Mr. Speaker, I want to express my sincere thanks to the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie for his excellent speech. He has covered many of the key points on the bill. I do not think it would serve the House for me to repeat them at any great length. He has articulated the purpose of the bill very well.
I will just touch on a couple of the points that have brought us to the decision the House will make today on Bill C-69. These points have to do with the human interest part of the bill. It speaks well to the process we have and that it can still work.
The hon. member articulated the purpose of the bill. It is to allow access to pardons. If a person, who has committed sexual offences, particularly against children, applies for a position of caring for children, there would be an opportunity for organizations to get access to the pardon records.
Bill C-69 is a bill for which, not surprisingly, there is broad support in the House. It relates very specifically to a bill that I brought forward to the House, Bill C-284, which effectively did the same thing and which passed second reading in the House.
We have the information in the CPIC system today of those who have been pardoned for sexual offences, as the hon. member mentioned. The bill will now allow those pardon records to be flagged so that those who want access to that information in order to assess someone who is applying for a job of caring for children can now have access even past the pardon.
It is a good bill. It is very consistent with Bill C-284, which I brought forward.
My bill, Bill C-284, passed second reading in the House. At about the time that we were in the justice committee looking at Bill C-284 the government brought Bill C-69 forward. Bill C-69 effectively did the same thing as my bill. It was broader in some areas and included more types of sex offences, which was good. However, it was not as strong in our estimation in some other areas.
Collectively, we worked together to bring both bills to that committee at the same time so that committee members could examine the different aspects of both bills and come up with a stronger option at the end of the day.
There are some things I would like to see in Bill C-69 that are not there, but the majority of issues I was concerned about have been addressed.
How did we get here? I think there is a human interest story the House should be aware of. Six years ago a lady in Vancouver named Gertie Pool started a petition to allow for greater access to information to protect children from sexual predators which quickly received 25,000 names and was brought forward to the House.
The Reform Party member for Fraser Valley put forward a private member's bill in the 35th parliament that was basically on the same theme as Bill C-69 and Bill C-284. That bill was never drawn or deemed votable but it was in the House.
In the 36th parliament, I took the member's bill, modified it slightly and put it back into the mix. Interestingly enough, my private member's bill was drawn. I appeared before the committee to see if it would be deemed votable and we had some witness testimony that helped the decision. In the wisdom of the committee, they said, “Yes, let us bring this before the House and make it votable”.
We debated the bill in the House. Even though there were a number of members on the government side who thought maybe we did not need Bill C-284, it passed second reading and that got it to committee.
From a concerned citizen's petition we have a private member's bill that has passed second reading. The government was also somewhat concerned about the issue. It had been doing some studies in Correctional Service Canada and was working on Bill C-69.
This all came together in the justice committee. Once we were in committee we put forward some amendments to make it a more automatic disclosure so that there would be less discretion on whether or not the information would be disclosed to the hiring institution.
I give thanks to the many witnesses that came before the committee such as the police association and the chiefs of police association. Julian Fantino also came forward, as well as many victims groups. These witnesses brought home the tragedy of a sexual offence, particularly against children, being a life sentence to the victims, something they never fully get over.
Many groups from the YMCA, boys groups, boy scouts and all kinds of children's organizations signed on. They told us they were behind us in this regard and wanted us to get it through the House of Commons. Many of them sacrificed time and effort to support the bill. They are one of the reasons we are able to support an amended version of Bill C-69 which combines the strength of both bills.
I commend my colleague from Brossard—La Prairie. He has been instrumental in working with the committee, with the solicitor general and with me. He has been true to his word throughout the process. He has been a key factor in bringing it all together and implementing a very important bill, which I believe is one of the first bills of the new solicitor general.
This very important bill allows children's organizations and those concerned about the care of children to do a thorough check of the information. The information is in the CPIC system. The flagging which he detailed in his speech is all that is needed. We can now use the information we already have to do a more thorough check to protect our children.
I am glad we have been able to demonstrate in the House through the bill and through the process that we can bypass partisan issues. We are not entirely agreed on how exactly to do it, but substantively, for the most part, there is agreement. It is better that we get 80% rather than nothing. Both sides of the House saw that. At the end of the day we have proven that the process can work, that we can serve the needs of Canadians and that we can better protect children.
In addition to the good work the bill will do, for me and for many members of the committee one of the most rewarding aspects of the whole process is that with persistence, perseverance and an honest concern on the part of citizens, witnesses and members of the House we can put forward legislation that serves the people and better protects our children, the most vulnerable members of society.
We can actually implement laws which will enable us to do that. A very encouraging note for me as a two year member of the House is that there is a way for all of us to impact on the process if we really care about putting Canadians first and putting some of our partisan positions aside.
I thank the House and the member for the earnest and diligent effort that all have applied in this regard. I encourage the House to send the bill on today to the Senate and hopefully soon for royal assent so people have access to this new tool to better protect Canadian children.