Bill C-23 (Historical)

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

An Act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Criminal Code

[Inky Mark, Canadian Alliance, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be involved in today's debate at report stage of Bill C-20, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding the protection of children and other vulnerable persons.

The reason I read the title of the bill is because we pass a lot of legislation in the House with great intent, but when it comes to the actual effectiveness of the legislation, it becomes very questionable.

I would like to congratulate my NDP colleague from Vancouver East for her success in having one of her amendments accepted. That in itself is a success because most times it is not easy to have amendments accepted in any legislation. I have been successful in the past with some amendments I have put forward on bills. The problem is that when amendments come to the House for debate and a vote, most times they end up being defeated.

The PC Party of Canada supports the amendment regarding the deletion of clause 7. Clause 7 probably took up half the time for public hearings on the debate over artistic merit and exactly what public good meant. Both sides of the argument were heard. There was no agreement as to how effective this clause would be if left in the bill. Even opponents were not sure of its affect and how it would relate in court. The artistic community felt it was unnecessary. Some individuals felt the clause was too broad. The PC Party does support the amendment in that it will delete clause 7 of the act.

We need to come back to the focus and intent of Bill C-20. The bill is about the protection of children in this country. A large majority of members in the House are parents themselves and have raised children. Perhaps many are grandparents. We all know that children are our most vulnerable and precious gifts. Whatever we can do to protect them from harm is laudable and that should be our prime focus.

Unfortunately, when we get into legislation, we tend to lose touch with its intent. We are so busy trying to make everybody happy that we lose focus of its intent, which is the protection of children and other vulnerable persons.

Canadians have great expectations of members in the House of Commons. On this very subject, Canadians want the House to remove all loophole wording in Bill C-20. The deletion of clause 7 is a good step.

Canadians want the age of consent for teens having sex with adults raised from 14 to 16. The greater public expects the House to add tough minimum mandatory sentences to all laws regarding adults having sex with underage teens or children.

Canadians have great expectations of members of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, we will probably fail them again like we did yesterday during debate on the sex offender registry, Bill C-23. The greatest shortcoming in that bill was the lack of retroactivity. In other words, what about all those convicted pedophiles of the last 10 years? We will not know where they are. We know that for repeat offenders the probability is quite large, especially for those who have been convicted of pedophilia.

Let me go back to clause 7. Under Bill C-20, the existing defence of child pornography, which is artistic merit, educational, scientific or medical purpose, is reduced to a single defence of public good. This leaves in the hands of judges the determination of what constitutes public good.

In fact, I am surprised and disappointed that the parliamentary secretary said this morning that the government will be opposed to this amendment. Furthermore, despite the minister's attempt to sell Bill C-20 on the basis that the artistic merit defence had been eliminated, he admitted recently in the justice committee that it is still included under the broader public good defence.

The PC Party calls for the elimination of all defences that justify the criminal possession of child pornography. Of course, the criminal possession of child pornography does not apply to those in the justice system for purposes associated with prosecution, or by researchers studying the effects of exposure to child pornography.

Another shortcoming I alluded to, was the age of consent. Bill C-20 fails to raise the age of consent for sexual contact between children and adults. Instead, the bill would create a category of exploitative relationships aimed at protecting people between the ages of 14 and 18. In determining whether a person is in a relationship with a young person that is exploitative of the young person, a judge must consider: the age difference between the accused and the young person, the evolution of the relationship, and the degree of control or influence by the person over the young person. This category is a vague provision that fails to create the certainty of protection that children require. It would not serve as a real deterrent and would simply result in longer trials and more litigation.

It was already against the law for a person in a position of trust or authority, or with whom a young person, someone between 14 and 18, was in a relationship of dependency to be sexually involved with that young person. It is unclear how adding people who are in a relationship with a young person that is exploitative of the young person would add legal protection for young people.

As well, Regina v. Sharpe carved out two exemptions to the child pornography law: material such as diaries or drawings created privately and kept by that person for personal use, and visual recordings of a person by that person engaged in lawful sexual activity, kept by the person for personal use. The latter exemption would have the potential to expose children aged 14 to 18 to further exploitation by child pornographers since they would be engaging in legal activity.

By the government's failure to prohibit all adult-child sex, children continue to be at an unacceptable risk. Only by raising the age of consent would children be truly protected under the Criminal Code. We are not advocating criminalizing teenagers. As with other jurisdictions with a more reasonable age of consent, such as the U.K., Australia and most U.S. states, a close-in-age exemption would apply to ensure that teenagers were not criminalized.

Another aspect where Canadians expect change is in the sentencing of those convicted. Bill C-20 would increase maximum sentences for child related offences. These offences include sexual offences, failing to provide the necessities of life, and abandoning a child. This is meaningless if the courts do not impose the sentences, and we know by experience that when maximum sentences are raised there is no corresponding pattern in the actual sentencing practices. What is needed are mandatory sentences, truth in sentencing by eliminating statutory release, and no conditional sentences for child predators.

It is high time that the House, in passing legislation, protects the intent of the legislation, in this case Bill C-20, in regard to our children and other vulnerable persons.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-23 on behalf of my federal NDP colleagues. I would like to mention the great work that my hon. colleague from Churchill, Manitoba has done on this. Also, the long serving member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has done yeoman's work on the proposed legislation. In fact his amendment will ensure that the registry will be reviewed in two years.

After the disaster of the gun registry, we want to ensure that this registry will work in the way it is intended.

I cannot see how anyone can object to this type of legislation when the essence of the bill is to protect children and protect the interests of their families.

Being a family man myself, with two young girls, I know the importance of doing everything we can to ensure that we, as legislators, invoke legislation that has stiff penalties and deterrents in place, but not only on a piece of paper. We have to ensure that our law enforcement officers have the resources, finances and manpower to do the job that we ask them to do.

The House may know that I have a private member's bill in the House of Commons dealing with child Internet pornography. This is a new medium that is luring unsuspecting children to various sites. In terms of Internet pornography, we need to do all that we can to ensure that the most dastardly of dastardly people, these pedophiles, are apprehended and put away so they cannot cause us any more concerns.

It is not just members of Parliament who support this proposed legislation. The great province and the Government of Manitoba, under Gary Doer, support it. In fact I am sure all provincial governments, including territorial representatives and probably aboriginal representatives as well would be very supportive of the bill.

We want the government have the teeth behind the law to ensure the registry does what it is supposed to do. It does no good for me to stand up in the House of Commons and say that these are the great things it will do and then have someone defeat it in a court of law or challenge it. We have to ensure that the law is ironclad. We have to ensure that all those people who have had various concerns with the bill have been heard. We also want to ensure that the bill does not end up on the dead list, as we say, through prorogation. We want to ensure that the Senate has the capability to deal with this and get it passed immediately.

I see the hon. House leader, a gentleman who I respect greatly, although we disagree on many things, nodding his head and telling me to get on with the speech, so I will.

I say quite clearly that we in the NDP support the bill. In two years we will be asking for a review of the legislation to ensure that it has done what it was intended to do, not like the gun registry, Bill C-68. We will not let the government forget that one.

However, we will ensure that this registry does what it is supposed to do, which is to protect children and their families from coast to coast to coast.

[Inky Mark, Canadian Alliance, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my comments regarding the very important bill on the sex offender registry. The Progressive Conservative Party supports Bill C-23, but not because it came from the Liberal government. Like many other bills, it seems that we have had to wait forever.

In 1996 President Clinton signed Megan's law which requires notification of sex offenders in neighbourhoods. Following his signature on that law, all 50 states had the authority to implement their own registration requirements for such offenders.

Those whose families or friends have experienced a tragedy of this nature understand why it is important that we keep track of convicted pedophiles. Everyone agrees that our children are very precious to us.

The provinces have been pushing for a registry for a long time. In 1995 my own province of Manitoba created the community notification advisory committee to review cases of convicted sex offenders thought to be at high risk to reoffend. That was eight years ago and it has taken all this time for the federal government to put together a bill dealing with the issue.

There is no doubt that the province of Ontario took the lead in this matter. It set up its own sex offender registry three years ago under a bill dubbed Christopher's law. The bill was named after 11 year old Christopher Stephenson who was murdered by a convicted pedophile who was out on parole.

Statistics show that a vast majority of sex offenders commit their crimes within a two kilometre radius of where they live or work. Many abducted children are killed within 24 hours of being abducted.

Members of Parliament have a duty to ensure that the most vulnerable in our society and their families are protected. That is the biggest concern that has been raised by provincial governments. They want the legislation that comes from the House of Commons to have some teeth.

One of the criticisms about this legislation is the lack of retroactivity. Gord Mackintosh, the minister of justice of my own province, said:

The provinces agree the proposed registry, which is now before Parliament, will be useless for 10 to 20 years because it will be restricted to people who are not sentenced until after the registry becomes law.

He has a point. Are people who have already been convicted not considered a risk to the safety, health and welfare of our children? They certainly are.

Some concerns have been raised by attorneys general from across the country. One concern is about limiting conditional sentences in which offenders serve time at home instead of in jail. They are worried about that. They are worried about who is going to monitor those individuals. Some of them may already be convicted pedophiles. Another concern is about imposing automatic first degree murder charges on suspected child killers. That should take place. Tightening the terms for people to be released on bail is another concern which we have heard many times over. Tougher penalties are also needed for those who kill peace officers. The last concern is about ending preliminary inquiries in court proceedings.

Bill C-23 is a step in the right direction. The Progressive Conservative Party supports the legislation.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak this afternoon on Bill C-23.

Before getting into the bill itself, I must congratulate my colleague, the hon. member for Châteauguay, for his excellent work throughout the entire study of Bill C-23. He is laid up at home today, but I want to tip my hat to him and thank him for defending this bill so vigorously on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois.

The Bloc Quebecois is in favour of this bill in principle, given our conviction that a sex offender registry is necessary. We feel it is important to facilitate police investigations into sex crimes, and this is the purpose of the registry.

Two years ago, I introduced a bill here in the House on sexual offences committed by pedophiles on children under the age of 14. At that time I was calling for changes to be made to the Criminal Code with respect to these offences. I introduced a bill again in February 2003 which called for the establishment of a national registry of sex offenders and amendments to the Criminal Code with respect to sex offences against children under the age of 14.

This bill responds in part to what mine was calling for, and I am very pleased to see that. I received a great deal of input from people in my riding whose children had been sexually abused by pedophiles. As well, I heard repeatedly from police officers calling for just such a registry.

We sometimes hear that opposition MPs cannot get any improvements put through on anything. Yet I see my bill has borne fruit, because here we are with Bill C-23.

We do wonder, however, whether this registry, as set out in this bill, is the best way to go about things. We are therefore committed to paying particular attention to the following points.

First, the data must be confidential so that they are sent to police services only for the purpose of investigating crimes of a sexual nature.

Second, we are disappointed by the fact that gravity of the offence and risk of recidivism were not retained as assessment criteria before making registration obligatory, as the Bloc Quebecois had suggested.

Also, we wonder about the cost assessment that was done with respect to implementing such a registry. We are going to monitor this carefully.

Finally, we are going to closely monitor the legal mechanisms used to guarantee the registration of offenders. We have many questions about this.

For the information of the listening public, I would like to say that this bill has 26 clauses. The primary objective of this bill is to help police services investigate crimes of a sexual nature. That is clause 2. This will be accomplished by the sex offender information registry.

According to clause 2 of the bill, the objective can only be attained by complying with certain principles. Information can only be collected for the purpose of investigating crimes of a sexual nature.

Three major principles must be respected and they are found in clauses 2( a ), 2( b ), and 2( c ). Information must be rapidly accessible and reliable, and its collection must strike a balance between the privacy interests of the sex offender and the public interest.

These principles must also take into account respect for the confidentiality of the information collected.

Under clause 2(2)( c )(i), the information may be collected only if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the crimes are of a sexual nature.

Clause 2(2)( c )(ii) restricts access to the registry, and the use and disclosure of information.

The government has decided to amend its own bill to replace “reasonable grounds to believe” with “reasonable grounds to suspect”.

We are categorically opposed to this change, which gives unlimited powers by substantially lightening the burden of proof.

Clauses 4 and 7 of this bill deal with the obligations of sex offenders. Clause 4(2) states that they shall report by themselves within 15 days. These are rules that sex offenders will have to comply with; it is very important to set them out because this will have to be part of the registration process.

Under clause 4(2)( a ), offenders have to report within 15 days after the order is made, if they are convicted of the offence but are not given a custodial sentence.

Under clause 4(2)( b ), offenders have to report within 15 days after they receive an absolute or conditional discharge, if they are found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder; under clause 4(2)( c ), after they are released from custody pending the determination of an appeal; and under clause 4(2)( d ), after they are released from custody.

Clause 4.1 provides for subsequent registration after a change in residence. That is normal practice. This way, if an offender moves to another part of Quebec or Canada, he or she can be located.

Officers have told me that, often, when there was a sex offender in a specific jurisdiction whom the police recognized, the offender moved out of their jurisdiction and they lost track of him because there was no registry.

The offender could then commit offences and not be located quickly. This clause will avoid that. It will also give the police faster tools to better protect the public and those who have been sexually assaulted, be they young people or adults. I think that clause 4(1) raises a very important point.

Clause 5 sets out the information to be provided by sex offenders: their given name and surname, date of birth and gender, address of residence and work, as well as telephone, cell phone or pager number.

The sex offender must also provide the person collecting information with a description of any identifying physical characteristics; if he has a mole somewhere, it must be recorded. He must disclose the facts. If he has a physical handicap, that too must be recorded. The more details that are provided, the more quickly the police will be able to arrest him if need be.

Clause 6 covers notice to the authorities if the sex offender leaves the area in which his main residence is located, and how that notice is to be given.

The duties of the person who collects and registers information are described in clauses 8 to 12 of Bill C-23.

The person will enter the sex offender's information into the database without delay, while ensuring confidentiality of the data.

That is very important. The offender has the right to obtain a copy of the information about him in the registry. This will all be quite transparent. That is only right because, after all, the offender is making disclosures, and one is normally entitled to a copy of the information one discloses.

Thus, he has the right to obtain a copy of the information about him in the registry free of charge, or to be sent a copy in the mail, in accordance with clause 12(1).

In addition, the person who receives information must make appropriate corrections. As I was saying, if the offender moves to a different area, region or province, he must inform the registry office to have the appropriate changes made.

I would have liked to provide our listeners with more information. However, I shall simply sum up the Bloc's position.

As I said at the beginning, the Bloc Quebecois is in favour of this bill in principle.

We are convinced of the importance of establishing a registry of sex offenders. Still, there are points we shall be watching very closely when this bill becomes law. I want to emphasize this, in order to ensure that this registry meets the need for which it was created.

Also, there are costs. We know what happened with the firearms registry. It was supposed to cost several million and now it is up to nearly a billion dollars.

The Bloc Quebecois will be watching the enforcement and cost very closely. In addition, the Bloc Quebecois wants to ensure that confidentiality is respected, and that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is respected.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House to take part in the debate on Bill C-23.

I am pleased to rise at third reading to speak in support of the government's Bill C-23. The bill would create a new act of Parliament, the sex offender information registration act, and would make important amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada.

Together, these provisions would bring into place a national sex offender registry for use by all our provincial and territorial partners. As many of my colleagues in the House will know, provincial premiers have unanimously called upon the federal government to assist them in creating a seamless registration system. A system that includes every jurisdiction would ensure a consistent approach across the country. This is so important.

The national sex offender registry that I am referring to would have three key separate components, the first one being the legislation that I speak about today. It properly should emanate from the Parliament of Canada so that the system will be a truly national system in scope and consistent from place to place across the country.

The second component is a national database that will be operated by the RCMP on behalf of all police agencies for their use.

The third component will be the administration and enforcement of the registration system by law enforcement agencies everywhere across Canada.

These elements combine to create an important new tool to assist police in the investigation of sexual offences committed by unknown persons. It would allow police to quickly consult the registry, to search its contents using established criteria and to develop possible suspects in the vicinity of the crime, or to eliminate potential suspects.

I say “quickly” quite purposefully because this is the essence of the system. Police have always recognized that when children are abducted, usually for a sexual purpose, and then murdered, that tragic ending usually happens within the first hours of the abduction.

Unfortunately, all is lost even when the crime is eventually solved, unless police can move quickly. The sex offender information registration act would allow our police to move rapidly to determine whether convicted sex offenders reside in the vicinity of the offence, to determine who they are, where they reside and to quickly decide if further investigation is warranted or if those individuals can be eliminated as suspects.

In brief, here is how the system would work. Following conviction and sentencing for one of the designated offences listed in the Criminal Code amendments, such as sexual assault, child pornography or sexual exploitation, the crown would be able apply to the court for a registration order. Registration would occur for sexual offences. For other offences where there is clearly a sexual component, registration would occur when the crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the act was committed with the intent to commit one of the designated sexual offences. The offender would have the right to appeal the order.

Once a court has ordered registration, notice would be provided to the offender requiring him or her to register in person at a designated registration centre with 15 days after the order is made or release from custody. The registration period would begin on the day the order was made and re-registration would be required once per year, as well as within 15 days of a change of name or residence. If the offender were absent from his home address for more than 15 continuous days, the registration centre would have to be notified.

Sex offenders would be required to remain registered for one of three periods. These periods would be geared to the maximum penalty available for the offence for which they were convicted: 10 years registration for summary conviction offences and offences with two and five year maximums; 20 years registration for offences carrying a 10 or 14 year maximum sentence; and finally, lifetime registration for offences with a maximum life sentence or when there is a prior conviction for a sex offence.

If the offender were to receive more than one registration order, the most recent order would determine the reporting date and would override previous orders. However the review period eligibility would be calculated from the date of the first order if it is still active.

Offenders would be required to provide local police and to keep current certain information, such as addresses, telephone numbers, date of birth, given name, surname, alias or aliases, and identifying marks and tattoos. And on subsequent occasions, when they attend at the registration centre, they would be obligated to update any of the information about themselves that is contained on the registry.

Under the proposed legislation, persons authorized to register information must collect only the information pertaining to the offence and resulting order. Information should be registered in the sex offender database without delay and treated confidentially. The sex offender would be able to request correction of information in the case of an error or omission.

Sex offender information would remain on the database indefinitely, except for final acquittal on appeal or free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy or the Criminal Code. In these cases, information is permanently removed.

The government is aware that this new police tool could be life saving but it is also an extreme intrusion into the lives of those who would be subject to the registration. Most will remain registered long after they have completed the sentence of the court and most, in fact 65% after 30 years, will not again be convicted of a similar offence. For those who are making a sincere effort to lead a law-abiding life, their efforts should not be cancelled out by the stigma of registration. Consequently, there is no provision in the legislation for public access to the registry.

Access to registry data, except by authorized persons for sanctioned purposes, would be prohibited and criminal penalties are provided for misuse of the data. Public protection, which is the central purpose of the registration scheme, would be provided by police through their strategic use of the information. In other jurisdictions, particularly to the south of us, public access has often led to misuse and misunderstanding that mistakenly alarms the public, sometimes even resulting in acts of vigilantism.

In those states south of the border that allow public access to sex offender registry information, more than 20 have been ordered by the courts to either cease operation or to introduce elaborate safeguards to prevent abuse. In a number of cases south of the border, boards or tribunals have been ordered established by the courts by which each case must be individually assessed to justify inclusion on the registry.

Here in Canada, we do things differently. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and when we put in place national schemes we attempt to ensure that those schemes are based on those rights and that those rights are protected.

We and our provincial and territorial partners unanimously agreed to avoid such disruption by providing a judicial process and procedural safeguards, and by strictly limiting those persons and the purposes for which access to registry information would be allowed under the legislation.

The safeguards that are provided in Bill C-23 have been carefully crafted in collaboration with our provincial and territorial governments. They provide for a fair and equitable system, while at the same time, an effective and efficient system. They will help prevent a successful court challenge that would reduce or eliminate the scheme due to its undue impact on the rights and liberties of these registrants without compromising the registry's effectiveness.

Persons whose convictions would normally lead to registration would have an opportunity to defend themselves against this presumption in court. Upon application by a crown attorney, the individual would be able to argue that placing his or her information on a registry would be “grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature”. Moreover, these same persons would be given further opportunities to make out this defence after 5, 10 or 20 years of registration have elapsed. They would also have the entitlement to apply for a termination order after receiving a pardon under the Criminal Records Act.

These safeguards would not only protect the rights of these persons against unreasonable inclusion in the registry, they would prevent the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from being used as a device to have the whole scheme set aside by the courts.

The important thing about this legislation is that it would set into place a national registration scheme that all the provincial and territorial governments agreed to in the fall of 2002. However there was not consensus as to those individuals who should be included on the sex offender registry. Therefore, at the time that the government originally tabled the bill in the House in December 2002, it would have only included those sex offenders who were convicted after royal assent and proclamation of the legislation.

However the federal government committed to continue to work with its provincial and territorial partners to determine if a consensus and a scheme could be built to bring retroactivity. In June the government announced that it had found consensus to include the Ontario sex offender registry information, which was partial retroactivity.

The government's commitment was such that it continued discussions with the provincial and territorial governments through their ministers, and happily, early this fall there was unanimous agreement to include any sex offenders who were still serving a sentence, whether in penitentiaries or prisons or in the larger community. If their warrants have not expired when this bill comes into force, they will be included. I am really pleased about that. I think many Canadians will be pleased with that and I think my colleague across the way are pleased with that.

I ask and I hope all my colleagues in the House will support Bill C-23, the sex offender information registration act, when votes are called.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will return to consideration of Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments, followed by Bill C-54. If we get through this, we will proceed to consideration of Bills C-19 and C-6, two bills on first nations. If we have time, we will also look at Bill C-51.

If that is a bit too ambitious, the first item for consideration tomorrow will be Bill C-6, the specific claims legislation. After oral question period, we will come back to Bill C-54, which we debated this morning, concerning fiscal arrangements. If there is time, this will be followed by Bill C-46, the market fraud bill, and Bills C-19, on first nations, and S-13, concerning the Statistics Act.

Next week, we will continue to consider bills that have not been completed, beginning on Monday with Bill C-46, on financial institutions. We will add to that list Bill C-23, the sexual offenders legislation.

By mid-week, we hope to be in a position to consider Bill C-52, the radio communications bill, and Bill C-20, the child protection legislation, as mentioned by the Minister of Justice during oral question period.

Committees of the House

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to its order of reference of Tuesday, April 8, 2003, your committee has considered Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, and agreed to report it with amendment.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to its order of reference of Wednesday, October 8, 2003, your committee has considered Bill C-46, an act to amend the Criminal Code (capital markets fraud and evidence-gathering), and has agreed to report it without amendment.

Supply

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to partake in this debate sponsored by the Canadian Alliance regarding the elimination of all defences for the possession of child pornography.

I am confident that members on all sides of the House and all parties would agree that there is probably nothing more important in their lives than their children or grandchildren. Therefore, the debate today is very important. It is urgent, given that the House, as rumoured, may recess fairly soon and motions such as this will no longer be able to be debated or discussed.

The period of time available to the House to pass necessary pieces of legislation such as Bill C-20 or Bill C-23, the national sex offender registry, is rapidly running out.

We have less than two weeks to ensure that important bills, bills aimed at protecting our children, are enacted before the business of this country is put on hold because we have one Prime Minister who is on his way out to make room for another Prime Minister who is on his way in. Basically, the House will recess early because of the turmoil and disarray in which the government finds itself in the middle of this shuffle.

Bill C-20 has yet to be reported on by the committee. It falls far short of the official opposition's expectations. It fails to adequately protect our children from sexual exploitation, abuse, neglect, and falling victim to child pornography or pornographers. In fact, it falls short of almost everyone's expectations, including those who are on the opposite side of the issue dealing with Bill C-20.

In a submission to the justice committee, the Canadian Bar Association stated that the wording was vague and could be challenged on constitutional grounds. The Canadian Bar Association suggested that Bill C-20 be sent back to the drawing board.

Bill C-20 deals with child pornography, voyeurism and exploitation. It deals with all those issues that we are debating here today.

Meanwhile, those of us on the other side of the issue are concerned about the justice minister's failure to eliminate all legal loopholes that wrongfully justify the criminal possession of child pornography.

Instead, the Minister of Justice has devised a catch-all defence. The Liberal minister has effectively combined a number of defences, including artistic merit in the broadly interpreted defence of public good. This was in direct response to the Supreme Court's consideration of public good in the decision of Regina v. Sharpe.

If Bill C-20 passes, anyone arrested for the possession of child pornography may use what the government considers a narrower defence: the defence within the public good. This replaces the defence of the possessing of child pornography for reasons of artistic merit, educational, scientific or medical reasons and the public good. It has taken that and shrunk it down, but in reality it has become much more broader.

In Regina v. Sharpe, the Supreme Court of Canada found that public good could be interpreted to be necessary or advantageous to the pursuit of science, literature, or art, or other objects of general interest. Here, the court was saying that there is a place for it in literature or in art.

Quite obviously, for all intents and purposes, the defence of public good can and will be interpreted to still include the defence of artistic merit. Therefore, nothing really changes in this bill. Nothing really changes from the current status, except that our courts now will become even further inundated with trials and cases.

These cases will only serve to add to the backlog that is currently clogging our courts, while defence lawyers argue about what does and what does not constitute public good or artistic merit or any of the above.

The Ontario Office for Victims of Crime pointed out the following in its brief to the justice committee only a couple of weeks ago:

Clearly, in order to prevent the expanded legality of possession of child porn, Parliament must craft precise legislation supported by an explicit description of its rationale for doing so in the preamble of the bill. The legislation should attempt to respond to all of the potential “defences” generated by the Supreme Court of Canada or Canadians can look forward to an ever-increasing legalization of child porn possession and use. As expert evidence accepted by the Supreme Court makes clear, that translates directly to increased threat to children.

Bill C-20 is coming forward. There are different groups. One group is in favour of maintaining artistic merit. Many groups, civil liberties and those types of groups, say that the bill would open the door and it is not what they want because it is vague.

We have those who deal specifically with victims who stand back and say that Bill C-20 would not help combat child pornography. The threat would increase and the use and the legalization of child porn would increase.

I implore the government to listen to the victims groups. I implore the government to do everything within its power to stop the proliferation of child pornography, especially as we have seen it unfold over the Internet.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I have been privy to the debates, presentations, opinions, testimonies and to the witnesses on both sides of the issue. Regrettably, I have also been privy to police files that contained literally thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of absolutely degrading and sickening pictures of child pornography.

Pictures were shown by Sergeant Detective Paul Gillespie to a group of members of Parliament but also by the RCMP. Paul Gillespie gave a presentation about the need to help solve the epidemic problem of child pornography. He is with the Toronto sex crime unit. These pictures were unimaginable. They were so horrible and so revolting that a number of members of Parliament left the room. Others looked away not wanting to be privy to seeing the pictures that were put on the screen.

I felt absolutely nauseated thinking about the innocent and vulnerable children all across this country who were being criminally exploited by society's most perverse and sadistic criminals who, under Bill C-20, will not be subjected to sentences that fit the crime because the legislation does not seek to increase maximum sentences for child related offences, nor does it impose any minimum sentences.

When was the last time we saw a judge impose the maximum sentence on any type of criminal offence dealing with pornography? We do not see it. To increase maximum sentences is not the answer to anything. When we are dealing with child pornography, Bill C-20 does not impose minimum sentences.

It effectively means that pedophiles can and will continue to receive fines and conditional sentences, and no jail time. Sadistic types of pornography are being passed on the Internet and the perpetrators get a slap on the wrist. They are told not to do it again and to stay home. It is unacceptable.

Nothing within Bill C-20 would prevent judges from handing out conditional sentences or fines to offenders convicted of possessing or distributing child pornography.

In my opinion, those who possess and seek to possess child pornography are every bit as guilty of committing a crime against a child as those who take the pictures. Therefore, they should be sentenced to minimum terms in prison for committing the offence of aiding and abetting the abuse, torture or sexual exploitation. This opinion is shared by police officers throughout the country.

It was my pleasure today to stand with Staff Inspector Bruce Smollet, the officer in charge of Toronto's sex crime unit, during today's press conference commending him and the entire Toronto police force for their outstanding work and their commitment to public protection.

Under the excellent leadership of Police Chief Julian Fantino, the entire Toronto police force has done an exemplary job of fighting a crime that is becoming much more prevalent in this nation. It is not only in urban areas but in rural areas as well because it can be ushered straight into homes via the Internet.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wild Rose ought to know that the member for Mississauga South had to conduct an interview this afternoon on yet another controversial issue, that being the issue of stem cells.

We are dealing with a number of very tough and substantive issues, issues which no doubt will be current not only today but certainly down the road.

I want to thank the opposition for bringing this motion forward. It is not very often we find that members on both sides of the House can agree to an initiative. The wording of the motion itself is not only commendable but indeed quite supportable.

While I say this, there have been some steps that have been taken by the government. Some would treat them as baby steps but nevertheless they are important steps on the issue of child pornography, which probably is the most serious issue confronting this nation today. We have been able to move ahead with Bill C-20 and Bill C-23 and pass Bill C-15, which among other things moved a step closer to ensuring that Internet service providers would have to retain data. Those are some of the measures that have been taken.

For the sake of the debate, I would like to point out that this is not a new issue. I applaud the member for bringing this motion forward and speaking to it very proudly. Not too long ago it was that member who led a committee of several members of Parliament to attend what was supposed to be a one hour session on the epidemic of child pornography and the scourge that exists not only around the world but also here in Canada.

The shocking pictures referred to a little earlier were the same pictures that I had seen when I had the opportunity of working with Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie and Detective Sergeant Bob Matthews of the OPP. I know they are in very good hands with the work now of Detective Sergeant Bruce Smollett and Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie.

A number of initiatives must come of this motion. It is clear that there is sufficient support for the motion. I would be very surprised that there would be any attempt to water down what is otherwise a motion that must serve as a constant reminder of the most serious problem that confronts our nation.

The hon. member for Wild Rose will remember that we put together an issues and options paper. In the few minutes that have been given to me, I want to go through several of the items that I think would be cause for where we go after the motion is passed. Hopefully there will be time left in our parliamentary agenda and calendar to fulfill those.

We said that the age of consent should be raised from 14 to 16, while maintaining the close in age exemption. This would amend section 150 to substitute 16 for 14. We would also retain the age of 18 as a consent for trust relationships.

We dealt with the issue of artistic merit. Section 163.1(6) as currently expressed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Sharpe decision exempts child pornography clearly harmful to children as the subject of criminal prosecution.

Our solution at the time, and I believe we had support from all parties, was to eliminate the defence of artistic merit and that the definition of child pornography be included as part of the hate crimes section 319.

In my view, that would be the way in which we try to address this very serious issue.

I think where the government has certainly come a long way is to deal with section 163, to apply a community standards test similar to the Butler case. I will not get into the specifics of that.

Another issue, which would not be news to some colleagues, was the requirement that written child pornography be found to advocate or counsel illegal sexual activity with children permits the exclusion of child pornography that is harmful to children from being the subject of criminal prosecution.

It was felt that if we added “a prominent characteristic of which is the description of sexual activity between a person under the age of 18 and an adult, the primary purpose of which is for sexual gratification of an adult or which poses a risk of harm to a child”, that would serve the test.

