Public Safety Committee on April 17th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'll bring this meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting number 37. Today we are dealing with the order of reference of Wednesday, November 22, 2006, Bill C-279, an act to amend the DNA Identification Act, establishment of indexes.

We would like to welcome to this committee member of Parliament Mike Wallace. Mr. Wallace, are you prepared to give us a presentation?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, I'll give just a brief overview, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

After that, of course, we'll go to questions and comments. We look forward to it.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'd be happy to answer any questions and comments. You may want to call on staff to answer any questions too.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity. I want to thank the committee members for being here.

I'll try to be relatively quick, because I understand bells are going to happen, and we have votes.

There is a fair amount of history around Bill C-279 and the issue. I just want to take a couple of minutes, briefly, to talk about what we're trying to accomplish with these DNA indices.

First of all, let me thank everyone who's worked on this with me. The RCMP have been supportive, as have the Ontario Provincial Police. My own force in Halton have consulted with me. There have been a number of groups who have come to see me in support of it: victims' rights groups, a native women's group, and of course Ms. Judy Peterson, who many years ago started this process. She has a missing daughter—her first name is Lindsey—and she is looking for the Government of Canada to move forward on an index process that helps find missing persons in Canada.

There are about 7,000 missing persons in Canada at the present time. There are a number of different indices that already exist. There is the index that exists for DNA at crime scenes. One example I like to use is that until very recently you had to go to every morgue in the country to see if one of your loved ones was there. This bill is very important in helping bring closure to families who have had missing persons for a number of years.

On the good side, the OPP, for example, in Ontario, who are very supportive of this bill, have just introduced a process by which they're taking pictures of people in morgues and putting them on the Internet and then people may be able to identify them visually. But it would be much more efficient and much more effective—and they agree—if we used the information that now exists and the technology.

Canada has been a leader in DNA, and we have another bill in front of the House, a government bill on this particular topic on using DNA in criminal investigations. All I was looking for was support for using the same technology to be able to identify people who have been missing for many years.

There had been a number of issues, Mr. Chairman, and a number of them have been resolved. For example, there has been a discussion about the definition of a missing person. Is it six days? Is it six weeks? For my bill's purposes, we were hoping for a discussion today, and I was going to look for the committee to support that it be a year. The vast majority, 80%, of missing persons are found within a year. So it would be a smaller component that would fall under that definition, and that would narrow the scope of the missing person we're looking for and the scope of the work that the law enforcement groups would be doing.

But let's talk about the facts. First of all, I appreciate everyone who's spoken to this bill so far in the House. All parties have spoken to it of course, and I've had basic support in principle—that's why I'm here—from all parties. The Bloc had some issues with jurisdiction, which we were working on, but this concept has been around for a number of years, and the Honourable Ms. Barnes has pointed out to us that it's been kicking around while we have been trying to get the right mix.

The fact of the matter is that we need to work with our federal, provincial, and territorial partners. The minister has been bringing this forward at the FPT meetings over the last couple of years. There hasn't been a complete solution. I think we thought we would, by this time, have a complete solution on jurisdictional items and on a number of definitions. But the ministry has indicated to me that is not the case yet. It's not completely finalized, but they are continuing to work on it, because I think all of us agree that at the end of the day—I know it is a bit of a partisan place—atrying to help families resolve missing persons in their families and bringing closure to them is not a partisan issue.

I appreciate the party support that I've gotten from all sides of the House, and I do appreciate the work that the ministry has been doing on this. Unfortunately, that has not been completed yet, and the bill will likely—it's up to committee what they do with it—not be able to proceed at this point until that work is done.

Mr. Chairman, those are my opening remarks. We'll continue to work on this issue as long as I am honoured as being a member of Parliament.

I'm willing to answer any questions people may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

You of course have raised a very important issue, and I think, as you have said, you will have support from all sides of the House for this. We appreciate the fact that you have brought it forward, and I look forward to the discussion around here at this point.

