Life imitates art

On March 24, 2009 there was a cross-border drug bust much like what I describe in Gauntlet. This was a good example of a coordinated effort between the police in Washington and the Canadian RCMP in BC.  The problem? Large amounts of highly potent BC marijuana were being sent across the border to Washington and Idaho, with cocaine, ecstasy, and American guns coming back into British Columbia.  The smugglers used small, low flying helicopters and transporting the goods in the middle of the night, when cameras and the eyes of border guards have more trouble seeing such things. To be honest, it’s a mystery that the smugglers weren’t killed while flying in such a dangerous manner.

To be honest again, it’s a wonder that these men were caught at all. There’s far too much smuggling going on across that border, with no one the wiser. The cooperation between American and Canadian police was absolutely perfect on this case. But it’s the outcome of the bust that’s most interesting; the various police agencies involved decided to bust the operation in the state of Washington, rather than at its point of origin in BC. There are many very good reasons for this. In Washington, these criminals will get a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in a Federal Penitentiary. Their actual sentences will probably (hopefully) be even longer. In British Columbia on the other hand, for reasons that still escape me, the individuals involved would probably receive three or four years, with parole eligibility after1/3 of their sentence had been served. This for people who were bringing guns and lethal drugs into our beautiful province, and providing them to our children. This for the people who are at the base of our growing crime levels, for the people who are selling the guns that kill people every day on the streets of Vancouver. This for the people who are helping to create a society that I quail at sending my children into. It’s a legal system that confuses most of the citizens in BC, who are continually calling for tougher sentences for criminals, starting from the bottom up.

Although I’m glad that this bust happened, I hope that it’s just the beginning. I have gone on record many times to say that the Canada/USA border is porous as Swiss cheese, and on its way to becoming every bit as problematic as the Mexico/USA border. The Canadian border is 4000 miles long, and only has 3000 border police monitoring it. It’s not nearly enough. The social problems that this creating in Canada, and in the city of Vancouver in particular, with guns, drive-by shootings, and gangland executions are disturbingly similar to the problems many people are starting to see in Mexico. Both the Canadian and American governments need to look at this bust, see how it was coordinated, and work hard to make sure it happens more and more often.

Read about it at the Vancouver Sun.