it’s
time we start acting like it.
ARTICLE: -
Community must confront, change lethal youth violence
RACHELLE
M. TURPLE
I was raised in North Preston and although I’ve been away for
some time now and have established myself in Ontario, Nova Scotia will always
be home to me.
I fully respect this is a sensitive subject and some will find
it odd that I’m writing this when I’m so physically far-removed from the
epicentre of the recent tragedies.
But I’m never so far away from home to not share my honest
opinion on the status quo of my home community and, ultimately, what I
believe it’s going to take to change it.
With my father, sister and many other family and friends still
residing in North Preston, I have a selfish and personal interest in the
sustainability and safety of the community.
Some of the people I love most in the world live “up home” and,
unfortunately, I already know how it feels to lose someone to gun
violence.
I was 15 in 1992 when we lost our beloved brother.
He was murdered in a Toronto nightclub. At the time, I believed
those types of tragedies could only happen in the “big city.” I wish I could
still be so naïve.
It’s painful to know my former home is plagued by the same gun
violence that happens here.
When it happens in Toronto, most times you don’t know the
victims personally.
But we’re deeply disturbed when it happens to someone from the
black community in Nova Scotia because there are fewer degrees of separation
between us.
My condolences and support are extended to each and every family
member on all sides of these incidents.
They are tragically losing their children to careless acts of
violence.
This article is barely a scratch in the surface of the
conversation about work that needs to be done in this crisis.
The outpouring of violence is symptomatic of something more
insidious working beneath the social surface in our black communities.
I believe decades of subjugation and simplistic, bare-bones
municipal infrastructure have led us here. We’ve confused having
city sewer systems, city buses and a local police detachment with “progress.”
Working together toward advancement, development, growth and
opportunities for young black Nova Scotians is progress.
Supporting community members is progress.
Surviving long enough to see the positive changes is progress.
Community leadership, development and political advocacy have to
be at the helm of any forward-moving society, so education, employment and
growth can occur.
Security and protection are also major pillars of society and
are integral to progress.
If this lethal violence continues to escalate, it will result in
a generational extinction.
Once the able-bodied have left the community, or are dead or in
jail, North Preston and other black communities will succumb to complete
government control and, inevitably, gentrification.
We will lose our land. We will lose our heritage.
If we do not begin to approach this crisis with a framework of
progression, our youth will continue to stagnate and believe they’ve got
nothing to look forward to and, worse, nothing to lose.
This is largely to blame for what we see happening now. Our
youth are desensitized and apathetic to the consequences of their actions.
A change of attitude in the way we parent our children is also
needed to turn this around.
We need to re-evaluate the ways in which we rear and raise our
offspring to build a future for them.
We need to re-design our approaches to discipline and setting
healthy boundaries, extracurricular activities and exposure to mainstream
media.
We need to get quiet with ourselves and be humble to ask the
hard questions.
Am I a good parent? Are my priorities straight? Am I a good
example of social responsibility, self-respect and integrity?
Am I teaching my child how to show and accept love, care and
affection for and from others?
Is my home physically and emotionally safe? Do I abuse
substances that hurt me and, therefore, the development of my child?
Do I need help? What could I be doing better? What can I do to
improve?
When it comes to family matters, there will always be
challenges. But if we can be the best, healthiest version of ourselves, it will
spill over into our parenting and our children will benefit from it.
Our communities will benefit from it. It’s a positive feedback
loop.
We need an overhaul because we cannot afford to lose an entire
generation of young black people.
Every time a youth is murdered, it’s one less person to maintain
and build upon our legacy as indigenous black Canadians.
There is simply no room in society for violent, antisocial
behaviour and deciding to stand up and speak out against it, regardless of the
repercussions, is progress.
I’d rather live in fear that my convictions and efforts toward
progress would get me harmed than be struck by an unintended bullet.
Get involved. It takes an entire village to raise a child, but
it only takes a passionate effort to improve the social conditions and to spark
progress within the village.
The hardest things to do and the right things to do are usually
the same things.
Trust that I realize it’s easy for me to say all of this from
beyond community borders. But any of you who know me personally also know that if I was
there, I’d be the first to speak up and get involved in action for improvement.
I’d be the first to demonstrate and support leadership and partnership toward progress.
It’s not lost on me that I’m writing this article from my cozy
bedroom just outside of Toronto, far removed from the thick of it all.
But there has never been a better time in history to be black in
Canada and it’s time we start acting like it.
Rachelle M. Turple is a writer who grew up in North Preston and
now lives in Brampton, Ont. She blogs atBlackLit101.com.
-----------------
Starting at Duffus Street and Novalea Drive, and ending at Grand Parade, message was simple: put down the guns.
- Updated: Man found dead in North Preston after report of shots fired
- Police identify homicide victim from Gottingen Street shooting, look for specific suspect
- 'We will be out there in full force:' Halifax police offer reassurance after second homicide in three days
---------------------------------
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Combat Gang Violence
American and Canadian law enforcement officials have
adopted a common definition for “gang.” The definition of gang was drafted in a
2005 joint meeting of Police Chiefs, identifies a youth gang as, “Three or more
persons, formerly or informally organized, engaged in a pattern of criminal
behaviour creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation within any community;
who may have a common name or identifying sign or symbol which may constitute a
criminal organization as defined in the Criminal Code of Canada.”
In
Canada’s major cities, gang offenses typically are prosecuted under the laws
governing “participation in a criminal organization.”
Supplementing the Police Chiefs’ definition, the
Montral Police Service’s description stresses anti-social and delinquent
behaviours that distinguish youth gangs from other criminal enterprises. Montreal
Police identify a gang as, “An organized group of adolescents and/or young
adults who rely on group intimidation and violence, and commit criminal acts in
order to gain power and recognition and/or control certain areas of unlawful
activity.”
Consistent
with Montreal’s stress on the value of power and recognition, officials in
northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario stress that gang members flagrantly
display their criminal affiliation by wearing gang colours, getting tattoos of
common gang symbols, flashing a variety of gang signs – their own specialized
hand signals, and sometimes with “signature” modi operandi in their
commission of violent crimes.
In its extremely handy Gang factsheet, Deal.Org, part of the
National Youth Services branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Crime
Prevention Services, notes that gangs differ dramatically in size, structure,
sophistication, and age. In general, though, gangs identify with and seek to control
their neighborhoods, and they commit violent crimes to establish their hegemony
over both territory and all criminal activity inside their territory. In many
cases, gang members employ gratuitous violence to discourage and deter would-be
competitors. Deal.Org also describes how youth gangs are responsible for the
vast majority of graffiti and vandalism in their territories, and graffiti
serves to establish strict, inviolable boundaries for the gang’s operations.
Most youth gangs are linked to larger criminal enterprises in order to import
and distribute drugs, smuggle and sell weapons, and conduct human trafficking
to expand their sex trade. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say that organized
crime groups often employ youth gangs as debt collectors, car thieves, and
“enforcers.” Just as importantly, Public Safety Canada adds, “Once thought just
to be in larger cities like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, youth gangs are now
found in more rural areas as well.”
Because most people associate gang activity with
depressed American inner cities, the statistics often surprise them. In its
ground-breaking report, “Youth Gangs in Canada:
What Do We Know?“, Public Safety Canada summarized results of
nationwide law enforcement surveys, estimating that…
- Canada has 434 youth gangs with roughly 7,000 members nationally.
- Ontario has the highest number of youth gangs and youth gang members in absolute terms, with 216 youth gangs and 3,320 youth gang members. Saskatchewan is second (28 youth gangs and 1,315 members), followed by British Columbia (102 youth gangs and 1,027 members)[9]. police in Ontario reported that 38% of gang-related drug trafficking and 15% each of the weapons possession and auto theft/exportation offences were committed in collaboration with organized crime groups.
- For the country as a whole, the vast majority of youth gang members are male (94%).
- Almost half (48%) of all youth gang members are under the age of18. Most (39%) are between 16 and 18 years old.
- The largest proportion of youth gang members are African Canadian (25%), followed by First Nations (21%) and Caucasian (18%).
