Bill S-2 (Historical)

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the National Defence Act to enhance police investigation of crimes of a sexual nature and allow police services to use the national database proactively to prevent crimes of a sexual nature.
It also amends the Criminal Code and the International Transfer of Offenders Act to require sex offenders arriving in Canada to comply with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.
It also amends the Criminal Code to provide that sex offenders who are subject to a mandatory requirement to comply with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act are also subject to a mandatory requirement to provide a sample for forensic DNA analysis.
It also amends the National Defence Act to reflect the amendments to the Criminal Code relating to the registration of sex offenders.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member is making a point of relevance. I would encourage the member for Ajax--Pickering to remember that we are at third reading stage of debate and traditionally the Chair is more strict with the rules regarding relevance. I would ask him to bring his remarks to the motion before the House.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

My remarks are directly relevant to this, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the member's interest in what I am saying. I appreciate that he is listening. If he had been listening at the beginning of my remarks, he would know that I spent a good deal of time talking about the sex offender registry.

When we are dealing with legislation, it is incredibly important to ensure there is a balance in what we are approaching and how we are going to deal with it. We are dealing with legislation that needs to be passed but we have to consider the ramifications on the other legislation that is on the table.

There is no doubt this bill will have ramifications on people being incarcerated, and it should. It is going to put a strain on our prison system. We have to make sure there is space in those facilities to put the people who belong there. Sex offenders certainly do belong in our prison system.

Chiefs of police across the country have told us that our prisons are replete with the mentally ill. Oftentimes our prisons have no room for dangerous offenders because of the fact that prisons are being used as repositories for the mentally ill. When police encounter somebody who is mentally ill, they have nowhere to send that individual. They have to wait for the person to commit a crime so the person can be put into a prison. Instead of receiving health care and getting better, individuals are put into solitary confinement because there are no resources to deal with them. Being in solitary confinement makes them worse. They are released back onto the streets where, in a worsened condition, they commit a more serious crime.

When considering a bill like this one, we have to ask who populates our prisons and how much space we can make for them.

The government recently announced that it is going to move forward with double-bunking. What impact will that have on conditions in our prison system? In California, prisons are overcrowded and inmates are stacked one on top of the other. We can say we do not care what happens to inmates because they committed a crime, but the problem is that over 90% of them will come out. They are being stuck in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions where not only their mental health and their exposure to poor behaviour is at issue, but their rate of contracting an infectious disease increases. When over 90% of them come out, this becomes a major public safety problem and a major public health problem.

The government's approach on this issue is very germane to any discussion with respect to who we are incarcerating and who populates our jails.

What is the actual evidence? The government's prison agenda has been repudiated. California's system has been a disaster. The rest of the world is condemning that prison system yet the Conservative government is chasing after it at 100 miles an hour. What is the solution?

If we want to ensure there is room in our prisons for the people who belong there, and if we want to ensure that we have safe communities, then surely we should not be cutting back on crime prevention. Over 70% has been cut from the crime prevention budget. Over 41% has been cut from the victims of crime initiative. This initiative helps break the cycle of victimization.

As we know, unfortunately victims often become offenders, and this relates directly to sex offences. Young people who were traumatized or faced sexual violence in their past deal with that through aggression, through confrontation with our legal system. We hear from police that this is often the cause of some very violent and disturbing behaviour. Programs and services to help deal with victims were not in place.

If we want to deal with sex offences, it is not enough just to have a sex offender registry. We also need to invest in community infrastructure to make sure that victims who go through those experiences are given the support they need to ensure they do not walk down that dark path.

When I talk with the boys and girls clubs, church groups, or others who are involved in providing these kinds of services, I hear that their funding is being cut all over the place. They have to twist themselves into pretzels in order to get access to federal funding. This is egregiously wrong. What is so bad about it is that it is enlarging the pool of crimes that are being committed.

The government is building all of these new prisons while it is cutting from the very things that stop crimes from happening in the first place. This means it is feeding the beast. It is compounding the problem on top of itself.

