Three strikes and you're out -- getting tough on anti-corporate crime

David Frum
National Post

No wonder criminal gangs and international terrorists are using Canada as a launching pad for their misdeeds in the United States. Our organized crime laws are so soft and gang-friendly that we've become a law-enforcement laughing-stock.

We need to send a strong message to the coddled criminal workers and fat-cat crime bosses that Canada is no longer open for their evil-doing business. An obvious place to start is a "three strikes and you're out" law that would specifically target criminal gangs preying on innocent and law-abiding corporate citizens. This sinister new class of organized economic criminals is threatening Canada's well-being because formerly raggle-taggle petty wage-thieves are starting to form larger and more aggressive extortionist bands. We need to closely monitor these dangerous thugs to ensure their brazen conspiracy doesn't threaten our corporate health and happiness.

These hoodlums' favourite and nastiest extortion racket is known in outlaw circles as "the strike" hundreds of menacing goons surround the factory or office of an unsuspecting company owner. The vicious hoods force all work to cease until "the mark" gives in to their demands for cash and benefits. Tragically, many well-meaning business leaders give in to the swindlers' ruinous demands, which only emboldens the cutthroats to commit even greater frauds.

Other anti-corporate crimes of these bloodsucking fiends include:

• Intimidating and interfering with managers just trying to do their job of downsizing;
• Violent kidnapping of executive compensation authority;
• Rutheless hijacking of quarterly dividends and stock option values; and
• Traitorously defying the divine right of corporate rule.

To disguise the nefarious nature of their crimes, these economic hooligans cloak their ugly conspiracies with legitimate-sounding names such as "association," "federation" or "union." Many other countries including Indonesia, South Korea, China, Guatemala and Vietnam have already taken serious steps to curb this type of working blackmail syndicate and Canada needs to join in this important international effort.

In order to battle these powerful mobs, we need a new RICO-type (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations) law to shut down these felonious associations and their deceitful fronts. After three "strikes" (or similar acts of economic terrorism), the front organization or "union" would automatically be outlawed. Mere membership in that group would then become a serious crime making it more difficult for the criminals to launder their illicit activities.

We must act quickly to stop our slippery descent into economic anarchy and labour barbarism. Above all, strong leadership is needed to preserve this country's corporate rule of profit.