Bill C-279 (Historical)

An Act to amend the DNA Identification Act (establishment of indexes)

This enactment amends the DNA Identification Act to provide for the establishment of a human remains index and a missing persons index to help law enforcement agencies search for and identify persons reported missing.

DNA Identification Act

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

moved that Bill C-279, An Act to amend the DNA Identification Act (establishment of indexes), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On May 31, 2006 you invited members to comment on whether Bill C-279 would require a royal recommendation.

Without commenting on the merits of this private member's bill, I would appreciate your consideration on whether this bill requires a royal recommendation, since the bill proposes the creation of two new indices and modifies the purposes of the existing act.

The Speaker has previously ruled that the creation of a new office or purpose involves new costs, and therefore bills proposing such new offices or purposes require royal recommendations.

On November 22, 2004 your Honour ruled that a royal recommendation would be required for Bill C-243, an Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (establishment of the Office of Victims Ombudsman of Canada). In that ruling, you noted that:

--this bill would create the position of victims ombudsman of Canada, with remuneration for such officers and employees as are necessary to perform the functions and duties. It is abundantly clear that this legislative initiative would authorize the spending of public funds.

Similarly, on June 13, 2005 the Chair indicated:

Where it is clear that the legislative objective of a bill cannot be accomplished without the dedication of public funds to that objective, the bill must be seen as the equivalent of a bill effecting an appropriation.

The purpose of the existing DNA Identification Act is to help law enforcement agencies identify persons alleged to have committed designated offences. I would note that this Act was accompanied by a royal recommendation.

Section 3 of Bill C-279 would add an additional purpose, which is to identify missing persons via their DNA profiles.

Section 4 of Bill C-279 would follow-up on this additional purpose by requiring the establishment of two new indices under the national DNA databank to be administered by the databank commissioner.

Given that it would create an addition purpose and new program requirements which would modify the purpose of the DNA Identification Act, and result in significant new expenditures, the bill should be accompanied by a royal recommendation.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Are there any other interventions on this point of order? If not, I recognize the hon. member for Burlington.

Before we commence debate, the Chair will take the point of order under advisement and the parliamentary secretary will hear back from the Speaker in due course.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are nearly 100,000 missing persons in Canada every year. Over 6,000 missing person cases are currently unresolved with an addition of over 450 coming online annually.

There are currently 15,000 samples of unidentified DNA recovered from crime scenes across the country currently stored in the RCMP's national DNA databank in Ottawa. As well, there are hundreds and hundreds of unidentified Jane and John Does in morgues all across the country.

Restrictions to the current DNA Identification Act make it impossible to match DNA to those thousands of missing persons in the country. Given the need for an MPI, or missing persons index, a DNA databank, and the widespread support from Canadians, law enforcement professionals, the provinces and territorial governments, DNA indices for missing persons should be created as soon as possible.

Bill C-279 amends the DNA Identification Act to provide for the establishment of a number of indices to help law enforcement agencies search for and identify persons reported missing. We must help families bring closure to the disappearance of their loved ones.

I would like to explain how Bill C-279 would work. Coroners and police use a variety of methods to identify human remains. These include: dental records, fingerprints and hair samples. In some cases DNA technology is used on a local basis and often on a case-by-case basis. This is not systematic by any stretch of the imagination and it does not use a comprehensive database. Jurisdictions cannot easily work together on human remains cases.

Currently, there are about 500 sets of unidentified human remains in Canada. Approximately 100,000 missing person reports are made to the police each year. Most cases are resolved quickly. About 6,000 are ongoing cases of missing persons and that continues to grow annually and it grows exponentially.

The federal government has jurisdiction over the Criminal Code. In cooperation with the provinces and territories, it has established the national DNA databank that is used for criminal investigations as we just heard. I want to use the same type of technology to help families finally find their missing loved ones.

A national DNA MPI, or missing persons index, would reassure families of missing persons that current and future unidentified found remains can be checked on a voluntary basis across the country.