We know that in the same decision on Sharpe, the Supreme Court of Canada permitted a number of exemptions. I believe that some of them are downright wrong and must be reviewed by Parliament.

The “private recordings of unlawful sexual activity privately held for personal use” invented by the Supreme Court of Canada permits subsequent exploitation of persons recorded who no longer consent to the use and, given the disparity of age permissible, permits ongoing exploitation of children under 18, or 16, by adults.

Our view on this is to restrict such exceptions to recordings between persons under 18, not engaged in explicit sexual activity involving disclosure, clearly indicating both knowledge and consent that the activity is being recorded, not kept in a manner where it is capable of distribution to others, and the possession is for the exclusive personal of the person in possession of it.

Another issue is one that we also tackled that evening--many of these things were by consent--the expressive material exemption, again an exemption to what is otherwise unlawfully expressed child pornography and invented again by the Supreme Court of Canada, is capable of being used to permit material harmful to children to be created and possessed, including animated, computer generated, morphed images, mixed and edited videos, and audio recordings mixed with the above. We felt that it was important to eliminate the personally possessed expressive material defence whenever that should pose a harm to children. I note that the government has done this in some of its legislation.

Perhaps the most controversial but nevertheless most important issue from a police resource perspective is the Stinchcombe decision. The Supreme Court of Canada some time ago imposed rules of disclosure that necessitate police providing copies of every image seized from an offender, frequently in the tens of thousands and more as a result of the Internet and the nature of sexual deviance, thus needlessly depleting resources, delaying prosecutions and potentially disseminating material harmful to children. It is our view that a simple way to achieve this would be similar to how it is done with drugs, and that is simply to get a sample and admit that as evidence, and that could be written in as opposed to going through every single issue.

Another issue is the whole area of lawful access, and I know that the only people who will buzz to that are obviously people in the police community and those in the justice department, who I hope will be listening to this. It is clear that Canada is losing the battle with evolving technologies. We simply do not have the ability when people are using various forms of encryption, new technologies and disposable telephones, you name it. The government needs to proceed with binding and effective legislation that allows police modern and up to date information.

Also, and I should point out that this is a critical point, if we want to beat the child pornographers and stop the 40% of people who see this material and go on to offend against and exploit children, as is currently the convention in this country, then the way in which we do that, I would submit very honestly, is to ensure that if an Internet service provider or, for this case, a company that is involved in the use of telephone lines, should provide the information to lawful and local authorities, it should be based on warrant. They should not be charged the going rates. This is not about making money. This is about protecting children. It is time that the telephone companies and those involved in communications get on board. We do need that.

I know that only a few minutes on this very important question will be provided to me. I do want to issue the challenge again to all colleagues to hear the voices of those who believe that we do need to amend the definition of primary designated offence and provide for the taking of DNA samples. This should, in my view, of course be retroactive. That may be impossible to do, but we must start that as soon as possible.

Sentences imposed for crimes involving child pornography are disproportionately low for the harm they cause and the risks posed to children. In my view, and indeed I think in the view of the majority in the House, we should create a mandatory minimum penalty for second or subsequent offences under section 163.1. That would of course allow as well the opportunity to create a mandatory consecutive penalty akin to section 82.1 for firearms, for conviction of an offence under section 163 or committed in conjunction with another sexual crime, or committed while on parole for sexual crime against a child under the same section.

I believe that some of these bills and some of the ideas that we have talked about for some time would go a long way. I cannot think of a better opportunity we would have for all of us at some stage to understand that if we are to take seriously the protection and the safeguarding of this country's most precious constituency, the laws that we have in this country are of no force or effect or in fact of no meaning if we cannot protect those who eventually will assume the very burden of making this a greater nation.

Young people in the tens of thousands from around the world are only faces. We cannot put names to those faces. We understand the concerns that have been raised by those who say we need to have a balance, but the balance must not come at the expense of rewriting our charter. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I ask the House, whose rights are we to protect and whose freedoms are we to safeguard? It is very clear to all in the House and to any ordinary individual that the benefit of the doubt must always inure to those who are the most vulnerable and least in a position to defend themselves.

The exploitation we are talking about is all the more important given the advancements in technology, the ability within a nanosecond to transmit a face around the world. The Internet, Interpol and a number of agencies have been involved with trying to make sure that a document about a certain activity and a behaviour that is occurring in Canada is not simply sent to the country or sent to a few agencies around our great nation, but that in fact those police forces and those agencies involved would have the resources to be able to understand, to disseminate and to make sure that we protect children.

That is the bottom line. I thank the House for the motion.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the official opposition for moving this motion in the House.

As already stated, the motion from the opposition proposes to eliminate all defences for the possession of child pornography which allows for the exploitation of children.

We on this side of the House believe that this is what we are proposing to do with Bill C-20, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding the protection of children and other vulnerable persons, and the Canada Evidence Act which was introduced by the Minister of Justice on December 5, 2002.

I am pleased that the hon. member from the opposite side chose to raise this very important issue because it allows me an opportunity to inform Parliament and Canadians of the important work that the government is doing to protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children. We agree with the opposition that our children are our most vulnerable citizens and require the most protection.

I would like to build on a few of the remarks made by the hon. Minister of Justice relating to some of the efforts that the government has undertaken to combat the sexual exploitation of children, particularly on the Internet.

I realize the motion in question relates specifically to Bill C-20 and the public good defence, but now is a perfect opportunity for me to highlight the collective work that we are doing to address the troubling problem of child pornography.

I would like to take issue with statements made by the member for Provencher where he claimed that Canada is wild, open country for child pornographers and that the message going out internationally is that people can do business in child pornography here in Canada.

Most of the studies that I have read and most of the statements that I have either read or heard from law enforcement agencies is that the United States is the source of much more child pornography than Canada.

I am sure we are all aware that the sexual exploitation of children is sadly not a new crime. We have been working for many years on this issue. Canada has some of the toughest legislation and policies in place dealing with the sexual exploitation of children. We are challenged with keeping pace with the rapidly evolving technologies, including the Internet, that make it easier for people to sexually exploit our children.

We are all aware of the benefits of the Internet and the increased access to educational resources. However, the Internet also makes collecting, distributing, accessing and making child pornography easy to do. It is extremely difficult and complicated to investigate, according to our law enforcement experts.

Despite the complexities of these crimes, we have been active nationally and internationally on this issue. In fact, this year the Solicitor General of Canada and the Minister of Justice, along with their G-8 counterparts, endorsed the G-8 strategy to protect children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. This strategy has provided a framework for action by all member states. I am pleased to report that we are taking this initiative seriously and we are working to develop Canadian initiatives that meet the broader G-8 objectives.

On the law enforcement front, for example, the Solicitor General of Canada in the spring of this year asked the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police to create the national steering committee on Internet based child sexual exploitation. The committee has representation from law enforcement across Canada as well as representation from the federal departments of Solicitor General and Justice.

The steering committee is providing direction to law enforcement efforts to better address this problem and is working closely with many specialized units, and many other integrated teams in the provinces and municipalities.

Building on the work of the steering committee and the various provincial initiatives,--because there are provincial initiatives that are to be lauded in the area of prohibiting and investigating sexual exploitation of our children--I am happy to report that we have taken the first steps toward the creation of a national coordination centre at the RCMP.

While it is still in its infancy, this centre is currently in operation, and is coordinating national investigations and liaising with international partners. We are hoping to build the capacity of the centre so it can provide even greater national leadership in this area.

The Canadian government has also been active in the establishment of cybertip.ca, an online reporting centre for reports of Internet based child sexual exploitation. Run by Child Find Manitoba, this pilot project provides a valuable service to law enforcement by forwarding reports of child pornography and also providing educational materials to the public.

The Solicitor General of Canada had the pleasure of announcing $55,000 in funding from his department for the initiative in August of this year and along with other federal departments, including Justice and Industry, we are actively working to find ways to provide cybertip.ca with sustainable funding to build on the current pilot project to make cybertip.ca a national resource.

Children are our greatest asset and Canadians can be assured that we are doing everything in our power to better protect them. Canadians can be assured that law enforcement in Canada is working to complement our strong criminal law framework, which we are hoping to strengthen with Bill C-20. Canadians can also be assured that the government takes the protection of children seriously and is ensuring we keep pace with technological advances.

I would like to address some of the government initiatives to protect our children from sexual exploitation. If we look at Bill C-20, among the various provisions, it proposes to limit the existing defences for child pornography. It proposes to strengthen the Criminal Code by expanding the current definition of written child pornography. It also proposes to increase the maximum penalty for sexual exploitation of children from 5 years to 10.

It maintains Canada's status as having some of the toughest child pornography legislation in the world, but we have done other things. Members who are sitting in the House now may remember that on December 11, 2002, the government tabled Bill C-23, the sex offender information registration act. It is before the committee on justice. I am pleased that we dealt with it this morning and hopefully it will be reported back to the House either today or shortly.

Bill C-23 proposes to establish a national sex offender database. The database would contain information on convicted sex offenders and would assist police across the country who investigate crimes of a sexual nature by providing them with rapid access to vital current information of convicted sex offenders.

We have Bill C-15A, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to amend other acts, which received royal assent on June 4, 2002. What are some of its provisions? It created a new offence to target criminals who use the Internet to lure and exploit children for sexual purposes. It made it a crime to transmit, make available, export and intentionally access child pornography on the Internet. It also allowed judges to order the deletion of child pornography posted on computer systems in Canada.

This was a power or an authority that the judges did not have prior to the royal assent of Bill C-15A. It allowed judges to order forfeiture of materials or equipment used in the commission of a child pornography offence. Here again, this provided new authority to judges which they did not have before.

It also enhanced the ability of judges to keep known sex offenders away from children by making prohibition orders, long term offender designations and one year peace bonds available for offences relating to child pornography and the Internet.

Finally, another of the provisions amended the child sex tourism act, which had been enacted in 1997, to simplify the process of prosecuting Canadians who sexually assault children in other countries. I think that is testimony to the gravity and the seriousness with which the government takes its responsibility to protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

That is not all. Since 1993, we have introduced other changes designed to protect our children or to enhance the protections that we have for our children, such as, for instance, amending the Criminal Code to toughen the laws on child prostitution and child sex tourism, which I just mentioned. We strengthened it again under Bill C-15A. We amended the Criminal Code to ensure that peace bonds keep abusers away from women and children. We passed legislation to enable criminal records of pardoned sex offenders to be available for background checks. We passed legislation to change the parole and corrections systems so that sex offenders serve until the end of their sentence.

Those are just a couple of example of provisions, measures, steps and legislative changes that the government has taken to strengthen the protections that we have for our children in order to ensure that we do everything we can to eliminate sexual exploitation of our children, and that when we do uncover it and find it, it is properly addressed and those who commit it are properly punished.

It is so important for us to look at and deal seriously with this issue. I honestly believe that our government has done so. I have not listened to all the speeches or the participation in the debate of all members of the opposition and members on the government side who have participated; I have only been able to listen to that of the member for Provencher. I found some of the issues he raised to be very pertinent, but I disagree with him when he says that they are not addressed by Bill C-20. I believe they are addressed.

There is one issue that I think most if not all of the witnesses who came before the justice committee spoke to. I am a member of the justice committee and I have had the privilege of participating in these sessions where we have conducted consultations on Bill C-20. It is the issue of the public good defence. There has been some confusion on the part of some witnesses, but there has been clarity on the part of other witnesses. It is clear that the clarity brought forward by what I would say is a consensus of witnesses is that the government may do well to look again at the dispositions or the sections in Bill C-20 that talk about public good and bring more clarity to them to ensure that the bill does in fact ensure protection of our children from sexual exploitation. On that, I think the member for Provencher gave an accurate accounting of what we heard from a large majority of witnesses. I think the government would do well to look at that piece of it.

However, on the rest of Bill C-20, I think that the overall majority of the witnesses who came before us, if not all, said that this is needed legislation. They commended the government in going forward on the legislation. They were in agreement that the legislation is needed, that it is a positive measure and that they wanted to see Bill C-20 adopted. However, they wanted to see clarity brought to the public defence issue. On that issue, there was agreement among a lot of the witnesses.

I will conclude now. I still have five minutes but will not repeat what I have said as I think the statements and points I have made are very clear. I think that any member in the House who listened to what I had to say would understand very clearly where I am coming from and what issues I feel are important and are being addressed by Bill C-20. As well, they would understand the measures and the steps that the government has taken since 1993 to continually strengthen the protection of our most vulnerable citizens, our children, and to strengthen Criminal Code provisions to ensure that those who would sexually exploit our children are properly caught, properly charged, have a fair hearing before the proper courts and, when convicted, receive the proper sentencing.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to say a few words on the opposition motion tabled by the member for Wild Rose.

The whole issue of child pornography is an extremely important issue. First, I want to begin by thanking the justice committee. A few minutes ago in the justice committee, members dealt with Bill C-23, the national sex registry. The committee agreed to an amendment I made to have a review of the registry in two years.

I am pleased that the chairman of the justice committee broke the tie. There were opposition members and some government members in support of the amendment and some opposed. The amendment as passed will provide for a review of the national sex registry in two years time. That is a good thing to do. It will make the role of parliamentarians more meaningful in terms of our political system.

The debate before the House today is one that is very important. We are dealing with Bill C-20 in our justice committee. The minister and his officials have been before the committee. We are trying to find an effective way to ensure that we are tough with people who are involved in child pornography and the abuse of children.

I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for people who abuse children in the way that they do. I know the minister feels exactly the same way.

We saw some very moving video from the RCMP on some of the most horrific child pornography and the abuse of children that could possibly be imagined. It is the kind of abuse that brings tears to people's eyes. There is no doubt whatsoever that we have to deal with this in the toughest and most effective way possible.

The problem we have with the legislation before the House, and one which people are wrestling with, is clause 7, the public good, the definition of the public good and the whole question of freedom of expression, artistic merit, what a museum can display, what researchers can research and so on. There is a differing legal opinion, as the minister knows, as to clause 7 and the public good.

I want to begin by saying that there is a serious difference of opinion. The Canadian Bar Association, for example, believes that the public good test is too vague and too broad to give this legislation any real effect.

In other words, the Canadian Bar Association is saying that it is not really sure what the public good test really is. It could be too broad or it could be too narrow. It could be too narrow in terms of dealing with child pornography and those who abuse children. It could be too broad and catch in the sweeping definition in the courts genuine artists and researchers, museums or medical research in the country. We do not know what will happen. The jurisprudence will evolve through the courts. In effect what Parliament is doing here is giving the authority to the courts to define what is the public good.

I wish the member for Wild Rose was here. I wonder if he would agree that what we should is remove clause 7 from Bill C-20, with instructions that Parliament define what is the public good. Then the intent of parliamentarians would be clearly signalled to the courts. If we do not do that, the courts will make the definition of public good.

I am one who is very much in favour of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our Constitution. However, I am also one who has been a bit nervous about the evolution of more and more power to the courts, where the courts and not legislatures make more and more decisions in our country about public policy.

I respect the courts and judges. However, they are not elected. It should be us as parliamentarians and provincial legislatures that determine policy in terms of what direction our society wants to go.

This is really the whole debate that we are now having in the justice committee. The debate is what is freedom of expression. I see the member for Dauphin—Swan River who is a decent parliamentarian and human being. He believes in freedom of expression. If he went to a movie theatre tonight at nine o'clock and there was a very popular movie on, if he jumped on the stage half way through the movie to make a big long speech about how wonderful such and such was, he would be in contempt because freedom of expression has certain limitations. He could not do that because it would be a limitation on freedom of expression.

Section 1 of the charter is the limitation clause. It shows there are limitations, but it has to be demonstrated that these are in the public good or the common good. It has to be demonstrated. The whole debate in the justice committee is what is artistic merit, what is the public good?

We want to make sure we have tough child pornography laws that deal in a very tough way with people who abuse children in this country. Some of this stuff is horrendously offensive and is almost beyond imagination. We have to deal with it in an extremely tough way. However, in the sweep of the law we have to make sure that genuine artistic merit and expression does not become a criminal offence. That is a concern many have.

The Canadian Bar Association is about as credible an organization as possible in terms of expressing an opinion on a certain law before the House. Its concern, as I said before, is that the use of the public good test is much too vague and broad to give the legislation any real effect.

We should be instructing the government, instructing the justice committee, instructing Parliament, to make sure that we say what is the public good and what we mean in terms of the law and how it will be carried out.

I see in the House the member from Edmonton, the former Alliance House leader. I am sure she would agree that we often leave too much power with the courts, with unelected judges, when parliamentarians should make the decisions.

The scope of the public good, as I said, is too broad according to some lawyers, and too narrow according to other lawyers. We should clarify what we mean. The police will do a better job and make more sound decisions in their investigations of suspected child pornographers to protect children if there is a very clear definition of what we mean in terms of how we want to protect the children. On the other side, if we have a clear definition of what the public good means, then artists, museums, researchers and others will not be prosecuted for legitimate artistic expression or legitimate research in their field of endeavour.

One of my colleagues on the government side, who is on the justice committee has just walked in. He knows the debate that has been raging in the committee as to what those fine lines are.

We need clarity in what we mean by the definition of the public good. We have to give some guidance to the courts as to what we mean as a parliament by the public good. We have to stop delegating that power to an unelected judiciary. We parliamentarians should write the law and clearly signal to the courts what we mean when we tighten the law against those who commit pornography and abuse children, what we mean by the freedom of expression, what we mean by artistic merit and the right of museums to display certain pieces of art, what the fine line is and what the message is that we want to send to the court.

The bill before the justice committee, which I understand will be dealt with again tomorrow afternoon, is simply too vague on too many fronts on that particular point. We have seen that by the clash of interpretation among different witnesses and the clash of interpretation among different lawyers.

My main reason for intervening today is to say that it is extremely important that we are not derelict in our responsibilities. We as parliamentarians must make sure that we take clause 7 out of the bill as it stands.

We would be better off getting rid of the clause altogether than to have a vague clause which no one can guarantee what it means in the end and leave that power to the unelected courts. Once the jurisprudence and the precedents are built up by our legal system, we may have a very good law. On the other hand, we may have a law that one way or the other does not have the intent of what Parliament means. It is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to make sure that is done. I think this is an issue on which Parliament can unite, that it should be us and not the courts who define what we mean by the public good.

Artists should have the freedom to express what they want to express and not be fearful of being charged under the Criminal Code in terms of legitimate artistic expression. People should be able to do legitimate research and museums should be able to exhibit legitimately without fear of being prosecuted and convicted under the Criminal Code. At the same time the Criminal Code must have more power to prosecute and put away those people who abuse children or those people who are involved in child pornography that is so offensive to any kind of civilized society.

I hope we can come to that consensus, that it should be Parliament and not the courts that makes that determination. We can debate what the fine lines are and signal clearly to the courts what the House means.

[Inky Mark, Canadian Alliance, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this morning in the House to take part in this very important debate on the supply motion of the official opposition. I will be dividing my time with the member for New Brunswick Southwest. Let me begin by reiterating the motion:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should protect our children from further sexual exploitation by immediately eliminating from child pornography laws all defences for possession of child pornography which allow for the exploitation of children.

They key element of the supply motion is about protecting our children. I am sure that Canadians have been waiting intensely for years for the government to put in legislation that in fact will protect our children.

I have just come from the justice committee where we were doing amendments this morning, clause by clause, for Bill C-23, on the sex offender registry. Already we find that there is one weak point. There is no retroactivity element in the bill. In other words, if the bill passes it will be applicable only to those who are in the process of judicial activity, but there will be no retroactivity. In other words, convicted sex offenders in this country will not have to register anywhere in this country unless they reoffend.

I also want to take my time to give some balance in terms of the debate. Again, I have been fortunate to take part in a lot of the hearings with Bill C-20, which is about child pornography. We have heard from many witnesses. We need to get a balanced presentation on this debate today. I would like to begin by quoting from some of the documents. One witness from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada submitted a presentation that stated:

In conclusion, we are pleased that this legislation [Bill C-20] takes steps to improve the protection of children in Canada and to reduce exploitation of them. We support the amendments that strengthen the child pornography provisions by adding a new broader definition of written pornography and a more narrow defence of public good.

The presentation goes on to state that the increase in maximum sentences for child-related offences is commendable, although the fellowship believes that minimum sentences “would be more effective”. It concludes by saying:

Any reasonable initiative that will make courtroom experiences less traumatic for child victims and witnesses is commendable, as well. We support this provision of Bill C-20.

The presentation then states:

However, we note that Bill C-20's new category of sexual exploitation necessarily places child victims in a courtroom experience and requires them to provide details of their intimate relationships in order to ascertain whether exploitation has taken place. We are concerned that this provision will either further victimize exploited children or be ineffective. A far more effective way to protect young Canadians from sexual exploitation would be to raise the age of consent to sexual activity to 18 years of age.

That is from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Let me proceed to make some statements about what the CBC had to say. Again, members of the artistic community are concerned as well how legislation on pornography will affect them. The recommendation of the CBC is that both specific journalistic defence and in defence of the public interest be included as defences for the offence of voyeurism. It suggests the following wording:

No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section if the acts that are alleged to constitute the offence serve the public good, are in the public interest or the acts were those of a person engaged in journalistic activities for

(i) any newspaper or other paper containing public news, or

(ii) for a broadcaster or internet web news provider licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to carry on a broadcasting transmitting undertaking or benefiting from an exemption order of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

Most people in Ontario have heard of Project Guardian. Carrie Kohan appeared before the committee and she had many interesting things to share as she has firsthand experience with sexual predators. In her presentation to the standing committee, she said:

Because we all share in this plight, it is our societal responsibility to put children's rights first. It is our duty to focus our efforts not only on the protection of the child, but also to provide, at the very least, the same level of rehabilitation as that provided today to the child rapist while incarcerated.

She went on to say that:

It is our conclusion that our legislation needs to become tough on this crime. Yes, removing the rights to freedom of the convicted pedophile may seem harsh to the vocal minority, but to the emerging majority it is a logical and necessary step. We need penalties worthy of second thought in Canada, or more specifically we need penalties that will cause pedophiles to have second thoughts about child abuse in Canada, because child rape is a most heinous crime and is deserving of the most severe penalties.

She concluded by saying that if a child victim who had experienced this crime had the opportunity to sit before the committee today, she was sure that he or she would agree with her as well.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts also submitted a brief to the standing committee. Its concern was in relation to the elimination of the artistic merit defence and that it would create confusion and punish artists. It stated in its presentation:

The CCA opposes the elimination of the artistic merit defence in s.163.1. Eight years after s.163.1 was inserted in the Criminal Code, the Supreme Court in Sharpe gave an extensive definition of the artistic merit defence. The CCA was greatly relieved by this development because the definition is broad enough to ensure that young artists or artists working with novel or transgressive subject matter would not suffer the ignominy of being prosecuted in the criminal courts. Although the Court also went on to carve out two exceptions to the offences of possessing or making child pornography, it did so in order to avoid having to strike down the entire law on the ground that it was an overbroad infringement of the freedom of expression. As a result, the child pornography law has largely been “saved” and is wide enough to capture virtually all situations in which expressive material could lead to harm to children.

Let me close by quoting the Writers' Union of Canada. It had great concerns about defences for child pornography. Its summary stated:

We believe that the proposed changes to the child pornography provisions of the Criminal Code set out in Bill C-20 are overbroad and infringe the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They will greatly increase the likelihood of the arbitrary exercise of prosecutorial discretion to lay charges against creators of written and visual material falling within a broadened definition of child pornography, particularly without the existing defence of artistic merit. Our greatest concern is that the sole remaining defence of the public good will not be interpreted by courts to encompass a defence of artistic merit or purpose because Parliament has deliberately chosen to remove this defence from the existing legislation. We submit that the proposed changes to the law will lead to increased self-censorship by writers and other artists and cast a chill on expression of ideas.

In closing, Canadians look forward to legislation that will certainly protect the children of this country.

Sex Offender Registry

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of fact, the member should recall that in Calgary on November 6, 2002, the federal, provincial and territorial ministers approved the registration scheme as set out in Bill C-23.

The bill was then tabled in the House on December 11, 2002. When the hon. member says there was no consensus, he is not stating the facts. The fact is there was a consensus.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member on the other side knows very well that Bill C-23, the sex offender registry, was based on a consensus of all federal, provincial and territorial ministers.

They are meeting this week and should all the jurisdictions come to a conclusion that there should be retroactivity, the Solicitor General is more than open to discussing it, but all jurisdictions will have to agree.

Petitions

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition is from rural constituents in the communities of Buick and Cecil Lake.

These petitioners note that an effective national sex offender registry would be an invaluable resource that would assist police agencies with the investigation of sex crimes.

The petitioners note that provisions contained in the current government Bill C-23 are insufficient because they are neither compulsory nor retroactive.

Therefore, the petitioners call upon Parliament to pass legislation that would create an effective sex offender registry that would automatically include the names of all sex offenders in Canada.

Supply

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly had a tumultuous summer on this subject. I do not know whether my constituents are more irritated by the decision itself or the fact of the irrelevancy of Parliament to this debate.

Parliament has spoken at least three times on this subject in the last few years: once in a free vote in 1999 in an overwhelming vote of 216 to 55 in favour of the traditional definition; in 2000 on Bill C-23 and again on a harmonization bill and both of those were whipped votes.

The courts have felt perfectly free to ignore everything that Parliament has said to date. I dare say that pretty well everything that is said today will be ignored as well.

Parliament is irrelevant to this debate because it allows itself to be irrelevant. Power abhors a vacuum. Parliament gave the charter to the people of Canada yet the judges have not at all been shy about using that power to the maximum.

This is not a dialogue between Parliament and the judiciary. This has become a monologue in which Parliament is afraid to speak with any authority.

I sit on the justice committee. We spent six months travelling the country going to 13 separate communities. Well over 200 briefs were directly submitted to us. There were over 450 written submissions. Regardless of the views, I thought it was an excellent exercise in democracy. Everyone got their say and just possibly there may have been some meaningful exchanges among the participants. When the people are given an opportunity to speak they usually have some wisdom to share.

Not only were the members of the justice committee ignored, so also were the hundreds and thousands of people who made an effort to participate in the process. In one fell swoop the Court of Appeal of Ontario trashed the efforts of the committee and devalued all those who chose to participate, making any report that we would like to make utterly and completely irrelevant.

Those who think the decision of the Court of Appeal is a good decision should think carefully about any future participation of Canadians in the democratic process. Why would anyone really bother? Why would they let themselves be humiliated? Indeed, why bother to vote?

There will be those who argue that this is in fact a free vote. For an observer from Mars, that might appear to be a free vote, but let not the rest of us be so naive. The government has chosen not to appeal this decision and ask for a stay in that decision and is therefore creating facts on the ground.

In early June the government's official position was to support the traditional definition of marriage. By the end of the month the government had turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction and proposed a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada to which any first year law student already knows the answer, and drafted a bill which allows for no other alternatives whatsoever. In addition, the Prime Minister has signalled to members of the cabinet and therefore his parliamentary secretaries that they will not be free to vote as they see fit. The Minister of Justice has been travelling the country to argue with the provinces to just treat the bill as if it had already passed.

The contempt for Parliament and by extension its MPs as representatives of the people is breathtaking. We will collectively bear witness to MPs and cabinet ministers swallowing themselves whole in this so-called free vote.

For those who generally accept the deconstruction of the institution of marriage in the name of equality, I say good for you. Vote as you see fit. I profoundly disagree with you.

Having now commented on the process by which we get here, I would like to talk about the issue itself. Professor Daniel Cere of McGill University has analogized heterosexual marriage to a web with a variety of strands which underpin the very existence of our society and our nation. Among the variety of strands are sociological, anthropological, legal, theological and generational.

The courts in their deconstruction have said that all these strands are non-essential to the core meaning of marriage. Marriage according to the Court of Appeals is merely a love institution, two persons with a pulse having sex.

The conventional relationship between opposite gender people reaching generationally backwards and forwards is an incident of a marriage, not its core element. The Court of Appeal has literally bombed the intergenerational bridge both front and back.

Heterosexuals reach back to previous generations and forward to future generations. The Court of Appeal has said in effect “So what? It's not a core feature of marriage”. Inherent capacity of heterosexual couples to procreate is nice but it is not a necessity.

The court has said that the way in which heterosexuals reach out to a larger society and say in effect “we will perpetuate you” is a novelty, but it is not a core element. And forget all that religious nonsense. It is just a collection of myths anyway. We are a secular society and we have no space in our one size fits all pluralism to buy into anyone's ancient myths. It is really a conceit to equate equality with sameness.

Pluralism should respect diversity. People come in all shapes, sizes and orientations. They are not the same, but this crude deference to equality has convinced us that the same is equal and equal is the same. This is intellectual nonsense. A just society treats its citizens with equality before the law. It does not jam each and every citizen and each and every relationship into identical boxes.

The courts have bought this crude idea because Parliament is AWOL on this issue. We have deferred to the legal equality claims in deference to all else. We have bought the notion that if it is not exactly the same, then it is not equal. In the marriage debate that works itself out to say that homosexual relationships must be equal to heterosexual relationships, therefore, marriage must be reshaped and redefined to accommodate the equality claims so that they are the same thing. This is nonsense in life, but apparently not nonsense in law.

Mr. Justice Charles Gonthier is quoted as saying, “To permit the courts to wade into this debate risks seeing Section 15 (equality) protection against discrimination based upon sexual orientation being employed aggressively to trump Section 2(a), protection of the freedom of religion and conscience”.

Apparently nothing short of marriage is good enough. We get into this foolishness about separate but equal. All of those in the 1960s school busing debates start playing tapes in their heads. Heterosexual couples are different from homosexual couples for one very obvious reason: gender. They are equal for the purposes of law, but they are not the same. Same is not equal and equal is not the same. The issue is to achieve legal equality, not sameness. A principled view of pluralism would respect not only the need for the freedom of the individual but also the cooperation that is required to create conditions of common good.

Our charter is an important statement of rights and freedoms, but it is silent on the conditions necessary to create common good. When we let the lawyers run away with the debate and give undue deference to judicial pronouncements, we erode the conditions for the common good. It is rights without responsibilities.

By dumbing down marriage to two persons with a pulse having sex, we have destroyed the conventional and replaced it with the contractual. The law of contract serves us very well in the exchange of goods and services but is supremely inadequate to express the complexity of opposite gender relationships. Marriage is or has become a contract, nothing more, nothing less. All those strands to which Professor Cere referred, which feed that web, are charming but not necessary, are mere mythologies.

At the justice committee, we were repeatedly cautioned not to mess with marriage. The example frequently quoted was the change to the Divorce Act, which created no fault divorce. It was argued that this was a tiny change affecting an insignificant number of people and would alleviate genuine hardships. Who today can say that their family has not been affected by no fault divorce? It has affected every marriage in the nation and continues to be a national tragedy. We have achieved the distinction of being one of the most divorcing nations in the world.

Today we are invited to make a minor change to the definition of marriage, which will affect a small number of people and alleviate an injustice. Do not be naive: this will affect how everyone regards marriage and will have consequences for the heterosexual community far beyond those apparently minor inconsequential changes.