Mr. MacKenzie, do you have a point of order?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

No, I'd just like to ask Mr. Wallace a couple of questions and make a comment along with it.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I have no problem. I know it's my time, but I have no problem with Mr. MacKenzie going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, if that's agreeable, we'll have Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Just to clarify for the committee—it's not so much an issue with the bill—I think you've indicated that the issues with provincial-federal-territorial jurisdictions have not been resolved—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

—and that these are still somewhere out there in time.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Right. When we first brought this forward, obviously I did my homework, investigating where we were with the ministry in their work with the FPT issue and their expectation that it would be done.

It has been on their agenda at every meeting they've had over the last nine months, and there was a spring meeting. We thought the issues would all have been resolved and we would have been able to bring any changes that were required to the bill, and I was open to changes here today.

That is not quite ready yet, so unfortunately I'm not able to provide you that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Maybe I could just get the clarification, either from Mr. Wallace or from Mr. MacKenzie, the parliamentary secretary. This bill, if enacted, would also—it's a royal prerogative—need money, and at this stage, as a private member's bill, unless Mr. MacKenzie can tell me that there has been money assigned to this bill—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Well, I can answer the question. It does need royal assent, and that was—

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Royal—?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

A royal recommendation; I'm sorry. That has not been forthcoming as yet, so that puts basically an end to it at this point.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Okay.

Perhaps I can just say a couple of words, then. I know all sides of the House are on side with the sentiment of this bill. There is a lot of agony for people with uncertainty about missing persons.

I have read the letter that was circulated by the chair's office through the clerk to all of us—from the Minister of Justice from Saskatchewan, I believe—in the last couple of weeks, saying the jurisdictional issues are of grave concern. And I know there are technical issues relating to the DNA.

Mr. Wallace, I want to be clear. What are you asking from this committee at this time?

Also, before you answer that, I would say that even though I respect your desire to have this put off to some time, and even though it's your private member's bill, Parliament sent it here.

First of all, I'll give you a chance to answer.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Sure. Thank you for that opportunity, and thank you for pointing this out to me in the House a few weeks ago. You pointed out correctly that being new, I thought there could be an extension provided. It was indicated to me that it's not likely going to happen.

So I don't know. I think if the bill is brought back to the House, it doesn't get read, because of the issue of the money that's required. So I'm leaving it to the committee whether they send it back without anything in it, or whether we don't do anything with it at all and it just dies. I'm not here with a recommendation as to what to do with it, because procedurally I don't want to presume what the committee may want to do with it.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Having listened to that, I would like personally to hear at least from the department officials on this bill. I know that we're being called to the House for votes very shortly, and I've had a discussion with the parliamentary secretary.

I think that because so many people in the House really wanted to see some movement on this file, we cannot just gut this bill without at least—I'm not saying you're not credible, Mr. Wallace—I know you are—but I'd like to hear from the officials the reasons why we can't proceed at this time, and at least have them in here.

I think we have about another week on this, so if we did that, then there may be some consent needed in the House by you as the mover of the bill, if in fact this bill is emptied after hearing from them. I'm not prepared to make that decision today.

I'm glad you're here telling us in person that you understand those ramifications and complexities. I think it's a complexity any government would face, so in the spirit of being very supportive of the intention of this bill, but recognizing that it's not just the federal jurisdiction and that there are technical problems, I don't want people to have to rely on my word. I'd like to hear it from the justice officials of the government.

That would be my recommendation: that we maybe bring in—We have a future business meeting, and maybe we can establish that we just have a meeting—it might not take all that long—with the justice officials, just because I know this is an important issue for many people across the land.

I'm not even apologizing for that. It is an important issue for many people.

[An hon. member]

I agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

How does the committee wish to proceed? It's almost like we're in a planning committee here. Where do we wish to move on this?

One of our options is not to recommend it back to the House and just leave it as is, or hear from the officials.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I wonder if Mr. Ménard or his colleague, or Mr. Comartin, have any comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Monsieur Ménard or Mr. Comartin, do you wish to hear from the officials as well, before we make a decision on this? Or how do you feel? I don't know if you've read the letter from Saskatchewan on jurisprudence.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Oh, yes.