The Globe and Mail - 21.10.2019

MONDAY,OCTOBER21,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O NEWS | A

Mr. Scheer issued a similar warn-
ing about the rise of the Bloc
while campaigning in Vancouver,
suggesting a vote for the Bloc is
nothing short of a vote for a refer-
endum on separation.
Mr. Scheer’s Conservatives
have used considerable energy
during their campaign to try to
woo voters in Quebec, but polling
data from Nanos Research sug-
gested the Tories still trail the Lib-
erals and the Bloc in the prov-
ince.
Mr. Trudeau is seeking a sec-
ond mandate after his party se-
cured a sweeping majority in the
2015 election–afeatmade pos-
sible, in large part, because the
party picked up 40 seats in Que-
bec last time.
“Canadians need to come to-
gether,” Mr. Trudeau said. “I am a
proud grandson of B.C., but I’m
also a son of Quebec, and we are
going to fight hard together to fo-
cus on the big fight that we all
have against climate change and
building a better future for every-
one.”
Speaking to reporters during a
campaign stop in Laval, Que., the
Bloc’s Mr. Blanchet accused Mr.
Trudeau of misleading voters re-
garding his party. He said separat-
ism wasn’t a priority for his party,
nor was a referendum on the
matter imminent.
“I told my own people yester-
day night that they have to under-
stand this is not our mandate this
time. I am absolutely certain that
Mr. Trudeau knows it and that he
is purposely lying to the Cana-
dians,” Mr. Blanchet told report-
ers.
Mr. Singh also targeted the
Bloc on Sunday, articulating the
differences between New Demo-
crats and the party whose rise
could threaten the political fate
of many of his Quebec MPs.
The NDP currently has 14 seats
in Quebec. “I say to Quebeckers:
If you want somebody who’s go-
ing to fight climate crisis, it can’t
be the Bloc, because they’re not
going to be able to work with the

rest of Canada,” he said.

Mr. Singh also raised the pros-

pect of an election outcome that

results in aminoritygovernment

and said Canadians shouldn’t be

afraid of this.

Mr. Singh said Liberals “do not

deserve a majority ... because

they’ve let you down,” and that

Conservatives are not the option,

either.

He pointed to British Colum-

bia, where an NDP minority gov-

ernment led by John Horgan has

functioned since 2017 with the

support of the Green Party.

“I want to be the prime minis-

ter of Canada because I believe

New Democrats will make life

better for Canadians. We’re going

to fight the climate crisis like we

want to win it, but Premier Hor-

gan pointed out that minorities

are a good thing – yes they are,”

Mr. Singh said.

Mr. Singh had a significantly

lighter campaign schedule than

his opponents on the final day of

the election campaign ahead of

the vote Monday. The NDP was

instead focusing on getting the

vote out, rather than holding

more events, party staff said.

Mr. Scheer’s campaign stops

Sunday included stumping for

the Conservative candidate in the

Vancouver Granville riding held

by former justice minister Jody

Wilson-Raybould, the central fig-

ure in the SNC-Lavalin affair that

played out this year.

Ejected from the Liberal cau-

cus, Ms. Wilson-Raybould is run-

ning as an Independent.

Mr. Scheer told reporters on

Sunday he has considerable re-

spect for Ms. Wilson-Raybould,

but he is still hoping to send as

many Conservative MPs to Parlia-

ment as possible.

Mr. Scheer reiterated his mess-

age in Vancouver on Sunday

warning against an election out-

come that leads to an NDP-Liber-

al coalition, which he said Cana-

dians cannot afford. He urged

Canadians to give his Conserva-

tive Party a majority mandate in-

stead.

Mr. Scheer also made it clear

the political battleground in B.C.

will be critical to achieving this

goal. “B.C. will make the differ-

ence this election campaign,”

Mr. Scheer said during a brief stop

at a campaign office of candidate

Gabrielle Loren in West Vancouv-

er-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky

Country.

In a tight race, the get-out-the-

vote effort will make a difference.

James Smith, spokesperson for

the NDP, said on election day vol-

unteers will drive supporters to

the polls if necessary.