Many stakeholders also believe that an MPI might also be of assistance in certain ongoing criminal investigations while still being consistent with the humanitarian principle of an MPI.

I would like to highlight some of the key elements of Bill C-279. A number of new DNA indices would be created to help find missing persons. The provinces and the territories have been working over the summer to help develop a new MPI regime.

The bill provides for a full cross-checking between all profiles held in the MPI and those held in existing crime scene indices and a new human remains index. Bill C-279 proposes to incorporate an MPI into the current provisions of the current DNA Identification Act.

I will be frank. Some amendments are needed and I am willing to work with the committee of the House of Commons to make that happen. For instance, I have had feedback that we need to better identify the definition of what a missing person is and I am more than willing to work on that.

The use of a police report that actually starts the process is not identified in the act and needs to be there. Finally, another piece is the role of the RCMP Commissioner which is defined in the act but needs further clarification, and at committee I am more than willing to work on this issue.

All amendments through the committee will bring clarity to the issue of federal-provincial jurisdiction.

At present, the national DNA bank enables electronic matching between and within two indices: the convicted offenders index, which is basically DNA of those who have been found guilty and convicted of designated offences; and the crime scene index, which is really important to my MPI as it contains the DNA profiles found at crime scenes. They are kept at the data bank and are there for use for my MPI cross-checking.

The national DNA data bank has been a major success in improving public safety. Close to 6,000 matches have been made that have either solved or assisted police in investigations of serious offences. There are about 130,000 profiles in the national DNA data bank at present.

In late 2003, federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers mandated a working group to explore and recommend options for a national MPI. A core principle was to do no harm to the existing criminal law DNA regime. All agreed that an MPI would require provincial and territorial support and participation to be effective.

The federal, provincial and territorial working group significantly advanced this work through public consultations and focused on legal and privacy issues, definitions, and costs. Specialized consultations were held with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the National DNA Data Bank Advisory Committee, the ministries of justice and public safety, and other key stakeholders.

In recent months, the working group has formulated its discussions around my bill, Bill C-279. It is preparing a report to the federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice at their meeting to be held in Newfoundland early in October. Bill C-279 will be an important part of the agenda at that meeting.

Here are what my expectations are.

I envision a national system operated by the RCMP, established by the federal government with the support of the provinces and the territories. Their participation would likely be on a voluntary basis.

Missing persons would be broadly defined in the legislation. Working with our provincial and territorial partners, we would use regulations and guidelines that would allow for local flexibility and best practices in all areas of this country.

MPIs, missing person indices, containing DNA profiles would also be created. These indices would include those of human remains and personal effects from missing persons. If someone's son or daughter went missing and there were hair samples in combs or brushes, those types of things could be used in an index. In addition, we could use family DNA, so if it is a brother, sister, daughter or son, DNA could be provided that is close enough for matching purposes.

These indices would allow for selective and strategic cross-matching among all the indices, all the MPIs, and the other DNA indices that already exist.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, on this file. He started this process in 2003 and has been a great leader for me in terms of helping me understand the process and the issues and bring this bill to the House today. I appreciate all the efforts he and his staff have made on my behalf. He has affectionately named this bill Lindsey's law, after Ms. Peterson's daughter, Lindsey. Ms. Peterson is from British Columbia, his home riding.

Lindsey was a 14 year old when she disappeared while walking home down a rural road near Courtenay on Vancouver Island. She had planned to meet her friends, and like many other teenagers who live in rural communities with limited bus service, she decided to hitchhike. What should have been a 10 minute ride has turned into a 13 year nightmare because the blond-haired, green-eyed teenager never made it to where she was going.

Since that day, Lindsey's mother, Judy Peterson, has struggled with the questions that surrounded her daughter's disappearance. Ms. Peterson hoped answers about Lindsey's fate could be found through DNA matching, but her hopes have been put on hold until Canada's DNA legislation catches up with technology.

