Conservative party pledges to create gang list to speed up court cases
Posted October 1, 2015 2:46 pm.
Last Updated October 1, 2015 4:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Tories are pledging to create a formal list of criminal gangs if they stay in power after this month’s election.
The party believes if created, this list would make court cases involving gangsters more efficient.
The status quo means Crown prosecutors must convince a judge that a gang actually exists every time a person believed to be a member is in court.
Former Conservative MP Stockwell Day says intelligence agencies have already done a lot of the groundwork.
“CSIS has identified several hundred gang, criminal organizations,” says Day. “There’s about 24, at least two dozen, that are seriously implicated in inter-provincial crime, and a matter of fact, international crime.”
Day declined to go much deeper on the specifics on how the list would be created or what groups would be on it.
“I don’t want to pre-judge what the legislative committee is going to do,” says Day. “This will be something that will be done in parliament, it will be something that will be discussed, something that will be debated, and the list will be forthcoming.”
Day made the promise with Conservative candidate Dianne Watts in Surrey — which has been the site of much of the region’s gang violence this year.
