Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on the need for a national sex offender registry.
I would like members to think back to March 13, 2001. On that day all members that were present in the House, including our Liberal colleagues, voted in favour of a motion proposed by my Canadian Alliance colleague from Langley--Abbotsford.
I was somewhat skeptical of the government's motive at the time. After all, back then government members stood up in this Chamber to say that they valued the lives of women and children above everything else. They highlighted the need for a sex offender registry. They ignored a mass of information regarding the ineffectiveness of CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, in identifying and tracking dangerous sex offenders in the community.
Instead the government chose to turn the sex offender issue into a political football. The government voted for it because it would not have been politically smart to vote against it. It chose to put politics above the public interest, even in such an important area. It chose to lecture Canadians about why they did not need to have a national sex offender registry today.
During the last federal election in my constituency of Surrey Central, I recall the three time defeated Liberal candidate, whom I will not name because it is not about him, it is about the issue, advocating that if elected he would create a national sex offender registry.
Does anyone know how? He said he would introduce a private member's bill. That Liberal candidate had already been told, probably before the election, that a new Liberal government would not create a national sex offender registry. That is why he resorted to a private member's bill.
The Prime Minister admitted that parents have the right to be concerned and he virtually confessed to the Liberal candidate in Surrey Central, who was defeated by the way, that he could not stop him from trying to create a registry through a private member's bill. That shows that the government lacks the political will to implement the national sex offender registry that was passed in the House in March of last year.
The Canadian Police Association declared that CPIC, which the government touts very much, was not up to the task of tracking dangerous sex offenders. When the government said that CPIC was as good as a national sex offender registry, it forgot that provincial governments and victims rights groups joined the CPA in saying that CPIC fell far short of what was needed to keep Canadians particularly those who are most vulnerable, our children safe from sexual predators.
The government must be ignorant of the fact that time is the key ingredient in saving the lives of children abducted by sexual predators or pedophiles. Of the victims who are murdered by these criminals, 91% are killed within 24 hours of their abduction. Some of the figures indicate that over 44% of children are killed within just the first hour. That is astonishing.
Another astonishing fact is that 75% of the offenders historically live within a few kilometres of the area where the crime is committed. Therefore, it is vitally important to have an effective tool that helps to quickly identify all sexual offenders living within a geographical region.
By not including vital information such as addresses and a requirement that changes of address be reported, CPIC is not conclusive. It is not comprehensive. It is not time sensitive since law enforcement officials will be forced to begin investigations of such disappearances from scratch instead of assembling short lists of suspects residing in the particular area where the crime is committed.
Even with $2 million in upgrades which would allow CPIC to include information regarding the addresses of criminals, provincial governments from coast to coast, from Charlottetown to Victoria, have expressed serious doubts about whether the national police database is up to the job of tracking dangerous sex offenders.
The weak and arrogant federal Liberals have shown a total unwillingness to work with the provinces in many areas including health care, education, regulatory reform and now the national sex offender registry. In each of these areas they have shown a confrontational approach rather than a co-operative approach and a total lack of neglect to co-operate with the provinces and municipalities, in this case setting a national example for provinces and municipalities of co-ordination of their efforts in standardization.
The government is part of the problem, not part of the solution. For example, the federal government still allows sex offenders to apply for a pardon after five years. This would effectively remove them from any provincial or federal sex offenders database. It does this in spite of the fact that 50% of sex offenders, more than half, are known to be at high risk of reoffending even 10 to 30 years after their initial conviction.
Another way the feds are working against the provinces is that they do not make offenders register with the provincial database. When a provincial jurisdiction requests federal authorities to pass on notice of criminals who are released from prison which they have to register, they are reluctant to do that as in the case of Ontario, for instance.
Not only do the feds put Canadian children at risk by not taking action on a national sex offenders database. Their inaction undermines the efforts of jurisdictions that work to solve the problems created by these lazy lousy Liberals.
Ontario's response is typical of public disgust with the foot dragging tactics of the lazy federal Liberals. It is disappointed. It has gone ahead and implemented its own sex offender registry called Christopher's law, named after a young boy who was murdered by a pedophile out on conditional parole.
Alberta began its work after five year old Jessica Koopman was murdered. A 14 year old Heather Thomas of Cloverdale in Surrey was murdered.
I did not have any intention of naming these children in the House, but they are our children. They lived in our communities. They had family members. How many more children must be killed before the federal government will take any action on the national sex offender registry? The Liberals are weak and arrogant and have not taken any action on this matter since the motion was passed a year ago.
Ontario's registry is much more comprehensive than CPIC since it includes 17 different characteristics used to identify convicted sex offenders compared to only 4 characteristics identified in CPIC. Personal attributes like the person's build and a recent photograph are important to keeping tabs on dangerous criminals but CPIC does not track these.
I would like to highlight the fact that even with planned upgrades CPIC in no way is a substitute for a national sex offender registry. It will not help solve the problem.
On behalf of Canada's most vulnerable citizens, our children, I ask the government and the solicitor general to reconsider their position on the sex offender registry and to honour the commitment they made to Canadians on March 13, 2001, when they voted unanimously to support the Canadian Alliance motion to create a national sex offender registry.