- Police agencies and Aboriginal organizations indicate that there is a growing percentage of female gang membership in western Canadian provinces, including British Columbia (12%), Manitoba (10%) and Saskatchewan (9%).
Effective Prevention and Intervention
Detailing
“Traits of Gang Members,” Edmonton Police say, “The
excitement of gang activity, which often involves violence, danger, and outward
expressions of cultural biases, coupled with the acceptance given by fellow
gang members, provide the social support and community involvement that are
often lacking in the lives of young male gang members.”
According to officials atPublic Safety Canada, “From a
prevention perspective, it is vital to understand that youth involvement in
crime and violence is linked with the experience of the gang itself… Most youth
who join gangs have already been involved in crime, violence and illegal drug
use. The prevalence and scope of youth gang involvement varies across the
country, but the “gang effect” of increased delinquency, drug use and violence
is a common thread.” Researchers also explain, “In the United States, studies
of large urban samples show that youth gang members are responsible for a large
proportion of all violent adolescent offences. On average, 20% of gang members
were responsible for committing about 80% of all serious violent adolescent
offences.” Similarly, in Canada, one carefully controlled, reliable study
found, “Sixteen percent of alleged young offenders who were classified as
chronic offenders were responsible for 58% of all alleged criminal incidents.”
- There is a correlation between gang presence in schools and the availability of both guns and drugs in schools.
- 18.7% of boys (ages 14 to17) in Montral and 15.1% in Toronto have brought a gun to school.
- School dropouts who get involved in drug selling are at higher risk of being involved in gun-related violence.
Edmonton Police explain
gang members’ motivation, detailing how gangs may supplant families and provide
friends.
Because
of low self-worth and self-esteem, some youth join gangs seeking the status
they lack due to unemployment or academic failure at school. If young people do
not see themselves as intelligent, leaders, or star athletes, they join other
groups where they feel they can excel.
Many youngsters do not have a positive adult role model.
Many see domestic violence and alcohol and other drug use in the home. Lack of
parental involvement and the absence of rules and family rituals allow older
gang members to be viewed as authority figures by young teens and children.
Young people join gangs to receive the attention, affirmation, and protection
they may feel they are lacking at home. Many street gang members carry on a
family tradition established by siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts,
or cousins who they see as role models. Joining a gang provides friends with
whom they can share their free time.
Edmonton Police go on to detail social and
environmental problems that contribute to gang membership.
Few job
opportunities, no positive recreational choices, or lack of effective responses
to peer pressure can create a climate favouring gang membership.
Many people are without jobs or a source of income.
Becoming a gang member can provide a teen with an opportunity to make large
amounts money quickly, because many gangs are involved in the illegal sale of
drugs and firearms. The monetary allure of gang membership is difficult to
counteract. Gang members share profits from drug trafficking and other illegal
activities. To a teen, money translates into social status.
“The wraparound approach”
In its carefully researched, evidence-based,
comprehensive and compelling study, “Prevention of Youth Gang Violence:
Overview of Strategies and Approaches,” Canada’s National Crime
Prevention Centre strongly advocates, “the wraparound approach” to
reduction of gang membership and gang-related crime. The report explains, “The
wraparound approach has been implemented in the United States and Canada
throughout the 1990s, as well as more recently. The wraparound process is an
intensive, individualized care management approach designed for children, youth
and individuals with serious or complex emotional and/or behavioural problems.
A comprehensive continuum of individualized services
and support networks are adapted to meet the unique needs of individuals. This
approach differs from traditional interventions in that it is less prescriptive
and allows for flexibility in the design of the service delivery model.”
Advocates note that the Centre’s plan treats gang participation as a
constellation of emotional and behavioural issues which will respond to proper
intervention and treatment.
Taking
the problem out of the criminal justice system and assigning it to clinicians
and educators, the wraparound approach goes to the heart of most gang members’
motivation.
Advocates concede that effective wraparound programs
will differ from one area to another, but they insist a common set of six
general principles and practices must guide the development and implementation
of local interventions:
1.
A collaborative, community-based interagency team
(with professionals from youth justice, education, mental health and social
services systems) designs, implements and oversees the project.
2.
A formal interagency agreement identifies the target
population for the initiative: how they will be enrolled in the program; how
services will be delivered and paid for; what roles different agencies and
individuals will play; and what resources will be committed by various groups.
3.
Care coordinators are responsible for helping
participants create a customized treatment program for guiding youth and their
families through the system of care.
4.
Child and family teams (family members, paid service
providers, and community members such as teachers and mentors), who know the
youth and his/her complex needs, work in partnership to ensure that the young
person’s needs in all life domains are addressed with cultural competence.
5.
A youth-driven comprehensive plan of care, which is
updated continually, identifies the young person’s unique strengths and
weaknesses across domains, targets specific goals and outlines action plans.
This plan addresses the role of individual team members (young person and
family included) in achieving the goals.
6.
All wraparound programs articulate specific
performance measures to assess the outcome of interventions throughout the
course of the initiative.
Consistent with the Centre’s insistence on
evidence-driven investigations and innovations, the report contains case
studies of several wraparound programs that succeeded in a variety of
geographic, socio-economic and cultural situations.
How you can help
Crime Stoppers of Northern Minnesota and Northwest
Ontario encourage you to report all suspicious activity to police – especially
if it shows telltale signs of gang involvement. Moreover, if you have
first-hand knowledge of gang activity in your neighborhood, call Crime
Stoppers, where representatives always safeguard your anonymity and promptly
relay important information to police. Most of all, please support Crime
Stoppers’ efforts to combat all kinds of crime in our region.
--------------------
ARTICLE AND STATISTICS....
1
Youth, Gangs and Guns for Montreal Interveners Background information on Gangs
in Montreal.
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Man sentenced to seven years –SEX TRAFFICKING A 14 YR OLD
GIRL
First human trafficking conviction in Nova
Scotia
MICHAEL MACDONALD THE CANADIAN PRESS
Updated:
Halifax man sentenced to 7 years for trafficking 14-year-old girl
The Canadian Press
;
Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian
Press
His name was Owen, but he called himself Staxx – street-slang for a pile of
money.READ MORE: Issues of human trafficking centre stage as court adjourns Gibson-Skeir case
She was 14 when she met him online, at a vulnerable time in her life, and they talked regularly through Instagram and Snapchat. Eventually, the 20-year-old took her to meet his parents in East Preston, N.S.
Not long after, however, the sexual assaults, threats, violence and prostitution started.
In Halifax provincial court Friday, Owen Ross Gibson-Skeir, now 21, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
He was arrested a year ago and pleaded guilty in December to three charges – two counts related to human trafficking and one count of sexual assault.
“There is nothing more heinous, more offensive and degrading than the selling of children for sexual services,” Crown attorney Catherine Cogswell told court. “That’s as low as humanity gets.”
When Gibson-Skeir was charged, an investigator in Halifax said it had been decades since such a young victim of prostitution had come forward to seek help from police.
“Human trafficking is a combination of physical and emotional torture,” Cogswell told the court. “How does a person recover from being bought and sold and emotionally, physically and sexually tortured? I’m not sure. But I do have hope for the young women coming forward now.”
The girl sat at the back of the courtroom with her parents. She chose not to make a victim impact statement.
Gibson-Skeir sat motionless Friday while the statement of facts was read into the court record, a swarm of tattoos climbing up the side of his neck and a tiny, blue butterfly fluttering just below his right eye. He declined to say anything when asked if he would like to address the court.
The young victim met Gibson-Skeir in late 2015, and by January of 2016 he was her pimp, the Crown attorney told court Friday.
For two months, the girl was forced into the sex trade by a man who described himself as a member of the Blood gang in East Preston, a half-hour drive east of Halifax, Cogswell said.
Gibson-Skeir took explicit photos of the girl, posted them on a classified website and then arranged all of her liaisons – mostly at local hotels and an apartment.
He took all of the money she earned, and she took to stealing food and clothing.