Then the more the prison population grows, the less money there is for rehabilitation, the less money there is to make sure people get better. We then have to do things like cut the prison farm program, one of the most successful programs, which we had for over 100 years and which was studied by the world for how effective it was at bringing about rehabilitation. Yet it was cut because the Conservatives said they do not have the money. This is the track we are on, where it compounds and takes us to an ever-increasing population that makes us more and more unhealthy.

Aside from investing in those things, we have to listen to local communities. Instead of sending diktats from Ottawa about how these community groups have to twist themselves to fit into some bizarre federal scheme, we should be asking them through their community safety councils or other such agencies to tell us what their needs are, what can they do to build infrastructure on the ground to break cycles of victimization, to help people who have been victims, to make sure that when a crime happens it does not perpetuate itself, that it breaks cycles of addiction, and we know that in our prison system more than 80% of inmates are facing addiction issues. We should be asking them to deal with mental health concerns, to have them from the bottom up tell us what their communities need, and then Ottawa should be a partner and say here is how we are going to work with them.

As we are looking at ways in which we can go after people who are committing crimes, sexual offences, as I mentioned before particularly against children, the most egregious, is one of the reasons why I am disturbed that we still have not dealt with lawful access provisions that have been in the House for over five years now. In the lobby a few minutes ago I spoke about how this pertains to terrorism. But police have been telling us it also affects child exploitation. Police need the technology, the ability and the legislative authority to be able to chase after these predators and these people who would commit crimes online, to be able to get access to Internet service provider records, to be able to open up BlackBerrys that have encoded information, yet that legislation has been sitting on the table for five years with no movement, no action.

When the government's promise in 2005-06 to put 2,500 more police officers on the streets was not realized, members of the Canadian Police Association called it a betrayal. They said it would impede their ability to enhance public safety and go after some of these individuals. Yet the government is quick to pound its chest and talk about what a great job it has been doing on crime.

If I have an overall narrative here it is that while I support the bill and I believe the bill needs to be done, the government's approach to crime is heading in a very dangerous direction in the way in which it attacks people who raise legitimate concerns and raise alternative suggestions about how we should pursue these ideas. It does so in such a personal, visceral way. It tries to portray that somehow people who disagree with it do not share the same interest in overall public safety. It is dishonest and unbecoming to the House.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech although I am not sure how much of it has to do with Bill S-2, which is the bill before the House.

He commented that he is opposed to throwing people into what he described as overcrowded prisons. If he truly believes that, I am curious as to why he constantly speaks against the government's initiative to build and expand the prison system. Would he prefer that the prisons remain overcrowded, or is his suggestion that we let criminals out and put them back on the streets?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do find it passing strange that the member rises on a point of order to say that I should not be talking about prison overcrowding and then his question to me is about prison overcrowding. But nonetheless, I welcome the question because here is the problem.

The government's plan is overcrowding plus mega-prisons. It is the whole enchilada and it is exactly what California did. It is the exact model. The incarceration rates were ramped up. There was a time when the rate of incarceration in the United States was only two times that of Canada. That was in 1980. The United States ratcheted that up by about 700%, so their rate of incarceration is about eight to one what Canada's is. Over that same period of time the rate of serious crime though was reduced in both jurisdictions at about the same rate. Canada was a little better. So this strategy was tried.

California built a whole bunch of new prisons. It was not that it stacked prisoners on top of each other. This ideological fear-based policy, which is what this is, it is not based on an ounce of evidence, this policy that is being undertaken that was tried in California means that all of these prisons are built and that is still not enough because it keeps ratcheting up higher. Even with all those new prisons now there is no money for roads, there are potholes everywhere, so now they have to be stacked on top of each other in the newly built facilities. That is where we are headed and that is what is wrong.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague's remarks are lucid and very helpful to the debate.

I do want to ask him a question about the automatic registration feature of the bill. The member talked, quite correctly, about how important it is for police in that critical one or two hours after a child abduction may have occurred to have immediate access to a databank that is accurate and helpful to them so that they can immediately start targeting sex offenders who may be present in the area.