Caution is the operative word. There are alternatives available and I would, if I may, urge everyone to support the motion.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been yet further consultations and I now believe that you would find consent for the following. I move:

That, if at any time that the House stands adjourned during June, July, August and September 2003, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has ready a report on Bill C-23, when that report is deposited with the Clerk of the House, it shall be deemed to have been duly presented to the House.

Injured Military Members Compensation Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There has been consultation among all House leaders and I am pleased to inform the House about this item. I would seek unanimous consent, pursuant to that agreement, for the following:

That, if at any time that the House stands adjourned during June, July, August and September, 2003, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has ready a report on Bill C-23, when that report is deposited with the Clerk of the House, it shall be deemed to have been duly presented to the House.

Again, this is on Bill C-23 only, because there were discussions of another item about which there was not an agreement.

Justice

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, doing it right is better than doing it fast.

How badly flawed is Bill C-23? If and when it comes into effect it will have zero names on it because it is not retroactive. The Liberals want people to reoffend before they get put on the registry. The provinces, victims, and police have been screaming for a retroactive registry.

Why will the Solicitor General not commit to a sex offender registry that will actually have the names of those convicted on it?

Supply

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Chair, I want to switch to another area but I want the minister to make a short comment when he answers about the contributions and grants to legal aid research that will be eliminated at the end of 2003, which is only about seven months away. Perhaps he could tell me why that has happened. It may be interesting to hear the answer.

I want to switch now to the sex offender registry. As the minister knows, the RCMP now has CPIC, which is a database for sex offenders that is used around the country by the police. Ontario now has a sex offender registry that came into force retroactively.

Since we are debating Bill C-23, which is a proposal to have a national sex offender registry, I want to ask him what the advantages of the new registry will be over the existing ones, which are the Ontario one and CPIC.

If he would also make a comment about the legal aid question, I would appreciate it.

Budget Implementation Act, 2003

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

They never will because they have been promised and denied so many times. They remember little things like the gun registry, the invasion on their civil liberties, and their rights and freedoms.They look at things like the national energy program. They remember things like the payout on the home heating fuel that went to prisoners and people who did not even live in the country. They look at these guys as poor fiscal managers. That point is getting nailed home.

I look at polls and they show the Liberals at 38% in Saskatchewan. That means that all three people voted because that is how many people in Saskatchewan get called when they do a sample of the country. I guess all of them were Liberals, but in my riding we would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would stand and say “I am a Liberal and I like it”, because the family is under attack, the sex offender registry does not go anywhere because the Liberals will not make it retroactive and it does not protect our kids.

The DNA database that the police are crying for is not retroactive and never will be, so we have a bunch of blank sheets of paper. What good is that? We have Police Chief Julian Fantino from Toronto saying to take the money from the gun registry, put it into a sex offender registry, and make it work. He runs the largest police force in the country. He just had a huge tragedy in his area and he realizes what needs to be done. We have to get it done. A majority government can do these things.

The Solicitor General stood up in reply to a question in the House today and said that a motion I introduced totally scuttled Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. That is a David and Goliath story if I ever heard one. As if I took down a majority Liberal government. I would like to pass a couple of other motions on a few other things if it were that effective. However, he did not read the other half of the motion which said that Bill C-23 should be withdrawn until it is made retroactive. It is useless until we have some names in the registry.

Even when the government does implement the half measures it is talking about, the offenders can still apply to a judge and say that they cannot have their names there because it is not in their interests. Well of course it is not. It is in the interest of the poor victims out there who suffer again and again at the hands of these perverts. These guys just cannot help themselves.

We took many years to make a few changes to the Young Offenders Act and then it was softened because one province said it was too strict. The other nine said it was not strict enough, so the majority did not rule. Democracy does not count for a darn thing in this place at times. It is political will.

We see that in the helicopter replacement procedure. The government keeps crying that there is no politics in this replacement procedure. History shows that it was politics that cancelled it, it was politics that debundled it, and it was politics that bundled it again once the government saw a consortium coming together that it wanted. Now it is politics that says the specifications are all watered down.

During the late show last night I presented all of the things that have been changed, such as payload requirements and the potential for crash landings. The Liberals can lose the aircraft and nobody is concerned because that is how they have dumbed down the specifications. That is not good government. That is not good practice at any level in the private sector or government organization. We cannot do that. We cannot play politics with major procurement systems like that. We cannot play politics with sponsorship programs or job creation funds. They all hit the proverbial fan.

People in Canada are finally starting to keep a scorecard, saying “This is where it went off the rails. This is where it went wrong. This is why we have to hold these guys accountable”. That has to be done and there is a political price to pay for all of this tap dancing that we see around the edges.

Points of Order

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to provide some clarification on a response the Solicitor General made while answering a question from my colleague from Edmonton North. He seemed to say that single-handedly I had short-circuited Bill C-23, the sex offender registry.

In fact, it was an amendment to the motion. The reason that we were seeking to have the bill set aside was that the bill failed to provide retroactive registration of sex offenders.

Justice

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, yes, it could probably be passed in a day if we could get cooperation from members of the official opposition. Who is holding up the federal sex offender registry at the Canadian Alliance?

We introduced the bill on December 11. We have debated it on six separate days. On March 31 we had a motion from a member of that party, the member for Battlefords--Lloydminster, which said: “That this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-23...”. That is the bill that we want to get through, and that party is opposing it.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that there is a perception that money can unduly influence the political process. Perhaps he should realize that his own personal schedule and his own legacy agenda are wrongfully manipulating the political process of the House.

There are some very important pieces of legislation before the House and in committee. Recent events in Toronto have focused the need for the creation of a national sex offender registry. Bill C-23 is the legislation that will create such a registry and is an issue that Canadians see as a priority.

Yet the Prime Minister does not see this as a priority. What does his own House leader put as a priority before the House? Bill C-24, the political financing act. He wants us to stay in the House until that legislation is passed, but he does not care about the sex offender registry.

The Prime Minister is more interested in pushing through vindictive legislation aimed at getting even with people within his own party, those who once referred to Bill C-24 as “dumb as a bag of hammers”, than in doing what is best for Canadians. It is no secret that the financing bill has raised a storm of controversy, but we should be dealing with things that are important to Canadians in the House, not what is important to the Prime Minister.

Supply

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are debating a motion which calls upon Parliament to bring in measures to protect and assert the will of Parliament against certain court decisions.

It is straightforwardly put and I have listened carefully to the debate. I am not a lawyer and in some instances that gives me an advantage because I can ask naive questions, rhetorical questions they may be, hopefully to stimulate debate.

Whenever members of Parliament come to the House to speak, sometimes what happens to be before the House when one is doing House duty may not necessarily be one's area of expertise. As a consequence parliamentarians are offered a plethora of background material, a little history, and a few words of wisdom that may help them to look at the subject matter before the House and participate in debate. I want to share with the House some of the background information that was given to parliamentarians.

In 1982, Parliament adopted a new Constitution and entrenched the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter embodies the values of Canadians, and sets out our rights and freedoms. According to some recent surveys, up to 90% of Canadians see the charter as a symbol of Canadian identity and believe it has played a crucial role in protecting our rights and freedoms.

That is a wonderful statement and I think it is hogwash. It refers to a number of surveys where 90% of Canadians believed that the charter sets our rights and freedoms and is a symbol of our Canadian identity. I am not sure if 90% of Canadians are even aware of what is in the charter or what it means. They have probably seen a news flash or heard someone once say that, but I am not sure that Canadians were engaged in the charter when it first became part of the laws of the land back in 1982.

The charter is a very interesting document. The whole process that Canada went through to patriate our Constitution and to enshrine a Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a significant event in our history, but it was also a political event. It was an event that had some interesting political manoeuvering. There was posturing, negotiating and trade-offs.

I do not think that the patriation of the Constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a result of extensive consultation with Canadians or with parliamentarians. It turned out in some cases to be simply the discussions of two people huddled away in a kitchen trying to cut a deal.

We know what happened there. We know that Quebec was not a part of it and was not happy with the result. The then Prime Minister of the day, Prime Minister Trudeau, said that we had better take a deal while we can get it and that was celebrated.

Most of the debate that I have heard today has raised some of the questions related to the charter and the fact that it has broken through another dimension of the legal and judicial system in Canada.

I took a law course when I was in university. I learned about precedents and about the different areas of the judiciary. I always remember the roles and functions of the judiciary basically being to apply the laws as the courts interpreted them, to look at precedent, and to maintain some consistency and stability within the application of the law.

Very slowly, as a consequence of the charter, the question of interpretation started to creep in and it went even further. I discussed earlier with a member here in the House the concept of a list. There are certain groups that have been identified. I have often thought that if there is a list of anything that must mean that something is not on the list. Otherwise we would say all things.

Canadians would probably agree that the laws of Canada apply equally to all. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not say that in simple terms. It is more complex and this is where the lawyers come in. This is why I appreciate not being a lawyer in that culture because I can ask questions about my motivation.

If a case were to come up that identified potential grey areas within the laws of the charter, I would imagine that it would be interesting to go to the Supreme Court to try and shape the interpretation of an aspect of our laws or the charter and win a case to make a difference. Part of the profession is the identification of areas within the charter and our laws which must grow as society grows. We change, but maybe not for the better in all things. Because of what has happened, I could mention a few areas where the world is not a better place, and child pornography is one of them.

This aspect of court-made law fascinates me. A couple of years ago I asked the resources of the Library of Parliament to provide me with some scholarly papers on the debate about court-made law. How did this evolve? Suddenly the courts of the land were interpreting the laws in different ways such that there were consequences to the application of those laws.

There were also consequences to Parliament which made those laws in the first place. We have gone through a period over the last 10 or 15 years where our laws have been challenged on virtually every front. This is because more precedents are being set. Where do Parliament and the courts fit with each other? The briefing note stated:

By adopting the charter, Parliament and the provincial legislatures decided to make explicit the right of Canadians to go to court and challenge laws. The roles of Parliament and the courts do not conflict, but rather complement one another and Parliament remains a key stakeholder. Through the charter, Parliament has provided the courts with a lens through which to interpret the laws that it has passed.

This cannot be so because we are now faced with many different challenges. Parliament and the courts do not complement each other in this regard because there is disagreement. Parliament, for instance, disagrees with the definition of marriage. This Parliament has voted on two occasions in the recent past that marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

Bill C-23 contains a preamble which reaffirms Parliament's view, on behalf of Canadians and the social values of Canada, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Others have come forward to say that it leaves them out because they want to be married and enjoy recognition like married couples because they too are in a loving, caring relationship, and they believe that a loving, caring relationship does not have to be a man and a woman. This certainly does touch some hot buttons.

I have often thought that when people in this place talk about being discriminatory by using a term like homophobic, that the term was being used as a negative. However, I have also heard the word discrimination used in a positive context such as a person being discriminating in wines because one wine is different from another. There are differences and we celebrate those differences.

It would be a shame if everything in our world was reduced to the lowest common denominator. We would then have to look at everything that we had. If some people had more money than others, then their money would have to be redistributed so everyone would get down to the lowest common denominator. It does not make much sense to make us all the same. If we were all the same, this world would be boring. If everything is important, then nothing is important. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Can we not discriminate in favour of the traditional family being the biological mother and biological father with a child? Marriage is an institution which does not offend people. One of the previous speakers mentioned a comment taken from committee testimony describing marriage as society's parent, not society's child. We should think about that for a moment.

We must understand that the basic instinct of every human organism is survival of the species. That is the number one instinct of all species, either human or non-human. The number one instinct is to survive, to propagate, and to flourish. We do that as human beings by procreating. For years mankind has had the urge to propagate, to have children, to grow families, to create a society, and to build a family tree. These are not bad things. As a matter of fact, our society grew to the point where it thought so highly about the important roles of the traditional family, of child with biological mother and biological father, that it started to discriminate in favour of that traditional family by giving it child tax credits, family deductions, or assistance for child care.

Every law in our land is discriminatory. If all things were equal for all people and at the lowest common denominator, there would be no injustices for the laws to deal with. All our laws are discriminatory and that is not a bad thing. I discriminate in favour of seniors and the disabled who need help. I discriminate in favour of aboriginals. I discriminate in favour of high unemployment areas which need assistance in job creation or alternatives, as in the terrible situation we are seeing now in the Atlantic fishery.

Yet, people are going before the Supreme Court and other courts in the land saying they are being discriminated against. By this action we are slowly eroding the variety and the vibrancy of a free and democratic society. Change is good, variety is good, and differences are good. We should celebrate our differences. Do we all have to look and act the same? No.

Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that we are all entitled to be treated equally under the laws of Canada and we should all enjoy those rights, without qualification. Lawyers felt it was a little more interesting to make it a little different.

I will give the House an example. Today I received a communication from a colleague who thought he had something in a similar vein regarding some difficulty in a bill before the House. It was a question relating to values underlying a free and democratic society. The legislation uses this language which was borrowed from the Supreme Court of Canada because it is part of the values underlying a free and democratic society.

Let us look at section 1 of the charter as interpreted by the Supreme Court with regard to the values underlying a free and democratic society. They are described as follows:

--respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, commitment to societal justice and equality, accommodation of a wide variety of beliefs, respect for cultural and group identity, and faith in social and political institutions which enhance the participation of individuals and groups in society.

That is a mouthful, to say the least, but if members get a chance to look at the transcript and look at the statement again, it is a statement that arguably anyone could use to say, “I should be there”. In fact, the values of a free and democratic society are being defined by the Supreme Court of Canada as the consolidation of the values of each and every person individually and therefore everybody's values are there. But then we get into the problem that everything is important and, as I said, if everything is important then nothing is important. If everything is a priority then nothing is a priority.

Our value system cannot be a consolidation of everybody's values, because in a free and democratic society everyone has the right to have values and establish their own set of family, moral and social values. It does not mean that they reflect Canadian society's consensus on those values. Those values move over time and our laws will move to reflect them over time, but I must admit that there are certain things within our society which should not move.

This place is hypocritical if it does not put our children first. It is hypocritical if it does not uphold the fact that the existence of child pornography in any form constitutes an abuse of children and is bad for society. That is a value that has not changed and it should not be changed, so why are we now getting into things about someone who drew pictures from his or her imagination and there being artistic merit? If someone was in possession of photographs of children in compromising situations, clearly a matter of child pornography, why were they not charged for those pictures? Why were they also charged for drawings or for writings? It just opened a Pandora's box. I swear, Madam Speaker, if this was the intent, this was the perfect way to yet again open up this argument about child pornography.

There are certain values within our society that we should not abandon. I think that the issues with regard to protecting our society, our children, from the existence of child pornography and dealing with it in the strongest possible terms are unquestioned. It would pass 100% in the House in a plain, simple motion: Is that the value that we as parliamentarians want to defend on behalf of the Canadians we all represent? The answer is yes and yet the courts are discussing it, debating it and challenging it, and now we have legislation that talks about concepts such as public good. I do not need another vague definition. I do not need another uncertainty. I would rather split the case, split the bill, deal with the certainties first and let them play with their vagarities later on.

Finally, I think the debate has been useful from the standpoint of raising an important question, that is, it may be time for the question of the true supremacy of Parliament vis-à-vis the courts to be revisited. It is an important question. All people in Canada are represented by the 301 parliamentarians here. We have the opportunity and the resources as well as the responsibility to make ourselves aware of the views, opinions and values of our constituents, of all Canadians. When we bring them here, there can be no clearer voice than the voice of parliamentarians. I am sure that Canadians would agree that the laws of the land should be made by Parliament and not by the Supreme Court of Canada.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough East, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important issue. It is an interesting motion and one that I have thought about for awhile. It highlights a frustration that many people feel with respect to the dialogue between Parliament and the courts. Some might even argue that it has become a monologue. I will focus my remarks on the attempt to change the definition of marriage as something of an example of the perverse consequences of judicial activism.

Everything we do in this place has a charter lens. Sometimes that lens enhances and sometimes that lens distorts. The trump card in the charter is section 15, which looks at discrimination. If a practice, or a law or an institution is discriminatory, whether that discrimination is intentional, then the analysis takes us to section 1 to see if that practice or institution can be justified in a free and democratic society. If it can, then that is it. If it cannot, then the court will strike down a law, practice or institution or say to Parliament “You fix it or we will fix it”.

In theory that sounds fine but in practice it has led to some egregious effects on the use and abuse of courts to find section 15 discrimination. Laws by definition are discriminatory. A law says to this group of people that they are entitled to certain rights and benefits and to another group that they are not. The wheels, however, fall off when the court finds discrimination when in fact there was no intention to discriminate. In fact all it was intended to do was create a difference or a distinction.

I would submit that once the courts make a finding that the institution of marriage is discriminatory, the whole issue, that is one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, it makes it very difficult to then justify it under the saving section.

When the country was founded, the framers of the Constitution gave marriage and divorce to the federal government to bring uniformity to the institution of marriage. Protestants did not recognize Catholic marriages and Catholics did not recognize Protestant marriages. It was somewhat chaotic and the framers rightly said to themselves “We want some national coherence here, so you, the federal government, look after this area of jurisdiction”, and everything else fell to the provinces.

If the framers of our Constitution knew that the courts were about to open up this constitutional word called marriage and eliminate its gender requirements, I am sure they may well have thought that we had all taken leave of our senses and probably would have retired to the parliamentary restaurant over a few drinks and a couple of laughs. Yet this is the state in which we find ourselves by virtue of charter analysis.

First, a finding of discrimination is made, whether real or in its effect, and then we go to section 1 to see whether we can justify it. However the ball game is virtually lost by then and the arguments become hopelessly ambiguous and vague due to the fact that they are rooted in value systems that are based upon beliefs that are deeply held. It is devilishly difficult to justify when those arguments are so rooted in deeply held beliefs by a number of people.

The problem is that it leaves Parliament with no manoeuvring room. We are stuck with an either-or decision. It is a little like President Bush saying “You are either with us or against us”, and it does not really leave much room for those who say, “We may not be for you but we are certainly not against you”. That is what we are faced with, the so-called judicial activism. It creates almost a false pluralism.

Real pluralism should surely mean that I accept and respect one's right to be different, but so also should that person accept my right to be different and not do that which is against my beliefs. The religious communities are having a collective gag reaction. As decision after decision goes against them, they are forced to accept what I would describe as forced or convergent pluralism, one size fits all: “In the name of pluralism, you must accept what I say and who I am”. It is quite, I would submit, an illiberal pluralism and the courts are wittingly or unwittingly forcing values, convergent on a population that did not elect them and barely knows them.

If, as some anticipate, the court changes the definition, then it is reasonable that some minister, priest, rabbi or imam who refuses to marry two people of the same gender will be sued. That is almost a dead certainty. Witness after witness told us of case after case where equality rights trump religious freedom.

I remember the lawyer for the Catholic Civil Rights League making reference to the Hall case in Ontario. This was the young man who wanted to take his gay date to the prom. The Catholic School Board has a constitutional guarantee to conduct its affairs in accordance with Roman Catholic teachings and doctrines. All students and parents effectively sign on to that concept when they send their children to that school. Therefore it comes as no surprise when a Catholic board or school says, on something such as this issue, that no, they would not permit that. That did not seem to prevent the judge from making an order forcing the board to let the boy take his date to the prom. Equality rights trump religious freedom guarantees embedded in our constitution. Effectively, judge trumps bishop.

Is it any wonder witness after witness looks over their shoulders at the Hall case, or the Brockie case, where a printer was asked to print gay literature, refused and was sued, or the Trinity Western case, where all students signed on for a certain code of sexual conduct and the teacher's board said that it made them ineligible to teach in the schools of British Columbia? Is it any wonder therefore that these folks feel naked and exposed to certain aspects of judicial activism and take no comfort in the bland assurances that the guarantee of religious freedom will offer protection of religious expression?

It would be of some comfort if Parliament could be explicit in its guarantee of freedom of expression but I am afraid that would be an illusion. A robust freedom to dissent act or a human rights code might be of some comfort, as several witnesses suggested, but the courts will rightly say to that kind of idea, “Is the charter not enough?” Those in the religious community who are constantly paraded before the human rights boards and courts do not think the fig leaf of a charter provides them with any protection at all. It is almost a case of words are not enough.

The other thing that makes one wonder about this issue is Parliament itself. In 1999 we passed an overwhelming resolution after a day of very animated debate re-affirming the traditional definition of marriage. The preamble of Bill C-23, re-affirmed the traditional definition of marriage and brought it from a common law interpretation into an actual statutory bill. That has scarcely slowed down judicial trains heading toward a clash with Parliament, one which Parliament cannot win.

Twice in the last few years Parliament has spoken forcefully and unequivocally. Yet our system is such that the courts hold the ultimate trump card, which brings me back to my original point. It is extremely difficult to fashion a public policy which takes into account divergent interests and views when the legal environment is such that “you do it our way or we will do it for you”.

How does one fashion a response in the face of such a threat? I, and quite a number of others, believe we would be quite willing to address the genuine equity issues that rise before us, those broader issue, but the courts have effectively put us in a zero-sum game: “you win; you lose”. Unfortunately, the effect of which is that we all lose.

An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act

[Stephen Harper, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the only way we will save costs on this program is to scrap this registry and put the money into public safety.

The minister should be ashamed of himself for coming here with a whole bunch of costs and not being able to answer my questions on what this will cost and when it will be finished, but this is typical of the government. I am hardly surprised because this reflects its entire criminal justice agenda. It has nothing to do with public safety. Instead, it is just wasting money and being soft on crime.

We have Bill C-23 which frankly should be renamed the sex offender protection act because the only people in the country it protects are sex offenders. We have Bill C-20 that has loopholes for child pornography. I could go on and on. Under its watch the government has allowed convicts the right to vote.

Can the government explain why it is so soft on criminals and is never prepared to take real action on crime?

International Transfer of Offenders Act

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval West, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in the introduction of the government's initiative to update the Transfer of Offenders Act.

As legislators, we receive requests based on public opinion and suggestions made by non-governmental organizations. The Youth Criminal Justice Act, which came into force on April 1, 2003, is an example of how an aging law is replaced, in this case, the Young Offenders Act, which was enacted in 1985.

We went beyond revision in that case and, after broad and thorough consultation and the good work of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, replaced the existing statute with a more up to date version of the legislation that reflects the current political and public will.

More recently, we have voted to send Bill C-23 to the parliamentary committee, from which it will emerge to better protect the young and most vulnerable Canadians from sexual predators by establishing a nationwide registry of those convicted of sexual offences.

Bill C-33 is before us now and it is also an important piece of necessary legislation that we can take pride in considering and helping to fashion into a final product that will become the law of the land. As the name implies, the force of this legislation will be felt far beyond Canadian borders. It provides the international community with another example of Canada's progressive criminal justice system, which combines the best aspects of correctional practice. Bill C-33 and the act it will replace do so by balancing the need for fair and humane treatment of offenders with the need to respect the systems and philosophies of other countries.

The proposed bill retains most of the objectives and principles of the Transfer of Offenders Act, which was enacted in 1978.

The new international Transfer of Offenders Act will continue to provide for the implementation of treaties with other countries for the international transfer of offenders. The purpose of the act and the treaties signed between Canada and foreign states is essentially humanitarian. They allow Canadians convicted and detained abroad in difficult conditions to serve their sentences at home and foreign nationals to return to their home countries.

In the case of returning Canadians, the treaties promote public protection, as offenders are allowed to serve their sentences in Canada and to be gradually released into the community. Otherwise they would simply be deported from the country where they were convicted of an offence, however serious, at the end of their sentences and would arrive in Canada with no controls on them.

At the same time, in all cases, the treaties respect the sentences imposed abroad. Countries that return offenders to Canada can be assured that the sentences handed down by their courts will be enforced by the Canadian system.

However, this is not an exercise in clemency as some of my hon. colleagues opposite seem to believe. Anyone who knows Canadian penitentiaries knows that they are not places where one would wish to spend a great deal of time, even as an observer or visitor.

Some foreign administrations provide prison conditions tougher than ours, but it would not be appropriate to list them here. Nevertheless, offenders who are returned to serve sentences in Canadian prisons are not coddled. Other countries are aware of that and accept the transfer conditions before returning the offender.

The Transfer of Offenders Act as it stands continues to serve useful purposes. We are here today to bring it into the present century. The world has changed and the style and content of international treaties must change to keep up. There are obvious changes brought about by the birth of new nations and the rebirth of others. There are also nations that have become independent of former allegiances, thereby growing more attuned to democracy and a concern for human rights. These countries have a need to express these transformations internationally.

There is no better way to bridge these cultural gaps than getting together to negotiate constructive treaties. We find out where the differences are, discuss them, and arrive at compromises. That is the essence of international cooperation. At the same time, we learn from each other and establish new bonds of international partnership.

In this respect, I would like to mention that the very first country with which Canada negotiated an offender transfer treaty was, of course, our friend and ally to the south, the United States of America. That 25-year-old treaty is only one example of the convergence of our American neighbours' programs and policies with ours.

Since the act's proclamation in 1978, only technical amendments have been made to it, although more substantive issues have been identified. These issues have been brought forward with a broad range of interested parties since the consultation document was released in 1997. The wide-ranging consultations identified what amendments would be advisable and necessary. This exercise has been followed by an exhaustive drafting exercise, during which expert officials have identified what changes are possible given Canadian and international law.

As the Solicitor General indicated, the central clauses of the amended act will set out the principles and objectives of the act. This may seem obvious in the context of drafting legislation, but a cursory perusal of existing legislation quickly reveals that it is not so.

There is an excellent example of statement of principles and objectives in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act enacted by Parliament in 1992. These clauses proved to be very useful to corrections professionals. Having force of law, they are not easily amended and, therefore, provide consistency in sentencing.

In these times of mission statements and organizational commitments, the importance of clear and consistent direction for those who must stick to the intent of established legislation to exercise the will of Parliament is easy to understand.

An equally modern aspect of these legislative proposals is that measure requiring a new level of information sharing between governmental authorities and offenders. Simply put, Canadian officials will be obligated to inform a foreign citizen under its jurisdiction of the existence and substance of an international transfer treaty between Canada and the country of citizenship, a function that our Department of Foreign Affairs carries out with regard to Canadians convicted abroad. While this duty is routinely discharged, the added force of law will formalize the practice to the satisfaction of those signing treaties with Canada.

Another new provision will allow a foreign offender detained in Canada to cancel his request for a transfer at any point in time. This significant change will address the rare cases where the situation in the offender's country of origin has taken a turn for the worse between the time when transfer was requested and the time when it is to take place.

The last specific point I will mention may prove to be very important. This entails the new provisions to extend certain aspects of the transfer of offenders scheme to nations that have not yet joined the family of countries that currently have treaties with Canada for the transfer of offenders. One can see that circumstances might arise where such an accommodation would be essential to the well-being of a Canadian incarcerated abroad.

There are other aspects of Bill C-33 to explore, but I will leave it up to my hon. colleagues and, in due course, to the standing parliamentary committee responsible for looking into these measures.

Naturally, I am prepared to take questions from my hon. colleagues on these proposals.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-23.

[Gary Lunn, Canadian Alliance, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand and represent all my constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. I want to make a few points on the sex offender registry.

It is important to make the point that on March 13, 2001, my colleague from Langley—Abbotsford brought forward an Alliance opposition supply day motion calling for a national sex offender registry. In that motion it had a timeline that the government would have this completed by January 2002. Again, that motion was discussed over two years ago and the government has taken over a year to actually get this one done. However, now that it is finally done, as my colleague just stated, I believe it is very inadequate in three main areas.

First and foremost, the most troubling aspect of the legislation is that it is not retroactive. There are literally thousands and thousands of sex offenders. There are people like Karla Homolka who will be released from jail in the coming years, if not months. She will not be on the registry. There are thousands more who are equally as bad and will not be put on a registry to protect the public.

The recidivism rate is reported as high as 50%, some at 40%, but there is no question that it is high. Some would argue that it is almost a disease. Child predators, child molesters and pedophiles do offend. They attack and prey on the most vulnerable in our society. I have to ask: who are we trying to protect? Who is our duty to? I have to believe that every member of the House would want to protect the most innocent and vulnerable in our society.

My daughter turned eight years old today and I cannot imagine for the life of me how any parent could handle anything happening to a child that is so innocent, so young and so vulnerable. It would horrify me but it does happen.

As parliamentarians we could go a long way to lessening the opportunity of that happening and, if it does happen, we could increase our opportunity to protect them before they are put in harm's way.

In my readings, where there are effective sex offender registries, if a child is abducted by a sexual predator or someone else, if the authorities can get to a database and do a search of the immediate area to find out if there are any potential sexual predators residing in either a one kilometre radius or whatever it is, the chances of success are exponentially greater of getting to that child or person before the child or person is murdered or actually put in harm's way.

We have to ask ourselves what the most important thing is that we are trying to do in the legislation. I question the simple fact that we have the ability to make this retroactive. I would argue that we are probably doing more to help sexual predators than harming them by putting their names on a registry. If they know they are on a registry, the ones who are borderline or may not be as severe, they may not reoffend if they know they can that easily be tracked down. We have such amazing tools now, such as DNA, yet we seem to have lost our way when we read the bill.

It is absolutely, completely unacceptable that the bill is not retroactive. That is the single fundamental flaw and because of that flaw alone, I cannot support the bill. There are other weaknesses in the bill, which I could support, but I cannot because of the simple fact that it is not retroactive, that there is going to be an empty database.

I urge the government to rethink this. It has just passed a motion not allowing any amendments which is incredibly unfortunate.

The bill should be retroactive. Our interests should be in protecting the most vulnerable in our society, protecting people the victims, not the sexual predators, not the offenders, not the pedophiles. Unfortunately we seem to have our priorities backwards.

There are other weaknesses in Bill C-23. They are twofold.

First, even when the bill comes into force, somebody who is convicted of a sexual offence will not go on the registry again. Forget about the retroactivity, which is so bad that we have not been able to deal with it, but if we move forward now into the future, just being convicted of a sexual offence will not put someone on the registry. The Crown will have to make an application in each and every case to have someone put on the registry. Again that is backwards. It should be automatic that once a person is convicted of a sexual offence, and we could list all the offences, that person would automatically go on the sex offender registry.

For the life of me, I have no idea why a drafter or even why the government responsible would do it this way. It absolutely makes no sense.

To top that off, there is another loophole for the sex offenders. They can make a case to be excluded from the registry if they can show that being on the registry would cause them greater harm than the public. I am at a loss for words. We are not talking about somebody who is accused or who maybe committed an offence; we are talking about a convicted sex offender. The person has been to court, has been tried and found guilty, yet somehow it would cause that individual greater harm than all society. Again we have it backwards. Again it is our children, the most vulnerable in our society. I cannot imagine a member in the House who could possibly support that, yet that is the way the bill is written.

Members stood in the House of Commons and voted for the government to create a sex offender registry and two years later, this is the best it could do. One wonders if the government is competent to govern. I mean that. When the government comes in with a piece of legislation such as this bill, one questions what its interests are.

In summary, first, it is absolutely, grossly inadequate that the bill is not retroactive. That alone is enough to not support the registry. Second, even after a person has been tried and convicted of a sex offence, that person is not put on the registry. Only if the Crown applies for that person to be put on the registry will that person be put on. It should be automatic. The default should be that the person is automatically put on the registry. Third, if the convicted sex offender can show that there would be greater harm to that individual than that of society, that person can be excluded. I would imagine that if one was on the sex offender registry, it would probably do them more good in trying to stop the recidivism.