To keep her in line, he slapped her face, pulled her hair, slammed her against a refrigerator and choked her so forcefully that it left his handprint on her throat, the Crown lawyer said.
As for the men the girl had sex with, they would often ask how old she was.
“No one did anything about it,” said Cogswell. “This is one of the more shocking aspects of this case.”
At one point, the girl was injured in a car accident, and hospital staff noticed she had been cutting herself. She was kept there for six days.
Her family tried to intervene, but she returned to East Preston with a cast on her arm.
Gibson-Skeir told her she couldn’t make any money like that, so the cast was pulled off.
The pain he caused that day marked a turning point for the girl, court heard. She returned home and the police were called.
But her ordeal wasn’t over.
“He became increasingly violent in his messages to her,” Cogswell said, quoting from one text message that read: “You need to come back to your daddy.”
When that didn’t work, Gibson-Skeir demanded a $10,000 exit fee, and he threatened the girl’s parents by sending a picture of himself holding a handgun.
Judge Claudine MacDonald told the court the accused would have received a longer sentence had he not pleaded guilty to the most serious charges.
“In terms of the degree of violence, threatening behaviour and the effort you took to maintain control over this child, this is a significant aggravating factor,” MacDonald said to Gibson-Skeir.
“What is remarkable here is that despite everything that this child endured … as a result of your actions, somehow she was able to summon the inner strength and resoluteness of will … and free herself from your control.”
Outside court, Cogswell said the conviction and sentencing was a first for Nova Scotia under the federal human trafficking law introduced by the previous Conservative government in 2014. That version of Canada’s law on prostitution includes a mandatory-minimum sentence of five years for those convicted of prostituting anyone under 18.
Police said that after his arrest, Gibson-Skeir described himself as a pimp and a gang member.
“I saw it as an easy way to make money,” he told police. “They all showed me how to do it.”
Court heard he had a rough upbringing before he was sent to a foster home. The Crown said he started smoking marijuana and hanging out with men in their 20s when he was 12 years old. His criminal record includes 59 convictions as a young offender and an adult, including robbery and firearms offences.
His sentence was reduced to five years and six months to account for pre-trial custody.
On Dec. 21, 2016, the day he pleaded guilty to his crimes, Gibson-Skeir looked toward the victim as he was leaving the courtroom and made a gesture as if he was firing a gun in her direction.
He was later charged with uttering threats and intimidating justice officials, but those charges have yet to be dealt with in court.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3348636/halifax-man-sentenced-to-7-years-for-trafficking-14-year-old-girl/
----------------------------------
Notoriously violent N.S. gang recruiting women, girls and pimping
them out in Ontario: police
A notoriously violent gang rooted in Nova
Scotia is recruiting girls and young women in Southwestern Ontario and pimping
them out along the Highway 401 corridor, say police and women’s advocates.Members of North Preston’s Finest are among gangs operating in the region, the OPP say.
The gang has been connecting with area girls and women for more than a year, said the head of the London Abused Women’s Centre that has been focused on victims of sex trafficking.
“These are very dangerous people and these girls are terrified,” Megan Walker said.
These are very dangerous people
and these girls are terrified
“They are trafficking guns, drugs and women and
they are settling in Southwestern Ontario from Windsor up to Toronto.”Since January the centre has helped 134 women and girls who say they’ve been trafficked and 75 at risk of being trafficked, Walker said.
She couldn’t say how many, if any, had been victimized by the Nova Scotia gang.
The North Preston gang surfaced in Nova Scotia in the early 1990s, and has since expanded beyond that province to traffic women, guns and drugs across Canada.
Related
- Toronto police charge 27 people in trafficking bust and seize 283 kilograms of drugs
- ‘Worst thing that has come before this court’: Mother let drug dealer rape child to finance addiction
- Ontario promises to spend up to $72M to fight human trafficking
Toronto police have said they believe the gang has members and affiliates in the mega-city.
Recent news reports have said police believe Edward Delten Downey, who faces first-degree murder charges in the deaths this month of Sara Baillie and five-year-old Taliyah Marsman of Calgary, has ties to the gang, as does the girl’s father.
The gang is among others pimping girls along the Highway 401 corridor, said Det. Sgt. Kimberly Miller, the OPP’s regional abuse issues co-ordinator in western Ontario.
“I can confirm that there are groups, (recruiting women and girls in the region), including the group you are talking about,” Miller said.
It’s a very lucrative business
because victims are just reused over and over
“It’s a very lucrative business because victims
are just reused over and over.”London police say they’re aware of reports North Preston’s Finest is recruiting women in the city.
“While we don’t have first-hand information that they are operating in London, we would be naive to think they would exclude London from their area of operation,” said Det. Insp. Paul Waight, head of the force’s criminal investigations division.
London New Democrat MPP Peggy Sattler said the presence of out-of-province gangs operating in Southwestern Ontario underlines the need for government funding for extra police costs to deal with human trafficking.
“This situation reinforces what we know in our community, what we’ve been hearing about in Southwest Ontario and London in particular as a hub to lure victims,” said Sattler, the London West MPP.
Sattler was part of an all-party committee of the Ontario legislature on sexual violence and harassment that toured the province, calling last year for the Liberal government to create a task force to fight human trafficking.
Unfortunately, victims often
don’t see themselves as victims and it’s vastly under-reported crime and they
are not just jumping in our arms
“It’s a much bigger issue than just one
province,” Sattler said. “There is a real immediate need for funding to support
. . . co-ordination and collaboration that is necessary (between police forces)
within provinces and across provinces.”Last month, Ontario said it will spend $72 million to fight human trafficking by establishing an anti-trafficking office and a prosecution team dedicated to the issue.
“We need to see the dollars flowing immediately,” Sattler said.
She said while serving on the committee she heard disturbing and heartbreaking anecdotes from women who’d been trafficked .
“The stories that we heard about the violence from women . . . were some of the most disturbing of the whole process of the select committee.”
The OPP and municipal police forces across Ontario are focused on making contact with victims in a bid to get them information about ways to escape and get help.
“My main focus is helping the victims and getting the information out to them,” Miller said.
The OPP is trying to train officers so “every officer up and down our corridor talks the same language and offers support to the girls and boys and youth,” she said.
Miller couldn’t provide statistics on the results of efforts to rescue victims, but said “we’ve certainly had some successful encounters” with women and girls.
“Unfortunately, victims often don’t see themselves as victims and it’s vastly under-reported crime and they are not just jumping in our arms.”
Police say you should call them if you see something that doesn’t seem right at an area hotel.
“If you’re at a hotel or motel and see someone trying to drag someone into a car and they’re fighting, call us and we’ll deal with it,” Miller said.
Legal Assistance Windsor, a group that received Ontario Trillium Foundation funding to fight human trafficking, has worked with at least one former victim of North Preston’s Finest, director Shelley Gilbert said.
“With her and other victims, the first priority has to be their safety and ensuring that they might have to go into hiding for a period of time,” she said.
“When you are involved with a very serious group like them, safety is the most important thing.”
Gilbert said the victim was recruited “in the same way many people” become victims of human trafficking.
“Through the idea that this was going to be a loving relationship, that this would be something that would be a short-time job for her and became a forced lifestyle after a period of time. When that recognition comes in place, it becomes even more dangerous,” she said.
Gilbert said with big money at stake, it’s no surprise to see gangs like North Preston’s Finest here.
“There are organized groups that have a lot of experience in forcing compliance and trafficking of various products, including women. This is a very big business and it makes people a lot of money. They are going to move through the country and various jurisdictions to do what they do.
“When it’s organized and structured and very powerful, it’s more frightening. We are talking about groups of individuals that have a whole infrastructure around the type of business they are in,” she said.
------------------
TORONTO- 1
child or youth suffers gunshot injury each day in Ontario, study finds
TORONTO - Firearms injure a child
or youth almost every day in Ontario, say researchers, who analyzed hospital
records to determine which groups of young people are most at risk for
gun-related accidents or violent assault.Their study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found there were 355 firearm injuries on average each year among children and youth, with about 23 to 25 — or seven per cent — resulting in death.