We heard testimony before the committee that with automatic registration we will end up adding a whole slew of people to that database who probably should not be in that database, with the result that the police will have clogged data. In that critical one or two hours, the police will be searching and visiting people who may not be the appropriate targets of that investigation at the expense of visiting those sex offenders in the area who may be actual legitimate targets.

I am just wondering what his and his party's position is on automatic registration in this bill, particularly when it does not just copy the Ontario model, it actually expands the number of offences in the Criminal Code that are covered by automatic registration, including things like sexual assault, which the member has already pointed out is a hybrid offence and can include certain convictions that are not of the quality and character that would really, truly necessitate inclusion in the sex offender registry.

I would be interested in hearing the hon. member's remarks on that.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member not only for his question but for the opportunity to work with him on this bill. We have had a very constructive working relationship on this bill and others.

I think the member should get ready for a Standing Order 31 statement attacking him now for loving criminals or for being a criminal hugger, because he would dare ask a question.

The reality, of course, is it is a good question and it is one that needs to be asked and carefully considered. It is one that was raised by the police.

In principle, as we saw its application in Ontario, I certainly favour, as does our party, automatic registration. I think it has worked well in Ontario, and it has been effective.

The member raises a concern that I shared through the proceedings about automatically including some people who might be on the periphery and who were not intended to have been caught by that net, and winding up in a situation where we have a list that is simply too large to be useful.

The examples the member gave, and that I gave in my speech, that we had concerns about are worth mentioning and considering.

The other point that I am concerned about somewhat is the notion of moving discretion away from the judge to the police officer. If there is a commission of voyeurism, as an example, a police officer may be tempted to not pursue charges because they do not feel that the person belongs in the sex offender registry. However, previously they would have gone to court and gotten a lesser charge, and would have been able to establish a history if the person were to then progress from there.

I think that through the course of testimony and through the course of discussion, those concerns were largely resolved in my mind and in the mind of the party. The feeling is that the scoping is significant enough and the wording is clear enough so that that net shall not be that wide.

With respect to those concerns, I have them and have been posing questions about them, however they are not significant enough to warrant not supporting this bill.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on his speech. I am letting him know from the outset that my question is indirectly related to the bill. I hope that he will not say, as the Conservatives did, that it is not relevant.

I think that the hon. member would agree that any bill must first ensure that there is a balance between human rights and public safety. I believe that he and his party are concerned about human rights, which are part of their human and political interests.

The member claims to be a human rights advocate and says that he strives to ensure that Conservative bills are not demagogic and that they find a balance between these two elements. After five sessions on the G20 and the G8, why has his party not requested an independent public inquiry on this issue to date? I do not understand. The relationship between that and Bill S-2 is the human rights aspect.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, these are two very different issues, but I can still answer the question.

First, with respect to crimes committed against young people, especially sex crimes, we all need to work together and leave politics aside. At the same time, it is very important for us to ask real questions about the bill to ensure that it is good and that it will work.

I am worried about the Conservatives because every time someone asks questions, the Conservatives attack them very personally, saying that this person supports criminals and does not believe what the victims are going through. That is not true.

As for the G20, in my opinion, there is no doubt that we need to force the Conservatives to answer a lot of questions. If we need a public inquiry and if we need to find another way to ask questions and get answers, then I absolutely support that. After our studies of this issue in committee, a number of very serious questions went unanswered.

If someone wants to demonstrate and share his ideas, and the government restricts his freedom and his ability to ask questions, that is very serious. We need to be able to get answers.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that, as you are no doubt aware, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill S-2 on the sex offender registry.

This bill is an exact copy of Bill C-34, as amended by the committee during the last Parliament. We supported Bill C-34 in principle. We heard from witnesses who reinforced our position and we put forward amendments that were agreed to. We also proposed amendments to Bill S-2, but unfortunately, they were defeated because the Liberals supported the Conservatives. We proposed amendments relating to the automatic registration feature that my colleague discussed earlier.

