Jamaican-linked gang crime in Toronto

Bob MacDonald:

When is Canada finally going to mean business in cracking down on violent crime?

Last Thursday, after Toronto-area police led raids on the Bloods street crime gang, Deputy Police Chief Tony Warr declared it "another day for the good guys."

No less than 47 of the Jamaican-linked gang were arrested and more than 1,325 charges were laid.

The gang was the longtime rival of the Crips, another organized-crime street gang with Jamaican background.

So, what happens the day after the police and local politicians congratulate themselves for a successful investigation and massive raids?

Why, on Friday -- the very next day -- there were five shootings, with three of them fatal. Two men were killed and a third wounded in one shoot-up in the northwest section of the city. Earlier in the day, a man in his 20s was murdered in a school playground, just hours before young students arrived.

These latest murders put Toronto's total for the year at 58, with 40 of them involving guns. And only a handful of people have been charged in the murders. Witnesses, many from the same Jamaican background, apparently are terrified to testify, fearing revenge.

So, the world of police and political self-congratulations was swept away in blazes of gunfire and pools of blood. And it's still likely that some of the gang arrested will be on the loose again soon -- released on bail by our soft justice system.

So, what do we do in such a discouraging situation?

Well, you just can't keep sitting back and coming up with excuses. Such as Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty's chant about "American guns on Canadian streets," with the full backing of NDP socialist David Miller -- known to many as Mayor Useless. And there's Toronto rookie police Chief Bill Blair claiming that half the weapons used here by criminals are smuggled from the U.S.

However, on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins knocked those claims by noting that most of the guns coming from the U.S. are actually bought there by Canadians and smuggled back here. In other words, where are Canadian customs and other border-watching authorities?

The truth is that Canada continues to suffer from a longstanding policy of federal Liberal governments going back to 1965. That's when the Pearson-Trudeau government loosened the Immigration Act to make it much easier for previously unqualified foreigners to enter the country and stay on as new citizens. The criminal elements came right along with them. And the Liberals got most of their votes.

The Liberals also weakened the criminal justice system. They got rid of capital punishment, provided early parole, built prisons that are more like country homes and introduced a Young Offenders Act that made youth crime a sick joke.

Former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino pushed for a mandatory 10-year sentence for anyone using a gun to commit a crime. But he ended up being pushed out by Mayor Miller, who prefers the soft, social-worker approach in handling criminals.

Personally, I believe there should be a mandatory 10-year sentence, with no parole, for using a deadly weapon in committing a crime.

And we should have those convicted of violent crimes living in prison work camps in our vast far north country. They can help build their own barracks, cut timber, make their own meals, etc.

There would be no TV, videos, recreation lounges, weight rooms -- nor any access to drugs such as happens in today's Canadian prisons.

And you wouldn't even need walls because no one would want to try escaping across thousands of miles of frozen tundra and muskeg.

Canada would soon be known as a country with a tough justice system, no longer a comfortable home for killers and other thugs.

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