[BRIEF NOTE] On Canadian biker gangs

[rfmcdonald]

inuitmonster's comment on the previous post, on the resignation of Canada's foreign minister, reminded me that most non-Canadians aren't nearly as familiar with the history of Canada's biker gangs as Canadians. Perhaps biker gangs elsewhere in the world are relatively law-abiding. Biker gangs, as the CBC notes, rank among the most notable organized crime groups in Canada. I've no disputes with William Marsden's summary in mental_floss about the history of biker gangs in Canada and their involvement in organized crime in this country.

In the late 1970s, the Hells Angels were thriving in the States under the leadership of Sonny Barger, a founding member of the Angels’ original chapter in Fontana, Calif., and arguably the most famous Hells Angel in history. The group was reported to be deeply involved in drug smuggling, prostitution, and extortion, and Barger saw opportunity for the Angels in Montreal, where the local gangs were less organized and local authorities less prepared to resist the group’s presence. So, in 1977, Barger established the first Canadian chapter of the Hells Angels in Montreal. Almost immediately, they began muscling their way to supremacy, reorganizing the country’s homegrown biker gangs into well-disciplined bands of killers.

But dominating the biker scene wasn’t always easy. In many regions—specifically Québec—the Hells Angels had to fight turf wars with rival gangs such as the Outlaws and Bandidos. That’s when things started getting bloody, and that’s when Yves “Apache” Trudeau came into the picture. One of the original Canadian Hells Angels, Trudeau was a notorious drug addict and psychopath. In his quest for Angel dominance, Trudeau was rumored to single-handedly have killed 43 people and to have played a part in the murder of 40 others. By 1985, more than 100 people had died as a result of biker-gang violence.

After that, Trudeau became the face of les Hells, as the Angels were known in French Canada. But during the latter half of the 1980s, the group began turning on itself. Still under Trudeau’s leadership, various chapters of Angels started vying for power in certain areas and fighting to control the spoils of crime. In one instance, five Angels were murdered by members of a rival chapter, their bodies dumped in the St. Lawrence River. The killers had hoped to murder Trudeau as well, but he escaped. Seeking sanctuary, Trudeau did the unthinkable and turned to the police, instigating one of the biggest biker busts in Canadian history. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Trudeau sent 50 of his fellow Angels down the river.

In the aftermath of Trudeau’s arrest, only two of Québec’s five chapters remained. Police thought the Hells Angels were finished, but they were wrong. It was only a matter of time before a new leader emerged on the biker scene. This time, it was Maurice Boucher, better known as “Mom” (because he liked to make breakfast for his fellow Angels).

Boucher expanded the Hells Angels presence in Canada even further. Looking to smuggle huge drug shipments into North America, local chapters of the Angels infiltrated major ports in Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. By 2000, Boucher’s drug network in Montreal was purportedly trafficking more than $100 million a year in cocaine, hashish, and marijuana (that’s according to the gang’s own computer records, by the way). But with expansion came more territorial warfare … and more violence. Between 1994 and 2001, another 165 people died as a result of motorcycle-gang violence.

The violence continues: Two years ago eight bikers were massacred in rural Ontario.

How is Bernier connected to this decidedly unsavoury criminal movement? As the Chicago Tribune points out, Couillard certainly has some interesting connections.

On Monday, Couillard began her television interview by insisting that she was "definitely not a biker's chick." And she noted that she had never been accused of a crime. But once that was out of the way, she went on to confirm the essence of news reports connecting her to organized-crime figures.

Beginning in 1993, Couillard lived for three years with Gilles Giguere, a well-known crime figure connected to Maurice Boucher, the now-jailed leader of the Hells Angels in Quebec who is better known as Mom.

After police arrested Giguere for possessing submachine guns and a large quantity of marijuana, he became an informant. Giguere was killed in 1996; his body was discovered in a ditch.

In her interview with French-language television network TVA, Couillard claimed that she told Bernier early on about her past. This contradicts with Bernier's claim that he knew nothing about her past until relatively recently. Bernier was appointed to his ministerial position by the Conservative government in an effort to appeal to the Francophone electorate in Québec. Québec is also the Canadian province where the biker wars were most intense. Perhaps, just perhaps, the expansion of the scandal to include the loss of confidential documents was silently welcomed by a Conservative government that didn't want to lose its tentative foothold in la belle province.