Every day in B.C. there are children that go home from school to houses in which the air is a toxic soup of chemicals and moulds. They go to bed at night with hugely increased risks of fires or of the door being kicked in by gangs coming to rip off their parents.

I’m talking about kids who live in grow ops. There are, incredibly, lots of times when we see grow ops taken down in British Columbia where there are children taken into custody, apprehended, because their parents have engaged in that activity with the kids living in the home.

For the most part, grow ops and the proliferation of grow ops have a connection to organized crime. Organized crime means guns, it means violence, it means fire danger, it means homes that are booby-trapped, and it means grow rips, which are when gangs try to rip off another gang for the cash and drugs that they have in their grow operation. These endanger innocent people and children every day in British Columbia, and every day we read about more and more violence coming from this kind of operation.

The other thing is that we all know people in neighbourhoods throughout our constituencies…. In fact, in our own neighbourhoods we know there has been a big proliferation of grow ops. We all know where there are some grow ops.

It doesn’t take much to walk around some streets. You can smell them, and you can see the windows are all boarded over. You get a pretty good idea…. If you’re living near one, and there’s very little activity except when it’s time to harvest, you know what’s going on.

When you phone the police, the police have so many grow ops on their list to track down that it’s very difficult. Frankly, the laws make it very difficult for police to move on these without having built a great body of evidence in order to get a search warrant.

But there is danger in these for others. Our fire departments are put at risk and our homes are put at risk if one of them catches on fire. For that reason, we created an act in 2006, the Safety Standards Amendment Act, which gave the ability for B.C. Hydro, who track hydro use for everyone…. They always do, and they know exactly where there is spiked electrical use all over British Columbia.

They have now got the ability to give that information to municipalities for use by the fire department to track down whether or not there is fire danger in these homes through illegal wiring. That has resulted in a tremendous number of grow ops being taken down.

I want to particularly mention Surrey where fire chief Len Garis, who has been a leader in this throughout British Columbia, has built teams of inspectors that go out wherever there is increased hydro usage in a home to inspect and to ensure that there is not some danger created from illegal wiring or at least to determine the cause of the increased hydro usage.

In Surrey about 80 percent of the homes that are inspected were grow ops. I think that’s a remarkable statistic and a remarkable success. What’s happening in Surrey is it’s driving grow ops from Surrey, as hundreds have been taken down. They’re driving them to municipalities that don’t have an inspection system like Surrey does.

In 2003 there were 14 fires in Surrey caused from grow ops, from illegal wiring in grow ops. By 2007 that figure had dropped to four fires. From 14 to four — I think that’s a remarkable success. I think we should be applauding that success. Abbotsford has very progressively followed suit and has put together inspection teams. They’re doing the same thing. Coquitlam is doing the same thing.

We all read in the paper in the last couple of weeks that there were a couple of families that were inspected. I know they took offence because they did not have grow ops. In one case it was a family who had rebuilt their swimming pool and hooked it up again, and it was heated by electricity.

You know, I kind of look at it as no harm, no foul. The inspection took place, and I know feelings may have been hurt by the inference that there could have been a grow op. But an 80 percent success rate in taking down grow ops through this inspection process or ensuring that the electrical use is not endangering anyone through improper wiring is, I think, a laudable thing that frankly overrides, in my view, the personal concern or the personal rights, actually — just as we override people’s rights to not incriminate themselves by forcing them to blow in a breathalyser when requested. This is a similar thing where personal rights should be set to the side for the betterment of all of us and for public safety reasons.

As we move forward, other cities are beginning to look at this process. As they look at the process, some of them are adopting it, and some of them are very concerned and not moving ahead because they’re afraid they could get sued or whatever. Those cities will become inundated with grow ops as the aggressive communities begin to move on high electrical usage and begin to shut down grow ops.

Those grow ops will find a place to go. Organized crime is there for money. That’s why every time you see on television that a big grow op has been taken down, you usually see a big cache of guns and also a big stack of money, because that’s what this is about. It’s all about money.

Your safety, my safety, your children’s and my children’s safety really don’t matter to these folks. In a case where there are children present, clearly their own children’s safety doesn’t seem to matter.

I’m looking forward to the response from the next speaker, and I would be happy to yield and listen to that.

-Randy speaking to the Legislative Assembly on Monday, May 12th.

Watch this clip at Hansard!