Gang violence is spreading out from the Vancouver region into the B.C. Interior, including smaller towns such as Fort St. John, one of the province's top cops said Thursday.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Al Macintyre, who is in charge of B.C. criminal operations, warned the House of Commons justice committee that the number of homicides this year could reach record levels if the current trend continues.

There were 138 murders in the province last year. Macintyre told the committee, which held hearings in Vancouver, at the heart of an area that's been described as Canada's "gang capital," and where a gang war has seen dozens of shootings.

'Their structures are flexible, their skills diverse and sophisticated, while their knowledge about how to defeat the criminal laws is escalating.'— Al Macintyre, B.C. RCMP Assistant Commissioner

Of the 138 murders across the province last year, Macintyre said 55 were tied to organized crime or gangs. There have been 34 killings so far this year up to March 27, with 13 of the victims having confirmed organized-crime ties, he said.

There have been 21 confirmed shooting deaths in the Vancouver area since mid-January, though not all have been conclusively tied to gangs.

Macintyre was among a squad of senior officers from the Vancouver area who told the justice committee that police and prosecutors need the legal cuffs removed to help suppress the province's burgeoning organized-crime influence.

Among other things, police want it to be easier to obtain and amend wiretap warrants and relief from onerous pre-trial evidence disclosure requirements they say take up resources better used to fight crime.

The committee is getting feedback on the Conservative government's anti-gang and anti-drug legislation, which would toughen sentences for gang-related violence and impose mandatory minimum sentences for some drug crimes.

Macintyre and his colleagues gave the committee a picture of police facing increasingly sophisticated gangsters, backed by crooked accountants who help them hide their money and lawyers who keep them out of jail.

"Their structures are flexible, their skills diverse and sophisticated, while their knowledge about how to defeat the criminal laws is escalating," he said.

Macintyre defended police efforts to combat organized crime after a prominent criminologist told the committee organized crime has been allowed to grow for the last 10 years, largely uninterrupted.

B.C. needs regional police force: criminologist

Rob Gordon, director of the criminology department at Simon Fraser University, said a succession of police organized-crime agencies have been set up, knocked down and revamped since the late 1990s.

The strategy over the last decade boils down to "periodic forays to target particular groups, often resulting in successful but temporary disruptions to the industry," said Gordon.

While these operations create a media splash, he said, they also drive up the street prices of drugs, meaning higher profits to suppliers, and higher levels of property crime as addicts steal to support their habits.

Gordon said the current array of police organized crime groups work too much in isolation.

He called on the B.C. government to push ahead with setting up a regional police force for the Vancouver area, which would put organized-crime investigation under a single command.

But Macintyre rejected the idea, saying municipalities like the current setup of RCMP and municipal forces, which adds up to a regional policing model.

"We've heard from the communities that we police, from the mayors of Burnaby and Langley and Surrey to name just a few, that the model of policing where they police locally but do the expensive, the complicated stuff on a regional basis is the model for them," he said.

Gordon said the B.C. government should override local objections.

"We're the last large metropolitan area in Canada not to be policed by a single police service," he said.