I urge the government to allow an amendment to come forward to at least make the bill retroactive. Otherwise this legislation would be absolutely meaningless.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I must express my profound disappointment on how Bill C-23 has been handled in the House of Commons.

Having written the original bill on the national sex offender registry, I have followed the issue for a long time past, even when the government did not understand what we were trying to do with a national sex offender registry. Now it has come out and suggested that it has a great idea about a national sex offender registry and how to handle it.

One of the profound disappointments is the retroactive issue. Today we voted on an amendment to Bill C-23 that would have made sure this particular issue would be retroactive. I will go into that in detail in a moment.

However, the problem I am having is that the government does not want to make the bill retroactive. In other words, it wants to implement a national sex offender registry but it does not want to include all those who are currently incarcerated in this country, either provincially or federally, for sex offences. That includes approximately 10,000 sex offenders who will not be registered in the registry on opening day.

I read into the House yesterday the names of some of the people who will not be registered. I asked my staff to provide me with an arbitrary list of sex offenders who were written about in the last three months. I read out the names of some of these individuals who will not be on this registry on opening day. I do not understand why the government, which has the ability to register these people, will not do it.

I do not know what to say or what to do any longer in this country where we get lip service about implementing a national sex offender registry. The government accommodates everything that I wrote in the original private member's bill, but in the last two pages it ruined the whole damn thing. It ruined it all.

How? First, after Royal Assent there will not be one soul on that registry. How they get on the registry, if we are lucky enough to get them there, is they have to get out of prison, commit another a sex offence crime, go back to prison, serve their time and then they will be put on the registry.

Has anyone ever heard anything so stupid? For the people listening to what I am saying, I do not understand at all why they would vote for those people. It is a disgrace how they are handling this situation.

[Aileen Carroll, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, there having been lengthy discussion and consideration of Bill C-23, I think it is an appropriate time for the following motion. I move:

That the question be now put.

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-23.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am addressing Bill C-23, just like my colleague, the hon. member for Jonquière, and our critic on issues relating to the Solicitor General, the hon. member for Châteauguay.

I am well aware that this is no ordinary bill. When it comes to sex offenders, there is a mix of caution, rejection, biases and, of course, anger. Indeed, it is not easy, from a human point of view, to explain behaviours that we find reprehensible from early age and from the moment we begin to socialize.

Having said that, the Bloc Quebecois wants to be cautious. Our critic on issues relating to the Solicitor General, the hon. member for Châteauguay, pointed out that we support the principle of establishing a sex offenders' registry. Of course, we would like to see a number of benchmarks that Bill C-23 currently does not meet.

I should point out that, as Quebeckers, 1993 was a great and memorable year for us. As we all remember, this is the year the Bloc Quebecois became the official opposition. It is also the year an interdepartmental committee was established with the Deputy Minister of the Solicitor General, the Deputy Minister of Health and the Deputy Minister of Justice. We began working on a framework that was to lead to the creation of the registry that is now the object of this bill.

It is interesting to remember that the 1993 report included a number of findings. The first one was that a separate registry, that is a specific registry for sex offenders, would duplicate part of the information that is already collected by the Canadian Police Information Centre.

As a member of Parliament, I had the pleasure, in the nineties, to sit on the subcommittee on organized crime, when the situation was particularly disturbing. That committee travelled all across Canada. I was able to see that the Canadian Police Information Centre has very sophisticated files, as it should. We already have databases that allow us to track down individuals who have been convicted of a punishable offence, whether by summary conviction or criminal indictment.

The working group's second conclusion was that it would be desirable to have access to the full criminal history, rather than narrowing it down to sex offences. That is debatable. Should we have a specific registry for sex offenders or should we know all about the criminal background of an individual who has been convicted of any criminal offence?

We were told that a separate system would be expensive, that there would certainly be privacy issues—I will come back to that because it is extremely important. And of course, a comprehensive screening system is necessary.

We are in favour of establishing a sex offenders registry. We would hope there would be a number of safeguards along the way. There is, of course, the issue of protecting personal information and also that of proportionality in sentencing. That is very important.

I cannot agree with the previous speaker who seemed to be saying that compatibility with the charter is not important. As you know, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has great strengths and great flaws. It invalidated important provisions of Quebec's Bill 101. So for us it is negative. The late René Lévesque opposed the charter because the section on multiculturalism was incompatible with the social choices made by Quebec. But in terms of main protections in criminal law, such as the doctrine of audi alteram partem , the right to be heard and to have a fair defence, and the other main protections found in section 7 of the charter, we are in favour.

These provisions are also found in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Quebec was one of the first legislatures, the first nation within Canada, to adopt a Quebec charter, in 1975. In 1977, the Parti Quebecois government made significant changes to it, even adding social condition to article 10, which is still not part of the Canadian Human Rights Act, despite the many bills tabled by this member of the Bloc Quebecois.

Our colleague, the hon. member for Sherbrooke, has taken up the cause since this matter relates to human rights.

The intent of the bill is to amend the Criminal Code. This is interesting because criminal law constantly seeks to maintain balance.

I can say that there was a former Minister of Justice who, in the early 1970s, published a white paper. The Criminal Code, obviously, is used to sanction, to coerce and to invite us to maintain a balance between the great values of integrity of person and peace among communities. Which Minister of Justice published this white paper on criminal law reform? The one who is now Prime Minister.

It is interesting to note that the then member for Saint-Maurice was the Minister of Justice. Unfortunately, these years bring back bad memories because that Minister of Justice unilaterally patriated the Constitution, which Quebec's own National Assembly has never accepted. The National Assembly is not likely to ratify this document from 1982 any too soon. It is a document which eroded the authority of the National Assembly, and we will never accept this. The Bloc Quebecois is the direct outcome of this rejection of the Constitution Act, 1982.

That said, Bill C-23 adds an extremely important provision to the Criminal Code. This provision amends sections 490.02 to 490.09. It would, therefore, establish a certain number of offences. For persons found guilty of this series of offences, the courts can determine, at the Crown's request—this must be kept in mind; it is not automatic—the list of offences, which I will share with you and which lead to the offender being listed on the registry.

These are pretty serious offences, as hon. members will see. We are talking about sexual offences involving children, and this is covered, of course, by section 490.02, under invitation to sexual touching and sexual exploitation for instance.

You may remember, Mr. Speaker—I think you were a member of this place at the time—that in 1995 the Criminal Code was amended to include sexual exploitation taking place not only in Canada but also abroad.

We were witnessing the emergence of the whole sex tourism industry. Unfortunately, there were fellow citizens of ours who travelled abroad, often to such sun destinations as Cuba, Mexico or Thailand, to have a good time without always bothering to respect the dignity of those whose country they were visiting and, sadly, engaged in activities related to sexual exploitation, against which there was no legal recourse.

Back in 1995 and 1996, the hon. member for Québec had put a bill forward. The debate that took place in this House was most worthwhile. Once again, we can clearly see how vigilant the members of the Bloc Quebecois are.

That having been said, offences requiring registration include sexual offences against children, invitation to sexual touching and, of course, sexual exploitation.

Another extremely reprehensible activity, which people do not want to be negotiable for those engaging in it, is incest. There is also child pornography, which the Fraser commission dealt with in the days of the Conservative government. There is luring by means of a computer system.

Mr. Speaker, without imposing, would you be kind enough to ask if I could have another five minutes to finish my speech?

Business of the House

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I believe that answers the question of the hon. member from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, who now has the floor to speak to Bill C-23.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

I must state right at the beginning that the Bloc Quebecois is in favour of the principle of protecting society from dangerous sex offenders.

It must be kept in mind that I introduced Bill C-208 back in January of 2001, with a view to increasing the penalties for sexual offences involving minors. This bill also required any person who is convicted of such an offence to undergo treatment as the court directs. The governor in council would have had to make regulations setting out the situations in which the convicted person should undergo treatment. It is important to note that this type of treatment should in no case interfere with the bodily integrity of the convicted person. It should be psychological treatment only, because physicians agree that the predisposition to pedophilia, which is a sexual attraction to children under 10, is first and foremost a psychiatric problem.

As is evident, my bill really addressed sexual predators who prey on children and engage in pedophilia.

Why must we require psychological treatment for the perpetrators? According to André McKibben, a criminologist and therapist at Montreal's Pinel Institute, a criminal who has been cured of sexual deviancy will not reoffend. The results obtained at Pinel seem conclusive on this point and show a 50% reduction in repeat offences by repeat offenders.

Unfortunately, there is no legal obligation for a sex offender to go into therapy. Bill C-23, which we are debating today, does not raise this point either. I find this most unfortunate. I am, however, still in agreement with its principle and objectives, even though it could go further than it does.

I would like to tell our audience what this bill is all about. It is called Bill C-23, and its full name is “an Act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts”.

It comprises 26 clauses. Its main purpose is set out in clause 2 as being to help police services investigate crimes of a sexual nature by requiring the registration of certain information relating to sex offenders.

This bill creates obligations. Clauses 4 to 7 deal with the obligations of sex offenders. A sex offender shall report in person to the registration centre within 15 days after: first, the order is made but he is not given a custodial sentence; second, he receives an absolute unconditional discharge if he is found not criminally responsible for the offence on account of mental disorder; third, he is released from custody pending the determination of an appeal; or he is simply released from custody.

Subclause 4(2) provides he must register again after a change of address, a change of name or surname, and every year as an update. It is important to emphasize this.

Clause 5 outlines the information the sex offender must provide. It is important to note that currently this clause lists the type of information the sex offender must communicate, namely his given name and surname, his date of birth, his gender, his home address and work address if applicable, his phone number, and the number of any mobile phone or pager in his possession. Also, the sex offender will have to provide the person who collects information with a description of any physical distinguishing mark such as tattoos.

Clause 6 sets out how the sex offender must provide notification of any absence or stay abroad.

As you can see all these clauses, namely 4(2), 5 and 6, are a very important part of the registration process.

Then come the responsibilities of persons who collect and register information. They have responsibilities. Such a person will register without delay in the database the information on the sex offender in a manner that ensure its confidentiality.

The sex offender will be entitled to receive a copy of the information, free of charge, either at the time of registration or promptly by mail. The sex offender may, at any time, ask that the information contained in the database be corrected if it contains an error or omission. Therefore, the person who collects information will have, without delay, to make the appropriate corrections as soon as requested by the sex offender.

The bill also provides for prohibitions and the protection of data.

Clauses 14 and 15 deal with the retention of information in the database, which will be part of the automatedrecords retrieval systemthat is maintained by the Royal CanadianMounted Police. The RCMP maintains an automatedcriminal conviction records retrieval system. The information will be kept in the database indefinitely except when there is an acquittal or pardon under the Criminal Code provisions on clemency.

Clause 16, which is very important, deals with the prohibited uses of the databank. The basic principle is a total prohibition except for people who are authorized in order to perform the duties provided for in Bill C-23.

The bill mentions specifically that authorization to consult the database is given to all police services for investigations on sexual crimes. The bill provides that the police service must have reasonablegrounds to believe the crime is of a sexual nature.

As mentioned in clause 16(2)(b), a person who collects information is authorized to consult the database to record or correct data.

Under clause 16(2)(c), a person who does research or statistical analyses can consult the database if he or she has been authorized by the RCMP under clause13. Before accessing the database, one must have authorization from the RCMP commissioner. It is very important to emphasize that this database will not be accessible just anybody.

Any employee of, or person retained by, the RCMP is also authorized to consult the database in order to maintain it, as is any person authorized by the Commissioner.

The third paragraph of clause 16 sets out that the data may only be matched for the purpose of an investigation of a crime where there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is of a sexual nature. The resulting matched data may only be used for the purpose of that investigation or a resulting prosecution.

The bill also contains offences resulting from failing to comply with the registry. The punishments contained in the bill apply to offenders who provide false information and anyone who contravenes the offences specified in section 16, which I just read.

The punishment for offenders varies from a $10,000 fine or imprisonment for six months, or both for a first offence of providing false or misleading information. For a second offence, the punishment can include a $10,000 fine or imprisonment for a term of not more than two years, or both.

This bill makes amendments to the Criminal Code. Clauses 20 and 21 of the bill would add sections 490.02 through 490.09 to the Criminal Code. Clause 20 of the bill designates the offences that require that information be provided.

They include: sexual offences involving children; invitation to sexual touching; sexual exploitation, incest, child pornography; luring a child by means of a computer system; stupefying or overpowering for the purpose of sexual intercourse; living on the avails of prostitution of a person under age of eighteen; sexual assault; sexual assault with a weapon; aggravated sexual assault; removal of a child from Canada; indecent acts; murder or manslaughter in commission of offences.

This bill also contains consequential amendments. The Access to Information Act, the Criminal Records Act, and the Youth Criminal Justice Act will be amended accordingly.

Clauses 22 to 25 of Bill C-23 will make the manager of a federal institution—this is important to highlight—responsible for any sharing of documents that contain information. The Access to Information Act is amended to prohibit any disclosure of information. This is in clause 22.

Clause 23 of the bill amends the Criminal Records Act to include orders relating to the mandatory registration of sex offenders and adds the list of restrictions.

Finally, the purpose of clause 24 is to coordinate this bill with the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I agree completely that sex offenders should be centrally registered. Every year, I meet people from the Canadian Police Association who believe that such a system will help them better monitor sex offenders who move from one neighbourhood to another.

In my region, a woman by the name of Anne-Claude Girard has been a great success in recent years. She has been raising the public's awareness of sex offenders involved in pedophilia.

All the police officers I have met have said, “It is very worthwhile for someone to do that, but we do not have a registry to identify sex offenders, so they can just go somewhere else”. Someone could come into my region and I would have no way of knowing if he is a pedophile and no way of ensuring that he will not harm young people.

Therefore, it is important to have such a registry. The protection of our children is at stake. Unfortunately, I think that the government should have included in the bill measures that would ensure a psychological follow-up of sex offenders. Because, it must be said, sex offenders have mental problems which must be addressed so that they do not reoffend.

We must also offer support to victims and their families. Never think that convicting an offender will be enough for them. The victims will feel distress and despair for years, possibly for all their lives, because of what happened to them.

In recent years, I have met young people who are still going through a terrible time after having been abused by a pedophile. It hurts to hear young people come to our office and tell us, “It was not my body that was violated. It was my soul, the only thing that belonged to me”.

This bill should provide for assistance to help these young people cope. Many victims are even under the impression that they ran after trouble. That is wrong, they did not bring any of this upon themselves.

Why did the Minister of Justice not see fit to support these people through Bill C-23? It is all fine and well to have a registry, but there are still criminals and victims. I would have liked this bill to address the victims' perspective as well.

I suggest that the Minister of Justice ponder on this and amend his bill accordingly. I find it irresponsible to leave victims of sexual abuse without any government support.

This bill ought to have gone further. Like the Bloc Quebecois, I agree with the principle of protecting society against dangerous sexual predators. I would also have agreed with the minister if he had taken gone all the way by providing assistance to the victims as well as treatment for those who abused them.

[Ted White, Canadian Alliance, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is that old saying that if something is worth doing it is worth doing well. I think Bill C-23 is probably a very good example of how that particular saying does not apply at all.

For all of the reasons that have just been discussed by my colleagues here, the government has decided that it is not going to do this well. It has decided that for reasons of legality it is not going to attempt to make a meaningful sex registry. It is going to capitulate before it even begins. It will capitulate and say, “We can never make this effective, so we won't even try”.

It is not good enough, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you why: because we have a state of desperation among our police forces out there as they try to enforce the laws that are ineffective. They are trying to put these offenders behind bars and they cannot achieve it.

I will give members an example from just this week in Vancouver. A repeat sex offender was released back onto the street by a judge when he was in the process of being charged and appearing before the court for charges to be laid. The judge released him back onto the street again, even though the police pleaded with the judge to put him in custody. He was a repeat offender; he had gone back to exactly the same place he had been arrested at before. The police said to the judge, “He is going to go back there. He has done it before. Please keep him in custody”.

The judge released him. The police were so frustrated they went on television on the six o'clock news on BCTV in Vancouver and publicized the guy's name. They said they had no other option but to warn the public that this man was out there, and they gave the name of the park he frequented. He had done it at least twice before. The police had arrested this man and even had him in jail for a short time. He had been released and went right back to the same place.

There is one of two things happening here. Either the man is very ill and he needs a lot of treatment, and for goodness' sake we need to recognize that and do something about it, or else there is no penalty for what he is doing. In this case, that appears to be what is happening. The man receives a slap on the wrist and a few days in jail and out he goes again. This occurs even when the police in their frustration beg with a judge to keep him behind bars. The judge simply releases him back onto the street.

Frankly, there is far too much of that now. We see case after case day after day in the media. These criminals are being released back onto the street even when the police request that they not be released.

Last week I received an e-mail from a lawyer in my riding who is a very good Liberal supporter. In fact, that lawyer ran for the candidacy in the Liberal Party in my riding. He wanted to run against me in the election when Warren Kinsella actually was parachuted in by the Prime Minister to run against me. That was a wonderful achievement: getting rid of Warren Kinsella in that election.

This lawyer is actually a very nice guy. We get along really well. Obviously we have differences in our opinions on politics, but on a lot of things we agree. In fact, he has been shown in the North Shore News in the last few days agreeing with our party's position on the war with Iraq, indicating that he is embarrassed by the Prime Minister and that we really need to side with our traditional allies, but I digress.

The lawyer sent me an e-mail last Wednesday or Thursday saying that he would be in court today. He is probably there right now as I am standing in the House to speak. He is in court today on a case to do with an Iranian refugee claimant who is drug trafficking in North Vancouver. He was arrested and charged. He told the prosecutor that his refugee claim was a scam, that it was only a way of getting into Canada to deal drugs and that he had been schooled and told how to do this.

Of course my first question to this lawyer was whether he advised the immigration department about this. He has, so now the guy is targeted, but it is expected that he will be sentenced to a one year term in prison for trafficking in narcotics in North Vancouver. We all know that means he will be out in just a matter of weeks or months and will be back on the street. The problem is, says this lawyer in North Vancouver who is a Liberal supporter, that he would like to see this guy's feet not even touch the ground on his way to the airport to be deported.

It is not going to happen because the guy will be out on early release or parole. That is considered to be part of the sentence so of course the immigration department cannot deport the guy. There is nothing to stop the guy going back on the street to traffic drugs again, which then creates a new charge, which puts him back into the system again, which further prevents the immigration department from deporting him. That is how stupid these laws are.

The sex registry is much the same thing. It has been done so poorly that the information in it would be relatively useless right at the beginning. It will take an enormous number of years for it to become of any use whatsoever.

I will go back to the case I just used as an example, the failure to properly deal with criminals by the government, the immigration law business. I used to use the example of my 87-year-old mother who lives in New Zealand. If she jumped on an airplane from New Zealand, landed at Vancouver International Airport and said she was a refugee, under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms because of the Singh case way back in the 1970s, I think it was, the case that the government will not do anything about, my 87-year-old mother from New Zealand could claim to be a refugee and we would have to accept her claim.

She would be released on her own recognizance after about a one hour interview. She would be given welfare, a place to live, furnished at taxpayers' expense, medical care and dental care. On average it would take her about a year with legal aid, which of course she would get, before her case came before the Immigration and Refugee Board. The chances are that the Immigration and Refugee Board would say that she was from New Zealand and was not a refugee.

If my mother refused to identify herself, the New Zealand government would not give permission to issue travel papers and we would not be able to deport her. My 87-year-old mother could live forever in Canada on welfare as a refugee claimant. That is what is happening every day under the government's immigration laws.

My riding has the largest Iranian population in the country. At least 40% of all the Iranians living there are refugee claimants. Most of them are bogus. I just mentioned the lawyer who sent me an e-mail last Wednesday or Thursday. He actually put in his email that people in the Iranian community had told him the guy was a criminal in Iran and he is a criminal in Canada and they wanted to know why we had let him in.

I cannot say how many times that comment has been made to me by the decent Iranian immigrants in my riding who came in using the proper system. They see all these, and I am sorry to use the word, scumbags who come in using our refugee laws and claiming refugee status just so they can be criminals here.

There are so many examples of the laws that the government passes, as my colleague said, where the victims are treated with disdain and the criminals get everything they want.

In terms of the retroactivity of the bill, why not use some creativity? Instead of capitulating and giving up and saying it cannot do anything because the Supreme Court will say it is wrong to make it retroactive, for the safety of the kids of our country, let us be creative.

We have a notwithstanding clause in our charter. The government is afraid to use it, but maybe if the government were a little creative, it could use it in this case. What would be wrong, for example, if we decided to use the notwithstanding clause to make the registry retroactive? We could put it to the people of Canada in a referendum and ask them whether they approved of using the notwithstanding clause that way.

What better reason could there be to have a referendum in the country than on such an important issue? Instead of capitulating to a group of politically appointed judges, why do we not ask the people of Canada whether they would agree that this issue is worth using the notwithstanding clause and to make the registry retroactive?

There is always a way. Why would that not work? Even if the government is too afraid to use the notwithstanding clause, why does it not try a little harder?

I do not think the lawyers in the justice department are trying very hard. At the very least they could have written something into the bill and tried their darndest to make it retroactive. If eventually it was struck down, at least we could have said that we tried. We have not even tried.

If we look at some other western civilizations such as Britain or the United States, they use retroactivity. For example, in Florida the DNA bank was established a few years ago. I remember standing in the House speaking about this when we were debating the DNA bill. When the DNA bank was introduced in Florida, it was made retroactive. Criminals were forced to give blood samples, something the Liberal government would not do as it would be infringing on criminals' rights if we forced them to give a sample when they were arrested. In Florida that is what was done.

The ability to solve crimes in Florida has increased dramatically because now there is such a valuable database of genetic material from those criminals. Meanwhile we here in Canada are struggling along, trying to gradually build a DNA database one person at a time and getting people's permission instead of going into the prisons and retroactively taking blood samples from all prisoners so we can identify them. That is what we should be doing, just as we do for fingerprints. If it can be done in the U.K. and the United States, we should find a way to do it here instead of constantly sitting on the fence.

It is the same situation with the Iraq war. Everything the government does is a half measure. It sits on the fence. It will not make a decision. Instead of joining with our traditional allies to make some things retroactive, to force criminals to provide DNA samples, it capitulates to a nothingness, a failure to make a decision. It upsets people.

The intent of the bill, according to the government, is to establish a national database of sex offenders so that the police will be able to use the database to track the activities of sex offenders, their whereabouts and to be able to provide the public with the information or just to solve crimes. It is a noble intention. As I said at the beginning of my speech, if it is worth doing, it is worth doing well. We should be doing our darndest to make this bill effective and to make it work well.

Instead of that, the government has dragged its feet all the way, kicking and screaming until we have this half measure before us today. If we think about it, the government was really reluctant to even bring in this bill. Let me provide some history.

As mentioned earlier by my colleague from Red Deer, it started with the member for Langley—Abbotsford almost 10 years ago in this place. For 10 years he has been urging the government to establish a sex offender registry. Why did it take so long? If the government had brought it in the very first year that my colleague demanded it, we would already have 10 years of information, even if we had not made it retroactive at that point. We are already 10 years behind where we could have been. It should have responded on day one, instead of being more worried, as the government always is, about the rights of criminals instead of the rights of the victims. Just think how valuable that sex offender registry would be today if we had established it in 1994 instead of still talking about it in 2003.

On March 13, 2001, two years ago, the House voted in favour of a Canadian Alliance motion which read:

That the government establish a national sex offender registry by January 1, 2002.

We are 15 months further downstream from the day by which the House agreed that registry was to be established and we are still talking about it. We have not established the registry.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin with the last point first. What I said, if my hon. colleague had not been running in and out of the chamber and would have actually been sitting in his seat paying attention to my remarks, was that my constituents are conveying to me repeatedly that when it comes to protecting children they do not give a damn about the charter. If the charter is the impediment to protecting children or the rights of the criminal, I can tell the hon. member which side my constituents come down on. I do not know what side he comes down on.

It seems to me, in the nine and a half years that I have been here, that the Liberals are more concerned about the rights of the criminals than they are about the rights of the victims. If that is not the case, then why in heaven's name does Bill C-23 even say that there is concern about the privacy of the sex offenders?

One of my colleagues, the member for Langley—Abbotsford, has been trying for nine and a half years, ever since he came to this place after the 1993 election, to have a victim's bill of rights passed by the chamber, but to no avail. If the member for Mississauga South cares so much about the rights of victims, children, women, and the most vulnerable members of our society, why has his party been holding up any drafting, and certainly any passage, of a victim's bill of rights? That is the first point that he made. So that it is clear where I stand on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, certainly I support it.

The other thing is that I have often heard it remarked that it was too bad that when Mr. Trudeau was designing his Charter of Rights and Freedoms he did not also design a charter of rights and responsibilities to go along with it. I hear that from people out in the real world all the time. Perhaps something the hon. member for Mississauga South would like to consider as well is that in addition to a victim's bill of rights, maybe we should start working on a charter of responsibilities to accompany the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The member said a number of times today that he was concerned that we could not include retroactivity without running afoul of the justice practices or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Let us try it. That is my point. Is the chamber not in the process of drafting law? Are we the lawmakers or have we, through the Liberal government, handed off that job to the courts? Increasingly, that is what my constituents are saying.

Why is it that we are so afraid of being overruled by the Supreme Court of Canada that we will not draft and introduce legislation that people are calling upon us to draft, introduce and pass? We seem to be afraid that the Supreme of Court will overrule it or interpret it some other way than what we intended. Why is that? I do not understand it and people in my riding do not understand it. We should be the lawmakers. We should not be saying that we would like to include retroactivity, but perhaps it would run afoul of the justice practices or the charter.

First of all, we should decide if it is the right thing to do. Then we should do it and use all the powers of the Parliament of Canada to ensure that if we do believe it is the right thing that it stands up. If it does not stand up, then we should fix the problem. We should be in control, not the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been quite an informative and interesting debate for the last hour or two with members of the Canadian Alliance exchanging views with the member for Mississauga South. Rather than him standing up and trying to blindly defend the indefensible, I wish he would take time to read the bill in its entirety. I see my hon. colleague from Elk Island crossing the Chamber floor to hopefully enlighten the hon. member for Mississauga South. Perhaps in the future his interventions will make a bit more sense.

I would like to start out by addressing some of the comments that the member for Mississauga South raised over the last hour or two, not only during his 20 minute speech but during his interventions when he was commenting on and questioning, not only members of the official opposition but other members of the Chamber. One comment from the member for Mississauga South that I found particularly offensive was his contention that Bill C-23 would somehow be fixed when it went to the Standing Committee on Justice.

I am deeply honoured and pleased to have the privilege of representing the good people of Prince George--Peace River in this Chamber. It is a very unique honour to be given the right to the best of my ability to represent my electoral constituency in this place. It has been my experience though, in the nine years I have been an MP, to see all too often bills not getting fixed at committee. I say that without any particular pride or joy. No one knows this better than the hon. member for Mississauga South. As a Liberal government backbencher, he has endeavoured on countless occasions in the period of time I have been here to bring forward amendments and improve government legislation only to have those amendments duly voted down.

People in the real world outside Ottawa are not aware that the very nature of the committee structure is partisan and that is unfortunate. When we have a majority government with the majority of members elected to the House of Commons, we end up with a situation where it has the majority of members sitting on all standing committees as well. When ministers bring forward legislation, they get the assistance of the government whip to ensure that the legislation goes through virtually unamended. He or she gets all members of the particular standing committee to vote down any amendments brought forward, unless they are amendments brought by the government department and put forward by Liberal members.

We have seen in past that bills were amended quite extensively but very seldom were they what I would call independent amendments, whether those amendments came from a government backbencher or from an opposition member from any one of the four opposition parties. All too often amendments are dismissed out of hand and voted down at committee. We have seen this happen time and time again with important legislation, and I could run down a very long list of legislation that has been treated in that manner.

I cannot believe, as I sat in the Chamber, that I repeatedly heard the member for Mississauga South say that we should get the bill through second reading, get it off to committee and it would fixed. That is complete nonsense.

I think not only parliamentarians or staff persons who have worked on Parliament Hill but also members of the general public, who follow with any degree of interest what goes on in this place, would know that is complete nonsense. All too often when legislation goes off to committee, unless the government, or the minister or the department says that a technical error was made, all other amendments are voted down.

I have seen bills, which were passed, come back to haunt the government down the road because Liberals do not do their homework and they turn a deaf ear to opposition members. For partisan reasons, they say that they will not even consider a particular amendment.

When it comes to Bill C-23, what could be more important than protecting the most vulnerable members of our society, women and children, boys and girls, from sexual predators? In the nine and a half years I have been here, I have heard over and over again the issue of the need to do a better job of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society.

My colleague from Elk Island pointed out, and elicited quite a round of debate from the member for Mississauga South, that under the section entitled “Purpose and Principles”, subclauses 2(2) (a) (b) and (c) did not talk about preventing these types of horrendous crimes. That was the issue he was getting at when the Liberal member for Mississauga South intervened and said that under particular clause “This Act shall be carried out in recognition of, and in accordance with, the following principles: (a) in the interest of protecting society”. He focussed on that and said that the bill really was about protecting society.

However when we read on further, that argument is nonsensical because there is no mention in any of those paragraphs of preventing sexual assault, sexual abuse and the likes of those despicable crimes. It is all about bringing forward a registry in the hopes of helping police solve crimes, which is an admirable goal in and of itself. There is no question of that. We want to assist police and the authorities in any way possible to catch the reprehensible individuals and put them away.

However, as my colleague from Elk Island so eloquently stated, the primary goal has to be to prevent it to begin with. We should try to utilize and put in place all the tools possible to prevent these types of crimes from ever occurring in the first place, especially when dealing with individuals who have shown statistically that the recidivism rate is of the nature of 40%. In other words, on average, four out of 10 sexual offenders that are currently incarcerated in Canada will reoffend again. We can count on it. We know it will happen. Yet the government draws up legislation in Bill C-23 and says that retroactivity is open for debate. It is concerned about it because it might not stand up under the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Well, guess what? My constituents, and I hear this constantly, do not give a damn about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable people of our society. They do not care. They do not want that argument. They are sick and tired of hearing that argument because it focuses more on the rights of the criminal, of the predator, than it does on the rights of the victims.

My constituents want a government that will stand and say that it will go to any length to protect the most vulnerable people in our society. That is what they want from a government. They tell me over and over again. They do not want to hear the legal mumbo-jumbo, that we better make sure this law is right because it might end up before the Supreme Court of Canada and it will get struck down because it is offensive to the predators and goes against their rights.

As I said, my constituents do not care about the rights of the criminals. They want a government that is going to start focusing on the rights of the victims and do everything within its power to ensure that there are no more victims, or certainly that the number of victims is kept to a minimum.

My colleague from Battlefords--Lloydminster brought forward an amendment which states:

That the motion be amended by replacing all the words after the word “That” with

this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-23, An Act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, since the bill fails to require retroactive registration of sex offenders who have a 40% recidivism rate in order to avoid needing another offence before a repeat sex offender is added to the registry.