The importance of DNA identification has gained widespread media attention. Ms. Peterson has personally worked very hard to lobby government for changes to the DNA legislation.

I also have a Lindsey. Unfortunately for us, one time she went missing. It was the worst few hours of my life when my young daughter was missing. The reason I took up this bill was to make sure that it did not happen to me again, or to any other family in this country. I cannot imagine the grief of someone who is missing a family member year after year after year.

We have the technology. We have the ability to make it happen. We are sent here to make a difference for Canadians. This is the type of bill that would make a difference to everybody's life across this country.

In closing, the amendments for the use of the proposed indices can be easily put in place. Canada is a DNA leader and it is time to put our technology to use. Lindsey's law is the next logical step. It is time.

Given the need for a DNA data bank and the widespread support from Canadians, law enforcement professionals, provincial governments, territorial governments, a DNA data bank for missing persons should be created as soon as possible. It would bring closure to families of missing persons. It would help law enforcement professionals do a better job. It would reflect Parliament's commitment to families who have been missing loved ones for far too long.

I ask for everyone's support on my private member's bill. I am willing to work very hard at committee to make the changes that are necessary to put this into place.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

We will now have a five-minute question and comment period.

The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the work the member and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands have done on this issue.

I cannot understand why the intent of this bill has not already been accomplished. The process was set in place. The RCMP admitted in 2003 or 2004 that it did have the technology to deal with this. Yes, we hear about the issue of privacy from Department of Justice officials. Privacy should not be the issue. There are ways around that, because the permission of the families is in fact required under the proposal from the member opposite.

I agree that we should be using DNA as the tremendous tool it is to bring closure to the families of missing people. They were deeply involved in the bill. I personally met with Ms. Peterson and support her request for this legislation.

The member in closing said “as soon as possible”. Is he working with the ministry on that side of the House? Is there any way possible that the government could bring this forward as a government bill? There is no excuse not to.

I think we on this side would be supportive to a great extent on that move because he is right that this should be implemented as soon as possible, and as soon as possible really was about two years ago.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for all his support. Since introducing this bill, he has been very supportive of the efforts of making this happen.

I would like to share some good news. Tonight, obviously, we are debating the bill at second reading. There is about an hour of discussion. The good news is that I think in Newfoundland, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety will be discussing the bill with their provincial counterparts, and they have the attitude of making it happen. I am not in a position to say whether it will become government business and whether it will become a government bill, but I can assure the member that I have met not only with the RCMP but with all the ministry staff and all the administrative side. They all are looking at trying to make this happen.

I fully expect that if it continues as a private member's bill there will be a second hour of discussion shortly after the October event in Newfoundland. I am hoping that we will be able to get this to the floor for third reading and passage as soon as possible.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, we are all very sensitive to the issue raised by the hon. member in his private member's bill. This is the second bill we have seen on this subject.

Has the hon. member considered the constitutional problems raised by this bill? If so, does he have any solutions?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the constitutional issues were brought to my attention when I first brought the bill forward. The working group has representatives from all provinces and territories through the justice department and they have been working on those issues over the summertime.

The feedback I have received thus far is that those constitutional issues have been addressed or can be addressed. There are amendments that need to be made which are minor in nature, but it can be done constitutionally and it can be done with respect to all of our partners, all the provinces and all the territories.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his worthy initiative. I have some experience with private members' bills and know how difficult it is to get a bill on the floor, have the bill debated, and get a bill in and out of committee and back. I was fortunate enough to actually have a private member's bill receive royal assent, which is one of the prouder moments of my parliamentary life.

[An hon. member]

It slipped through.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes, it slipped through. I sometimes wonder whether I have any friends on either side of this House.

I did note the enthusiasm with which the government stood up and said that this bill would require a royal recommendation. It is a bit of an attempt on the part of the government to take the wind out of the sails of the hon. member.