"Three-quarters are unintentional, so these are accidents that happen, and about 25 per cent are intentional or assault," said senior author Dr. Astrid Guttmann, a pediatrician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
When the researchers looked at provincial hospital emergency room records for gun-related injuries, they found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, had the highest rates of unintentional firearm injury — 12 per 100,000 people versus about seven per 100,000 for immigrant males.
But when it came to firearm injuries due to assault, immigrants and refugees were at much higher risk than their non-immigrant counterparts.
Refugee children and youth were 1.4 times more likely to be shot than Canadian-born residents of the same age, while immigrant children and youth from Africa were almost three times as likely and those from Central America almost four times as likely to be a victim of a firearm assault, the study found.
Males in all three groups were at highest risk of suffering a gunshot injury, said Guttmann, chief science officer at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, which collected the data.
"When we looked at unintentional injuries, children who live in rural areas are more likely to suffer one of these injuries," she said. "And when we looked at immigrant versus long-term residents — the majority of whom would be Canadian-born — immigrants are much less likely to be injured in accidental shootings.
"We know from other (research) literature that children who live in homes where there are guns are more likely to have an accident with a gun, and we certainly know there are more guns in households in rural areas."
In contrast, firearm injuries due to violent assault tended to be clustered in low-income neighbourhoods in urban centres, where immigrant and refugee children and youth often live when they arrive in Canada, Guttmann said.
The study, which examined health records for millions of Ontario children, teens and young adults between 2008 and 2012, found immigrants from Africa and Central America accounted for almost 70 per cent of assault-related gun injuries.
The researchers did not include suicides in their analysis.
Dr. Natasha Saunders, a pediatrician at Sick Kids and the study's lead author, said there has been little Canadian research on children harmed by firearms, and most of that has focused on those who have died.
"Death is clearly a devastating outcome, but near-misses are also a devastatingly significant issue," said Saunders, noting the study looks at both gun deaths and injuries, which in some cases can lead to severe disabilities.
"It is our hope that understanding the numbers will contribute to efforts that are already being made to reduce the number of victims of both unintentional firearm injuries in Canadian-born children and youth, as well as firearm assault in subgroups of immigrant children and youth."
The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS), which on Monday issued updated recommendations for preventing firearm injuries among young people, says 635 children and youth under age 24 died between 2008 and 2012 from accidental and intentional gunshots, including those that were self-inflicted. Ninety-four per cent of victims were male.
Among 15- to 19-year-olds, more than half were suicides, while among 20- to 24-year-old, about the same proportion were homicides. For children under age 15, there were 15 suicides, 10 homicides, seven unintentional deaths and two whose cause was undetermined.
Dr. Katherine Austin, who co-wrote the CPS document, said she was pleased to see the Toronto researchers went beyond firearm mortality statistics and looked at data on injuries.
Over the five-year period, Ontario hospitals treated almost 1,600 young people for gunshot wounds.
"That's a lot," said Austin. "Can you imagine any other consumer product that caused one serious injury a day over a period of five years?"
The CPS position paper says doctors and other health practitioners can play a critical role in preventing firearm injuries and deaths by warning parents about the risks of guns being accessible to youth.
"Every family, rural and urban, should be screened for gun ownership," the document states. "Parents who decide to keep a gun in the home should be counselled to store firearms unloaded, with a trigger lock or in a locked container, and separate from ammunition."
The CPS also urged all levels of government to bring in stricter gun controls.
To reduce the availability of firearms to youth, the organization is calling for several measures, including strategies to curtail illegal importation of firearms into Canada, especially from the U.S., and tighter restrictions on semi-automatic firearms.
Austin said there is a pervasive belief that Canada doesn't have a problem with firearms, primarily because the level of gun deaths in the United States is so "spectacular" in comparison.
"It's like being shorter than (NBA star) Wilt Chamberlain," she said of measuring Canada's firearm death rate against that of its southern neighbour.
But take the U.S. out of the equation, and Canada ranks fourth highest out of 22 industrialized countries (after Finland, Austria and France), said Austin, citing a 2010 study.
- Follow @SherylUbelacker on Twitter.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated that 25 per cent of firearm injuries resulted in death. In fact, seven per cent of firearm injuries resulted in death.
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Organized Crime
Organized Crime is defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as a
group of three or more people whose purpose is the commission of one or more
serious offences that would "likely result in the direct or indirect
receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the group."
Organized Crime is defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as a
group of three or more people whose purpose is the commission of one or more
serious offences that would "likely result in the direct or indirect
receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the
group." But perhaps a more succinct definition was given by a former
United States mob boss who described it as "just a bunch of people getting
together to take all the money they can from all the suckers they can."
Widespread and Structured
There is more to organized crime in Canada than the Italian
criminal association known as the Mafia or "the Mob" – although the
Mafia is the best known and most documented group. In North America, just about
every major national or ethnic group and every segment of society has been
involved in organized crime. Thus we have seen Irish, Jewish, Chinese,
Jamaican, Haitian, Vietnamese, Somali and many other ethnically-recruited or
centered crime gangs.
For a long time many scholars did not believe organized crime
was highly structured, or capable of sophisticated operations. All this changed
because of the revelations of the U.S. Senate "Valachi" hearings in
1963 (named after the chief witness, Mafia member Joe Valachi); because of the
documentary evidence from police wiretaps in the 1970s, which allowed police to
listen to Mafia leaders discussing their hierarchy and operations in the U.S.
and Canada; and because of the creation of the American Witness Protection
Program, in which Mafia defectors and informers could build a new life and
protect themselves by working with the police and prosecutors.
Only in the 1970s did the existence of a highly organized
criminal network in Canada become known to the public – thanks to various court
cases as well as Québec inquiries into
the Mafia, the widely publicized report of the Waisberg Commission into construction
violence in Ontario, and a series
of mob killings in Montréal..
$20-Billion Business
In 1984 a joint federal-provincial committee of justice
officials estimated that organized crime in Canada took in about $20 billion in
revenues annually. The committee was formed in response to a 1980 report by the
British Columbia Attorney
General's office, which claimed that organized crime figures had interests in
Canada's textile, cheese and disposal industries, as well as vending machine
companies, meat companies, home-insulation companies, auto body shops and car
dealerships, among others.
The joint committee calculated that organized crime revenue came
from pornography, prostitution, bookmaking, gaming houses, illegal lotteries
and other gambling, as well as loan sharking and extortion. These and other
activities such as white collar crime (insurance and construction fraud and
illegal bankruptcy), arson, bank robbery, motor vehicle theft, computer crime
and counterfeit in credit cards, made up about $10 billion in organized crime revenues.
Narcotics accounted for the other $10 billion.
Organized crime provides illegal services desired by some
members of the general public, such as gambling, prostitution, and contraband
alcohol and tobacco sales. In every large Canadian city, local bookmakers used
to be involved in organized crime through an elaborate system established to
protect the individual bookie from large losses. Today organized crime provides
many underground sports betting and illicit card game operations.
Other organized crime activities are not fuelled as much by
public demand. They involve the importation and distribution of harder drugs
such as heroin, Internet and credit card fraud, and murder and extortion. Other
activities that aid and abet organized crime include the ongoing corruption of
public officials and the "laundering" of the proceeds of criminal
activities.
One of the simplest ways to "launder" money is to
engage in activities in which there is a constant flow of cash, such as slot
machines and gambling. If the owner of a gambling casino claims to have taken
in $1 million when he has actually taken in only $100 000 -- to which has been
added $900 000 of illegally obtained money -- it is almost impossible to
demonstrate that the $1 million was not procured in the normal course of
business. Neighbourhood coin laundries have also been popular ways of
laundering organized crime money in Canada.
Without corruption, organized crime groups would find it
difficult to exist. The efforts of organized crime members to corrupt police,
judges, politicians, lawyers, and government and civilian officials are
probably more harmful to society than any other organized crime activity.