Again I do not take any pride or pleasure in this statement, but I think that is a very worthwhile amendment. My colleague from Battlefords--Lloydminster is well aware that if that amendment were accepted and passed, it would kill the bill. The point he is making, the point the Canadian Alliance as the official opposition is making is that this bill might as well be dead as to be the way it is. It is useless.

I said earlier during an intervention that I do not know whether other colleagues, especially government colleagues in the chamber, are getting tired of listening to me make these kinds of statements. I suspect they are. I know that I am getting tired of saying them. I am getting so frustrated with the government bringing forward these half-baked ideas and trying to sell them to the Canadian public as if it actually were addressing a serious issue. I am getting totally frustrated with it.

And it is not just me; it is not just the one member who happens to represent Prince George--Peace River. Members throughout the chamber and across party lines are reaching that same level of frustration. Society is crying out for a government to address these serious issues, especially the ones dealing with protection of children.

Another bill before the House, Bill C-20, deals with pornography and it also does not go far enough to protect children. It redrafts, rejumbles and rejigs the existing laws but we are still stuck with court interpretations that allow for a legal defence of child pornography based upon artistic merit. Whoever heard of such nonsense?

Members should go out into the real world outside the chamber, outside this Ottawa bubble of Parliament Hill and talk to people about protecting children. I can say that for the people of Prince George—Peace River it is not just their member of Parliament who is frustrated. The people from one end of my riding to the other are fed up with this nonsense where the government brings forward this type of legislation and tries to convince Canadians it is doing something to address a serious problem. It boggles my mind.

What will we have if Bill C-23 proceeds? And I suspect it will because the government has a majority. It will vote down the amendment by the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster and it will vote down any other amendments.

The House will ship Bill C-23 off to committee. This is something the Liberal backbencher from Mississauga South says is the answer, to send it off to committee and the bill will be fixed there. I wish I had just a pittance of his confidence that anything would be accomplished at committee, but I do not and I think that will be borne out.

I remember another law that was passed. Maybe my hon. colleague from Mississauga South can remember. It dealt with something called conditional sentencing. I fought against that law back in 1995. The Liberals forced it through and said not to worry about it, that it would be fine.

I think all the opposition parties said they did not have any problem with conditional sentencing if it was used for minor crimes, misdemeanours such as a young person caught for the first time on some minor charge, vandalism, property damage, shoplifting, that type of a crime. The young person would not be thrown in jail with hardened criminals but instead would get conditional sentencing.

Conditional sentencing is where a court will impose conditions rather than jail time. None of us have a problem with that.

The opposition, at that time it was the Reform Party of Canada, pointed out repeatedly during debate and at the justice committee, ironically enough, that the bill could be abused by the court system. We could end up with a situation where violent criminals got off scot-free or they could have some condition imposed. If they had killed someone while driving while drunk perhaps they would not be able to drive for a while, maybe five or ten years, or sex offenders would end up not doing jail time.

There have actually been cases where people have been convicted of sexual crimes and have not served a day in jail because of conditional sentencing. This is something the government brought forward and said it was a good idea.

The government would not listen to the opposition when we said that it was not the right way to proceed, that we should define which crimes it could apply to and for which the judges could use this new form of sentencing. No, the government would not listen. We are still stuck with it however many years later it is now. I lose track after a while.

I certainly support the amendment by my colleague to not give second reading to the bill if we cannot make this retroactive, if we cannot send a signal to the courts, to the justice system and to the people back home in northeastern British Columbia. They always tell me there is no such thing as a justice system in Canada anymore. They say it is a legal system. It is a system designed by lawyers for lawyers. It is not a justice system. They would argue that there is not justice anymore in our legal system. Some days it is pretty hard to not agree with that argument.

There is no question it has to be retroactive. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest bringing forward, as Bill C-23 does, legislation to enact a registry for sexual offenders and only have it from this day forward or from whatever day it is actually enacted into law, without placing on it the individuals who are already incarcerated, especially because of the high incidence of recidivism.

I think every member of the House could speak passionately to this issue for a long period of time, but unfortunately, my time is up. I have appreciated the opportunity to voice my concerns and the concerns of the constituents of Prince George--Peace River on Bill C-23.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of debate in the House is to have an exchange of ideas. I just asked the hon. member a question about what he would like to see in the bill, a new bill coming forward if this one is defeated, and what could be changed to make it acceptable to him. He said that he wanted to see the principles and that it was there to protect Canadians. I am not quoting him directly but I think the intent of his statement was that the registry would be there to protect Canadians from sexual offenders.

Let us look at Bill C-23, clause 2, “Purpose and Principles”. Subclause 2(1) reads:

The purpose of this Act is to help police services investigate crimes of a sexual nature by requiring the registration of certain information relating to sex offenders.

Subclause 2(2) reads:

This Act shall be carried out in recognition of, and in accordance with, the following principles:

(a) in the interest of protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature, police services must have rapid access to certain information relating to sex offenders;

I could go on but I think the second clause of the bill addresses precisely what the member said he would like to see in it. It is there to protect the interest of the public.

Canadians can see that in debate the opposition has a role, not only in debate but as an opposition party, the official opposition, and that is to make the government look bad. The opposition tries to pick away and provide information, maybe not all the information, but in a way which will tend to paint a picture. It also does a good job of giving selective information.

Canadians will know that the bill is dedicated to the establishment of a sex offender registry. It is being responsive to the needs of our police enforcement agencies.

I want to go back to the announcement made by the federal Solicitor General and the Attorney General of Canada of December 11 when he introduced the legislation. He announced that the new legislation reflected the consensus reached with provincial and territorial ministers last November.

The first and important point here is that this has been an issue of concern, not only to the federal government but also to provincial and territorial governments. Those jurisdictions have worked carefully and closely to ensure that as the legislation moves forward and goes through all the stages that it actually will deal with the substantive points for which advocates have been calling for some time.

We know there always has been, as long as I can remember, an RCMP registry. Indeed, it includes substantial information on those convicted of crimes, and that has been available for the police to look at for a variety of reasons.

However the issue of a sex offender registry is more focused and more intense so as to reflect the values Canadians have expressed with regard to the whole issue of sexual abuse.

I do not think I have heard any hon. member in this place deny the fact that we abhor sexual abuse, those who would perpetrate crimes or exploit women, children or others in a sexual manner. It is a degrading, offensive act that the House will address, and this bill is one of the tools.

The Solicitor General and Attorney General of Canada, and the Minister of Justice jointly brought this forward to advise Canadians.

We are getting to the point where a lot of posturing or positioning has been made and we are getting a little focused on maybe just throwing the negatives out. We now have an amendment before the House that basically says that we should defeat the bill right now, that we should not pass it at this stage of the legislative process because it does not do what it is supposed to do.

That is a very valid amendment for the opposition to make. It also is important for other members in the House to share their views with regard to whether this is a bill with which we can work. We are at second reading and it means that agreement in principle will be dealt with, but some of the most important work that will be done on the bill will be done at committee.

I believe members will agree that when we can bring a bill before committee, it puts a motion on the floor, as it were. It defines the ballpark in which we are going to discuss things. Rather than the development of the concepts, we will have some things to speak to directly. It also means that we are able then to bring before a committee expert witnesses and testimonies from those who either have been directly affected by the subject matter or who have material and information that they believe is important for members of Parliament to be aware of, particularly those on the committee who are dealing with the bill at committee stage, so that as we move forward in the process and consider amendments, there will be reasoned amendments proposed that will be responsive to the testimony given at committee.

Members will know that with legislation they cannot afford to play the partisan card all the time. They are there to do the best they can to bring forward reasoned amendments that will improve the legislation or correct inconsistencies, errors or matters which do not make the bill as strong as it otherwise could be.

The consensus will be that we need to have a national sex offender registry, but we also need functional and useful legislation so it will do the best possible job with regard to not only the identification of sex offenders but for the purposes of deterrence or identifying where they may be in the event a sexual offence has been committed, that there will be this ready access. I am not familiar enough with the logistics about whether this has preventive measures but I would think that the existence of a sex offender registry will constitute, to some extent, a deterrent situation.

The amendment to which I am speaking was raised specifically because of the whole concept of retroactivity. As I had indicated earlier, it would appear to me that it is in the best interests of all concerned that all information currently known about any persons would be relevant for a sex offender registry. As a principle, I think that makes sense. It is very difficult to say that some information is not as relevant. I know the information but I will not share it because of the timing of legislation or other things.

On its face, one would say that certainly the retroactivity principle seems to be an area where we have to consider whether or not there are ways in which we can effectively get there to make use of important and relevant information. That, from a common sense basis, is useful and important for members to know, but we also have to educate ourselves about some of the practicalities of our laws and whether or not our laws have been written in a way that will withstand a charter challenge or some sort of jurisdictional challenge because they were not written in the right way. It would be disastrous if a piece of legislation were impaired because of a technical problem.

I have looked at the briefing notes. There is a section on retroactivity. I am not a lawyer by profession but I understand some of these principles. Certainly the first point is that with regard to the retroactivity, the fact that it is not there is consistent with the principles of justice. That is a very broad statement, but it is a statement with which the members can make some examination. What principles of justice are there? How can the bill still respect the consistency with established law and precedent, et cetera, and not get into challenges in some jurisdictions?

The second part has to do with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We know that the charter not only brings to us a tremendous protection of the rights and freedoms of Canadians but it also opens us up to defend them in ways which sometimes drag things on. In this regard it is suggested that there are potential or in fact actual charter questions that have been brought to bear. I am told that there is a proceeding in Ontario on its SOR act and it is currently under review by Ontario and federal justice officials with regard to this very issue of retroactivity. As that review and all the activities with regard to the retroactivity provisions within that Ontario legislation are dealt with, they will give members a better sense of the validity of the concerns with regard to either justice practices and principles or potential charter challenges.

The registration system ensures and must ensure the fair treatment of persons subject to the registry through a number of measures. I would suspect that there are some members who will not agree with the premise that those who are convicted of sexual offences are entitled to fair treatment and that they would be entitled to fair treatment under the registry under the bill, because they are convicted criminals. That is not how it works in Canada. All persons in Canada have rights.

I know that there are many cases of habitual criminals or others who have a recidivism rate such that they would be a clear threat to society, and that there are cases in which people may be retained, incarcerated, et cetera, so that the Canadian public can be protected. I am not sure how this works, but there are examples. Although these people have rights, as do others, the Supreme Court of Canada has often made rulings in which it has not rejected the fact that any one party would have rights but has decided in a number of cases that the rights of one person would supersede or override the rights of another person. So there are ways in which even the charter challenges could be dealt with and I am aware of a couple of cases, but I think the members understand my point.

The bill calls for requirements to register and states that can only occur through a judge's order in a hearing where the offender has the right to counsel and the right to be heard. Again, this is to the point: Does a convicted sex offender have the right, that right to be heard and the right to counsel? Under our system, all Canadians do.

It also states that the presiding judge will have the discretion to refuse Crown applications for registration orders based on the “grossly disproportionate” test provided in section 487.05 of the Criminal Code for DNA identification act orders. I am going to have to study that one a little more carefully because it is substantive, but again, it is a specific matter on which the members must take the time to consult with those who are trained and have the expertise to explain the grossly disproportionate test and to determine its applicability here as it relates to the retroactivity concern.

It also states that the Crown must make an application at the time of sentencing and that registered offenders will have the right to apply for a review of their status after 20, 10 or 5 years, and when they receive a pardon. Again, there are prescriptions for the registration. It may not be a forever thing. I think members could make a good argument that the recidivism rate for sexual offenders generally is high and that it would be very easy to apply this to all who are sexual offenders of any type or sort. I am not sure if that is the case. I suspect that some cases are much clearer than others, but this is part of the process and I think that the members at committee will want to satisfy themselves that all either should or should not be painted with the same brush.

The bill prescribes that registered offenders will also have the right to appeal a registration order. Again, right of appeal, in justice practice, is the right of all. I guess it comes down to the point of whether or not Canadians, even those who are convicted of criminal offences, have diminished rights. I know that there are some examples where in fact they do have diminished rights in a number of cases. Members may be able to demonstrate that the diminishment of certain rights is substantively the same and that maybe this would also be applicable to some provision of this bill as it relates to the concern about the retroactivity provisions.

The registered offenders will also have the right to review their data within the sex offender database and to request corrections. That may seem like a pretty nominal request, but I would suspect that any information that is kept on persons and that is not correct, regardless of what it relates to, could be damaging to a person. Again, the person has rights, so it does make some sense.

The bill contains strict controls on who has access to information in the sex offender database and on how authorized persons may use the data. Now we get into the aspects where it is very important to ensure that the integrity of the system and the integrity of the information are not misused or abused in a way that would affect probably all concerned, I would suggest.

Finally, breaches of privacy rights of the registered offenders would be a criminal offence. For some members I suspect that may be on its face somewhat problematic, in that to say that violating the privacy rights of a particular individual would be a criminal offence. I am not sure what the dimensions of that are on other criteria, but I suspect that there are degrees of disclosure of information covered under the Privacy Act, some of which may not be meritorious of a criminal offence. I think this is probably another area at which members may want to look.

I have been trying to make the point that, notwithstanding the fact that we can all make a case on our concerns about issues related to sexual offenders and to the best interests of those who have been abused, or those at risk of being abused or those in the public who may be exposed to persons with a high recidivism rate, we have to be very careful with the bill. But from what I hear in listening to the debate today, I am somewhat encouraged by the tenacity of members to ask tough questions. This is the way that we make legislation better.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, when we start each day here we have a prayer and we pray for the wisdom to make good laws. This is part of that process. Hopefully we are achieving some wisdom and that wisdom will be carried forward into committee stage.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a topic where the rights of Canadians are at stake and until we get it right we need to keep on pushing the government. I will quickly reiterate the main points that some of my colleagues have indicated. One of them is the importance of such legislation and also the tardiness of the government in bringing it forward.

For a long time, our policy has been that there should be such a registry for the protection of society, which is the main goal of our justice system. We would to ensure that the registry is used to prevent the criminal from reoffending which in the case of sexual offences, unfortunately, is one of the higher rates or recidivism. It is important that these people be held to account for the safety of our society.

Our party moved this motion on a supply day a little over two years ago and the House voted in favour of it. The motion said that such a registry be established by January 30, 2002 and it is now March 31, 2003. We really need to wonder when a government is that slow on such a relatively simple bill that it would first of all take so long to do it and then do such a colossally bad job of it.

When I was an instructor, if my students asked for an extension of time it was because they wanted to do a better job on their assignment. The government has taken an extension of over a year and it still fails the assignment because it does not accomplish what it was intended to do.

I will not reiterate all of the points that my colleagues have made. The bill is not that large. Sometimes we get bills which are a couple of inches thick. This one is relatively short.

I would like to make a few comments from the bill as I read it. First of all I am struck by the fact that the principle in the bill is not to protect society, innocent victims, or women and children who are usually victims of sexual offences. It states in clause 2(1):

The purpose of this Act is to help police services investigate crimes of a sexual nature by requiring the registration of certain information relating to sex offenders.

The purpose is not to protect society; it is to help the police investigate after it has happened. The government has it backwards. We must work to prevent these crimes. We must protect our women, children, and young boys who are sometimes the object of sexual predators. Instead, what the government does is introduce a bill and make it like it is a big deal when its purpose is only to investigate after the crime has occurred. The government has a failing grade on this particular bill.

Just as an aside, and I hate to accuse the Liberals, the justice minister and others of improper motives. I hate to do that, but I see politics written all over the bill. The Liberals have introduced a bill entitled “An act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders...” Therefore, it would be a sex offenders registry.

At the next election I can see the Liberal candidate in my riding running around and telling people not to vote for me because I voted against the sex registry. Saying so does not make it so. This legislation has the label, but the contents are devoid of any effectiveness in solving the problem. I would be remiss to vote in favour of the bill because it has serious flaws. Yet, because it has the label this is how the government is going to use it. Can members imagine using an issue like this for political purposes? I object to that very strenuously.

If the next part were not true it would be funny. The bill begins by requiring that there be a registration of accurate information. We know how accurate the government's registration system is with the gun registry. I sure wish the government more success here.

The bill goes on to say that the privacy interests of sex offenders would be protected. I have a small amount of sympathy for that. I do not believe in making a public spectacle of a person who has wronged society, but I sure believe in ensuring that the public is aware of who is in their midst. It is an error in the bill to put the privacy rights of the offender at such a high level without balancing it with the important rights of a community to know who is living there.

There is another serious flaw in this legislation and it reminds me of a story I heard. A man took his young boy to the post office where there were pictures of individuals who were wanted. These posters indicated that if anybody had information on the whereabouts of these individuals the police should be called so they could be arrested. This little boy, who was probably four or five years old, asked his dad why these men were not kept by the police when their picture was taken. That is funny in a way. Obviously, the police had the individuals because they had their pictures.

Bill C-23 would not require police officers to report into the database anything they know. Instead, it would require offenders to report. In other words, the bill says that when offenders are convicted of a crime and when those individuals are released they must show up at a registration centre within 15 days and provide accurate information. That is wonderful. It is in the bill. Hansard does not record cynicism or sarcasm, and I must say here in brackets that the member “was dripping with sarcasm” when he said that offenders had so much regard for the law when they forced other persons into a sexual act against their will at gun point or at knife point.

That is a very serious crime. That is how much respect those individuals have for the law. We now expect them to show up within 15 days to register and tell the registry person everything in order to have accurate information. This begs the question: Will the persons show up at all? Will they give accurate information? We certainly hope so.

I must draw the House's attention to another clause. As a mathematician and one who plays a bit with logic games, clause 3.(2) blows me away. It says:

For the purposes of this Act, a crime is of a sexual nature if it consists of one or more acts that (a) are either sexual in nature...

That is a circular argument; it is a circular definition. It is like saying that a circle is round because a circle is round. One cannot engage in that type of flippant definition in a bill that is so serious and be taken seriously by Canadians.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to listen to my colleague from Saskatchewan lay out a representation of the concerns of his constituents with Bill C-23. I am struck with the fact that it does not seem to matter in what area of criminal law the Liberal government finally is pushed to react, it invariably does a half-assed job of bringing forward the legislation. Bill C-20, which it brought forward to deal with the issue of child pornography, is very similar to Bill C-23. It tries to do half or less of the job.

I cannot imagine the Liberals would bring forward legislation that would not make it retroactive to ensure that existing sex offenders would be included on the registry. Good grief, what good will the registry be if all the hundreds of sex offenders, who are currently incarcerated, will not be on the registry? It just boggles the mind.

I know in conversations that I have had with constituents from one end of Prince George—Peace River to the other, they are appalled that the Liberals take years, not weeks, not months, to react to the pleas of Canadian citizens to protect our children, the most vulnerable people in our society, and then they bring forward legislation that will not do half the job.

I represent a huge rural riding which covers over 200,000 square kilometres with about 10 communities, from Prince George in the south to Fort Nelson in the far north, getting up close to Yukon, and I have heard it in every community big and small. Is my colleague from Saskatchewan hearing similar concern being expressed by constituents in his riding?

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today. I spoke earlier on Bill C-20, the child protection bill, and I talked about a parallel bill that would come in later today. Bill C-23 is that bill.

Bill C-23 would put in place the national sex offender registry. The national sex offender registry has been called on for a long time in the country. There have been several different stabs at it. However it has never really happened. I guess the genesis of this came out of a Canadian Alliance supply day motion put forward by my good friend, my colleague from Langley—Abbotsford. On March 13, 2001, over two years ago now, the House of Commons voted in favour of that motion. The motion, which was very simple, read:

That the government establish a national sex offender registry by January 1, 2002.

We have missed it by a year and some. It did not happen. The Liberals ignored it. At their own peril, they walked away from it, yet there was a groundswell of petitions and support. People from our ridings across the country questioning what had happened to it. They asked where had it gone because they had not seen it this place. Finally the Liberals were pushed to act, and we have Bill C-23. Unfortunately, as many of my colleagues have pointed out, it is a half measure. There are some terrible flaws in this legislation as well.

A lot of it started back in 1988 when an 11 year old boy was murdered by a convicted pedophile who was out on statutory release, another wonderful thing that needs to be changed. The Liberals at that time started thinking about a national sex offender registry. That was 15 years ago. There have been a lot of problems and a lot of convicted felons since that time. A lot of folks who have been released on statutory release back into the very communities have reoffended and gone back to prison.

It is timely that we are finally getting around to this legislation. However there is a huge flaw. It is not retroactive. As my colleague from Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar pointed out, it starts off just like that, a white, blank sheet of paper. There is nothing on it.

How can that be when our prisons have these types of people incarcerated now? They are being let out. I had one on the streets of my riding a week or two ago. I have talked about this a couple of times in the House but it bears repeating. A fellow who is a multiple convicted felon, been away many times, keeps getting out and doing the same dastardly deeds. His victims are young girls ranging in age from 11 to a one and a half year old. How bad is that? Yet his name will not show up on that registry. He is a multiple convicted child predator.

There is a huge hole in this type of a document. That alone has called for amendments to make it retroactive and the government will not go there. There have been questions in the House to the Solicitor General and the Minister of Justice and they say that they cannot make it retroactive because of privacy concerns.

How much privacy do the victims have? They wake up screaming at night. These nightmares will continue on for their life. Yet the legislation, which is supposedly there to protect them and to help them get past this, is not retroactive. It does not take that burden away from them. It keeps them reliving those problems every time this clown is released back into society to reoffend.

Other colleagues have touched on the rate of recidivism. It is huge and unbelievable. These people do not even take any kind of counselling while they are incarcerated. They can say that they do not need it and walk away. They cannot be forced to take counselling. Their constitutional rights supercede the victims and the nightmare they continue to leave. It is absolutely upside down and backwards here.

The government says that it cannot make it retroactive because of privacy concerns and it will be constitutionally challenged. My good colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough who used to be a public prosecutor in Nova Scotia said that any new law would be challenged. They always are to test how strong it is.

Our courts need to have the backbone, and maybe we need to put it there from the House of Commons. It is the top court on the law. Maybe we need to inject that backbone into our judges right from here, with the toe of our boot if need be, and say, “ Here is the crime and this is the time that they need to do”. Get on with it.”

We see maximum sentences being extended and enlarged. However maximum does not mean anything. It is the minimum time that they serve that counts. It does not matter that the maximum is doubled, or tripled or maybe it is 16 life sentences. Nobody serves those sentences. They go to the minimum term. They get statutory release. They are up for parole at two-thirds of their time and all sorts of things. There is a huge amount of work that needs to be done on our whole justice department. This retroactivity totally negates the whole purpose of the bill.

The government will not implement retroactivity on the sex offender registry. It will not implement retroactivity on the DNA database. It will not go and get DNA from a lot of these bad guys because of their constitutional rights and the privacy laws. Then it implements something like Bill C-68, a firearms registry, which has forms that really invade my privacy. It set up a database that is a shopping list for every other criminal in the world who wants to find out what I have and where to come and get it, and my constitutional rights are challenged.

A good friend of mine, Dr. Ted Morton, has done an indepth study on the constitutionality of Bill C-68. He said that the government did not have a leg to stand on in regard to that bill, and he has listed it out. This fellow is a constitutional lawyer. He knows about what he is talking. That really starts to ring true when we see the people who have tried to become arrested under Bill C-68 and the government will not charge them because it knows it will get thrown out of court and totally destroy the whole premise of this public safety Bill C-68 hides behind.

We see those type of things implemented in here.

Even if a sex offender is put on the brand new list, there is another loophole. Through the courts, he can apply to not have his name listed if he feels that it would be detrimental to his health and safety. How absolutely ridiculous is that? Nobody in any court of law or at any kitchen table would ever agree with the premise that a criminal, a convicted felon, can apply to not have his name on there because it is injurious to his own privacy and safety. That is a loophole that nobody can believe.

Provinces have started to develop these registries. They have had to do it ad hoc because the federal government will not come forward with the proper legislation and funding to help them out. We can have pedophiles listed in Ontario who move to Saskatchewan and we lose them because there is not that continuity. This would address that if it were done properly, but we do not see that here. The big problem is the funding.

As I mentioned in a question to my colleague, the Canadian Police Association was here on Hill the last week and it probably lobbied him like it did everybody else. Its stand supposedly is pro Bill C-68. Maybe at the top end it. However ordinary folks who came to see me said that it was not a good thing. They want to see a DNA database. They want to see a sex offender registry that is retroactive. The government tends to not mention the CPA stand on those issues but it will give the CPA credit for being in favour of Bill C-68, at the upper end.

There are a lot of things wrong with this. The biggest issue that we take umbrage with is the retroactivity. To that end, I would like to propose a motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by replacing all the words after the word “that” with

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts, since the bill fails to require retroactive registration of sex offenders who have a 40% recidivism rate in order to avoid needing another offence before a repeat sex offender is added to the registry”.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure for me to rise in the House and to address this very important matter. For once, this is a very positive bill, one aimed at protecting children. That is a major priority for Canadians.

This legislation, as has been stated several times already, is long overdue. It is one that certainly we in the Progressive Conservative Party support. We have long been calling for a stand-alone sex offender registry that would have a very practical and immediate impact on the ability of the police to protect and enhance existing systems of protection for children and for communities generally.

The implementation of the legislation will be important. It comes from an incredibly sound idea, the concept that has been in public debate for some time. The introduction of the legislation represents a departure from the government's normal routine of doing very little.

Bill C-23 would require sex offenders to be registered in a national database, which would make changes to the Criminal Code and help police investigate crimes of a sexual nature. The registration itself is of certain information relating to sex offenders and would have no doubt a positive impact on the timeliness of investigations and, more important, would add a much to the needed element of public protection.

I am glad to see we are bringing this forward at this time. Our party has long been an advocate of action of this file and on a number of occasions we have called for the immediate implementation of such a registry. It boggles the mind to think that we would be spending so much time and effort on a long gun registry, as was alluded to already, that has cost the country a billion dollars, with more millions being poured into it as recently as last week, when we would have an opportunity to bring forward such a practical response in empowering police to do their investigations to protect children.

While we agree that this is a very important step in the process, having the opportunity to debate the particulars of the legislation, there remains a number of problems that I would like to point out. In particular, clause 20, subsection 490.03(4), provides convicted sex offenders with the opportunity to have their names removed from the registry if they can prove that it would impact on their privacy or liberty.

I am very concerned, and I would not put too fine a point on the analogy, with the loophole that already exists with respect to child pornography, which in essence gives a great deal of discretion in the area of what has been described as artistic merit. This is a similar type of loophole. The clause reads:

--if the order were made, the impact on them, including on their privacy or liberty, would be grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society...

I find this to be such an anomaly. When it comes to protecting children from sexual offenders, how can there be any disproportionate public interest? What could possibly trump the interests of protecting children?

My fear is that with this loophole, or setting up of a loophole, for sex offenders who do not wish to have their names included, who would define the grossly disproportionate impact? Who would define the public good? Even if there is an acceptable definition that we could all agree with for each of these terms, which I doubt, who then would decide which took precedence? Obviously, it would be the courts which would result in a long antiquated process that ultimately would not protect young people.

Let us hope we get it right in the first instance. Let us hope that judges will make that proper call. Then we would know that there is an appeal process. We know that there is a review process.

I am not suggesting that the balanced approach is not the correct one. My fear is we are deliberately putting in place a loophole which will result in immediate litigation.

Unfortunately, there are other changes which I believe need to take place within the scope and parameters of the bill. The bill, if it is to live up to its intention of public protection, not the least of which will be the need for a separate and stand-alone database, will have to be revised.

Police officers, provincial attorneys general and other people working in the field will verify that the current CPIC system does not allow for a mandatory registry of information pertaining to sex offenders, contrary to what the solicitor general and previous solicitor generals have said for years. This is exactly what is needed.

What is needed and what is imperative to protect children in particular and what would be very useful is to have a stand-alone system. If we could have a stand-alone system to register guns that does not work, surely we could have a stand-alone system to protect children. When one compares the two on balance, there is no comparison. We are pushing for a stand-alone system and continue to do so.

I have talked to members of the victims' services, to police officers, to those involved in child protection, to lawyers, Steve Sullivan and to many others who are concerned about having a system that does not quite fit the bill and really creates a false sense of security.

The information provided is only as good as its accessibility and its accuracy. In fact the Auditor General, on previous occasions, has outlined the inadequacies of the present CPIC system in terms of the data that it already holds.

To make the case, the current system, which was designed in 1966 consisting of one main computer, a communications network and the local hardware and software that provides users with access, has been near collapse at times. Despite efforts to update the system, I would suggest that simply adding or piecing together another element of the system would put further strain in place. What we have seen in the past is times when CPIC has been actually inoperable and police officers have been unable to access that important information.

It was originally designed to handle 11 million transactions annually and to accommodate 1,500 points of access. In 1998 the system handled 114 million transactions, 10 times its original design volume, and it currently handles more than 15,000 points of access, serving a current 1,285 police departments and government agencies.

Just to put that in context, what we are seeing is a system that is so overloaded. What we need, I would suggest and what provincial attorneys general, police and other interested parties are calling for, is a separate stand-alone system. The Canadian Police Association, as I mentioned, the Victims Resource Centre and many other concerned citizens suggest that the system needs to be stand-alone. The government is aware of that. It needs to show some leadership in this regard. If the political will exists, it can happen and happen quickly.

I do not want to mix messages on this point, but I must bring into the debate again the issue with respect to the gun registry on which a billion dollars plus, and counting, has been spent with no correlation to public safety. That is the misnomer the government and members opposite have tried to perpetrate now for years, that there is an actual connection, a nexus, between registering the long guns and public protection This is a complete fallacy and a farce that has been exposed repeatedly.

Liberal members of caucus were told that they had to toe the party line last week and, as a result, voted for supplementary estimates and another $68 million or $69 million into this Liberal sinkhole to really demonstrate again the face saving over lifesaving element behind this.

This is not the first time it was done, of course. We have seen numerous examples, such as the EH-101 helicopter cancellation, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on faulty advertising, HRDC programs and Pearson airport cancellation, all resulting in a lack of common sense and a lack of accountability and practical responsibility when it comes to governance.

What I am getting at is that here is an opportunity to take the existing infrastructure of the gun registry, the computer systems, the personnel, the effort that has been put into this flawed system, and apply it to a sex offender registry for a practical application that would work, that would protect children and that would put it back in line with the priorities of Canadians. I strongly suggest that this would go a long way to restoring some faith.

Currently, convicted offenders may be released into the community and change their residences, or their appearances or their names to avoid discovery. We know that sex offenders prey upon those least able to defend themselves and they do so by deceit, by disguise and by subterfuge. These types of nefarious activities are done intentionally so that they might go undetected.

Clearly there is a need to have accurate information that is current and available. Without an actual sex offender registry that is timely and accurate, we are putting children's lives at risk and I do not believe that the government in any way would want to put a price tag on that.

Coupled with the information that is currently found on the CPIC system, it is impossible to sort out in such a way the police and those in the law enforcement community can access and use this information for prevention. In my view, the addition of a sex offender category on the antiquated, overloaded system is destined to fail. We know that recidivism is extremely high with sex offenders.

In the event of reoccurrence, such heinous acts of abduction and sexual assault, valuable time is lost in trying to identify the suspect who is oftentimes not known to the local police or to the community, or because of the issue of mobility or nefarious means to change an appearance or name. This is a very prevalent occurrence.