I want to talk, if I may, in what I hope the member will interpret as a constructive fashion and ask a number of questions on what I see as difficulties in the bill that I think the committee needs to address. The bill does put up a number of difficulties that all members need to wrestle with.

There is no argument with the principle of the bill and, as the member for Malpeque said, there is no real issue with respect to the need for something such as this.

The first area of concern is this: what is a missing person? This is no idle question. What is a missing person? There are a variety of indices and I will expand on that further along.

The second area of concern has to do with privacy issues. As can be appreciated, the individual right of persons to control their personal information, their DNA, the very core of who they are, is a paramount right in our Constitution and in our society. That needs to be addressed by the mover of the bill and explored thoroughly by the committee.

The third issue has to do with that famous old Canadian chestnut, provincial rights and federal rights. This is not merely an academic question, because, generally speaking, the police forces are not federal, with the exception of the RCMP, so presumably we would want access by the police who are municipal police officers, provincial police officers and federal police officers.

The other question is, do we want access to international data banks? If there is access to international data banks such as, for instance, those of the FBI and the CIA on missing person indexes, what are the protocols that would come up with respect to that issue?

The other question that has been alluded to by the hon. member is with respect to who is going to pay for this. How are the costs going to be shared?

The final issue I wanted to raise in our first hour of debate with respect to this bill has to do with the methodology that is used to collect samples. There are two essential methodologies currently in existence. The first one is a nuclear collection of DNA, which is a relatively inexpensive collective of DNA samples. The second is a much more expensive one, a mitochondrial collection methodology.

There is a question of resources. Would we actually use the most expensive methodology to collect? The bill is silent on this point. Again, this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Let us start with the fundamentals, that is, what is the definition of a missing person? The bill is actually silent on this point. It has no definitions.

Ninety per cent of missing persons are in fact found within two weeks and 99% of missing persons are found within 22 weeks. So where do we start? Should we put somebody into the index after two weeks or after 22 weeks? Or is it another point? Also, do we need to have exhausted all other methodologies before we get the person into the missing persons index?

At the other end of the spectrum, when will the profile be destroyed? As I said, this material is the core of our identities, the core of the identity of each and every one of us.

What will be the protocol for the removal of the individual from the missing persons index and from that DNA collection? Will it be seven years, which is a general standard provincial average for an application for a death declaration? If a person has gone missing and has been missing for seven years, is that the point at which we would choose for an individual to be removed from the missing persons index once a declaration of death has been established?

What effects would a positive identification of human remains have in relation to the coroner with respect to vital statistics, let us say, with respect to licensing and with respect to insurance claims? All of these questions do need to be explored.

I want to reiterate to the hon. member that I am not trying to be a contrarian here. I think his initiative is a worthy initiative.

The second point I want to raise with respect to the bill is a flaw, so to speak, a contradiction between the first part of the bill, which says that the DNA profile is to be collected “only for the purpose of searching for and identifying the person reported missing”, and the second part of the bill.

The first section of the bill says it is to be done only for that purpose. However, the second part of the bill says, in the very next clause, “The Commissioner shall compare the DNA profile...with the other DNA profiles”, or in other words, crime scene indexes, offender indexes, and things of that nature, and “communicate” that to law enforcement officers.

As members can appreciate, that is a bit of a contradiction. Again, I would like to hear from the hon. member how he proposes to resolve that contradiction, but it is relatively easy to see. A person is reported as missing, a DNA sample is a given, the police officers compare that with a crime scene index, and they come back to the aggrieved relatives and say they have made a positive connection.

The positive connection is that their missing son or daughter is not the victim of a crime, but rather the perpetrator or a person of interest in the crime scene. I do not think that is quite what the aggrieved relatives had in mind: to put their son or daughter at a crime scene. Again, that may be an unintended consequence.

Another section in the bill says that the relative himself or herself can be required to provide his or her own DNA sample. Again, they may well do that voluntarily. Then we do a bit of a comparison, let us say, and an unresolved crime a number of years old turns up a positive match to the relative. Again, the relative was not intending to provide his or her own DNA for the purposes of a crime scene index.