He said volunteers will canvas

houses, asking supporters if

they’ve voted and offering rides

to polling stations with addition-

al support from volunteers mak-

ing calls to supporters. He said

volunteers will also text support-

ers reminding them to vote.

The NDP also has a “triple your

vote” initiative where people are

encouraged to bring three friends

to the polls, Mr. Smith said.

Liberal campaign spokeman

Cameron Ahmad said the party is

continuing its effort to make sure

voters know where to cast their

ballots. That effort includes going

door to door to talk with voters

and driving people with mobility

challenges and seniors to the

polling stations.

Mr. Trudeau stopped at a mix

of Liberal and NDP-held ridings

across the Lower Mainland and

Vancouver Island on Sunday, tar-

geting seats his party hopes to

gain or maintain. He spent the

day reiterating the Liberal pitch

to voters that Canadians need

to elect a progressive govern-

ment, not a progressive opposi-

tion.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth

May stumped in Vancouver on

Sunday, where she made an an-

nouncement about electoral re-

form before campaigning on Van-

couver Island and her own riding

of Saanich-Gulf Islands.

People’s Party of Canada Lead-

er Maxime Bernier wrapped up

his campaign in his Quebec rid-

ing of Beauce.

The daily tracking survey from

Nanos Research on Sunday had

the Conservatives at 32.5 per cent

and the Liberals at 31.7 per cent.

The New Democrats were at 20.

per cent, the Greens at 6 per cent,

the Bloc Québécois at 7.2 per cent

and the People’s Party at 1.5 per

cent.

The poll was sponsored by The

Globe and Mail and CTV, with a

total of 739 decided voters sur-

veyed on Oct. 20. It has a margin

of error of 3.6 percentage points,

19 times out of 20. Respondents

were asked: “If a federal election

were held today, could you please

rank your top two current local

voting preferences?” A report on

the results, questions and metho-

dology for this and all surveys can

be found at tgam.ca/election-

polls.

Withareportfrom

TheCanadianPress

Election:Insuchatightrace,get-out-the-voteeffortwillmakeadifference

BlocQuébécoisLeaderYves-FrançoisBlanchet,left,seeninLongueuil,Que.,onSaturday,saysseparatismisn’tapriorityforhispartyandthatthere

arenoplanstoholdareferendumontheissue.People’sPartyofCanadaLeaderMaximeBernier,seeninSainte-Marie,Que.,onSaturday,wrapped

uphiscampaigninhisridingofBeauceonSunday.LEFT:GRAHAMHUGHES/THECANADIANPRESS;RIGHT:JACQUESBOISSINOT/THECANADIANPRESS

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Mr. Tse was born in Guangzhou in
1963, but immigrated to Canada
in 1988, joining the exodus from
Hong Kong ahead of its handover
to Chinese control.
It’s not clear when he received
a Canadian passport, but Mr. Tse
allegedly built the foundations of
his drug trade by importing hero-
in from the Golden Triangle to
North America. He was a Toronto-
based member of a Canadian
gang called the Big Circle Boys,
said Jeremy Douglas, an Ontario
man who began his career as a
Queen’s Park asset analyst, but
has for much of the past 20 years
led UNODC in Southeast Asia. Mr.
Douglas has spent the past three
years tracking Sam Gor through
the work of police in Australia,
Myanmar, China and elsewhere.
His office provided assistance
to Myanmar airport officials
when they detained Cai Jeng Ze, a
member of Sam Gor. UNODC
analysts also estimated the un-
derworld consortium manufac-
tures 300 tonnes of meth a year,
or enough for roughly 10 billion
doses of a powerful drug whose
use is soaring across Asia.
In part, that is because of the
purported savvy of Mr. Tse, who
Mr. Douglas sees as a business in-
novator, marshalling sophisticat-
ed chemistry and logistical skills
to not just feed a market, but help
grow its size. “He’s disrupted a
massive business and made it
even bigger. He’s done to the drug
business what Uber has done to
the transport business, or Netflix
has done to movies. This guy has
looked at it, seen an opportunity,
and took it and revolutionized it.”
At least some of that savvy was
honed in Canada, it is alleged,
where Big Circle Boys was estab-
lished around 1987, soon drawing
police attention – and grudging
admiration.
In 1992, Toronto Police consta-
ble Shu Tong Tarn, in court testi-
mony, described the group’s ori-
gins in the 1960s with Red Guards
in mainland China who escaped
to Hong Kong and turned military
prowess to crime. Some then took
advantage of Canada’s refugee
program to arrive in Canadian ci-
ties, where they specialized in
armed robbery, credit-card coun-
terfeiting and heroin trafficking.
“A great many of them are, in
my opinion, criminally brilliant,”
Toronto police detective Kenneth
Yates said in testimony to the U.S.
Senate permanent subcommittee
on investigations. At the time, the
Big Circle Boys were so successful