Mafia
Of all organized crime groups operating in Canada, the Mafia is
the best known. This is because the Québec crime probe report of 1976 (based
primarily on information gathered by the "bug" planted in the milk
cooler at the headquarters of Montréal mobster Paulo Violi) revealed the
structure of the Montréal Mafia and its dependency on the U.S. Mafia family of
Joe Bonanno. Public knowledge of the Mafia is also the result of media
attention, such as the much-watched "Connections" series on organized
crime broadcast by CBC-TV from June 1977 to March 1979.
Scholars do not agree on the origin of the term
"Mafia," referring to the original organization in Sicily. However,
the word “Mafia” was used as early as 1880 by Sicilian scholar Giuseppe Alongi,
in his book La Mafia,
Fattori, Manifestazioni, reprinted in 1904 and again in 1977. According to
the Québec Organized Crime Commission's report of 1977, the term Mafia
describes, "a state of mind, a feeling of pride, a philosophy of life and
a style of behaviour.” The mark of a known and respected man, it derives from
the Sicilian adjective 'mafiusu,' which was used widely since the 19thcentury to
describe magnificent or perfect people."
Joe Bonanno, a Mafia don, describes the term in his memoirs:
"Mafia is a process, not a thing. Mafia is a form of clan co-operation to
which its individual members pledge lifelong loyalty. Friendship connections,
family ties, trust, loyalty, obedience – this was the 'glue' that held us
together."
The Mafia was exported and adapted to North America by a small
group of Italian immigrants,
mostly from Sicily and Calabria. In Sicily, and later in the U.S. and Canada,
'Mafia' came to refer to an organized international body of criminals of
Sicilian origin, known as Cosa Nostra, but it is now applied to the dominant
force in organized crime – the largely Sicilian and Calabrian organized crime
"families." These families are held together by a code emphasizing
respect for senior family members; by the structure or hierarchy of the family;
and by an initiation rite or ceremony.
Although Italian crime families have been active in Canada since
the early 1900s, they now operate in much more clearly structured and defined
areas acceptable to other mafia families in the U.S. and Canada. More recently
new N'drangheta cells of the Calabrian Mafia have emigrated to Canada after
coming under intense pressure by Italian authorities in the early 2000s. Many
of these newly arrived Mafiosi went to work with older, established Mafia
figures, settling in the greater Montréal, Toronto and Hamilton areas. Though
located mainly in the major cities, family members tend to gravitate to where
wealth moves; in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some moved westward, following
the movement of business to British Columbia and Alberta. Vancouver has had serious
Mafia infiltration over the years as well as a more obvious biker and Asian
crime presence.
Toronto
Mafia
In Toronto until the mid-1980s, at least four major Mafia-style
criminal organizations existed and were run by Canadians of Sicilian or
Calabrian origin, two of whom were named as members of the Mafia during the
Valachi hearings -- namely the organizations run by Paul Volpe and Johnny
"Pops" Papalia. Since the murder of Volpe in November 1983, his old
organization has mostly disappeared as well as that of Papalia, after he was
murdered at the behest of a rival local Calabrian Mafia family in 1997.
Today, several older Calabrian organized crime groups operate in
the Greater Toronto/Hamilton areas. There are also newly arrived cells of the
N'drangheta operating, many having emigrated from Siderno, Calabria. There is
no one godfather in Toronto, but there is a ruling commission of the
N'drangheta, of family leaders in the Toronto area which tries to keep order,
resolve disputes, and co-ordinate some activities with the ruling commission in
Italy.
Montréal
Mafia
Since the mid-1980s, Montréal has had one dominant crime family,
led by the Sicilian-born Nick Rizzuto and then by his son Vito. Another family
was run by Frank Cotroni until his death in 2004. The Québec crime probe
exposed the membership and activities of this highly structured group in a
number of its reports in the 1970s. Established first in the 1940s by Frank's
older and more powerful brother Vic Cotroni, the family evolved in the 1950s
into an important branch of the powerful New York City Mafia family of Joe
Bonanno. It has extensive ties with Mafia families in Italy and throughout the
U.S., as well as with the Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver organizations.
Serious internal problems between Sicilians and Calabrians in
the Montréal organization led to the violent deaths of Paulo Violi (chief
lieutenant of Vic Cotroni) and his brothers in the late 1970s. The Cotroni
family had primarily been involved in illegal gambling, loan sharking, drug
importation, extortion, and the murder and corruption of public officials.
After Vic Cotroni's death in 1984, the Sicilians, led by Nick and later Vito
Rizzuto took over. The last decade of Vito Rizzuto's rule was marked by
internal warfare, especially while Vito was in jail in the U.S. for his role in
various mob hits in New York. He died suddenly in 2013 at the age of 67, from
natural causes in a Montreal hospital.
There is no clear leader of the family now, as many senior
Rizzuto leaders have been murdered, died or are in jail. Reynald Desjardins,
Vito's number one lieutenant and right hand man in the decade preceding Vito's
death, is now awaiting trial for orchestrating the murder of ex-Bonanno family
acting boss Salvatore "the Iron-worker" Montagna, after he tried
unsuccessfully to take over the family in 2011.
As of 2014, there was still an ongoing battle for Mafia
supremacy in Montréal involving some Calabrian Mafiosi cells from Ontario and
dissident Rizzuto family members in Québec.
At the same time, the hearings of the Charbonneau Commission
into the practices of the Québec construction industry brought additional heat
to bear on the old Rizzuto family leadership. The Commission's televised
hearings included the broadcast of surveillance videos and wiretaps of Rizzuto
family gatherings, including old man Nick consorting with and taking money from
construction bosses and union leaders.
Recent arrivals from Calabria of senior members of the
N'drangheta are also vying for a position in the Montréal Mafia world. A state
of flux is the best way to describe the Montreal "Mob" as of 2014. In
spite of this, most Mafia operations continue unabated. A new figure will
likely emerge as the new godfather to run the Montréal Mafia, and he will
likely come from the ranks of family members who have power and respect both in
the Montréal underworld as well as in Italian and American mafia circles.
Other Groups
Biker
Gangs
Since the 1970s, motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels, the
Rock Machine, the Outlaws, Satan's Choice, and many others have been
significantly involved in organized crime in just about every province from the
Maritimes to BC. Their
initiation rites have made it difficult for police to penetrate the groups
(though in recent decades huge strides have been made in this area), which have
become major suppliers of illegal drugs. Motorcycle gangs are also involved in
prostitution and contract killing. It is not unusual to find them working with
other organized crime groups. The Hells Angels are the most influential and
powerful outlaw motorcycle gang in Canada.
With biker gangs comes violence and murder. A major biker war in
Québec from the mid-1990s to the early 21st Century led to the killing of
hundreds of people, including many innocent bystanders who were in the wrong
place at the wrong time — including an 11 year old Montréal boy killed by a
biker-war bomb.
New
Crime Laws
The resulting outcry from the public and the media in Québec
eventually forced the federal Parliament to enact
stronger anti-organized crime laws, going after the gangs' wealth, and
convicting individuals of membership in an organized crime entity.
By 2006, new organized crime laws were also used for the
prosecution of scores of members of the Rizzuto Mafia family, from
"soldiers" to senior lieutenants, and even to old Nick Rizzuto,
onetime godfather who was then still criminally active in his 80s . Shortly
after serving some of his time, Rizzuto was released from prison early because
of old age.. The 86-year-old was then killed by a sniper outside his lavish
Montréal-area home.
The Hells Angels organization has been hit hard by prosecutions
under the new anti-organized crime laws. The once-powerful Hells Angel boss
Maurice 'Mom' Boucher is now in jail for life, for his role in a number of
murders. Still, the Hells Angels continue to operate, especially in Québec,
with the help of puppet gangs with different names but working for the Hells
Angels.
Asian
Crime Groups
Various Chinese and Vietnamese organized crime groups have
become more prominent over the past 35 years in Vancouver and Toronto,
following a wave of immigration from Hong Kong. In BC, Chinese crime gangs have
been operating for more than 100 years. In the 1920s, Shu Moy, the famed 'King
of the Gamblers,' was a powerful organized crime figure in BC, according to the
1928 special inquiry set up by Vancouver City Council to look into illicit
gambling rackets, opium dens, houses of prostitution and corruption at the
highest levels of municipal government in Vancouver.
