Justice officials from western Canada met in Calgary Saturday to talk about gangs. It's the first time ministers from western provinces have met to identify priorities to combat organized crime and gang violence.
Alberta Justice Minister, Alison Redford, says gangs recognize no borders, so provinces need to work together to ensure safety in the community.
"We need to cooperate, we need to have a western Canadian approach to ensure that we're sharing information, that police are cooperating, that prosecutors are cooperating so that we can respond to what's happening in our communities as soon as it happens."
Redford says they've agreed on a number of priorities to take to the federal government to work towards making changes to Canada's criminal code.
"Once the person has demonstrated one time that they're not prepared to respect a court order, the second time they go in for breaching those conditions, there shouldn't be an assumption that they're going to respect the court order the second time and there should be a reverse onus and the presumption should be that they will be held without bail."
British Columbia Attorney General, Wally Oppal, wants police to be able to authorize wire taps on phone lines.
"We want the police to have the right to wire tap people immediately and to get authorization from judges immediately after the commission of the crime. Our wire tap laws were written in 1974, and there have been no real changes since that time."
Ministers say when they see gang violence in one province it doesn't take long before it's happening closer to home. Saskatchewan Justice Minister, Don Morgan, says he's looking west to predict what is going to happen in his province.
"If there's a problem in B.C. with armored cars and people wearing bulletproof vests, we suspect it's going to happen in six months in Regina or Saskatoon where I'm from, so we want to preempt. We know that criminals are organized, we want to be better organized."
Manitoba Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Dave Chomiak, says the ministers have committed to continue sharing information and strategies surrounding organized crime to combat the growing problem.
"It's better for all of us to organize our activities, our resource, to deal with their organized resources."
Justice officials will meet again in June to look at cooperation between police, crown prosecutors and court systems. They'll also discuss ways of sharing intelligence and information gathering.
Western Canadian Justice ministers met Saturday to press for changes to the criminal code in regards to organised crime and crime violence.

Said Alberta's Justice Minister, Alison Redford, "We need to cooperate, we need to have a western Canadian approach to ensure that we're sharing information, that police are cooperating, that prosecutors are cooperating so that we can respond to what's happening in our communities as soon as it happens". 

One proposal was a western Canadian database to identify known gang members from one province to authorities in another province. The database could also have the potential to inform authorities at correctional facilities if an inmate was being visited by a gang member. The Saskatchewan government plans to hire analysts to study gang member networking.

The ministers also discussed the existing legislation that was in place regulating how police obtain authority to place wiretaps on phone lines. "We want the police to have the right to wiretap people immediately and get authorization from judges immediately after the commission of the crime," said British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal.

Another priority was to change the Criminal Code law with regard to bail laws. Redford says that, "Once the person has demonstrated one time that they're not prepared to respect a court order, the second time they go in for breaching those conditions, there shouldn't be an assumption that they're going to respect the court order the second time and there should be a reverse onus and the presumption should be that they will be held without bail." 

The idea of a separate gang facility to hold accused gang members was abandoned. "We'd be looking at targeting the hardened adult gang members, the leaders of the gangs who have been in and out of prison for a number of years and who can use a remand centre to go recruit. They could in fact use that as a business networking opportunity ''per se'', which is something we don't want to encourage." said Darryl Hickie, Saskatchewan's minister of corrections, public safety and policing.