that, between 1990 and 1992, the

price of heroin in Toronto fell by

more than 40 per cent.

In the mid-1990s, a Canadian

court sentenced Chun Wai Ng,

who had been head of the Big Cir-

cle Boys to more than 13 years in

prison. His conduct was described

in a subsequent National Parole

Board panel report: “You had ex-

tensive connections in both Chi-

na and Thailand with the drug

trade. Enormous profits resulted

from these activities and you told

the Board today that you sent

money to your brother in China

to buy a coal mine and a taxi.”

Years later, the Big Circle Boys

were accused of helping Chinese

smuggler Lai Changxing transfer

assets to Canada, where he

sought refugee status, but was, af-

ter a heated dispute between Ot-

tawa and Beijing, sent back to

China in 2011, where he is current-

ly in jail.

By 2003, the Big Circle Boys

were “primarily responsible for

much of the exportation of

Southeast Asian heroin that en-

ters the United States,” according

to a report published that year by

the Federal Research Division of

the Library of Congress.

Mr. Tse, who served nine years

in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking

before his release in 2006, re-

mains a member of the Big Circle

Boys and a Canadian citizen, ac-

cording to Mr. Douglas, with fam-

ily still in Canada and a passport

issued in Hong Kong that is valid

through next year. But he also al-

legedly formed Sam Gor around

2010 and, through that group,

transformed meth into a volume

business. The group collapsed

prices and built legions of new

customers, using the protection

of armed ethnic groups in north-

ern Myanmar to build production

facilities that produce what may

be “the best meth ever,” Mr. Dou-

glas said.

In doing so, Mr. Tse allegedly

has helped to speed the narcotics

world away from plant-based

drugs (opium production in

Myanmar, as one example, has

plunged 70 per cent since 1996)

and into laboratory-made chem-

ical products, whose use has

surged in Australia, Japan, South

Korea and throughout Southeast

Asia. Meth seizures across east

and Southeast Asia more than tri-

pled between 2013 and 2018.

Mr. Tse’s suspected reach and

power were documented in a re-

cent Reuters report, which de-

scribed his travel on private jets,

the phalanx of Thai kickboxers

that guard him and his gambling

habits, which included an esti-

mated $88-million loss in a single

night in a Macau casino.

One of Sam Gor’s key break-

throughs: a product delivery

guarantee that replaced, at no

cost to the buyer, any seized

drugs. It’s a policy made possible

by the immense profitability of

turning chemicals into narcotics.

The UNODC estimates Sam Gor’s

annual gross revenue at between

US$3.8-billion and US$17.7-bil-

lion. At the upper end, that is

roughly equivalent to the world-

wide revenue of BMO Financial

Group last year. Drugs believed to

be from Sam Gor were seized in

South Korea last year.

It’s possible they will end up in

Canada, too, Mr. Douglas said.

The Big Circle Boys have played a

role in trafficking fentanyl, he

said.

But Canada, with its evolving

approach to fighting drugs and

organized crime, may also offer

an example of how to battle the

vast and lucrative underworld

networks Mr. Tse appears to have

built, according to Mr. Douglas.

Apart from producing a stag-

gering quantity of illicit drugs, Mr.

Tse has also “effectively rendered

the old war-on-drugs model use-

less,” Mr. Douglas said, making it

virtually impossible to “police

your way out of it.”

Instead, he said, what Sam Gor

has done is shone a new light on

the need for drug prevention and

treatment programs in countries,

particularly in Asia, that have

tended to use only heavy-handed

means to combat narcotics, using

“militarized policing, which

doesn’t work.”