A stand alone system would provide police with an enhanced ability to protect society and carry out this critical task of enforcing a safe and orderly society. It would give police better access to information about the specific whereabouts of offenders and all previous convictions of a sexual nature that have been registered through the courts.

Sadly, not all offenders make it onto the CPIC system. When the offence has occurred, for example, in British Columbia there may be a delay in entering that information into the system. If individuals then find themselves before the courts in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, it is difficult to ensure that the information is accurate.

Colleagues from Nova Scotia, South Shore and Cumberland—Colchester and members of the Progressive Conservative Party support this initiative. Let us ensure we get it right and let us ensure, when we bring this to the justice system, there is a common sense approach taken to amend this process to ensure that it works for all Canadians.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member opposite for her thoughtful comments on Bill C-23. I do, however, have an issue that I would like to discuss with the member, that is, her comments about the Manitoba government wishing there were a provision allowing for retroactivity in the application of the sex offender registry.

Is the member not aware that it is a basic tenet in criminal law and also in labour law that when one establishes a sanction for an act there is no retroactivity? We do not reach back in time in order to capture people who committed those acts at a time when it was not illegal or criminal. Having done a bit of labour law, I know that this is a basic tenet in disciplinary administrative law. For instance, let us say that an employer creates a sanction and says that as of such-and-such a date one must call in sick, otherwise one may be found to have violated the employer's rules and regulations or the collective agreement and could be liable for a three day or five day suspension. It is a basic tenet in labour law that we do not reach back into the past. It is also a basic tenet in criminal law.

Given that the member has said the Manitoba government wants retroactivity in this legislation, how does she feel, as a member of the New Democratic Party, which pretends to represent labour, about the fact that the provincial government wants to reach back into the past?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-23, the sex offender information registration act, and I am pleased to follow the discussion and presentation by the spokesperson for the Bloc.

As the Bloc Quebecois member has said, it is clear that we are going to support this bill in general, but with some reservations. We are going to ask the parliamentary committee to look at certain things in connection with this very important bill.

We, like the Bloc Quebecois, want to see a balance struck between protection of our children and protection of our rights. This will always be our goal, and time must be taken to hear witnesses when this very important matter is being considered.

As I tried to say in French, members of the New Democratic Party, like the spokesperson for the Bloc, wish to offer our general support for the bill and indicate that we believe it is a very important initiative. At the same time, as is our wont on all cases pertaining to constitutional matters and legal provisions, we seek to ensure that the rights and liberties of individuals are protected and upheld and that nothing we do by way of legislation in the House takes away those hard fought freedoms.

It is clear that we are dealing with a long overdue piece of legislation. This matter of a sex offenders registry has been before Parliament and in public policy circles for many months. In fact, I think back to a couple of years ago when this place dealt with this subject by way of a motion from Alliance members, I believe. It was subsequently pursued by provincial ministers of justice on a regular basis.

In fact, I think if it were not for the constant push by ministers of justice at the provincial level the bill in fact would not be here today. It is clearly a culmination of a long process and an outcry from Canadians right across this land for action to deal with a most serious and critical matter in our society today.

No one in this place can ignore the agony that families go through when a child or a loved one is raped or sexually assaulted. No one can ignore the fact that in our society there are pedophiles who are at large and will continue to offend and reoffend if serious actions are not taken.

Bill C-23 is certainly one step in the right direction. It is important because it will help police services investigate crimes of a sexual nature by requiring the registration of certain information relating to sex offenders. It is a tool and a provision that will allow the police to keep track of the whereabouts of those who have offended in terms of rape or sexual assault against children or any vulnerable member in our society. That is very important, because one does not have to follow this issue too far to know the extent to which our children and women in our society today are at risk of sexual assault and exploitation.

The primary objective with the legislation is to ensure the effective protection of Canadians. In this case in terms of Bill C-23, we are concerned about the potential victims of sexual crimes, primarily women and children, who are especially vulnerable.

I will first talk about violence against women. This is a matter that the House must continually come to grips with and I think that through this bill we have such an opportunity. I think we all agree that Canadian women have a right to live without the threat of violence, yet we know that for many women it is a reality. One study shows that 42% of women, and that is in comparison to 10% of men, feel totally unsafe walking in their own neighbourhoods at night. Nearly as many, 37%, are worried about being home alone at night.

We know that much of the violence against women manifests itself through sex related violence. We know that, and we have to continually be vigilant in finding ways to reduce the incidence of sexual violence against women, because we are tired of building monuments to victims.

Let me also talk briefly about sexual violence against children. Understandably, there is a feeling of sickness and rage every time we enter another search for another child's body. This bill actually will help us to channel those justifiable feelings to the positive objective of improving prevention.

There are a few other facts. It is estimated that only 10% of sexual assaults on women are reported to police. In Canada this means that more than half a million assaults occur each year. Another fact: Every minute of every day in Canada a woman or child is being sexually assaulted. Let us not forget in this debate, as in other debates we are having, particularly on Bill C-22, the divorce act, that 98% of sex offenders are men and that 82% of victims surviving reported assaults are women.

Tragically, recent well-publicized incidents confirm the fact that those most often committing assaults are in positions of trust. They are fathers, other relatives, religious officials, doctors, teachers, employers, friends and dates.

There are more facts to be put on the record. There are more examples of the kind of emotional upheaval that families go through when a child, a woman or a vulnerable person experiences sexual assault, but perhaps that is enough for now to highlight the importance of the bill and why we are in general support of Bill C-23.

There are some problems with the bill. We heard the member from the Bloc speak about some of those issues that we have to grapple with. Some of the provincial governments have raised other concerns with the bill. The concerns before us fill the whole spectrum. They range from those who believe the bill is not tough enough to those who believe the bill may infringe on civil liberties, and that is something we must sort out in the next stages of the bill, particularly when it is sent to the standing committee and witnesses are heard and testimony is received. I would suggest that we take seriously all those concerns.

I want to put on the table some of the concerns raised by the provincial minister of justice of the Government of Manitoba, the Hon. Gord Mackintosh, who in fact was central to the push that led to the bill before the House today. It was Gordon Mackintosh, back in September 2001, who actually presented a motion to the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of justice meeting calling on the government to establish, together with the provinces and territories, a national registry for sexual offenders.

He introduced that motion with the support of many provinces to try to force the Government of Canada to listen and to act. Fortunately today we are in a position where the federal government has listened, has acted and has brought before us a bill that is consistent with the wishes of the provincial and territorial ministers of justice as well as the wishes of many Canadians who are very worried about ensuring that the incidence of child sexual assault and rape of women and children is dealt with on a consistent and effective basis.

The minister from Manitoba, Gordon Mackintosh, has raised some outstanding matters that need to be pursued by the House and by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He raised the issue of retroactivity. That is a matter that has been before us throughout the debate. It is a matter of concern. The position of the Manitoba government is that it makes sense to look at a provision that deals not just with those who offend once this bill is proclaimed, but also gives some consideration to the fact that it ought to apply to those who are now serving sentences for sexual offences.

I think we ought to give that some thought. Our caucus has remained open to the question. I know that there are strong views on both sides and I think we need to really grapple with this whole issue of retroactivity and whether or not we are doing a disservice to Canadians at risk by not applying this provision retroactively to some extent.

The Manitoba government has raised the issue of photographs and whether or not the bill will in fact allow for the use of photos. There was some understanding that in fact the federal government has acknowledged that photographs are important and will be introduced at some time in the future. However, there appears to be no mention of the question of photographs in the legislation before us. I think we ought to deal with that issue here and now; otherwise it is clear that the legislation will have to be reopened and that we will have to deal with this issue all over again once the federal government decides to live up to its commitment to the provinces to include the matter of the use of photographs.

A third issue raised by the provincial governments that I think has to be taken seriously as we pursue this bill is the question of financial support for the new responsibilities that provincial governments will face once this bill is proclaimed. It is clear that there will be additional costs because, as we know from the proposals in the legislation, judges must in fact make written application to ensure that a person convicted of a sexual offence is added to the registry. That takes time.

We know that judges are now overburdened with existing demands and provisions. A new piece of legislation does require the government and all of us to look at the question of what resources are required and whether that is being considered as the bill goes through the various stages. It would be irresponsible on our part to pass legislation that in fact puts all kinds of financial requirements on the table and leaves it to the provinces to sort out. That would be irresponsible and unfair. I think it is important for us to now get commitments from the federal government as we pursue Bill C-23 about how it intends to support, fund and finance the new demands placed on our provincial judicial systems as a result of the implementation of Bill C-23.

I think it is clear that the House acknowledges the importance of having a registry that is mandatory and requires the documentation and identification of those who have offended sexually against children and other vulnerable members of our society. I think that there is this understanding. As a House, we are grappling with some of the intricacies of the bill and with how we can ensure that the balance is upheld between protection of the most vulnerable in our society and the adherence to our charter and our constitutional traditions. I think this is the mandate of the committee and I ask that we all take the process very seriously and ensure that the standing committee is given the time it needs to do this work.

For now let me say that my colleagues and I in the NDP support the broad thrust of the bill. We know that it is long overdue. We know there are some problems, but on the other hand we say thank goodness it is finally here and thank God we have such a proposal before us. Let us ensure that we do not lose sight of the objective at hand and that we do everything we can to make this a fine piece of legislation and a law that will actually work. Not only do we have to ensure that we track sexual offenders and ensure that if they reoffend they are picked up quickly, but through the bill we actually have to ensure that we find a way to prevent sexual assault of our children and vulnerable citizens. We have to do everything we can to make our communities safer and more secure for everyone among us.

[Robert Lanctôt, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders.

Today, I am speaking as the Bloc Quebecois critic on issues relating to the Solicitor General. However, as hon. members have noticed in my previous speeches in this House, I take a great interest in all issues that concern children, directly or indirectly, and this is another reason I am addressing this legislation today.

First, I want to say that the Bloc Quebecois supports the principle of Bill C-23. Protecting children and vulnerable persons is perfectly legitimate and advisable. In fact, protecting all members of the public is a legitimate goal. Incidentally, my colleague, the hon. member for Jonquière, introduced Bill C-399, which seeks to protect the public, and specifically children, from sexual predators.

However, even though we support the principle of the bill, we must remain cautious regarding anything that has to do with its implementation and, more specifically, we must ensure that certain provisions of Bill C-23 are in compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Bloc Quebecois is also cautious about the costs relating to the implementation of this bill, because far too much information is lacking in this regard. The government must absolutely avoid making the mistakes it made with the firearms program, which resulted in a financial fiasco. This time, we want to know what it is going to cost.

I think the government will seize this opportunity to make amends, by providing us with the breakdown of the costs for this initiative. It would be deplorable for the government to miss this opportunity to promote transparency and then tell us, some time later, that it is normal for a government initiative to cost one billion dollars. This is what the Minister of Justice told us. The minister had the nerve to say that it is now normal for a program to cost one billion dollars. As far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, this is not normal at all.

So, while the objective of protecting society against sexual predators is perfectly worthwhile, since the idea is to provide a means to facilitate criminal investigations, the government must nevertheless act with caution and avoid letting things get completely out of hand. I want to reiterate my position regarding the administrative fiasco of the firearms program.

With regard to other jurisdictions, California was the first to introduce a sex offender registry in 1947. But it was not until the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was passed in 1994 that the registry was actually used.

The Wetterling act was named for an eleven-year-old boy abducted in 1989. The intent of the legislation is essentially to establish guidelines to require all persons convicted of crimes against minors to register their address for a period of ten years. Under this legislation, the attorney general can also require those convicted of violent sexual offences to register for life with a designated agency.

These guidelines apply in all instances, except if it is determined that a treated sex offender no longer suffers from mental illness or a personality disorder. In short, this guideline does not apply if experts can prove that the individual presents low to no risk of re-offending.

Since the Wetterling act is American legislation, the FBI is responsible for data collection. It should be noted that local police forces help in this collection.

To better enforce this legislation, the United States government even threatened to cut penal system funding to all states that did not comply with the legislation's requirements. As a result, in June 2000, the Wetterling act came into force in all American states.

The Wetterling act works in one of the following ways. First, states can appoint a board to determine the risk level each offender poses to society and apply an action plan accordingly. Second, states can choose to establish categories for sexual predators who must comply with the registration requirements.

A third possibility is to make it incumbent on the offender himself to report his presence to the community. Finally, it may also be up to a community to inquire about the presence of a sexual predator, or to ask for information on such individuals.

Based on the American experience, three groups are directly or indirectly involved with the implementation of the act, namely the organizations responsible for collecting information, the public and the media.

In the U.S., all states have decided to inform schools of the presence of a sex offender in the community. Some states have also decided to warn social housing services, libraries, churches, women's groups or children's groups. As for the media, it is up to local organizations to decide whether they should be contacted and, if so, to determine which ones.

In 1994, the State of New Jersey passed Megan's law, which created the requirement to inform the public of the presence of a sexual predator in a given area. This means that it is now legal to conduct a search by community or by name to find out if a sex offender is living in a given area or neighbourhood. In 1996, a federal version of that law was passed by the U.S. Congress.

The Bloc Quebecois feels that the government should be cautious in this regard. We believe that, contrary to what is provided under Megan's law, it is essential to protect the confidentiality of the information. In fact, this confidentiality is recognized by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So, Megan's law allows the disclosure of information, but the states should decide which groups are to provide that information. The danger with this process is that the names and addresses of some offenders who are absolutely not at risk of reoffending may be disclosed, while those of more dangerous offenders might not be disclosed, because they are not part of a group identified as one that must be registered in the database.

The same goes for the types of information that must be included in the database. The groups of offenders and the types of information are left to the discretion of the states' legislators. These laws have led to a number of challenges. Some have argued that being registered is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, while others have questioned the retroactive effect of the legislation.

It is these latter challenges that have received the greatest attention from the courts. The U.S. courts have ruled that registration in itself is acceptable and non punitive, despite the fact that retroactive legislation is prohibited under the U.S. constitution.

In the case of Great Britain, the Sex Offenders Act was passed in 1997. The registration requirement of that act provides that individuals found guilty or not guilty for reasons of insanity must give their name, date of birth and address to the police. The police can also take a photograph and fingerprints. In December 2001, 97% of sex offenders had registered. In Great Britain, the legislation applies retroactively.

We reiterate our opposition to such retroactivity.

The big difference between the United States and Great Britain is that the British registry is not accessible to the public. Thus, Great Britain has decided to respect the confidentiality of the information provided by sex offenders.

Nevertheless, the British legislation provides for the release of information as part of a risk-management plan to protect children or vulnerable individuals. The British government believes that interventions by popular militias or vigilantes must be avoided, and we are in agreement with this principle.

The British government is also of the opinion that there is a risk that offenders may enter the country in secret to avoid being targeted by these vigilantes. Early this year, the British government presented a bill to amend the 1997 Sex Offenders Act.

The amendments seek to add a category of offenders, that is, those who have been found guilty of a sexual offence abroad, which would cover those who engage in sexual tourism. In addition, offenders would be obliged to register each year.

In Canada, three provinces have enacted legislation: Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. Ontario's Christopher's Law—Sex Offender Registry, 2000, was passed on April 23, 2001. This legislation resulted from a coroner's report concerning the death of an 11-year-old boy who was killed in 1988. The coroner had been recommending the creation of a registry since 1993.

The registry system in Ontario is intended for released sex offenders. They have to report to the police yearly, giving their name, date of birth, address, photo and the sex offences they have committed. The sex crimes in question are listed. The register is not open to the public. There is, however, a retroactive aspect and this, I repeat, we are opposed to.

There are provisions concerning the length of time people are registered and the sanctions applied for non-compliance. These range from fines of up to $25,000 to sentences of up to two years imprisonment, or both. The offender is struck from the list only when rehabilitated with respect to all the sex offences in question.

The OPP has an obligation to maintain the register on behalf of the Solicitor General of Ontario, but it is the responsibility of the local police forces to determine where offenders are to report. It is also up to them to ensure compliance.

As for distribution of the information, the Police Services Act allows chiefs of police to release it when an offender whose presence presents a considerable risk to the community is in the community. It must be made clear that there must be considerable risk to the community, a risk that will be significantly reduced by disclosure of the information.

As I have said, there may be some uncertainty when it comes to provisions guaranteeing the balance of proportionality between the means for implementing the objectives of this bill and their impact on rights and freedoms.

That is why it is absolutely justified to question the methods proposed in this bill for ensuring the objective of protecting society. The principle of proportionality is a fundamental right that is recognized by our courts as far as the legislative means used to attain the objective of the bill are concerned.

As I have said, protection of the public is a legitimate objective. Registration does, however, still impose a constraint on certain citizens. The principle of fundamental justice requires compliance with section 7 of the charter in that the mechanisms adopted must not be disproportionate to the intended objective.

The courts refer to minimal impairment. In the case of the bill at hand, the protection of society is tied to the restrictions imposed on the freedoms of sex offenders. It is therefore up to legislators to respect this requirement of fundamental proportionality.

I believe that Bill C-23 is seriously flawed. As far as I am concerned, it does not respect this fundamental principle of proportionality. In fact, the requirement is there for all sexual offenders, regardless of the gravity of the offence. I want to point out that I do not take these crimes lightly, quite the opposite, but we have to take into account the specific circumstances surrounding each case. Under the current wording, the government makes registration obligatory, without any regard for the gravity of the offence. This bill clearly targets the nature of the offence, and not its gravity. This is one of our key criticisms of this bill.

Given that it is only about the nature of the offence and not its gravity, the burden of proof falls to the offender. He must therefore convince the courts that an order to register is clearly excessive in terms of protecting society.

It would be up to the offender to prove that being registered in the database would have an unreasonable impact relative to the protection it would afford society, and that it would be to the offender's disadvantage. Based on certain statistics available, the recidivism rate is lower for sexual offenders than for other types of criminals. The rate is below 20%.

Of course, some types of sex offenders present a real risk of re-offending, and we are in favour of having a registry for such persons. However, it is impossible to differentiate between these two groups based solely on the nature of the offence. This is why I believe that dangerousness is the key element in determining registration orders.

Once again, I must state that cases before the courts must be subject to regular review. We must avoid generalities, and there is a real danger of these since the Crown is responsible for deciding whether to demand that an offender be required to register. In its current form, the bill would impose a binding obligation on approximately 80% of offenders who do not pose a real threat to society, thereby shedding doubt on the constitutionality of these provisions.

The bill must be such that it avoids excessive measures. This registry must not, therefore, be used to witch hunt; it must not be used by individuals bent on exacting revenge on sex offenders.

The Bloc Quebecois insists, therefore, on the confidentiality of the database. We also insist on very limited disclosure to a very specific clientele, namely the police. One of the conditions for access to this registry must be a police investigation of a sexual offence.

There are, therefore, three conditions on obtaining information in the registry. First, does the request come from a police force? Second, is the request being made in relation to an investigation? Third, is it a sex offence investigation?

We must insist on these conditions for obtaining information because not doing so could be used against us. The bill's objective is not to create panic in neighbourhoods nor to incite bounty hunters, far from it. In fact, the sole goal of this registry is to facilitate criminal investigations in a specific area. Protecting privacy is essential and is even the subject of specific legislation. However, this legislation applies to all members of our society.

Applying this legislation to sex offenders too will, of course, prevent such offenders from going underground, and disappearing from our radar screens and those of the police.

The underlying goal of any legal decision is to encourage rehabilitation, not punishment. This is yet another reason why privacy protection is so important. To rehabilitate such offenders, all of society must be protected. We will all be safe if we can avoid forcing offenders into hiding.

The fact that the police force knows exactly where these offenders are located is reassuring enough. That is what we need to look for, not revenge. We must prevent all forms of vigilantism.

The rehabilitation of sex offenders must be part of the measures designed to protect society. There are several organizations that specialize in reintegrating and rehabilitating offenders. These organizations promote community involvement combined with public participation. This cooperation has helped define solutions for problems that affect everyone.

By taking part in the decision making process, the public contributes to the social development of a group, like sex offenders, that has been labelled antisocial. Community groups have established a number of projects to reintegrate sex offenders, such as halfway houses and community service work programs, but we must not stop there. The purpose of these programs is to make offenders responsible.

It would be good to point out that this is similar to how young offenders were treated in Quebec, under the Young Offenders Act. This act, incidentally, was subject to drastic changes by this very same government. We must be very careful if we want to avoid making this type of mistake again. It is somewhat ironic that the current government is advocating a preventative approach for offenders who have been found guilty, when they are taking the opposite approach with young offenders.

As I was saying, public participation is important to prevent uncontrolled and uncontrollable witch hunts. We need to find solutions that are fair, and that satisfy victims, offenders and society.

The Bloc Quebecois is of the opinion that registration contributes to this goal, on the condition, obviously, that directives to protect privacy are respected, and that only police forces will have access to the data.

On April 30, 2001, the Government of Quebec released the recommendations from the report on the decision making process and the whole integrated release system for offenders. This report, know as the Corbo report, entitled “Pour rendre plus sécuritaire un risque nécessaire”, discusses how to reduce the risks involved in releasing offenders, once rehabilitated. The authors of the report believe that involving community resources in the rehabilitation of offenders, and in their reintegration, is absolutely essential.

They go on to say, “On the one hand, it is first and foremost via these volunteer bodies from within itself that civil society can fulfill its necessary role in the rehabilitation and social reintegration of all its members who are not in compliance with the common standards and have developed behaviours that represent a threat to public safety”.

The report includes the following among its recommendations: “being allowed at large before the end of the sentence, or even once the sentence has been served, represents some degree of risk. The recidivism rate requires some clear thinking to be done about this, but it is a necessary risk. Quebec society really has no other choice but to seek the rehabilitation and community reintegration of offenders. If that objective were abandoned, society would enter into a policy of ongoing repression of offenders. Such a policy would have heavy economic and social costs and would lead to an impasse with no way out except to pile repression on repression.

Temporary absences or parole are necessary if the goal of rehabilitation and resocialization is to be achieved, but there is an associated element of risk. Ongoing efforts can be made to reduce this, but we must realize it will never be reduced to zero. Thus the core concern in this report is to identify the means most likely to reduce this risk and increase safety”.

The report goes on to state that “our society rightly takes pride in respecting the privacy of its members and protecting their personal information. While this is justified, our society feels equally strongly that its members must be properly protected against those likely to harm their physical or psychological integrity, including in the privacy of the conjugal home.

It is therefore appropriate to define an administrative and legal framework that is suitable to all and strikes a balance with the principles of fundamental justice and our rights and freedoms. The Corbo report states that access to such assessments or other information requires Quebec society and the legislator to design and implement measures which achieve a more finely tuned balance between the protection of privacy and the protection of public safety. Demanding the absolute supremacy of one or the other of these values is liable to compromise the other. That is why the concept of balance is important.

I am still puzzled when I read clause 20 of the bill, which adds section 490.02 to the Criminal Code. Paragraph ( a ) refers to sexual offences while paragraph ( b ) does not. We are concerned when a bill with the worthwhile goal of protecting against sexual predators is used to add a general and imprecise provision.

It is of particular concern to me to see that property offences such as breaking and entering a dwelling house are included in this section. I fail to see how that protects against a sexual predator. It would be good to know what the lawmaker's intent really is when it comes to including offences with no connection to sexual offences. After all, the title of this bill does say “respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders”. The scope of this section goes far beyond that. That an offender could have to be registered for such an offence is cause for concern.

I repeat that this bill has a worthwhile goal of protecting, but only with regard to strict enforcement criteria concerning privacy, the promotion of reintegration into society and the community as well as accessibility of data only to police and only for investigations on crimes of a sexual nature.

We have another concern about Bill C-23, which could become a major one given the bill's constitutional nature. While the registration requirement is within the prosecution's jurisdiction, it does not in any way guarantee its constitutional validity.

In fact, the Supreme Court recently concluded that the lawmaker giving the prosecution discretion to act does not resolve a potential constitutional problem. In the references Lavallee, Rackel & Heintz v. Canada; White, Ottenheimer & Baker v. Canada, and R. v. Finn, in a recent and unpublished judgment, Madam Justice Arbour stated, “Nor can the provision be infused with reasonableness in a constitutional sense on the basis of an assumption that the prosecution will behave honourably—”

She went on to say that, “'The protection of basic rights should not be dependent upon a reliance on the continuous exemplary conduct of the Crown, something that is impossible to monitor or control.' Even more so, I would add that the constitutionality of a statutory provision cannot rest on an expectation that the Crown will refrain from doing what it is permitted to do”.

At first glance, we might think that the prosecution will act carefully. But we must not forget that we are dealing with a very controversial and hot issue.

I agree that appropriate steps must be taken to deal with sexual predators in order to protect children and any other vulnerable person from abuse. However, we should not go overboard and require all sex offenders to register.

Again, I insist on the notion of gravity in the assessment made by the prosecutor, in his analysis of the need to invoke these provisions. The notion of gravity must be at the core of the decision making process regarding the provision that authorizes the registration of sex offenders.

Another reservation regarding Bill C-23 has to do with the implementation costs of this system. This is a very serious concern. The Solicitor General is talking about investing $2 million to launch this system and then $400,000 per year to manage it.

It would be interesting to see the studies that have led to these numbers. It would be perfectly appropriate and relevant to know all the figures that have led to these amounts, particularly after the fiasco in the management of the firearms program, which the government must absolutely avoid repeating. Therefore, I am asking the Solicitor General to provide us with the documents relating to the funding of this registry.

This blatant lack of information raises some questions, namely: who will absorb the excess costs? Quebec and the provinces? Since Quebec and the provinces are responsible for the operation of this system, they should have all the information that is relevant to this program.

It is Quebec that is responsible for getting the orders and presenting the challenges, reviews and appeals. It is also Quebec that must review and register offenders and check the information. Then there are the arrests made when there is a refusal to act. All these proceedings will undoubtedly result in significant costs.

Let us not forget, also, the costs that could result from constitutional challenges. Some measures will have to be adopted to protect and maintain the database. We should also include a gravity assessment procedure. This procedure will of course be costly, because of the complexity of such assessments, and because they rely on expert opinions.

The Bloc Quebecois supports the principle of protecting society against dangerous sexual predators. However, we must first look at what these provisions entail.

So, the constitutional validity of this system and the significant costs that it will generate must be taken into consideration. We must remain cautious and ensure that the measures taken are not disproportionate and that parliamentarians have all the relevant information on the implementation of this system.

In short, we need more information about the costs, as per the economic feasibility studies. In this way, we hope to avoid repeating the firearm registry fiasco.

We must also insist on the guarantee of proportionality in accordance with section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is a fundamental right that could cause problems, not just in terms of enforcement, but also credibility, if the issue is not properly addressed. The bill must therefore provide the protections stipulated in the charter.

In closing, the Bloc Quebecois supports the principle of this bill, which is to protect the public from sexual predators. However, we remain cautious in terms of the constitutional validity of some of the bill's provisions, and this is why we want to know more about the costs that will be incurred.

In closing, I would like to reiterate the Bloc Quebecois' support for the principle of this bill. However, we believe that it is reasonable and justifiable to want the full details in terms of provisions affecting how the bill will be enforced, in addition to the effects these provisions will have. These details are what will really testify to the quality of work that we, in this House, will have done.

Therefore, it will be in committee that we will really be able to assess the scope of this bill and make any necessary changes for Canadians and Quebeckers, so they can feel assured that they are protected against the threat of sexual predators.

It is in committee, I believe, that we will be able to fully understand the scope of this bill, particularly with respect to the notion of recidivism and the gravity of the offence, but also with respect to the breadth of the scope of the bill and the impact it will have.

It is also in committee that we will be able to see all of the information necessary to determine the costs related to implementing the registry. As I said before, the goal is praiseworthy, but is this the right approach? This remains to be seen.

The Bloc Quebecois supports this bill in principle, but caution requires that we study it more closely and make the necessary changes. We need to look at the costs involved in order to avoid a fiasco and we must also ensure that the registry is truly confidential, that the information is given only to police forces, and that none of the information is used in any witch hunts, but that it is used under the conditions that I laid out earlier in my comments.

Criminal Code

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-20. The title of the bill, the child protection act, does not really cover what is in the bill. The speakers before me have pointed out the flaws in the bill.

There has been a huge outcry in my riding over these situations that have occurred that have brought about the genesis of the bill, Bill C-20, child protection. With the advent of the Internet and the world becoming a smaller place we are starting to see more and more abuses.

The concerns that my constituents have is that they are seeing more and more that Canada is becoming a safe haven for the perverts of the world because we will not stand up and protect our children.

There has been this huge public outcry that we need to go further, faster and really put something on the books that protects our kids. This bill does not do that. Unfortunately there are a few things missing.

The government and other governments before it always have these code words that such and such is a priority for the government. We have heard that time and time again.

We only have to go back to 1989 and the Conservative government at the time when child poverty was a priority for the government. It went on and it has been a priority for the Liberal government as well. Guess what? It is worse, not better.

Whenever we hear these code words that it is a priority, citizens beware. Somewhere in there someone will get left out which is what we are seeing in the bill.

There is an accompanying bill that we will be debating later this afternoon I am sure, Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. We see the same underlying so-called priority and direction of the government not really covering the fatal flaws that we have in our legislation now. The biggest concern with Bill C-23 is that it is not retroactive. It will not go back and address the folks who have committed these offences, are habitual criminals and who will reoffend. It does not go back and put them on the list because of privacy and constitutional challenges which is what the Solicitor Generals tells us he is concerned with. However that flies in the face of protecting someone.

Canadian parents are concerned. They have read the articles on Canada becoming a safe haven. They have seen the court cases that have not been heard, or have been adjourned, or have been thrown out or whatever. Because of the way our laws are written they will not protect our kids. The bill seeks to address some of those missing elements but it does not.

We still have a version of the outrageous argument that there is artistic merit somehow in child pornography. The Liberals have recognized that is not the right way to write that down so they changed it and put in some fuzzy words. Now they call it public good. How can it be for the public good when we label it as pornography and it involves kids?

We have heard arguments from some members of the House. My counterpart, the member for Palliser, stood up and said that there was no victim here. Well, there certainly is. The last speaker, the member for Cumberland--Colchester, made the point, and I agree with him, that there was long-lasting psychological damage. Certainly there is a victim in a sense.

Artistic merit, public good or whatever we want to call it, leaves a huge loophole for these worldwide offenders to come to Canada and say they are artists. Now the member for Dartmouth wants to give them a tax credit. That is how ludicrous some of the arguments are on this example.

We see these types of offenders, the lowest of the lowest, being given community arrest. They are put back into the very community where the crime happened and where the victim lives. There is an instance of that right now in North Battleford. A fellow named Gladue has just been given a conditional release and he is out in the community. The police are not supposed to say anything because of his privacy but, thank God, they have come forward and told the people about the problem. They put forward the usual rules, that he cannot go near a park or talk to kids, but how do we enforce that when he is dropped back into a community where kids live on every block and are on every corner? They walk past the buildings. How do we enforce those types of things? It is an anomaly that my constituents cannot get their minds around. We release this guy because statutory release says that we have to do it.

He has taken no psychological analysis or any programs while incarcerated that say it is safe to release him but they are saying no. His chances of repeat offending are like 80% to 90%. He is a time bomb waiting to go off but he is out in my community. At least the police have acknowledged that he is there and have told people to watch out for him, and rightly so.