I would be interested in hearing how the hon. member intends to resolve these difficulties. Again I want to reiterate that I am not trying to be contrarian or obstreperous, but I do need to have these kinds of questions resolved before we can fully consent to the bill.

The Canadian Association of Police Boards says that “privacy issues are going to be thorny”. I take it that this is a bit of an understatement. If the bill is left with the ambiguities that it currently has, these are not just thorny privacy issues. Not only will the bill not survive a royal recommendation, it certainly will not survive a charter challenge. I know that not only does the hon. member want his bill to be effective in here and to get royal assent, but he wants it to be a useful tool.

Another question that arises is with respect to a person who wants to disappear. We will take the example of an abusive spouse. Let us say that one night the victim of an abusive relationship just disappears. The person gets onto the missing persons index. Let us say that she has set up an entire new life for herself and then the missing persons index creates a positive match. Suddenly the person who wanted to disappear has been found.

I see that I am running out of time, but I have hit on only two of the points I wanted to raise.

Finally, with respect to jurisdiction, it is a significant issue, as is the methodology that would be used in regard to mitochondrial analysis or nuclear analysis of DNA samples. Both of these are significant issues and create great cost impacts, which the hon. member, having studied this, probably appreciates.

Again, I want to encourage the hon. member with respect to this bill. It is a worthy initiative. I think it is worthy of debate in this House and worthy of debate in committee.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin with, like the previous speaker, I think this is an excellent idea that should be implemented. My objections have to do with the method chosen: a private member's bill. This is quite often a long process and one that is rarely successful. I think this idea deserves better. I hope that this law will be in effect in about a year.

This bill does raise constitutional problems. The mover thinks that there is a way to solve them, but we still have to know how, which he has not gone into much. I have some suggestions.

First, what is the constitutional problem? This House justified the DNA Identification Act as being an exercise of the authority granted it by subsection 91(27) of the British North America Act. I have an opinion issued by the Library of Parliament in 2005. It has therefore been known for some time. It reads: “Unlike the already-established National DNA Data Bank, the indices created by Bill C-240 would not be created for criminal identification purposes”.

This goes without saying. Obviously, we want more than that.

The opinion continues: “As such, they would not come under the criminal law power accorded to Parliament by section 91(27)”.

It says too: “A question has arisen, therefore, as to whether C-240 [this was the predecessor of the current bill] is ultra vires the powers of Parliament as it would deal with a matter of local concern.”

So that is what is in subsection 92(16).

Nevertheless, it says: “Missing persons investigations in Canada are led by local police [this too, is an argument akin to what the previous speaker said] and provincial coroners have jurisdiction over unidentified human remains. Barring an inter-provincial or international element to the disappearance of the person found, the matter would be one of local concern and, therefore, be within provincial jurisdiction.”

Attractive as I find this very commendable and worthwhile idea, I remember that the researcher submitted several options. I do not know which are preferred by the person who introduced the bill we are dealing with today. I do know, though, which one Quebec prefers.

In one of the first options, it says: “The jurisdictional problem arises, however, in the creation of a new human remains databank, the data for which would be furnished by local police officers and coroners. Local police officers and coroners are subject to provincial jurisdiction and to legally require them to forward DNA remains anywhere would require provincial cooperation.”

I know that this is not Quebec’s preferred option. However, one option would be, namely: “Another possibility for establishing a national missing persons index is for the Department of Justice to work with its provincial and territorial counterparts to develop uniform legislation to govern the operations of such a database and to facilitate the establishment of provincial and territorial indices linked in a network. This would be somewhat similar to the American approach in which each state has its own data bank and is connected to a virtual national DNA data bank.”

