Area Gang Activities

This is becoming a problem in the capital city of Canada, just as it is in other cities in the country. Not as egregious, not yet, as say, in Winnipeg, with its 4.32 gang members per 1000 residents, or Saskatoon with 3.86, Regina with 2.57 and Toronto with 1.23. Ottawa's gang numbers statistics come in at a relatively modest 0.53 per 1000 residents. That's one-half a gang member per one thousand residents. Far too many, in actual fact.

In Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina, the informed observer, with no malice intended, understands that the large numbers represent for the most part dysfunctional, underprivileged members of the country's aboriginal communities. First Nations youths who cannot seem to fit in anywhere in a society that offers symbolic acceptance, but is involved with the native communities in a syndrome of cause-and-effect.

This disaffected and dysfunctional demographic presents as a huge failure to become absorbed as part of a modern social contract. Absorbed, as in integrated? Totally rejected. Native history, traditions and culture reject absorption into the white man's society. But for a relative brave few who set out to prove that they can do anything they wish to accomplish, and succeed well at it, in any of the elite professions.

Unfortunately there are so many disadvantages heaped upon maladaptions experienced by Canada's native communities, starting from their determined resolve to live as their ancestors did, in isolated communities where there are too few modern, well-equipped facilities, an absence of employment opportunities; where boredom reigns supreme, sending children into the embrace of self-destructive devices, emulating their parents.

Ah, but Toronto is different. In Toronto the street gang members can be readily identified as emanating from among immigrant communities who have been ghettoized by poverty and their own cultural proclivities. So that young, unschooled, unemployed men finding easy profit in the drug trade prowl the assisted housing complexes, brutalizing and frightening the residents, and waging internecine war with complementary street gangs.

And then we come to Ottawa, the nation's capital. Where, to a good degree, the situation pertaining in Toronto is reflected in the gang experience here. Where research has indicated that in the identified problem areas where gangs roam - predatorily involved in profit-driven prostitution and crack cocaine - they reflect another immigrant experience: Youth in those communities lack normal societal benchmarks of attainment.

Lagging in physical health, social competence, communications skills, general knowledge and emotional maturity. Even though in other communities, also reflecting a lag in their children's maturation process and social-educational attainment, no such problems exist. In the problem areas, children between the ages of 6 to 12 are most vulnerably exposed to anti-social, high-risk behaviour to which they invariably respond, hardening into gang members.

These are not innocent gangs of young people looking for amusement, entertainment, things to do to while away the time. These are gangs who intimidate those among whom they live, and they are well armed. In six months' time, the Ottawa Police took possession of 108 handguns. There are violent weekly fights in those areas, and firearms are regularly discharged, presenting as real risks to not only gang members but innocent bystanders.

If, as seems the case, some immigrant communities do not value education for their children, do not come from a tradition and a culture that encourages self-respect and respect for others, along with respect for the law, nor do they feel it incumbent upon themselves as parents and elders to steer their children toward acceptance of the prevailing social mores, they have obviously demonstrated their unsuitability for citizenship in the country.

Better screening, in other words, by immigration authorities, is obviously required, to weed out those members of cultures that do not promote self-enablement, self-pride, respect for law and order, and responsibility toward offspring and society at large. That may indeed be a huge part of the reason for the problems that erupt in Canada's cities, reflected in the experience also of other democracies in North America and Europe, with a hugely migrating world population.

That reflection, however, does nothing valuable to teach us how to deal with the problems that surface so glaringly as a result of lack of due diligence in failing to determine the social suitability of would-be emigrants. How to infuse the culture, traditions, values and allied social imperatives into the mind-set and value-system of those finding it difficult to fit into Canadian society, and in fact, rejecting social mores and responsibilities?

There lies the rub.