The other loophole in the bill is that we do not see the age of consent moved from 14 years old. Canadians have said that their kids up to age 16 receive a government cheque called a child tax credit. Under the tax system children up to the age of 16 receive a tax credit but at 14 they can have sex? It just flies in the face of any rational thinking that the government would not move that age to 16, and it makes no attempt in the bill to do that.

I remember one day in question period that exact question was put forward by my colleague from Provencher, the former attorney general of Manitoba. The parliamentary secretary stood and said that the government could not make that move because there were cultural groups in Canada that required that age. Can anyone believe that; cultural groups in Canada that insist that 14 remain the age of consent? That is ridiculous. This is Canada. We have our own rules and regulations. We do not need a cultural group dictating that the age of consent stay at 14. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is not in here.

I know some amendments will be brought forward by my colleagues from Provencher and from Crowfoot, our justice critic, to this very bill. We know the chances of those amendments getting through are slim to none but we have to try. People are requesting it.

The police associations were here last week for the lobby day on the Hill. The government made a big hue and cry about how the CPA was all in favour of Bill C-68, the gun registry, and that we should spend the money because it was a useful tool. However it forgot to tell us that on that very same day the CPA said that there was not enough money for child pornography and that it needed more cash and more police officers on the line to fight it.

The criminals who perpetrate this type of thing have gone on the Internet, they have gone global, and our police officers have not been given the resources to fight it. The Liberals forgot to mention that little flaw in their thinking the other day.

It is fine to support Bill C-68. Everybody is welcome to do that in a democracy. However there are two officers in Toronto who have been forced to sit and watch this stuff through their whole shift to prove there is criminal intent here. How perverse is that? They have a psychiatric review themselves after six months but there is no psychiatric review for the people they arrest for this thing. It is craziness. We do a psychoanalysis on the policemen but not on the bad guys. We just shake our heads at how these type of things get in here. Court cases are tossed out. They are unenforceable.

The bill would increase the maximum sentence. It sounds great that the maximum sentence for doing something will be increased. Whether we use that or not has no bearing on the fact. It is the minimum sentence that needs to be increased. If the minimum sentence is 4 years now, let us make it 10 years. It does not matter if we make the maximum sentence 20 years because nobody qualifies for the maximum anyway. There are weasel words right in the bill that say it is protecting our kids by increasing the maximum sentence. It is the minimum that we need to increase, not the maximum. This really fails any kind of a test. There are so many things that are required that are just basic.

What about conditional sentences and the idea of community arrest? Prison time is called for so criminals can get the counselling and the psychiatric care they need if and when they ever do get released.

We have a lot of concerns with the bill. There is no truth in sentencing when we see the maximum increased, not the minimum. Nobody really tells us that the victims have no rights at all, that the criminals have all the rights. He can be statutorily released into the same community in which he committed the crime. These poor kids who are victims of this are stuck living with this person right in their midst.

This whole idea of minimum sentences not being increased and psychological assessments and analyses not being done on these perverted people in our society just flies in the face of anything called child protection. There is no possible way that my colleagues and I can support a bill like this. I know the committee worked very hard on this. It heard from a lot of community groups and lot of parents who said that these things needed to be in the bill. However we have seen no movement by the government to enforce tougher and harder penalties on these criminals.

We are not able to support the legislation simply because the government will not broaden out the scope of who will be covered, how they will covered and why they will be covered, and stop this whole influx of the global perverts who come to Canada because it is a free ride. That is not acceptable.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as you know there is no time allocation motion on the agenda. There is however a notice, should that notice need to be exercised.

It is the intention of the government to continue this afternoon and tomorrow with Bill C-28, the budget implementation legislation. I wish to confirm to the House that it is my intention to continue to do so notwithstanding the opposition's dilatory motion to stop the bill from proceeding which was introduced in the House earlier this day.

If and when the bill is completed, we will then turn to Bill C-20, the child protection bill, either tomorrow if the budget bill is completed, or if not, on Monday. This will be followed by Bill C-23, the sex offender bill.

I then propose to bring back to the House for third reading Bill C-13 on reproductive technologies, which was concurred in by the House yesterday. That would probably bring us at least some way into next week and there will be further consultations at that point.

There have been discussions among parties and it has been agreed that the House shall not sit next Friday, April 4. Given that is the case, I now seek the consent of the House pursuant to that consultation to move the following motion. I move:

That when the House adjourns on April 3, 2003, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, April 7, 2003.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to take part in this important debate, which has been a long time coming. Although this issue has been debated numerous times in the House, every time initiated by the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, it is the first time an actual bill, Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, has been the topic of discussion.

I stood in the House more than two years ago in support of a Canadian Alliance motion requesting the establishment of a national sex offender registry. Two years ago, that motion resulted in the government committing to the establishment of a registry. At that time, members opposite stood unanimously in support of their government's commitment to establish a national sex offender registry by January 30, 2002.

Quite obviously the government again has failed to meet another commitment. It failed to meet its commitment of having the sex offender registry up and running by January 2002. I am confident that had we not pushed and prodded the government, it never would have met that commitment on its own accord. The time it has taken to force the government to bring Bill C-23 before the House clearly demonstrates to all Canadians and all parliamentarians the priority, or the lack thereof, that it places on the protection of our children in this country.

Ontario established a registry three years ago. Christopher's law, or Bill 31, received royal assent in April 2000. That bill established a registry to enhance public safety by providing law enforcement agencies with a modern, reliable and effective electronic tool to support services to track sex offenders in our communities and to improve the investigation of crimes of a sexual nature.

Despite the efforts of Ontario and other provincial governments, the Liberal government has failed to protect Canadian children from sexual predators.

This will be the third time that I have stood in the House quoting from a document that was produced by the Liberal Party of Canada, produced before the 1993 election. Before the election, their promise, their commitment and their vision sounded pretty good in the red book. I quote this today because it is absolutely imperative that we point out the clear justification for a national sex offender registry as recognized not just recently but 10 years ago by those who now sit across the way in government. Yet the government has moved very slowly. It has done absolutely nothing to this point but fail to once again make good on a promise. It has failed, and that is this government's record. It has a record of failure.

In 1993 the Liberals fully supported the establishment of a national sex offender registry of convicted child abusers. Their rationale, quoting directly from their own document, was this:

Sex offenders represent almost 20 per cent of the incarcerated population and 10 per cent of the conditionally released population.

Repeat sex offenders are more than twice as likely to commit further sex offences, much more likely to violate conditional release conditions and more likely than other offenders to reoffend... However, treatment programs for sexual offenders are sorely lacking.

The Liberal government recognized the chances of reoffending. It recognized that they were a threat. All those it recognized. These facts were highlighted three years prior to the publication of the Liberal document.

A 1990 report by a working group established by the Department of the Solicitor General concluded that offender treatment programs have shown limited results. The report said that they gauged and looked at the programs that were in place, followed them through, did an evaluation and the programs showed limited results. The report showed that practitioners in the field of sex offender treatment do not claim to cure sex offenders. The Solicitor General's department in 1990, in a previous government, recognized that they cannot simply claim to have 100% cured the sex offender, but rather the treatment strategy is to manage the risk of reoffending.

That document says that although they will put them in a program, although they will give them treatment, at the end of the day they recognize that basically the best they can do is risk manage. I am not sure as a parent that I am quite satisfied with the response the report brought out, although it is true. As a parent it causes me some concern that people who recognize that programs are not working and recognize the recidivism rate are saying they are going to risk manage pedophiles and sex offenders back into the communities.

The report also said that there were not enough experts to meet the demand for sex offender treatment and the limitations of treatment were recognized. This research based information, produced by the Department of the Solicitor General, clearly demonstrated well over 10 years ago why Canada needed a national sex offender registry. Yet the government and its predecessor failed to establish such a registry despite recognizing the risks, despite the ample justification to do so.

The question must be asked, recognizing the rights, recognizing the risk, why would it fail to meet such a requirement? The only plausible answer in my mind to that question is that the government has and continues to place the rights of the offender before the rights of the victim. It has continuously placed the rights of the offender above the concerns of the protection of our society. We have seen this over and over and over again.

This is evident in almost all of the justice legislation the government has brought forward in the last few years, including the establishment of the DNA database. Enacted in 1998, Bill C-3, an act respecting DNA identification, created a new statute governing the establishment and the administration of a national DNA bank. It also amended the Criminal Code to permit a judge to make a post-conviction order authorizing the taking of bodily substances from a person found guilty of a designated Criminal Code offence in order to include the offender's DNA profile in the national DNA database.

The DNA data bank was officially opened on July 5, 2000. My party, the Canadian Alliance Party, is firmly committed to restoring confidence in our justice system by providing law enforcement officers and law enforcement agencies the latest technological tools to quickly detect and apprehend criminals. The attempt to amend Bill C-3 was unsuccessful.

We live in a day and age where every sector of society is looking for the newest technology available to enhance their way of life, to enhance their business, to enhance their safety perhaps, every aspect, every area of society.

Look at some of the things that are happening in health care and the new technologies that are available. It has only been for a few years that we have been able to have laser surgery done on our eyes to repair loss of vision. That is old technology now. Now health care has the technology to do many things.

We demand high technology in travel. There are vehicles now with global positioning systems that can detect when there has been an accident. When the air bag is inflated a signal is sent automatically by satellite to an office and medical attention is called without ever making a 911 call.

Our society has moved to a place where we accept and want the latest in technology. We see it. We have turned the television on in the last few days and we have seen the latest technology in the war on Iraq. We have seen missiles being sent from hundreds of miles away. We have seen the latest in laser guided missiles.

We see it in health sciences with research and development. We want the newest in technology. However, when it comes to law enforcement, when it comes to dealing with crime, when it comes to dealing with criminal offences and offenders, the Canadian Alliance argued that DNA identification, if used to its full potential, could be one of the newest technologies. We argued that DNA identification could be one of the greatest resources in fighting crime since the introduction of dusting for fingerprints.

To deny the police agencies the full use of this technology, as Bill C-3, did was reprehensible. It was unacceptable, inasmuch as it maintains an unnecessary level of risk to the lives and safety of our citizens. We have the technology. We have the ability to fight crime. When it comes to giving those resources to our law enforcement agencies, we handcuff them and then tell them to go out and do their job. Shame on the government.

There are literally hundreds of unsolved rapes. Hundreds of murders are outstanding in the country. There are victims across the nation where one event, one criminal offence has changed their life forever.

I have looked into the faces of mothers whose children have been murdered, some who have been murdered in prison. The twinkle in their eye is gone forever. When we talk with a parent whose young child has been sexually molested or raped, it not only leaves a scar on the primary victim, the child, it scars that family and the extended family forever.

Many dangerous offenders remain on our streets because of the government's failure to deploy the DNA tool properly as requested by police across the country. Bill C-3 did not allow for the taking of DNA samples at the time of the charge. The bill did not permit samples to be taken retroactively from incarcerated criminals, other than designated dangerous offenders or multiple sex offenders or multiple murderers.

However, Bill C-3 did provide a dangerous and an unnecessary exemption that could be authorized by judges not to issue a warrant for the taking of a sample if they believed that in doing so it would impact on an individual's privacy and security. Here again we see where the courts have the ability to disallow the taking of a DNA sample if that individual's privacy or security could be jeopardized.

This misplaced consideration for the privacy of offenders is more than apparent in the bill we are debating today. It is more than apparent in Bill C-23.

Sex offenders may be excluded from the registry, according to Criminal Code section 490.03(4) as set out in clause 20, if the court is satisfied:

--that the person has established that, if the order were made, the impact on them, including on their privacy or liberty, would be grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature, to be achieved by the registration of information relating to sex offenders.

While not all sex offenders will be successful in exempting themselves from the registry, this one thing we can be sure of: many will delay having their names put on that registry and many will not register their whereabouts, arguing in court that with regard to their privacy, their liberty and their freedom, it would be too negative an impact for them to handle. One thing we can be sure of is we will see a log jam in the court system like we have never seen before. The lawyers across the way sit back and wipe their hands and lick their chops. This becomes a lawyer's dream.

If they are not successful in convincing the judge that their names should not be on the registry, we can be sure they will take their cases to the Supreme Court of Canada and they will string out those cases for just as long as they can.

In the papers just two days ago, one headline read, “Rapist asks Supreme Court to strike down DNA law. Lawyer argues sampling bodily substances violates constitutional rights”. The article went on to say:

An Edmonton man convicted of raping and impregnating a 14-year-old girl has made the first Supreme Court of Canada challenge to laws allowing police to take DNA from suspects....The case being argued involves a man whose name is subject to a publication ban, who was boarding during the week with the victim and her family at their Hinton, Alberta trailer....The man had sex with her against her will for 30 minutes....Four months later she realized she was pregnant....The girl, described as intellectual delayed, told her mother what had happened and was taken for an abortion....Police seized the fetal tissue as evidence. In January, 1997, RCMP officers armed with a search warrant, pricked the man's finger for a blood sample to make a DNA comparison with the tissue [that they had taken]....He was found guilty of sexual assault and sentenced to six years in prison. In 2001, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled two to one to uphold the conviction. Mr. Anderson, whose client is free on $5,000 bail, wants the Supreme Court to overturn that decision.

The defence is contending that the DNA legislation breaches the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that it hinders the protection of his personal security and that it should be banned because it was an unreasonable search.

The convicted rapist's lawyer is not arguing his client's innocence. He is not arguing in a court of law that there has been a miscarriage of justice, that the individual was innocent of the charge that was put against him. He is arguing against how the police obtained the evidence to prove that he was guilty. He is arguing a technicality.

While the wheels of justice grind slowly or they grind to a halt, our sons and daughters may be victimized all because the government continues to stack the deck in favour of the offender and the offence over the protection of society.

A number of years ago the Supreme Court of Canada in a 5 to 4 decision held that privacy rights under the charter demanded that police obtain a warrant prior to entry into a dwelling house to arrest a suspect. The decision in response to the Feeney case resulted in evidence being thrown out because the police did not have a warrant when entering his premises. Feeney's blood soaked shirt which had been obtained by the police, and blood all over the place where this individual lived, clearly proved his guilt to the first degree murder charge. That shirt or that blood was not allowed as evidence.

In her dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Judge L'Heureux-Dubé said that while the rights of the accused people are certainly important under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “they are not all the equation”. I like what the judge said. The judge did not question whether someone who was charged had rights under the charter. She did not question whether someone who was a suspect by the police force and who had a charge levied against them had rights. She did not question whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applied. She said that it was only one part of the equation and not all the equation.

That quote should be a wake-up call to the government. That quote should be a wake-up call to those who are continuously looking only at the rights of the offenders with the rights of the victims forgotten.

The judge cautioned her colleagues not to automatically exclude even illegally obtained evidence without considering the consequence for victims, the protection of society and the reputation of the justice system. She stated:

When an attacker or a murderer is acquitted in the name of the regularity of the criminal process, it is not only past victims who are ignored, but also future victims who are sacrificed.

The Supreme Court judge boldly suggested that it was time to reassess the balance the court has struck between protecting the individual rights of the accused and preserving society's capacity to protect its most vulnerable members and to bring and to expose the truth. I challenge the government today to strike the necessary balance because as Judge L'Heureuz-Dubé said:

--perhaps it is time to recall that public respect and confidence in the justice system lies not only in protection against police abuse, but also in the system's capacity to uncover the truth and ensure that, at the end of the day, it is more likely than not that justice will have been done.

I emphasize this, “it is more likely than not that justice will have been done”.

She is saying that when someone goes through the system, the public wants to look and have the faith that justice has been served. When we read about offenders back on the street because of technicalities, the public begins to question if justice was served. Did they come to justice? Although they are very seldom ever satisfied when the offender is caught, the public questions if there a degree of closure that can be brought to the victim because justice has been served. That is the question. That is the secondary part of the equation that needs to be considered.

The only way we can ensure that justice is done is to ensure that police officers in Canada have all the investigative tools necessary to do their jobs effectively and to uncover the truth through the bringing together of all the evidence that they can gather.

It will indeed be an injustice if the DNA warrant provisions are found unconstitutional. It will indeed be an injustice if it severely restricted the use of DNA as evidence.

More than 10 years ago six year old Punky Gustavson was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and then murdered. The story captivated all the country, certainly my province of Alberta. It was a story that, not only in Edmonton where it happened but throughout the province, horrified people as when they heard about little Punky Gustavson going missing.

It happened over 10 years ago. Less than a week ago, Punky Gustavson's murderer was finally charged. In November of last year, an Alberta provincial court ordered that DNA sample be taken from Clifford Mathew Sleigh, who is a prisoner in the Bowden Institution. That sample was matched with a very small sample of DNA that was taken in 1992 when Punky's body was found.

As I stated earlier, only three types of prisoners who were found guilty prior to June 2000, when the DNA data bank was created, were eligible to be included. The first were those who were listed as being dangerous offenders. The second was multiple murderers. The third was multiple sex offenders. Across Canada 2,000 such offenders were identified. Three hundred of them were in Alberta prisons. The Alberta court however had to obtain court orders for the seizure and inclusion of DNA from the 300 inmates as it was not automatic.

The Canadian Alliance Party has argued that DNA samples should be automatic, should be retroactive and should be taken from all convicted offenders. Similarly, we have argued, not so successfully apparently, to have all convicted sex offenders retroactively entered into the registry. However we will continue to push for the inclusion of all past and current sex offenders to be listed on the registry with absolutely no exceptions.

The retroactively part of the bill is of huge concern to Canadians. The fact that the government boasts of a registry with no names on it and the fact that the government boasts of a registry that for many years down the road will not help law enforcement is wrong. It is wrong for the minister to stand up in front of the House or in front of any television camera across the country and brag about how the registry, as soon as it is brought into legislation and is passed, will help. Without retroactivity on that list, absolutely nobody will benefit.

We will push to have any sex offender who fails to comply with an order to register to be held liable for a significant terms of imprisonment. Currently, clause 20 of Bill C-23 adds subsection 490.09(1). It states:

Every person who knowingly contravenes an order...is guilty of an offence and liable

(a) in the case of a first offence, on summary conviction, to a fine of not more than $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or to both.

It is absolutely outrageous and a complete insult to law-abiding firearm--

Sex Offender Registry

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the snail's pace at which the national sex offender registry bill is proceeding through the House speaks volumes about the priority the government places on the safety of our society and of our children. At this speed, it is very likely that we will not have the sex offender registry before next Christmas, or even before the next election.

I ask the Solicitor General, will he immediately ensure that Bill C-23 is made a priority and is brought before the House sooner rather than later?

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this is almost an open House leaders' meeting this afternoon. I am pleased to inform the House that this afternoon we will definitely continue with the opposition day motion. Let the record be very clear about that fact.

Tomorrow we will call Bill C-20, the child protection bill, followed then by Bill C-23 respecting sex offenders. On Monday we shall have an opposition day or an allotted day. That is also the case with next Tuesday.

Pursuant to an all party agreement on concurrence in a ways and means motion to take place on Tuesday and the subsequent introduction of the budget bill, it would be my intention to call on Wednesday the budget bill 2003. Insofar as anything else that may occur, I am pleased to inform the House that the government fully intends to comply with all Standing Orders.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Jeannot Castonguay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, my remarks will deal specifically with cloning and research, which are very critical to this debate. I think that it is important to look at what we want to accomplish with Bill C-13, which, in fact, does not take half measures in regard to cloning.

Bill C-13 prohibits all human cloning. In fact, it prohibits all types of cloning, be it reproductive or therapeutic. Different types of cloning have been mentioned. Bill C-13 prohibits all cloning methods that could be used to create a human clone. No matter what the objective or the method, this legislation prohibits the creation of a human clone.

I think that we must be extremely clear that human cloning is out of the question, no matter what the method or the reason behind it.

Bill C-13 sends a warning to the Raelians, who were in the news over the holidays. Obviously, they are being sent a very clear message: Canada is opposed to human cloning, no ifs, ands or buts.

Once Bill C-13 is adopted, the government will be able to crack down on any human cloning experiments, which is why it is important for this bill to become law. Currently, these people can pretty much do as they please.

By prohibiting cloning, we are banning any activity involving reproduction or research that would contribute to this objective.

We consciously avoided banning specific cloning methods knowing that if we did, scientists would find other methods for cloning that we would not have anticipated. This would leave the door open for cloning. Once again, this bill prohibits cloning. That is why we did not go into detail to define all the methods. We are simply providing a generic definition and eliminating any possibility of cloning.

Motion No. 40 is superfluous. All cloning methods including somatic cell nuclear transfer—so-called therapeutic cloning—are banned under Bill C-13. I think it is important that this also be very clear.

Furthermore, some of the proposed amendments would have unintended and perhaps harmful consequences. I will give you some very specific examples.

Motion No. 14 would endanger the lives of Canadian women. In fact, without the possibility of creating embryos in order to improve assisted reproduction technologies, women themselves—our wives, sisters, neighbours or friends—will be the research subjects. Do we want to them to be guinea pigs? I think not.

As for Motion No. 23, which would ban transgenesis, this would have the effect of immediately, and permanently, putting an end to the efforts of numerous Canadian researchers and laboratories to develop therapies for the treatment of a number of dread diseases, among them cancer and Alzheimer's. Do we really want to put an end to this promising research? I think not. I think that is absolutely not what we want to do.

Motion No. 26 would ban such things as sperm motility testing. As we know, this test is often able to explain why a couple is infertile. Without that test, the woman is subjected to treatments that have no chance of being successful. Do we want Canadians to be treated needlessly? I do not think Canadians want that.

I repeat, Bill C-23 bans all human cloning, regardless of method or form. It prohibits all human cloning, without exception, as well as protecting the health and safety of Canadian women who wish to use assisted reproduction procedures.

I believe that, regardless of what we are hearing said on all sides, there is no question of allowing human cloning in this country. That is why banning any type of cloning makes it impossible for someone at some point to find a way to get around this, because only certain methodologies have been defined.

Let it be clear to everyone: with Bill C-13, all forms of human cloning will be banned.

Lobbyists Registration Act

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great interest that I take this opportunity to speak to Bill C-15, an act to amend the Lobbyists Registration Act.

A lobbyist is recognized as an individual who seeks to influence legislators on a particular issue, with a lobby being an organization to attempt to influence. From this definition of a lobbyist flows the term influence peddling which defines those individuals who allege that whatever the issue, they possess the ability to influence the government in someone's favour, usually in return for some type of payoff.

The payoff can assume many forms, from monetary to favourable media coverage, in return for access. For example, during the Ducros affair, which centred around the intemperate comments made by the Prime Minister's director of communications about the President of the United States and ultimately led to the forcing of her resignation, certain reporters did not even cover the story.

Who lobbied these reporters? Canadians are left wondering what was promised in exchange for practising self-censorship and being a willing conduit for government propaganda?

It is recognized that in a modern, functioning democracy there are legitimate forms of lobbying. It was, however, the not so legitimate types of lobbying that led to the necessity of the Lobbyists Registration Act in the first place.

The government of the day felt that it was important for the public to know exactly who was lobbying the government; on whose behalf the lobbyist was working; the subject matter for which the lobbyist was retained to communicate with a public officeholder or to arrange a meeting with; to identify any relevant legislative proposal, bill, resolution, regulation, policy, program, grant, contribution, financial benefit or contract; and the amount and the terms of the payment.

The government felt that it was important for the public to know the particulars to identify any communication technique, including appeals to members of the public through the mass media or by direct communications that seek to persuade the members of the public to communicate directly with a public officeholder in an attempt to place pressure on the public officeholder to endorse a particular option.

The government also felt that it was important to provide the information relating to the identity of the individual, the client, any person or organization and any subsidiary company directing the lobbyist or anyone who had a direct interest in the outcome of the lobbyist's activities on behalf of a client.

It is interesting to note why lobbying has become an issue now. It has become an issue because the government made its unethical behaviour the issue.

The Prime Minister even promised an independent ethics commissioner who would report directly to Parliament, a promise he promptly broke when it became apparent that the independent ethics commissioner would only be taking up too much time in Parliament reporting on the sins of the current government.

Where is Stevie Cameron or similar civic-minded journalists when we need them? It is time to write the sequel to On the Take . The book could be called On the Take Part Two, starring the Prime Minister and the rest of the Liberal Party.

This need to legislate lobbyists started in 1993 with the Prime Minister accusing the former Tory government of corruption or, more specifically, illegal lobbying.

The industry minister, who is the sponsor of the bill, as justice minister led the witch hunt all the way to former prime minister Brian Mulroney. It is hard to see how he found the time to attack the former prime minister when he was so busy setting up the billion dollar gun registry.

What slowly became apparent was the speed with which the government sought to overtake the previous government when it came to a lapse in political ethics.

In the words of one observer to the federal scene at the end of 2002, “the lost value of boondoggles hits a record high, smashing the ugly 1999 benchmark established by the HRDC mess. The missing money into Groupaction caper, the fraudulent GST claim scandal, the air security tax mess and the mother of all mind-boggles, the $1 billion gun registry database even the police say is flawed or incomplete”.

No one cannot legislate moral behaviour.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill because of what it represents, lost opportunity. The decision of the Prime Minister not to do the right thing and respond to the real concerns of Canadians is the hallmark of a corrupt regime.

Canadians are concerned that power and influence is now a commodity in Ottawa to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The real problem in Ottawa is not the lobbyists who ply their trade as professionals. The lobbyist registry is something that they support as they see the need to clean up what has always been considered to be suspect activity at best, immoral, unethical and, at its worst abuse, illegal.

Legitimate lobbyists in Ottawa are in many ways similar to firearms owners in Canada: law-abiding and doing something that they have always done without a hint of any problem. Then along comes the justice minister and starts to treat all owners of firearms as criminals.

The fact that a lobbyist act exists is an admission on the part of the government of criminal activity and the fact that we have amendments to existing legislation confirms that the criminal activity associated with lobbying is getting worse.

Let us distinguish between legitimate lobbying activity and the activity these amendments to the lobbyist act hope to curtail.

Criminals do not register their firearms. Lobbyists who seek government favour for financial payoff do not want to be identified as a lobby registry. The lobbyists who are engaged in suspect activities have not registered and will not register.

It is under the table deals that Canadians fear about the current government. If any individual or activity demonstrates the need for an independent ethics commissioner it has to be the events surrounding the former solicitor general.

The spin is that the former solicitor general resigned because of the ethics counsellor's ruling that he broke conflict of interest rules by lobbying the RCMP and Correctional Service Canada for a $6.5 million grant for a college that is run by his brother.

Amazingly, before that resignation the former solicitor general was trying to defend an untendered $100,000 contract to his friend, Everett Roche's Prince Edward Island accounting firm of MacIsaac Younker Roche Soloman, with Mr. Roche's name as the signatory on the contract.

Everett Roche was the former solicitor general's official agent in the 2000 federal election.

If I have identified Mr. Roche incorrectly as the campaign manager for the former solicitor general in the 2000 federal campaign, I am pleased to confirm the fact that Mr. Roche was the chief financial officer, in many respects the most responsible position in the election campaign.

I also want to make it clear that in the case of the former solicitor general's brother, I do not know if he personally gained from the activities of his brother.

However it is a matter of public record that the lobbying for $6.5 million for the P.E.I. college run by his brother was a conflict of interest and it was that activity that was identified as the cause of the former solicitor general's resignation.

After the former solicitor general's resignation, more and more information surfaced about the accounting firm of MacIsaac Younker Roche Soloman, with thousands of more dollars in untendered contracts, only this time in the form of verbal agreements. How convenient that verbal agreements leave no paper trails.

Treasury Board guidelines require verbal agreements be backed up by a formal written agreement. There was no contract for work billed by Everett Roche's accounting firm in one case and a contract for other so-called work was signed five months after it was finished, in May 2001. What a coincidence that this so-called work was completed about the time of the last federal election.

Unfortunately, if there was any legitimacy around these activities Canadians would never know because we do not have an independent ethics commissioner, which is the most serious flaw in Bill C-15. Only an open court of law will reveal whether or not the subject matter of the former solicitor general's untendered contract with his election campaign's official agent involved getting money for the minister's brother's college.

The lobbyists act, as is, unamended by Bill C-15, prohibits inter-ministry lobbying. Canadians may never know the secret lobbying that took place by a member of the Prime Minister's staff to shut the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior. Still bitter about being rejected by the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the government has been looking for ways to punish the voters. Mean, petty and vindictive are the only words to describe the action to shut down 60 years of teaching excellence. This move to punish the people of Arnprior has already backfired.

I invite the Prime Minister to read the headlines in the local newspaper which read:

This Liberal Government has shafted us with the...(helicopter) contract and again this time with the Emergency Preparedness College.

A local councillor goes on to observe:

--there would be a serious political price to pay for what has been done. The Liberals have made sure they will never have this seat back again.

How much secret lobbying is taking place in the Office of the Prime Minister? Ottawa valley residents know that the someone who is in his office with no known responsibilities has received money from the horse racing industry, and this is a matter of public record.

What is not widely known is the lobbying that this individual is doing on behalf of this group from which he has accepted money in the past. In fact, this individual brags about his ability to influence the Prime Minister.

Addressing a racetrack gathering in the United States recently, he said “Speaking of power. Never underestimate the power of the unelected--.The key is to get to the powerful people. I am the special advisor to the Prime Minister so I can gain access to him and have meetings with these people”.

What is that power of the unelected to lobby from the Prime Minister's Office?

In the section referred to as Insider News of the Standardbred Canada in Trot magazine in an article dated April 22, 2002, which was basically a reprint from an article that was in the Recorder & Times , which is the local newspaper in Brockville, an application to build a $230 million racetrack was floundering, which I now understand is not proceeding. This was after the developer of the project bragged that the application was almost complete.

In a letter to the editor of the Brockville Recorder & Times Anton Stephens, the developer behind the racetrack proposal, publicly thanked the special advisor in the Prime Minister's Office. The same article in Trot magazine said the following about the Prime Minister's involvement:

Amazingly, the development group did manage to obtain a meeting with the Prime Minister (Chrétien) on December 12 after which the federal portion of the project was assigned to the Prime Minister's (Chrétien's) senior advisor Hector Cloutier.

We know what this employee does. He lobbies for racetracks and that is not all.

I have in my possession correspondence that was blind copied to the Prime Minister's Office over other racetrack lobbying with a federal government agency.

The true rot in the government is the secret lobbying that takes place behind the closed doors in the Prime Minister's Office. The worst thing about these practices is the fact that members of the government, not all I might add as the courageous members with principles do not go unrecognized by the official opposition and ordinary Canadians, see these practices as normal, as nothing being wrong with them. Unfortunately, the horse racing industry is often penetrated by organized crime.

I want to get back to the need for the lobbyist registration bill and how the Prime Minister's Office is underscoring this need.

In the case of gambling we are talking about billions of dollars. This same individual, as a confidante of the Prime Minister, had this to say when he was confronted by a local parish priest in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the late Rev. Ken Bradley of Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Petawawa, about the evils of gambling, horse racing, and his involvement. He said:

Let me get this straight, Father. We have parish bingos every week. What's the difference?

When the good Father tried to explain the difference between God's work and lining the pockets of a few individuals, the official word on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office was:

Now you have to figure out how you're going to ameliorate with God so you can move ahead on this gambling.