The group’s rapid rise has also

exposedgovernance issues, Mr.

Douglas said, in particular a lack

of co-ordination between coun-

tries and armsof government,

which has allowed drugs to be

manufactured in one country, ex-

ported to another and the pro-

ceeds laundered in a third.

He pointed to Canada as one

example of how to address the

problem.

“What [it has] been trying to

do is trying to integrate the Cana-

dian government response,” Mr.

Douglas said. To battle a new era

of sophisticated drug manufac-

turers and traffickers, he said,

those involved with policing need

to work alongside border and fi-

nancial-crime authorities.

What Canada is doing, he said,

“shows that an integrated ap-

proach is necessary. That’s exact-

ly the type of model we’re trying

to push in Asia.”

Kingpin:Underworldconsortiummanufactures

about300tonnesofmethayear,analystsestimate

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In all three systems, the Crown corporation would continue

to set prices and process orders.

The industry consultation is part of a revamp of the Onta-

rio Cannabis Store, the OCRC’s provincial cannabis wholesal-

er. It comes after the first year of legalized cannabis across

Canada left licensed producers and retailers struggling to gain

market share from black-market players that continue to

thrive with low-cost, high-demand cannabis offerings.

Last month, the provincialgovernment ordered the OCS to

re-examine its business model. Ontario is lagging other prov-

inces in the rollout of cannabis stores, largely because of the

province’s decision to award a limited number of licences via

lottery. As it stands, the OCS acts as a wholesale middleman,

purchasing cannabis from producers, warehousing it and

selling it on to retailers at a mark-up. A common complaint is

that it buys product retailers and their customers don’t want,

leaving cannabis to grow stale in a government warehouse.

“The OCS is exploring a range of models that could increase

private-sector participation in the storage and transportation

of recreational cannabis to retail stores,” OCS spokesman Daf-

fyd Roderick said in response to questions about the survey.

Direct delivery would allow producers to ship cannabis di-

rectly to bricks-and-mortar retail stores. In a flow-through

system, growers would still ship to a distribution hub, but pur-

chase orders would originate with individual retailers and

product would be warehoused for fewer than 24 hours before

being sent along to stores.

Both models would bring producers more in line with re-

tailer demand, while reducing the OCS’s warehousing respon-

sibilities. However, the OCS would still set prices, list available

products and manage purchase orders coming in from retail-

ers. It would also continue to manage cannabis e-commerce.

Saskatchewan is the only province where cannabis distri-

bution is fully in the hands of the private sector. Both Alberta

and British Columbia, where private stores are allowed, still

use government-run warehouses for wholesale distribution.

The new proposals are already generating debate among

producers, who have varying capacity to ship to individual

stores and process individual orders. Keith Merker, chief exec-

utive officer of mid-sized producer WeedMD Inc., said that the

direct delivery system would disproportionately favour the

largest producers who have resources to establish complex

logistics chains. “I think we would potentially end up in a sit-

uation where you’ve got a Beer Store-like model which some

people refer to as a foreign-owned monopoly,” said Mr. Merk-

er, who advocates keeping the status quo, at least in the short

term.

There are 24 licensed cannabis stores open in Ontario, but

the government is in the process of licensing 50 more, and

there could eventually be hundreds of shops across the prov-

ince. “It makes it a little bit difficult to plan when you’ve got

flow-through orders coming [from retailers] that you may or

may not be able to satisfy, versus long-term planning with the

OCS where they have more understanding of the [cannabis

growing] cycle,” Mr. Merker said.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Trevor Fencott, CEO of

retail chain Fire & Flower Inc., said the proposals do not go far

enough. Ontario should move to a wholly private model in

which producers and retailers set their own prices and deter-

mine product selection, he said.

“It will cost taxpayers no money, and I guarantee you we

will have better product selection, better prices and the con-

sumer is the one who wins, and the black market is the one

who loses,” he said.

He pointed to lower retail prices in Saskatchewan, where

Fire & Flower runs a distribution business alongside retail

stores. “We’ve never been short-shipped, we’ve always got the

product we want because we are experts in the field, and we

have not ordered product that doesn’t sell,” he said.

Distribution:Ontariolags

otherprovincesinrollout

ofcannabisstores

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