THE NEW LAW OF CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA

Abstract

The Criminal Code of Canada contains three offences in respect of an individual’s involvement with a “criminal organization.” The model of criminal liability created in the Code is considered at large, and with specific reference to the American RICO laws and the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). While the Criminal Code provisions aim to further an internationally coordinated criminal law policy to target organized crime and trans-national criminality in new ways, the content of these new offences is problematic. This is particularly so in respect to the lowest-tier offence of simple “participation in a criminal organization.”