Today Chinese youth gangs operate in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and other
cities and towns, and are involved in protection and extortion rackets. They
also run massage parlours as fronts for prostitution, hydroponic grow
operations for much in-demand marijuana, as well as the production and export
of conventional speed drugs. More sophisticated groups are organized by senior
triad leaders from Hong Kong to import heroin from southeast Asia through
Vancouver and western Canada. The triads are the Chinese version of the Mafia,
especially in their hierarchy and global networks and reach.
The organized crime structure changes quickly in Canada, and
usually exists for some years before it is detected in cities or other
locations; therefore, there are undoubtedly other groups that have not yet been
identified. Columbian cartels are active in Toronto and Montréal. Russian and
East European organized crime groups are also quite active in major Canadian
cities.
First
Nations
First Nations organized crime gangs have long existed in Canada.
One prominent native organized mob group is the "Manitoba Warriors,"
which operates in the Winnipeg area. In
January 2014, Winnipeg police arrested 57 men and women aged 17 to 51, alleging
that they were members or associates of what police called the "the city's
most powerful street gang."
Jamaicans
There are strong organized crime gangs in the Greater Toronto
Area primarily composed of Jamaicans, including among others the 'Malvern Crew'
and 'The Galloway Boys.' Both gangs have had some of their members plead guilty
to belonging to a gang under the anti-organized-crime laws. Innocent people
have been killed over the past decade by members of these street gangs, in
shoot-outs in Toronto streets, restaurants, and even at a neighbourhood
barbecue.
Haitians
In Montréal, Haitian gangs rule the sale of drugs on the street.
Gang members have also been involved in violent killings in the past two
decades, including the fatal, 2010 shoot-out at an upscale boutique in Old
Montréal owned by the late Ducarme Joseph, a long time, well-known Haitian gang
leader. Joseph himself was shot to death in August, 2014.
Multi-Ethnic
Gangs
Murderous, multi-ethnic drug gangs – such as the one run for
years by the three Bacon brothers in BC – killed their way into a large piece
of the drug trafficking business there through an alliance with the Red
Scorpions, a long-running Asian gang. The Bacon crew has killed many innocent
people along their way to power, including the 'Surrey Six' murder victims, two
of whom died simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. One gang
brother, Jonathan Bacon, was himself gunned down by hit men from a rival gang
in 2011..
The so-called United Nations (UN) gang in BC is another example
of a multi-ethnic crime gang structure that is becoming more common across the
country in the 21st century.
Suggested Reading
- Andre Cedilot and Andre Noel, "Mafia Inc.:The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada's Sicilian Clan" (2012); Lee Lamothe and Adrian Humphreys, "The Sixth Family" (2008); James R. Dubro, "Dragons of Crime: Inside the Asian Underworld" (1992), "King of the Mob" (1987), and "Mob Rule" (1985); Pierre de Champlain, "Le Crime Organisé à Montréal" (1986); C. Kirby and T. Renner, "Mafia Assassin" (1986); J.P. Charbonneau, "The Canadian Connection" (1976).
---------------------------
Canada's gang hotspots — are you in one?
Abbotsford-Mission in B.C.'s Fraser Valley was deadliest gang city in Canada in recent years
In Atlantic Canada, the Bacchus outlaw motorcycle club runs the drug trade, according to police biker crime specialists. In the West, bullets fly when the Red Scorpions clash with the United Nations crew. In the Prairies, the White Boy Posse's migration east from Edmonton has spilled blood in Saskatchewan.Gang activity even blights Ottawa, one of the world's safest cities.
The capital logged a record 49 shootings in 2014, prompting police to address concerns about gangland disputes. Among those incidents was a targeted Boxing Day shooting that wounded one man during what investigators called "infighting" between members of the Crips.
- Gang life in Calgary: jail time, bounties and 'family'
- Biker gangs in Canada
- Notorious gangs of British Columbia
Saskatoon averaged two gang-related homicides a year between 2003 and 2012, according to Statistics Canada. Its annual average rate of 0.89 gang-related murders per 100,000 population more than doubles the per capita rates in Montreal, Toronto and Calgary.
"Let's not put blinders on and think this isn't happening in our smaller cities," said Toronto author Jeff Pearce, whose 2009 book Gangs in Canada is used as a textbook in B.C. criminology courses.
The three Bacon brothers, Jamie on the left, Jonathan
in centre, Jarrod on right, were allegedly members of the Red Scorpions gang.
(CBC)
Whether it's Alberta's oil or Saskatchewan's potash, boomtowns are not
immune.Abdullahi Ahmed was shot dead in Calgary on New Year's Eve, the latest among dozens from Toronto's Somali community to die in Alberta gang violence.
Biker clubs, mafias, aboriginal gangs, cartel affiliates, race-based groups and street-level gangbangers often follow the money, says Keiron McConnell, an organized crime expert who teaches criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C.
"You name it, it's there. You go from Halifax to Vancouver, you're going to see a complete diversity," he says.
Membership fluid
However, tracking active gang membership is a trickier matter. Nahanni Pollard, a criminology professor at B.C.'s Douglas College, said "gangs" are loosely defined, and are often fluid groups.
The B.C.-based gang known as the Red Scorpions have
reportedly tried to expand their drug trafficking operation eastward. (ALERT)
"Some of the gang crime may spill over into other areas, making the
geographic determination of whose crime it is difficult," she says.North Preston's Finest, a criminal faction in Halifax, has brought its sex trafficking enterprise to Toronto, for example, say police.
And in Yukon and Northwest Territories, the 856 Gang were previously dismissed as little more than "punk teenagers" before re-emerging in Yellowknife with a stash of cash, drugs and a gun.
The latest national figures cited by Public Safety Canada date back to 2002. They put the number of "youth gangs" at 434, representing some 7,000 members. Ontario harboured the most youth gangsters with 3,320; Saskatchewan followed with 1,315 gang members.
Tallying murders is simpler.
Abbotsford-Mission in B.C.'s Fraser Valley takes the title of gangland murder capital of Canada. It averaged 1.02 gang-related slayings per 100,000 population between 2003 and 2012, a figure likely elevated by 11 mostly gang-related murders in 2009.
"Abbotsford was a very rural farming community, so this was shocking," McConnell said of the Lower Mainland city that spawned the Red Scorpions, once led by the notorious Bacon brothers. "Police created a gang unit, which was a big deal for a small town."
Ninety-nine per cent of people riding motorcycles and
the clubs they belong to are law-abiding, according to an oft-cited quote by
the American Motorcyclist Association. The Gate Keepers dispute RCMP claims
they are involved in criminal activity. (Phonse Jessome/CBC)
In 2013, Vancouver recorded the most gang-related homicides, with 18
slayings. Stats Can ranked Montreal next with 16 victims, and there were 14 in
Toronto, four in Winnipeg and three in Edmonton.Outlaw motorcycle clubs such as the Hells Angels run official clubhouses across Canada. Police say Hells Angels-linked "puppet clubs" such as the Gate Keepers have tried to stake their claim over Nova Scotia.
Detective Sergeant Len Isnor, who leads the Ontario Provincial Police's biker enforcement unit, says around 450 Hells Angels operate in Canada, and about one-third call Ontario home. Quebec and B.C. boast about 100 members each, he said, with "rapid expansion" in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where oil and potash money means disposable income for drugs.
"The Hells dominate nearly every province in the country," says Isnor, who has studied the cross-country movements of the Hells Angels for 20 years.
But a potential rivalry could be brewing.
"The Atlantic belongs to the Bacchus. They're big there," he says.
A frame grab from a YouTube video posted by the
Manitoba-based Native Syndicate gang shows a man bearing "Native
Syndicate" tattoos on his forearms. (YouTube)
Isnor warned that Ontario's
Red Devils, once the oldest club in Canada, have "patched
over" as of November to become Bacchus riders, extending the
Maritimes-based club's reach."It's a big game-changer that gives the Bacchus a foothold in Ontario — something the Hells had not expected," Isnor said.
