The RCMP is partnering with real estate agents and mortgage brokers as part of its national strategy to combat marijuana grow operations.

To complement its National Anti-Drug Strategy, the RCMP is collaborating with the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals, along with the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

CREA says its role is to "help raise awareness of the health and safety concerns associated with marijuana grow operations (MGOs) and to provide expertise on their impact on the real estate industry." Some local real estate organizations will provide spokespeople for media interviews that will help consumers indentify former and current properties with grow-ops.

"MGOs harm communities. Wherever they exist, there's the potential for an increase in criminal activity and a greater chance of fire, explosions and violence," says RCMP assistant commissioner Mike Cabana. "This initiative is part of the RCMP's renewed commitment and priority to combat marijuana production controlled by organized crime groups."

CREA president Gary Morse says that grow-ops have become a major concern for homebuyers and Realtors. He says the organization believes "that buyers should be able to determine whether a house for sale has housed a grow-op in the past. The structural integrity and inhabitability of such houses may be compromised and prospective buyers need to know that costly remediation may be needed to correct health and safety issues."

As part of the RCMP's initiative, a new page on its website will act as a central database of residences where a grow-op or drug lab has been dismantled by the RCMP. The site will be updated consistently and properties will be listed for a year.

However, much of the country operates under municipal and provincial police forces and grow-ops handled by those forces are not currently on the list. The website provides links to similar sites for Winnipeg, Ottawa and London, Ont.

The Ontario Real Estate Association is calling for the province to create a central registry like the RCMP site. It was raised as an issue in the last election but so far the government has not launched a registry.

Not all real estate people are happy that their national association has forged a partnership with the RCMP. Laurie Scott, a sales rep in Bedford, N.S., started a Facebook page called Real Estate Agents Are Not Drug Educators.

One sales rep commented on the site, "We are not equipped for this and CREA with this partnering has put all their members in peril and potentially unsafe situations. All of the grow-ops I have discovered in two provinces and 15 years of real estate (are) tenanted properties, very rural and secluded. Now the grower and cooker knows the real estate agent coming over to list the property….is 'partnered' with the RCMP."

But in a story in the Chronicle Herald newspaper, Rob Faulkner, president of the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors, says most agents would be happy to work with the authorities to help educate the public on the issue, and that it's incumbent on any citizen to report suspicious or potentially illegal activity to police.

This isn't the first time that real estate professionals have partnered with the police. In 1994, Pamela Cameron, 16, went missing in White Rock, B.C. Her father Paul Cameron phoned his Realtor and asked him if all real estate agents could be paged to be on the lookout for his daughter. Sadly, Pamela's body was found the next day – she had been murdered.

Cameron's idea was the basis for the Realty Watch system that is now operated by the RCMP throughout the lower mainland of B.C. Originally launched by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB), it also includes Realtors in Greater Vancouver and Chilliwack. When the RCMP has an emergency situation, it can send a text fan-out to Realtors.

In May 2009, the RCMP issued a press release asking for the public's help locating a 91-year-old woman who was suffering from dementia and missing from her care home in White Rock. The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board was asked for a fan-out and all 3,000 members of the board were sent a description of the missing woman.

Dan Korness, a Realtor with Royal LePage Northstar Realty in Surrey, was showing a house and was outside with his clients when he saw a woman on the sidewalk stumble and fall. Everyone rushed to help her and although she seemed to be fine, an ambulance was called. An hour later, Korness received the text message.

"I just put two and two together," Korness said in a news release from the FVREB. "So I called the police telling them that I thought the missing senior they were looking for might be at the Peach Arch Hospital…." It was indeed the missing woman.

A similar story developed in the Niagara Falls area of Ontario, where an elderly couple was located after they got lost while driving around in their car. After an alert, they were spotted by a Realtor and police were called.

By law, Realtors are also required to report any suspicious financial transactions to The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, a government agency that was "created to collect, analyze and, when appropriate, disclose financial intelligence on suspected money laundering and terrorist financing activities tied to money laundering."

Published: October 11, 2011

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Jim Adair is editor of REM: Canada's Real Estate Magazine, a business publication for real estate agents and brokers. He has been writing about Canadian real estate, home building and renovation issues for more than 30 years. You can contact Jim at .