In the United States, criminal law is a state jurisdiction, in contrast to our federation where it is under the federal Parliament. If they have managed in the United States to create 50 networked databanks, I cannot see why, with all the goodwill that has apparently been expressed, we could not create 10 or 12 networked databanks here—if the Yukon and Northwest Territories are included.

I see too that many other problems have been raised in connection with this bill.

Very optimistically, the mover of this bill says that we could easily introduce several amendments that would resolve all these problems. I do not believe that would be the best way to proceed. In my opinion, if the bill were to become a government bill, the government could send it to its own research service.

Government officials could propose a bill in which all the amendments that should be included were presented in a much more coherent context. Moreover, if we were to insert amendments here and there in the bill, we would risk losing consistency. If, from the beginning, officials drafted a bill based on consultations with the provinces to ensure that all the provinces would adopt laws that could be harmonized, we would have a much more effective bill. In addition, the process would not take as long.

This bill is a successor to Bill C-240 which was introduced by the current Minister of Natural Resources. The path is now a great deal shorter for the minister to convince his cabinet colleague, the Minister of Justice, to raise this matter.

Moreover, there is an institution in Canada that meets every year to examine the possibility of harmonizing our laws. At one time, there was even talk of standardizing provincial laws in appropriate cases. In French, this group is known as la Conférence pour l'harmonisation des lois au Canada, and in English it is the Uniform Law Conference of Canada. There are meetings every summer and I, personally, have attended many times, often as an adviser to the Quebec government when I was in private practice. I have also attended as the Quebec Minister of Justice.

In my view, this is the proper forum to discuss this subject. Perhaps these were the discussions that the mover referred to earlier. If that is the case, there first have to be discussions in order to draft a bill that would be acceptable to all the provinces, and finally to present the bill to Parliament.

It seems to me that if we followed that approach, we would see results a great deal more quickly. It would be surprising if the number of private member’s bills that are adopted amounted to more than a few percentage points. I am not sure if anyone has ever published statistics on that topic.

However, if the Minister of Natural Resources—who was in favour of it—were to sell the idea to the Minister of Justice, if his staff were to submit a bill jointly and if they could get the consent of the provinces, we could have such a bill a year from now. But I doubt that we get such results so quickly if this remains a simple member’s bill.

The members of the public who support this bill, and who are fed up with constitutional quarrels, do not see that these are objections that we are raising. Basically it is a reality that we must deal with and that I am very familiar with, and that is why I made an effort to find a way that was faster, more efficient and surer of achieving results in much shorter times than are proposed here.

We live in a federation and, as members know, this is not my first choice of system of government for Canada. I prefer a true confederation. Moreover, they must have known this when they gave me my first office in the Confederation Building. In any case, that is not the reason. In a federation, there are more obstacles than in a unitary system and this case is proof of this. In my opinion, the solution that I submit to the mover is the best one. This is why I cannot support the bill as it is drafted and as it will be submitted.

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

Mr. Speaker, although this is a private member's bill, the NDP supports it going to committee. We have some reservations. We hope they can be resolved at committee or perhaps even before it gets to committee.

I want to follow up on some of the comments made by my colleague from the Bloc, who made a number of points about the frustration he and I have both shared with regard to this legislation. I know it is certainly a frustration shared by the mover of the bill and the Minister of Natural Resources, who had authored a similar bill, I believe Bill C-240, in the last Parliament.

In spite of the fact that we had reasonable support for the concept from certain individual members of the Liberal Party, it was frustrating. When the Liberal Party was in government, it would not address this issue, which was unfortunate. At the time, two pieces of legislation were before the justice committee. One was kind of a last minute thing. This concept could have easily been included at that time. If not then, it could have been addressed in the mandatory review of the DNA system established under the code almost five years ago now. That review was supposed to have been completed over a year ago and still has not been.

There is a need for this type of system where family members can assist in identifying another family member, whether it is a sibling or a child, who has been killed or died as a result of other trauma. This would be a major step forward in giving the surviving family relief by knowing what happened to a loved one. There is no question we need to do this.

