Premier David Eby said he will make the case for Canada to adopt anti-racketeering laws similar to those in the United States when he meets with other premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney next week.
Eby is set to attend a Council of the Federation (COF) meeting from July 21–23 on Prince Edward Island, before Canada’s premiers meet with Carney.
He said in Vancouver on Friday he would bring several issues to the table, including wildfire supports, health care, softwood lumber, and public safety.
Eby said the U.S.’s organized crime laws, known as the RICO Act, make it much easier for authorities there to target and investigate extortion and other crimes.
The law, enacted in 1970, can be used to target anyone connected to a criminal organization, including people who invest in the group, even if they didn’t personally commit crimes.
Police departments across the country have seen rising reports in recent years of mostly South Asian individuals and businesses being contacted with demands for money and threatened with violence if they refuse to pay. The Lower Mainland has been a focus of the issue in B.C.
Eby pointed to major law enforcement actions earlier this month targeting alleged India-linked organized crime groups in an investigation known as Operation Hard Ball.
The FBI and the RCMP targeted a total of 37 defendants, including three who were arrested in B.C. Some were allegedly involved in the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey.
“I want to recognize that the investigation work by the FBI was made much easier in that country because they have an organized crime law called RICO that assists them in bringing in people that are facilitating a criminal conspiracy but may not themselves be doing anything illegal,” said Eby.
“We’ve really stretched our authority at the provincial level to the extent of what we think we can do around organized crime,” he said.
Eby said he will push for a Canadian version of RICO laws to give police more tools to target people facilitating criminal enterprises.
He recognized that any expansion of police authority brings civil liberties concerns, saying it’s a “delicate balance.”
“When you talk about people’s rights, you have to talk about the right to live in a community where someone doesn’t send you a text threatening you and your family and then shoots at your house, and police don’t have the full capacity of tools to go after those individuals,” said Eby.
Civil liberties groups in the U.S. have long raised concerns that the RICO Act can be misused to target political activists.