He then went on to attack the efforts of social workers who have to pick up the pieces of the shattered lives of gambling addicts. I have a complete copy of this individual's comments published on the web for the world to see, so there can be no question about the authenticity of these quotes.

The secret lobbying by the anti-rural wing of the Liberal Party to waste a billion dollars on a useless firearms registry has resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of Canadians as health care lineups get longer.

I see the frustration on the faces of government members of Parliament who have to face angry rural constituents who are justifiably upset over more social engineering by the urban lobby. The transfer of power from the elected representatives to the faceless minions in the Prime Minister's Office is destroying our democracy.

A Liberal backbencher is pressuring the industry minister to prove he is not under the influence of companies funding his underground former leadership campaign. The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge is suggesting that Warren Kinsella, who has been closely associated with the industry minister's failed leadership bid, is the most obvious example of a conflict of interest for the Prime Minister's ethics counsellor to look into.

The member's comments were in response to the fact that Mr. Kinsella is still registered as a lobbyist on the Competition Act even though it now falls under the responsibility of the industry minister.

There is talk that senators on the banking, trade and commerce committee are planning to send Bill C-23, the competition bill, back to the House, a move the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge said would effectively kill the bill.

The industry minister is expected to appear before the committee sometime in April. The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge said the minister must speak against any amendments to prove he is not under the influence of the large corporations that are trying to derail the legislation. He told The Hill Times :

We have yet to hear from the minister on his own bill. I'd be interested to see why that hasn't happened.

When asked whether he felt Mr. Kinsella is in a conflict of interest, the member said:

I'm sure I'm going to be proven wrong, but given those who have been alleged to be affiliated with the industry minister's failed campaign have been also those who have been identified as being opposed to this legislation, I'm wondering if [federal ethics counsellor Howard] Wilson's musings wouldn't be more appropriately directed toward the most obvious example.

The Prime Minister has got away with using millions of taxpayer dollars in slick ad campaigns while child poverty in Renfrew County continues to rise thanks to the policies of the government.

The Canadian Alliance will continue to be elected in western Canada and more and more in Ontario, and the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, as long as the real concentration of power and inter-office lobbying remains in the Prime Minister's Office.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make the business statement and I will have two motions which relate to that immediately afterward, with the permission of the House.

This afternoon we will consider the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I understand this will be brief. This will be followed by third reading of Bill C-15, the lobbyists legislation. If time permits, we would then turn to Bill C-20 on child protection, and then possibly Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. I think by then the day will probably have exhausted.

Tomorrow our plan would be to commence with Bill C-2, the Yukon bill, which would then be followed by Bill C-6, the first nations specific claims bill.

When the House returns on March 17 we will complete the budget debate on that day. I will have a motion to offer to the House in a few minutes to defer the vote on that.

March 18 shall be an allotted day, as shall be March 20. I will give an update to members of the House in terms of legislation to be called on March 19.

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties and I wish to seek unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, if on March 17, 2003, a division is requested on the main motion for government order, ways and means proceedings No. 2, the said division shall be deferred until the conclusion of the time provided for government orders on March 18, 2003.

For the benefit of members, that refers to the budget motion.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to you and all colleagues in the House for assisting with the disposition of important business of the House.

Presently we are dealing with Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts. It is a very important bill: “The enactment requires that certain information about sex offenders be registered in a national database. This database is part of the automated criminal conviction records retrieval system maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is intended to serve as a tool that will help police investigate crimes of a sexual nature by providing them with access to current and reliable information related to sex offenders”.

The enactment also amends the Criminal Code “to enable the Crown to apply for an order to require an offender who is convicted of, or found not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder for, certain offences to report regularly to the designated registration centre and provide information”. It also creates a new Criminal Code offence “for failure to comply with the order, as well as an offence for providing false or misleading information. The enactment regulates access to, and the use and disclosure of the information contained in the database and includes an offence for contravention of those provisions”.

We have spent time in this place discussing important matters related to children. Certainly Bill C-20, with regard to child pornography, and this bill are related in many regards. As hon. members know, this is an extremely important bill. It is a bill that deserves our utmost attention, as it deals with improving the safety of our children and other vulnerable Canadians. I am confident that this is an objective shared by all parliamentarians, both here and in the other place. Moreover, the bill responds to the resolution passed by the premiers in August 2001 calling for a national sex offender registration system.

Further, the minister told the House that his department would begin evaluating potential improvements to the CPIC system in the specific area of sex offences. CPIC is the Canadian Police Information Centre. That database includes substantial information which the law enforcement authorities use for assistance in the conduct of their work. CPIC did not routinely contain up to date information on sex offences. It is one of the reasons why this bill is being brought forward.

In a very short time, the minister fulfilled his commitment when he announced to provincial and territorial ministers on September 11, 2001, that a new database within the CPIC system was to be created under the sex offender category. Further, he announced that this database would be “address searchable”, which is one of those Internet terms, and we are getting there, I think. It could be up and running within a year, funded completely by the federal government. I am pleased to note that the development of this new sex offender database has been completed and is now ready for implementation upon proclamation of Bill C-23.

At the same time, it was recognized that to create a truly national system, national legislation would be required. I know that many hon. members have risen in their places time and time again to bring a focus to the need for this national registry. There have been disagreements with regard to whether CPIC, even with the new category added, would be adequate to support law enforcement agencies in the discharge of their duties as they relate to sexual offenders and the offences by those persons.

In February 2002 all federal, provincial and territorial ministers agreed to work together to develop a legislative package that all could support. Ten months later, we have that legislation before us and a national consensus that it should be enacted as quickly as possible. I am confident that we will see that representatives from all parties and from all walks of life in this country will be supportive of the establishment of this registry.

During the 10 months of discussion, the Solicitor General and justice officials of all jurisdictions have worked together to fully explore the whole aspect of the registry, to determine what works and what does not and to agree on what is and what is not feasible. It is one thing to have a registry. It is quite another to have a registry that works and helps our law enforcement officers and agencies to do the job they are supposed to do on behalf of all Canadians.

If we are going to have a registry, we want to be certain that it will work and that it is efficient and affordable. We all know that Canadians expect us to be open, transparent, accountable and fiscally responsible with regard to legislation and actions taken on behalf of Canadians.

We want to ensure that it respects and guarantees the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that it is not in breach of federal or provincial privacy laws. I do not know how many times we have bumped our heads up against privacy issues in balancing the rights of individuals to privacy against the issue of the rights of others. We certainly saw that in Bill C-20 dealing with child pornography when we were talking about the rights of someone to possess child pornography on the basis that it was an expression of artistic merit, as opposed to the rights of the common good of Canadians and to societal values that the existence of child pornography means that children must have been abused. We can see this is a very important determination: to respect the provisions of the charter and at the same time ensure that the rights and the freedoms provided by the charter are not going to be violated in a manner which would not be consistent with Canadian values.

We are going to have this registry and we want one that the local police agencies also can administer in a consistent manner while at the same time allowing enough flexibility to respect diverse values and resources among provinces. Most important, we want an approach that will help police solve crimes and will not drive convicted sex offenders underground with changed identities and no hope for rehabilitation.

This has to be a very difficult challenge for any country to deal with. To the extent that we make laws, that we close in, tighten the ring and close the net, it makes people flee, it makes people go underground. It takes them out of an environment in which they can get the help and the rehabilitation they need. This is extremely important.

The sex offender information registration act would establish, as I have said, a national sex offender database containing information on convicted sex offenders. This database would be maintained by the RCMP and would contain information provided by local police across the country. This would be an integrated database, partnering with law enforcement right across the country. It makes a great deal of sense that it should operate in this way.

It is intended to assist police in investigating crimes of a sexual nature by providing them with rapid access to current vital information about convicted sex offenders. The new national registration system would enhance public protection by helping police identify possible suspects known to reside near an offence site and it would enable an officer to instantly obtain a list of sex offenders who are registered and living in the area where the offence occurred. It is no guarantee and there is certainly no certitude that a sex offender who may be in the proximity of another crime is responsible for that crime, but the evidence is clear, particularly as it regards recidivism on sex offences, that there is a much higher likelihood of past offenders to repeat. This would be another tool to complement the tools that our law enforcement agencies already have.

Re-registration would be required annually and within 15 days should convicted offenders change their address. Offenders would be required to provide the local police current information, such as addresses and telephone numbers, names and aliases, as well as identifying marks and tattoos. Penalities of up to two years in prison and $10,000 in fines would be levied for failing to comply with the registration order and for not giving truthful information.

Other notable features include the sentencing judge or Crown application imposing an order unless the offender is able to demonstrate that it would be grossly disproportionate to the interests of the administration of justice. There would be no public access and strict privacy controls would be placed on day-to-day access, even by law enforcement personnel.

Provinces would have specific regulatory abilities to tailor operational aspects to their particular needs. Again, the partnering and ensuring that all agencies, at all levels, have the tools that they need to do their job the best that they can.

Offenders would be required to register for periods of 10 years, 20 years or life, depending on the maximum penalty of the predicate offences for which they were originally convicted.

All registrants would be able to apply for a judicial review of their status at the halfway mark of the registration. Offenders who receive a pardon would be able to apply for judicial review of their registry status, based on the grossly disproportionate test. Young offenders would not be subject to a registration order unless sentenced as an adult, consistent with the current and pending young offenders legislation.

A number of prescribed non-sexual offence convictions would also be subject to a Crown application for a registration order where it can prove an intent to commit an offence.

In closing, no measure within the criminal justice system exists in a vacuum, sex offender registries included. The task of preventing recidivism by sex offenders needs an effective, multi-faceted approach. Bill C-23 provides us with an instrument which we can work with to ensure that happens.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in favour of Bill C-23, a government bill that will create a new federal act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders and that will make crucial amendments to the Criminal Code.

Before speaking to the specific dispositions of Bill C-23, I would like to give a history lesson for the members of the House and for Canadians who are watching. I would like to take time to briefly describe the continuum of actions and measures that the government has undertaken since 1993 to better protect Canadians from sexual abusers.

Since forming the government in 1993, we have taken a series of measures to better protect Canadians from sexual abusers and we will continue to do so, as Bill C-23 is clear evidence.

As early as 1994 we conducted extensive consultations with individuals and organizations with special responsibility for the care and protection of our children. These included children's aid societies, school boards, big brothers and big sisters organizations, Volunteer Canada, our police services across the country, victims and many other groups. Those who were consulted asked for as a first priority, and we delivered, a made in Canada solution that targets abusers who seek positions of trust with children and other vulnerable groups.

The national screening system was first launched in the summer of 1994 by the Ministers of Justice, Health and the Solicitor General of Canada. This was followed up in August 2001 when the government passed legislation to give police access to criminal records of sex offenders who had received a pardon in order to undertake screening purposes.

For screening, the Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC, provides criminal records at no cost to local police forces who help child assisting agencies conduct criminal record background checks. Thousands of such screenings are carried out every year on behalf of volunteer organizations across the country.

It is worth noting that many other efforts have been undertaken by the Department of the Solicitor General and Justice Canada to protect Canadians from sex offenders. For instance, in 1997 we proclaimed Bill C-55, which strengthened the dangerous offender rules in part 24 of the Criminal Code, and also created a new sentencing provision called long term offender.

As a result of these changes, prosecutors in almost every province of this country are aggressively pursuing dangerous offender and long term offender options. In fact, the average number of successful dangerous offender applications per year has doubled since reforms were implemented in 1997.

As for the long term provisions contained in the 1997 legislative package, that targeted individuals who were clearly a threat but would not meet the threshold as a dangerous offender. This new designation recognizes that released sex offenders who receive supervision and treatment in the community experience dramatically low recidivism rates than an offender who was released at warrant expiry without conditions requiring supervision or treatment.

In addition to their custodial sentence, long term offenders can be sentenced up to 10 years of community supervision and conditions. As of July 2002, more than 150 long term supervision orders have been imposed by the courts. I think that goes a long way to showing how the government has taken seriously our responsibility and commitment to protecting our Canadians against sexual abusers and offenders.

In fact, in 1996 the national flagging system was developed in co-operation with our provincial partners, so that prosecutors are now able to identify offenders who should be considered for dangerous offender status in the future.

Protection orders under section 810 of the Criminal Code were also introduced to allow the court, on application by the crown, to order special conditions to restrict the movement and conduct of sexual offenders after their release and even when they are no longer under sentence.

With those measures we have imposed tougher controls on sex offenders. All of those actions underscore the commitment of the Solicitor General and the Government of Canada to ensure the protection, the safety and the security of our children and Canadians overall.

I hasten to add and to emphasize that all those measures have been developed in collaboration and with the support of our provincial and territorial partners. This is probably one of the areas where this government has made great strides in working in partnership and in collaboration with our provincial and territorial counterparts. It is in this same co-operative manner that consensus has been achieved among all jurisdictions on Bill C-23, the bill we have before us today, which will create a sex offender registry.

Finally, the former solicitor general, the hon. member for Cardigan, in the House in March 2001, stated emphatically that he supported a motion to establish a national sex offender registry, as did all other members present. They could do so because Canada already possessed one of the most effective criminal history registries in the world in our Canadian Police Information Centre, or CPIC.

I think that I have shown how our government's commitment to better protecting Canadians from sexual offenders has been translated so far into concrete action.

Now let us go back to the legislation at hand, Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders. As I was saying earlier, this bill will create a new federal act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders and will make crucial amendments to the Criminal Code. Its provisions will allow for the creation of a national sex offender registry for the use of all our provincial and territorial partners. As many members know, premiers had unanimously requested that the federal government help them establish an integrated registration system that their respective administrations will be able to use.

The existence of such a system would give more weight to their individual efforts and would guarantee a national approach. I must point out that the national sex offender registry that I am talking about here is in fact made up of three elements.

First, there is the legislation before us today. It had to emanate from the Parliament of Canada for the system to be truly national in scope and to be the same across the country. Then, there is a national database, which will be managed by the RCMP on behalf of all police forces in Canada.

Finally, there will be mechanisms for administration and use of the registry system, which will be the responsibility of the various police forces in their respective areas of responsibility.

What is of primary importance is that all these elements combined create a new and extremely useful tool for police investigation of sexual offences when the perpetrator is unknown. The police will be able to consult the registry quickly, screen it according to specific criteria, and locate possible suspects in the vicinity of the scene of the crime

I emphasize the rapidity of the process, because that is the very essence of the system. Police forces are aware that there is very little time for action when a child has been abducted. When a child has been abducted, and is going to be sexually assaulted and killed, the tragic outcome usually occurs within hours of the abduction.

Unless police forces can intervene promptly, this outcome cannot be prevented, even if the crime is eventually solved. This bill, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, will make it possible for the police to determine very quickly whether any individuals convicted of sex crimes reside in the vicinity of the crime scene, identify them, and decide without delay whether they need to be investigated further or dropped from the list of suspects.

This is, briefly, how the system works. Persons found guilty of a sex crime as designated by the Criminal Code will be required to register with the police within 15 days after the court order is made, or after their release if they were in custody.

They will be required to remain in the registry for a minimum of 10 years, often for their entire lives. This means they will be required to report any change of address or name within 15 days, and to present themselves in person once a year to renew or update their information in the registry. Otherwise they will, under this bill, be found guilty of a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison in the case of the second offence, and fines of up to $10,000.

When offenders first report to the police registry office, as required by this new bill, they will be required to provide certain information, such as their address, telephone number, date of birth and employer's name, as well as any distinguishing marks or tattoos. On subsequent visits they will be required to update all registry information concerning them.

The government is aware that this new tool, if it can save lives, is also a massive intrusion into the private life of those who have to be registered. The majority of them will be registered in the database long after having serving their sentence and most of them--according to our estimates, 65% after 30 years--will not be found guilty of a similar offence. Those who really try to get their lives back on track do not need to have their efforts annihilated by the stigma of being a registered sex offender.

That is why the legislation does not give the public access to the database. The information can only be consulted by authorized persons for specific purposes. There will be criminal sanctions for the misuse of the information. Public protection, which is the main purpose of the bill, will be ensured through the use of this information by the police.

On the issue of who should have access to the database, I would like to go over what other jurisdictions have experienced. In jurisdictions where the public had access to a similar database, there has been abuse and misuse of the information, at times the public was alarmed by mistake and some people even acted like vigilantes.

In more than 20 U.S. states where the public has access to this information, the courts have ordered the database to be closed and protection measures to be taken to avoid any abuse. In some cases, they ordered the creation of commissions or tribunals to assess each and every individual record to determine if the registration of the offender was justified.

The federal government and its partners, namely the provinces and territories, have sought to avoid problems by implementing a judicial process, providing procedural guarantees and clearly limiting the number of authorized users and uses.

The guarantees contained in Bill C-23 were carefully designed in partnership with the provinces and territories. They will allow for the establishment of a system that is fair and just, while still efficient and effective. The guarantees will prevent any court challenges from weakening or shutting down the system because of unwarranted repercussions on the lives of those registered, including their rights and freedoms, all without compromising the effectiveness of the registry.

Persons whose sentences would normally include registration in the database will have the opportunity to defend themselves in court to prevent their registration. After the crown attorney requests it, defendants may argue that the registration of information pertaining to them would have, and I quote, a “grossly disproportionate” impact on them.

Furthermore, defendants will have the opportunity to make the same argument after being registered for five years, then again after 10 years and 20 years of being registered. They will have the opportunity to make an application for termination of the order that requires them to provide information, once they have been rehabilitated under the Criminal Records Act.

These guarantees will not only protect the rights of persons from being registered when they should not be, but they will also prevent the courts from using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a mechanism to shut down the whole registration system.

We already heard the hon. members of the opposition express their views in the various debates. They believe there should be no limits regarding who should be included in the system. In fact, they seem to feel that the legislation should apply retroactively to all criminals who have been convicted of a sexual offence, regardless of what they have done with their lives since then.

However, this goes against not only the charter, but also the most basic principles of justice that form the foundation of our democratic, social and parliamentary systems.

For previously convicted offenders who continue to pose a threat to the community, there are effective measures that this government has put in place over the past ten years, as I mentioned at the beginning of my comments.

A mechanism can be triggered to inform neighbours or the community of the presence of a high risk offender in their neighbourhood. The national screening system can be used for hiring persons who are to work in a position of trust with children.

The orders seeking to ensure the protection of the public under section 810 of the Criminal Code can be used to subject this type of offenders to certain conditions, including supervision.

Moreover, any sex offender who has already been convicted of a sexual offence will be treated like a repeat offender under the provisions of the bill, and he will be required to provide information for the rest of his life.

These are effective measures and will ensure that, in high risk cases, resources are not uselessly wasted on trying to locate former offenders who have long left the area where they were convicted or released. And these measures do not increase the risk that the registry will be rendered inoperative by the courts on charter related grounds.

While opposition members may be prepared to take this huge risk, our government and our provincial and territorial counterparts are not.

Allow me to quote an excerpt from the letter sent by one our provincial counterparts, that is Alberta's Minister of Justice, the hon. David Hancock. Following the first reading of Bill C-23, he wrote the following:

The sex offender registry will be very useful to police in its efforts to try to apprehend people who commit criminal offences. The concerted efforts of federal, provincial and territorial ministers, deputy ministers and senior public officials are a very good example of all that can be accomplished when we cooperate.

This view is essentially shared by all our partners in this endeavour. Following a series of discussions during meetings of federal, provincial and territorial ministers, it was agreed, in Moncton, in February of last year, that we would do our best to reach a consensus on the establishment of a sex offender registry by the end of the year 2002.

Unfortunately, we did not succeed in doing that, but this is still early 2003 and we are close to succeeding in doing what all our counterparts wanted.

Over the 10 months that followed, we were able to reach a consensus, to develop and set up the necessary database, which will be operated by the RCMP, and to draft and introduce the legislation that is before us today, as a result of the consensus reached with our provincial and territorial counterparts. This is, in my opinion, an excellent example of the effectiveness our confederation is capable of.

Of course, not all jurisdictions achieved their individual objectives. However, their objectives would often have been incompatible, and even unacceptable, in the eyes of some of our partners.

So, in the interest of a genuine concerted effort, there had to be some give and take on both sides to come up with a model that would meet with general consent and, thus, be feasible.

This is the model before us today: a system that will be national in scope and in terms of its support, flexible enough to accommodate various applications within common parameters, and efficient when it comes to helping police and protecting children and, in fact, all Canadians.

We are moving quickly to put in place this legislative framework which already has the support of governments in all jurisdictions of Canada. I am convinced that the Solicitor General of Canada, the solicitors general and justice ministers at the provincial level, as well as all senior officials agree. This measure will have the support of government in all jurisdictions of Canada.

I am convinced that the hon. members of this House and the other place will also support Bill C-23, and I hope quickly pass it at all stages so that it can take effect as soon as possible.

To conclude, this bill is the result of a concerted effort by the federal government and all provincial and territorial governments, at all levels, be it that of ministers, deputy ministers, or senior officials, as well as police forces and communities. They have told this government, “We need a national registry including information on sexual offenders that will be made available to our police forces and managed by them to assist them in their work”.

The government has taken very seriously its commitment and its responsibility and, as I said, we have worked with the other stakeholders. Bill C-23 is the result.

I can tell all the hon. members here that all levels of government want this bill to get through all the stages in both Houses and receive royal assent as quickly as possible so that the police will be able to use this tool as soon as possible.

I am asking for your cooperation and your support on behalf of the Solicitor General, the federal government and all the provincial and territorial governments. We have to put our shoulder to the wheel and work hard to ensure that this bill is passed as soon as possible. I assure you of my full cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact me. I would be pleased to answer, to assist you and to discuss this with you. In conclusion, I urge you to vote in favour of this bill.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, for the Solicitor General of Canada]

moved that Bill C-23, An Act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair is certainly not being asked to negotiate from the chair. However let me take things in the order they were presented to the chair.

The Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rose and asked for consent as to whether there was agreement among the parties to deal with Bill C-23 with one spokesperson from the government and then move to another bill, which I believe is Bill C-13.

If understand it, the spirit of this would probably be to allow some opposition critics to retain their 40 minute slots when Bill C-23 is brought forward. However I am not here to negotiate. I am simply here to make the request for the unanimous consent.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, before moving to the first item, there was an agreement made yesterday, and I am still operating under the assumption that it was made, that after the first speaker has spoken to Bill C-23 that the debate would be adjourned and we would move to Bill C-13. That was an all party agreement that was made yesterday and it is on the strength of that, that we are not calling Bill C-13 first. I understand some members may have a different opinion but if that is the case it would have to be negotiated outside.

For the record, we are moving on Bill C-23 provided that after the first speaker the debate be deemed adjourned and we move to Bill C-13.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will not interfere in the correspondence between those who have and those who have not been working over recent weeks.

This afternoon we will return to the second reading of Bill C-24, the elections finance bill. We would then call Bill C-20, the child protection bill. We would then move to Bill C-23 respecting a registry for certain offenders. I understand that there would be an interest on the part of some hon. members that after the initial speech by the parliamentary secretary we would adjourn the debate for the convenience of some members.

Tomorrow we will deal with Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. I am still uncertain about one additional item, mainly that of the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I will get back to hon. members later to see if we can deal with this item tomorrow, but that is still uncertain at this time.

Monday shall be an allotted day. On Tuesday and Wednesday we shall resume the budget debate.

Thursday and Friday of next week will be on legislation that we have before us. I will be speaking with House leaders early in the week to adjust that in view of the tremendous progress made on legislation this day to which the hon. House leader of the opposition in the House referred to earlier.

I wish to conclude by thanking all hon. members for the progress on legislation so far this day.

Sex Offender Registry

[Gary Lunn, Canadian Alliance, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in March 2001 the government voted in favour of establishing a sex offender registry. Parliament ordered the government to complete it by January 2002. Two years later it finally introduced a bill that does not address the problem.

First, the legislation is not retroactive. Sex offenders have a recidivism rate of 40% but still not a single sex offender currently doing time will be part of that date base, and it is in the thousands. Worse, once an offender is convicted, an application still has to be made at the time of sentencing to even put his name on the list. Even then, an offender can apply to have his name kept off the list if it would cause them “greater harm than public good”.

The last thing we need to do is clog up our already overworked courts with appeals by rapists to respect their privacy. Bill C-23 is a perfect example of how Liberals make policy. It is weak-kneed, it has no direction, and it relies on the courts to make the hard decisions instead of Parliament. They should be ashamed of this bill.

Airline Industry

[David Collenette, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the airline industry around the world has faced turbulence since September 11, 2001. It is being exacerbated by the current tensions in the Middle East and the spiral of fuel prices.

When the hon. member talks about airline policy, I might remind him that it was his party, the Reform Party in 2000, that supported the government and Bill C-26. As the Alliance, it supported us on Bill C-23.

I thought the opposition was supporting the government, so we spoke with one voice on airline policy. I think the Alliance members should recognize the truth.

Carrie's Guardian Angel Law

[Paul MacKlin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-214, an act to amend the Criminal Code, being introduced by the hon. member for Calgary Northeast.

The private member's bill before us today seeks to create a new section, section 273.01, in the Criminal Code that would affect sentencing of offenders convicted of section 271, sexual assault; section 272, sexual assault with a weapon, threats to a third party or causing bodily harm; or section 273, aggravated sexual assault.

The amendments would come into play where the victim is a child under the age of 16 and where the offender comes within one of six prescribed circumstances, any of which could result in designation of an offender as a dangerous child sexual predator. If designated under the proposed scheme, the offender would receive an automatic life sentence.

The three existing offences mentioned in the proposed bill currently carry maximum penalties ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment, the most severe penalty known to our law. As well, if firearms are involved, there is a provision for a four year mandatory minimum penalty.

I suspect most Canadians would be surprised that these offences already attract such severe maximum penalties. In fact, surveys conducted by the Canadian Sentencing Commission in the mid-1980s showed that the public had very little knowledge of either maximum or minimum penalties generally and that many were taken aback by the severity of the existing maximum.

The Criminal Code provides that “the fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute... to respect for the law and maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society”. The objectives of sentencing set out in the Criminal Code include denouncing unlawful conduct, deterring the offender and others from committing offences and promoting a sense of responsibility in offenders and an acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and to the community.

The government shares the concerns of Canadians. Courts across the country have been imposing stiff sentences for this type of crime, which address sentencing objectives, such as denunciation and deterrence, and highlight the importance of individuals being able to feel safe and secure.

In addition to providing a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, which the Criminal Code already does for specified sexual offences, Bill C-214 would provide for full parole ineligibility be set at 20 years.

In Canada, we have tried to avoid reliance on mandatory minimum sentences. Our judicial system has always respected the discretion of judges to fashion a sentence that is proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the conduct of the offender. A judge having the benefit of all the facts and evidence regarding the circumstances of the offence and the offender is well placed to determine the appropriate sentence in an individual case.

The September 30, 2002 Speech from the Throne confirmed that protection of children is a key priority of the Government of Canada. Numerous legislative reforms and initiatives have since been introduced to strengthen the criminal law's protection of children against sexual exploitation. For example, Bill C-23, the sex offender information registry act, was tabled in December and would establish a national sex offender registry requiring sexual predators to report to police agencies on an annual basis and which would allow rapid police investigations through an address searchable database. Failure to register under the proposal would be a Criminal Code offence with serious penal consequences.

We also introduced Bill C-20, a comprehensive set of measures to protect children and other vulnerable persons from harm, which includes amendments to the Criminal Code providing for substantial increases in penalties for abuse and neglect, and requirements for more sensitive treatment of children who participate in criminal proceedings.

Other notable features of Bill C-20 include the following: tougher child pornography provisions; a new category of sexual exploitation, increasing the level of protection for young persons between the ages of 14 and 18; tougher sentencing provisions for offences where children are the victims; abuse of a child in the commission of any Criminal Code offence is now required to be considered by a judges as an aggravating factor in sentencing; distributing material knowing that it was produced through a criminal act of voyeurism; and also, the creation of the new offence of voyeurism, primarily targeting Internet activity, capturing those who observe or record others without their knowledge for sexual purposes.

Prior to the current session of Parliament, we introduced a number of other reforms that were also designed to protect children. For example, Bill C-15A, which received royal assent on June 4, 2002, amended the Criminal Code by adding offences and other measures that provide additional protection to children from sexual exploitation, including sexual exploitation involving the use of the Internet. That new legislation came into force on July 23, 2002, and resulted in the following changes: it is now illegal to use the Internet to communicate with a child for sexual purposes, as well as to transmit child pornography; courts can now order the deletion of child pornography that is posted on Canadian computer systems as well as the seizure of materials or equipment used to commit a related offence; and the procedure has been simplified to prosecute Canadians who sexually exploit children in other countries.

In 1997 the dangerous offender provisions of the Criminal Code were amended to toughen up the provisions against the most violent sexual predators. Individuals who are declared dangerous offenders by the courts are now subject to a mandatory indeterminate sentence. The 1997 amendments also included a provision that permits judges to impose a long term offender designation, resulting in up to 10 years of community supervision after serving a penitentiary term.

Police and the courts can also impose strict conditions on the activities of known sex offenders through the use of probation orders, that is, section 810, recognizances, prohibition orders and peace bonds.

Another significant impact in this area was the amendment of the Criminal Records Act to make the criminal records of pardoned sex offenders available for background checks, which greatly reduces the possibility that sexual predators would be employed or allowed as volunteers in positions of trust over vulnerable children.

In 1993, the Criminal Code was amended to create a new prohibition order, lasting up to a lifetime, to ban convicted child sex offenders from frequenting day care centres, school grounds, playgrounds, public parks or bathing areas where children are likely to be found. The order also prohibits convicted child sex offenders from seeking or maintaining paid or volunteer positions of trust or authority over children. Another provision was created to allow a person to obtain a peace bond, a protective order lasting up to one year, if he or she fears that another person will commit a sexual offence against a child.

All of these efforts demonstrate the federal government's continued commitment to protecting children. As such, there is no need to create a minimum penalty for this type of offence given the high maximum penalties already found in the code and sentencing patterns for this offence.

While I recognize the concerns of the hon. member for Calgary Northeast with respect to this type of offence, I do believe that the existing penalty of life imprisonment currently demonstrates our commitment to providing protection for children.

Furthermore, the reforms in Bill C-20, which are currently before the House and being debated, will result in changes to our laws that will be much more effective in ensuring the protection of our children.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my response will not be in prose and verse. I just have not been hit yet with the attack of Jingle Bells , which undoubtedly seems to be striking here and there in the House.

We will continue this afternoon with the prebudget debate.

Tomorrow we shall consider report stage of Bill C-3, the Canada pension plan amendments. If there is any time left, we would then proceed with Bill C-15 respecting lobbyists. I intend to speak to other House leaders about that.

I shall communicate directly with members concerning the order of business, when we return from the adjournment on January 27. This will include any of the aforementioned business not completed, which includes: Bill C-3 and Bill C-15, obviously; Bill C-2, the Yukon bill; Bill C-6, specific claims; Bill C-10, the Criminal Code amendment; Bill C-19, the first nations bill; Bill C-20, protection of children; Bill C-22, the divorce legislation; and Bill C-23 respecting certain offenders.

As members can see, there are lots of items on the legislative agenda.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my best wishes for the holiday season and, of course, a happy new year 2003 to all hon. members, our staff and pages, not to mention the busboys.

Sex Offender Information Registration Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-23, an act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)