My colleague from the Bloc has raised the constitutional issue. It is quite clear, and I think all of us agree, that there is a problem. In the last Parliament, the current Minister of Natural Resources went out of his way to get correspondence from all of the provinces, indicating they wanted to have the system put in place.

Unfortunately, that is not the end of it. The system could still be challenged if it were established, as suggested in this bill, as purely a federal system. It could be challenged by individuals who are being followed as a result of this. I will come back to this in a minute. It is not simply good enough to say we have an agreement between the provinces and the federal government. How that agreement is put into play is very crucial because it could be challenged under the Constitution.

I believe there are answers to that question and hopefully we will be able to resolve it at committee. For that reason, the NDP supports it going to committee, perhaps with some significant amendments at that point to address the constitutional problem.

In addition to that, there are some other problems with the legislation. I do not believe it goes far enough in dealing with privacy issues that could come up. Although the bill is very clearly intended to only deal with DNA samples of deceased individuals, it is not the end of it. The bill does not prohibit, as extensively as it needs to, getting at the DNA sample and comparing it to another sample of a person who is still alive and may be the subject of some investigation by the police. That is clearly not what it is intended to do, but it is open to that kind of use by the state. We have to build some additional amendments into the bill to prevent that from happening.

My final concern is the privacy issue. We have the potential scenario of sexually abusive parents attempting to trace their offspring, who has run from the home because of the abuse, and is using it as a methodology to do so. Under the bill as it is presently composed, they can offer their sample. If the sample is then compared to one that is found at a crime scene or if it gets into the hands of police officers in some other fashion, that would be an indirect methodology of tracing that person.

In the previous bill and again in this bill there have been specific attempts to thwart that from ever happening. I do not think it goes quite far enough and I will be proposing some amendments to deal with that more specifically when it gets to committee, assuming the House see it appropriate to do so. Those amendments would shut the door on any invasion of privacy in that regard. I believe it can be done with further amendments to the bill and perhaps amendments to our Evidence Act, which would prevent that from occurring and prohibit police forces from ever using it in that way.

There is one additional problem, about which we learned when we went to the laboratory in Ottawa. There is a problem with destroying DNA samples. The way we collected samples in the current system, a number of them are put on one sheet. If we destroy one of them, we almost inevitably destroy the whole sheet or a great number of them. The people in the lab were still working on that problem about a year ago. I do not believe they resolved it. It is a problem under the current system because we have outstanding court orders that DNA samples that were taken improperly are to be destroyed and they cannot do it. The system does not allow for it.

It may be possible to create and store the samples in a different fashion, but right now that is not possible. That is a concern under the legislation. The final part of the legislation that is being proposed speaks specifically about the need to destroy samples in proper circumstances. That is the final point that needs to be addressed.

I expect most of my caucus will be supporting the bill. However, we have concerns around the constitutional and privacy issues. We also have concerns about its potential abuse and the ability of the system to be able to destroy samples. All those issues, with the exception of perhaps the last one, can be resolved at committee. We will have to hear additional evidence on the issue of whether the samples can be destroyed.

In summary, the bill is long past due. I will be critical of the former government because it was not dealt with in the last Parliament, and it should have and could have been. I hope we will be able to get this through. I hope the government will come on side and make it a government bill rather than a private member's bill.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for Burlington for bringing forward this private member's bill. I suspect in the last hour that he has learned a great deal about private member's bills, what other people think and how they can pick them apart. I am sure he will see his way through to continue to push this forward.

As a former police officer, I can see a lot of merit in what he has here and I can say that for a long time, far longer than I can recall and before that, we have been using the old style fingerprints, dental records and a whole variety of things for this same reason. This is moving forward.

The government understands the principles behind this private member's bill and is sympathetic to the issue.

The bill proposes to add a new index to the National DNA Data Bank, which is managed and operated by the RCMP on behalf of all Canadian police agencies, to hold DNA profiles of missing persons and unidentified human remains. Profiles that would be cross-checked against each other and against the convicted offender and crime scene indices in an effort to identify human remains.