Regional rivals
Most gangs will not match the level of infamy achieved by the Hells Angels, but they nevertheless inspire fear regionally."In B.C., you had the Red Scorpions, the Surrey Six, the Punjabi gangs that were infamous, involving Bal Buttar, the UN gang," says Pearce, who interviewed ex-gang members, community workers and police across the country for Gangs in Canada.
"Then you get to Calgary, and it's Asian gangs like the FOB, their rivals the FK, and in Winnipeg you have, by and large, aboriginal youth gangs."
A 2014 Winnipeg Police Service report described the city as Canada's "aboriginal street gang capital," with an estimated 1,400-1,500 active gang members in groups like the Mad Cowz and the Native Syndicate.
Elsewhere, the face of some mid-level gangs is changing. Many B.C. gangs are now multiethnic, putting aside race for profits.
T.J. Wiebe was murdered in Winnipeg in 2003 after
getting involved in illegal drugs. Neither T.J. nor his four killers were gang
involved, but his father, Floyd Wiebe, has since become a speaker on drug
awareness and anti-gang strategies. (Courtesy Floyd Wiebe)
"It's a mix of people — white, brown, black, Asian — all working
together in co-operative gangs. They'll do business with anybody,"
says filmmaker Mani Amar, who interviewed Vancouver South Asian gangsters
such as Bal Buttar, who had admitted to a string of gangland hits, for his 2009
documentary A Warrior's Religion.The UN Gang, a reference to its racial inclusiveness, serves as a prime example.
What sounds like a progressive turn, however, shouldn't belie the destruction gangs wreak on communities, Amar said. Particularly when drug profits lead to violence.
- Statistics Canada: Gang-related homicides, 2013
- Public Safety Canada: Youth gangs in Canada: What do we know?
Wiebe now mentors people trying to exit gang life, championing outreach programs rather than incarceration so at-risk youth can consider alternatives to easy money and deadly crime.
"Nothing stops a bullet like a job," he says, quoting L.A. activist-preacher Gregoy Boyle's anti-gang philosophy.
"No kid wakes up at 13 years old and says, ‘I'm going to be a gang member today,'" Wiebe says. "They might do terrible things, but at the end of the day, they've found themselves there and, often, they don't even know how the hell they got there."
-----------------------
Report offers rare peek into Canadian gang life and high-risk youth Add to ...
CALGARY — The Globe and Mail
Last updated Tuesday, Sep. 16, 2014 9:52AM EDT He has walked alone through some of the most unsafe neighbourhoods in Calgary in hopes he’d be stopped by gang bangers wanting to know what he was doing on their turf.
That’s when the unassuming Hieu Ngo would go to work. He would tell them his story, how he went from being a Vietnamese refugee tempted by street life to a University of Calgary associate professor whose research on gangs and their behaviour has produced a pivotal study entitled The Unravelling of Identities and Belonging: Criminal Gang Involvement of Youth from Immigrant Families.
It’s a unique report driven by Prof. Ngo’s life experiences. He conducted interviews with more than 30 gangsters or former gangsters; some of whom were born abroad, others who were first-generation Canadians. Prof. Ngo chose this demographic as his subject matter because their numbers are increasing nationally and because not enough research has been done on what pulls these youth into gangs.
“It’s about the unravelling of who they are,” Prof. Ngo said. “In extreme cases, young people I talked to had people chasing them with a baseball bat. And for a 12-year-old who just came from a refugee camp, had traumatic experiences in Burundi where people were being killed, then comes to Canada thinking we have a safe place and he gets chased by other teenagers because he’s a black kid? That takes away their sense of identity and a chance to be a Canadian.”
The youth in that story ended up joining a gang for safety. Prof. Ngo’s approach is based on preventative action. He wants immigrant youth to stay clear of gangs and to choose other options. He arrived in Calgary at the age of 18 after being sponsored by a local church. He attended high school, learned to skate and cleaned downtown office buildings to make money. It not only helped him assimilate to Canadian culture, it kept him off the streets where his vulnerability and stature – he’s five-foot-six, 125 pounds – would have attracted gang recruiters.
With that in mind, Prof. Ngo’s study of immigrant youth outlined “the pathways towards criminal gang involvement” and what could be done to “support high-risk and gang-involved youth.” Thirty-two representatives from social service, education, health, justice and Citizen Immigration Canada took part in the process. The federal government was impressed enough by the information to ask Prof. Ngo to expand his research so it can be used in other cities. The request came with a $5.3-million grant to cover a five-year investigation.
Alberta, with its diverse population and booming economy, has had its share of gang violence. Statistics from the Canadian Centre for Justice show that in 1999, Quebec had the most gang-related homicides in the country with 30; Alberta had four. In 2000, Quebec again topped the list with 38 deaths, while Alberta had five. But by 2008, Alberta was No. 1 with 35 deaths. (That number has since come down.)
Calgary was the battleground for the intense and bloody feud between FOB (originally known as Fresh Off the Boat, now stands for Forever Our Brothers) and FK (FOB Killers). The two sides, which both had Asian and Caucasian members, were part of the same gang until 2002 when the FK faction broke off and began fighting for control of the drug scene.
Police have estimated that in the past 12 years at least 25 people have been killed in gang skirmishes. To understand what they were up against, law officials decided not to prosecute FOB member Hans Eastgaard for three murders and two attempted murders in exchange for information on how gangs operated and who was leading them. Armed with that knowledge, police arrested FOB boss Nick Chan and stepped up their anti-gang measures.
“You’re trying to put best practices in place,” said Calgary Constable Sean Lynn, who pointed to the various programs police have established, from the Guns and Gangs unit to call-in emergency phone lines to GRIP – Gang-Related Intervention and Prevention.
“Some of those kids are struggling with poverty,” Constable Lynn added. “They come from families with a single parent or both [parents] are hard-working. So these young men are scooped up by their peers. There will never be a complete stop to it. But if we lessen the effects then we’re doing something.”
Some critics say whatever police are doing isn’t enough. The national crime rate continues to fall; Statistics Canada reported in July that the Crime Severity Index dropped by 9 per cent in 2013, making it the tenth year in a row that crime numbers have decreased. (The index combines the number of crimes and their severity as a rating tool.) Gang-related violence, however, is still on the rise.
“The serious gang problem exists because of the drug laws,” said Ehor Boyanowsky, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University. He believes the decriminalization of marijuana would take a bite out of the gangs’ primary business, drug trafficking.
“The smart kids have taken advantage of the opportunity. Most of them have turned to the drug trade,” Prof. Boyanowsky said. “They know there are risks, but the rewards for the undereducated, underprivileged and just plain lazy are too tempting. … Gang members call it The Life – it’s cars, guns and girls.”
Prof. Ngo’s interviews with current and former gang members revealed some wretched upbringings. One told how his older sister was attacked by their dad, who stuck a live wire into his daughter’s eye to electrocute her. The father followed that by beating his wife, breaking her nose and cheekbone. The five-year-old future gangster, who had watched his dad’s carnage, responded the next day by killing a kitten.
Then there was the story of a teenager who was not in a gang at that time, but was a high-risk to join one. Prof. Ngo tried to teach him the value of hard work. One day it sunk in and he phoned Prof. Ngo to say how much he appreciated all his work. Weeks later in Vancouver, the 17-year-old was shot and killed while sitting in a parked car.
“He had said to me, ‘The program is over and I don’t want it to be over.’ And I said, ‘It doesn’t have to be over officially,’” Prof. Ngo recalled. “I still think about him.”
The Ngo study lists a series of recommendations on how best to prevent kids from joining a gang. It’s a multipronged pitch that includes families, schools and communities and asks each to provide positive social programs, opportunities and role models for support. There are similar guidelines for those who leave gangs and return to normal life. Exiting can put a former gang member and his family in harm’s way.
Criminology professor Boyanowsky has studied gangs and their tactics and isn’t sure the Ngo report will be effective.