DNA is a valuable tool in law enforcement and it is understandable that it could be seen as a way to aid the humanitarian aspect of a missing persons index to that system as proposed in the bill.

The question we must address is whether the resources of the National DNA Data Bank should be used, not only to help solve serious crimes, but also for compassionate and humanitarian reasons.

If this is to happen, there are jurisdictional, legal, privacy and cost issues to consider and we intend to do just that.

Expanding the mandate of the National DNA Data Bank and amending the DNA Identification Act in this way could be complicated. It is imperative to this new government that every Canadians' right to privacy be preserved in the proposed legislation.

The National DNA Data Bank was established as an investigative tool to assist police in their investigation of designated offences by helping them to identify and apprehend serial and repeat offenders. The law does not currently allow for the collection of samples from non-offenders and there is no provision for cross-checking DNA profiles from non-offenders against those of convicted criminals.

With regard to the proposed legislation, we will consider whether it is appropriate to cross-check the DNA profiles of missing persons and, in particular, their close biological relatives against those of convicted offenders or against unidentified DNA from crime scenes. We will determine who would have access to the DNA samples of missing persons and who would provide consent to collect DNA samples from the personal belongings of the missing person. If profiles were to be cross-checked against those of criminal offenders and unsolved crime scenes, we will assess the privacy implications.

These issues will be clearly defined in any policy that the government will pursue relating to the hon. member's bill.

Missing persons investigations are generally initiated by local police, which we heard today from other speakers, and found human remains are under the control of provincial coroners, and that we do understand.

Depending on the circumstances, an individual case has the potential to become a criminal investigation but the investigation of a missing person is not necessarily a matter of criminal law, which is a federal jurisdiction to legislate. Not every missing person case becomes a criminal investigation or is a matter of criminal law, which is legislated at the federal level, but there obviously is potential for missing person cases to have suspicious circumstances and to, indeed, turn into formal criminal investigations.

Before amending the act, we will consider the implications that any new legislation could have on existing criminal law.

Recognizing the value of using DNA in this way, the Government of Canada is consulting its provincial and territorial partners on the creation of a national missing persons DNA index.

In the context of the federal-provincial-territorial work already underway, the Government of Canada consulted Canadians on the question of adding a missing persons index to the National DNA Data Bank. This consultation started in late 2003 with the justice ministers from the federal, provincial and territorial levels. This group of justice officials from all across Canada formed a working group which then consulted with the public.

Based on the favourable response from Canadians in those consultations, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for justice confirmed their continued commitment to develop options for an effective national humanitarian missing persons index.

Officials from the federal, provincial and territorial governments are continuing to examine the cost, privacy and legal implications of creating such an index. As well, the DNA Identification Act is subject to mandatory parliamentary review which could also begin this year.

The matter requires further study. I suggest that some of the issues that were brought forward today are perhaps covered at least partly in proposed subsection 5(7) of the act. I am sure that the member is willing to tighten it up if that is what is required, but I would like to read what proposed subsection 5(7) says:

The Commissioner shall not use any DNA profile derived under subsection (6) unless the Commissioner explains to the relative who gave the consent, or provided the object or sample, that the DNA profile is to be used only for the purpose of searching for and identifying the person reported missing, and obtains the written consent of the relative to use the DNA profile.

I would suggest that some of the concerns are covered in that. Perhaps it needs to be tightened up a little more, but I think it makes it very clear that this is not to be used for some other criminal investigation, some sort of a fishing expedition I think was mentioned, but in fact it is only to be used in situations where the search is for a missing person.

In conclusion, I reiterate my support for the principles upon which the hon. member's proposal is based. This is a worthy initiative and the government is studying ways to ease the emotional burden of Canadian families with loved ones who go missing.

We are moving forward on this issue, but we must consider all of the implications of it.