“The leaders don’t want to get out; the majority don’t want to leave,” Prof. Boyanowsky said. “Where else can they make $200 an hour?”
Undaunted, Prof. Ngo is preparing for his expanded look at immigrant youth across the country. He understands he can’t save them all, but one, two or however many would be enough to keep him going back to those rough-edged neighbourhoods to tell his story, to offer hope.
Follow on Twitter: @AllanMaki
---------------------------
Indo-Canadian gang member killed in rising trend of violence
world
Updated: Feb 25, 2017 09:39 IST
The
murder of a 23-year-old Indo-Canadian this week in the town of Abbotsford, a
suburb of Vancouver, is the latest violent incident marking what has been
described as the Townline Hill “conflict”, a result of an ongoing confrontation
between rival Indo-Canadian gangs.
The
killing of Satkar Singh Sidhu on Monday is the fifth homicide that is
“connected to the conflict in Abbotsford” since 2014, according to a
spokesperson for the city’s police department, Constable Ian MacDonald. He also
attributed nearly 50 “major incidents” to the “ongoing conflict,” that involves
youth of the area. The conflict was linked originally to the Townline Hill
neighbourhood of the city, but appears to have spread across a larger area and
even spilled over into Edmonton, in the neighbouring province of Alberta, where
two young men, Navdeep Sidhu and Harman Mangat, were shot dead last month.
These
aren’t exactly turf battles as many of those involved in the gangs “live on the
same streets” but the violence is over controlling “drug lines and obviously
profit,” Constable MacDonald explained. As much as 95% of the gang members are
of South Asian origin, and mainly Indo-Canadian.
Police
first became aware of the violence when “low level” fights erupted between
youth that involved knives, bats and clubs. By 2014, those evolved into a more
dangerous form as “they started to bring guns to the fights,” MacDonald said.
“We’ve
seen escalation of violence. It’s unbelievably tragic,” Staff Sergeant Lindsey
Houghton, spokesperson for the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit –
British Columbia or CFSEU-BC, said.
The
genesis of the conflict lay in teenagers getting into fights over “petty”
matters such as someone looking at another’s girlfriend the wrong way or the
perception of being verbally disrespected, he said. Over time, it grew into
organised criminal activity involving drug trafficking.
The
latest casualty, Satkar Sidhu, is believed to have been “targeted” and the
crime is being investigated by the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team or
IHIT.
Late last
year, Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich sent a letter to parents of some young
men identified as gang members, in which he noted, “If he stays involved in
gangs, he is at serious risk of being killed. As a member of one of these
gangs, your son’s actions are causing other people to die. In addition, if
you have other younger sons in your house, experience has shown us that they
are at risk of being pulled into gangs by their older brother.”
Constable
MacDonald said the Abbotsford Police Department was taking “three different
tacks” to tackling the conflict. The first is enforcement, along with the
CFSEU–BC, which also includes deployment of plainclothes officers. Local
authorities have also installed 13 surveillance cameras in the locality, a move
that has been “overwhelmingly endorsed” by the community. Finally, is the
outreach programme of connecting with the youth and their parents.
Indo-Canadian
gang violence has been a feature of Vancouver and its suburbs since the 1990s
and this phenomenon formed the basis for Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta’s
2015 film, Beeba Boys.
-----------------------
North Preston's Finest gang funnels girls to Ontario for prostitution: police
Gang recruits in Maritimes and operates in Toronto area
Police in Ontario say the gang known as North Preston's Finest is actively recruiting girls and women from the Maritimes, forcing them into a life of prostitution in cities across Canada.The notorious gang, with roots in the small Nova Scotia community of North Preston, northeast of Halifax, was first identified by police in Toronto in the early 1990s.
Det. Thai Truong of York Regional Police, north of Toronto, said it's common to run into pimps who say they're from North Preston or have ties to North Preston, and women who've been moved from the Maritimes to regions around Toronto.
"We're seeing a lot of girls, and we have seen a lot of victims that are from the East Coast and the pimps that are controlling them are from the East Coast," Truong said.
The women are recruited in the Maritimes and then quickly moved, he said.
Police say the North Preston's Finest gang continues to
recruit girls from the Maritimes for prostitution in the Toronto area. (CBC)
"Once the girls are recruited, the Scotian or the pimp is generally, or
typically, not going to be pimping her out from where she's from," Truong
said."He's going to be taking her out of her own jurisdiction, out of her comfort zone, where her family is, her friends are. Any social supports she may have. He's going to move her west and essentially they find their way... a lot of the time in Ontario and" the Greater Toronto Area, he said.
The detective said that makes it especially difficult for police in Nova Scotia and other Maritime provinces to address the problem.
"Their hands are sort of tied," he said, because while the women and girls are recruited in the Maritimes, they are being moved and the offences are compounding in other jurisdictions.
Gina, whose real name CBC News agreed to withhold for her safety, said she was lured into prostitution by a member of North Preston's Finest when she was 15 years old.
She was living on the streets of Toronto when, she said, a man from North Preston offered her a better life.
"He painted me a picture of what I can have, like freedom of money and financial freedom and I would have everything I needed and wanted," she said. "And it all sounded really good to me because that's why I came to Toronto, because I wanted to succeed in doing something."
'First they treat you nice'
For the next six years, Gina said, she was frequently beaten and forced to sell her body for sex."First, they treat you nice and everything, but then it happens with just a slap in the face," she said.
"A simple slap in the face, to using objects, to dragging you and degrading you and saying 'get naked, you stink.' Mental abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, lots of different types of abuses happen, but it starts small and it escalates."
She said she was just one in what she calls a "stable" of women.
Gina (not her real name) says she was recruited by a
member of North Preston's Finest and lured into a life of prostitution. 'First,
they treat you nice,' she says of the gang, before it degrades into repeated
abuse and assault. (CBC)
"It was normal. I even brought women home myself. If he couldn't
get them, I would bring them home or get their numbers, either way. Yeah, I was
totally involved in him bringing women home."Gina said she eventually managed to leave her pimp, but only after paying a $15,000 "leaving fee."
Truong said police don't know for sure how many people are involved with North Preston's Finest. He said it's one of a number of groups trafficking women in the Toronto area and across the country.
He said prostitution is a lucrative business and pimps can make more money from trafficking women than selling cocaine or guns.
----------------------
Q&A
Understanding the North Preston's Finest gang linked in deaths of Calgary girl, her mother
Gang has been active in drugs, prostitution since the 1990s
--------------------------------
West Island
street gangs--
-------------------
Canada's gang hotspots — are you in one?
Abbotsford-Mission in B.C.'s Fraser Valley was deadliest gang city in Canada in recent years
---------------------------
Honour killer.... says he was too young..... 3 sisters and
step mother murdered by him and his father and mother.... IN CANADA...
Supreme Court of Canada to announce if it will hear Shafia appeal
Hamed Shafia has asked the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal, arguing new evidence showing he was a youth at the time of the deaths should not have been dismissed.
Shafia and his parents were found guilty in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his teenage sisters and his father's first wife in a polygamous marriage.
The four bodies were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., in June 2009.
Shafia previously filed an appeal with the Court of Appeal for Ontario, alleging new evidence showed he was too young to be tried as an adult and should have been tried separately.
The appeal court found no reason to allow Shafia's new evidence, which it said was not compelling.
In his application for leave to appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada, Shafia's lawyers argue the appeal court was wrong and had not applied what is known as the Palmer test for admitting fresh evidence.
-------------------
Thursday, April 13, 2017 - 10:02am | The Canadian Press
CRANBROOK, B.C. — A single trial will be held for two men
from Bountiful, B.C., who are charged with polygamy. The lawyer for Winston
Blackmore, who is accused of having two dozen wives, asked the court to hold
separate trials for the men in...
-------------------------
Former Mountie sentenced to 15 years for torturing his son ...
www.ctvnews.ca/canada/former-mountie-sentenced-in-… · 22 hours ago
... years behind bars for torturing and
starving his young son in the basement of the family's home. A
former RCMP counter-terrorism officer has been …
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