This is another example of how the Bloc Québécois works bill by bill in an effort to be constructive without sinking to the level of grandstanding that we have come to expect from this government.

We believe that we must make tools available to the police that, on the one hand, are effective at preventing and fighting crime and, on the other hand, do not constitute an unjustified and disproportionate breach of fundamental human rights.

As all of my colleagues have said, we all worked well together on this. Bill S-2 seeks to make the sex offender registry more effective and more useful to the police. This is a critical tool for preventing sex crimes and supporting sex crime investigations.

This bill helps strengthen existing legislation on sex offender information registration, which came into force on December 15, 2004. It would enable authorities to include more individuals convicted of sex crimes on the registry and would record more information about those individuals, including DNA.

This bill would also strengthen obligations that apply to individuals listed on the registry, such as those related to moving or being away from their residences for an extended period of time.

The bill adds new violations requiring registration and, in clause 5, makes some changes in the procedure by which courts will order inclusion in the registry.

In the case of so-called “hands-on” sexual offences, which are generally quite serious, the current regime allows the Crown to decide whether or not to ask the judge to have the person included in the registry. Under the new regime, which will be in place shortly with the passing of this bill, the attorney will no longer have to make the request; it will be a question for the courts to decide upon. It must announce its decision when the sentence is handed down and automatically order the person to comply with the requirements of the law; this is automatic inclusion.

In addition, this new clause abolishes the exemption, or exception, that currently applies when an offender establishes that their inclusion in the registry and the resulting impact on them, including on their privacy or liberty:

...would be grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society...

Consequently, a hands-on sexual offence would result in automatic inclusion in the registry.

One thing is certain: at some point we will have to evaluate how the registry fits into all of this because there will be a lot of names in it. Witnesses told us that when there are a lot of names in the registry, it is less effective.

In terms of DNA samples—and this is somewhat related to the question I asked my Conservative colleague earlier—representatives from the two laboratories that do these tests clearly told us, when we met with them, that investigations are underfunded and that there are delays because it takes time for them to analyze the samples. These delays mean that these crimes sometimes go unsolved.

If it is urgent, they are efficient. But some samples may sit for a year before being analyzed because there are not enough resources.

Not only were they waiting for an agreement with the federal government, but they were also hoping to get more funding. It is all well and good to have legislation in place, but we need to have the means to enforce it. Will any money be invested in this bill? It is important to note that more and more people will be added to this registry, so there will also be more and more requests for DNA analyses.

Coming back to my point, when a direct sexual offence is committed, registration is automatic; however, for other designated crimes, it is up to the crown prosecutor to determine whether or not to apply to the court.

Clause 40 is another interesting point in the bill, because it makes a major change to how the registry can be used. This is very important, because it has to do with the notion of prevention. Under current legislation, the registry can only be used when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a sexual offence has been committed. Bill S-2 allows police to consult the registry for prevention purposes.

Consider the example of Cédrika Provencher, a tragic incident that took place not too far from us. What is interesting about this case is that the registry could have been consulted, which would have allowed for more effective prevention. However, according to the information we heard, some sex offenders had already been identified in that area, which the police were able to verify. As we know, when a child is kidnapped, it is important to find him or her within the first 24 hours. After 48 hours, the situation becomes even more worrisome, and as time passes, the chances of finding the child diminish considerably.

Clearly, this greater openness to prevention will have to be examined more closely to ensure that it is not used inappropriately. I trust the professionalism of police officers, but the fact remains that sooner or later we must have a closer look at this provision. Personally, I think it is a measure that could save lives.

The bill also proposes another worthwhile amendment. If this bill passes, there will be a correlation among offences that lead to inclusion in the sex offender registry and the sex offender's obligation, as I was saying earlier, to provide a DNA sample to the national DNA data bank. The bill will amend section 487.04 of the Criminal Code, which already requires a judge to order that such a sample be taken when a primary designated offence, a very serious offence, has been committed.

If the bill is so good, then why has it not passed yet? There are a number of answers to that question: first, this government nearly always introduces what at first is an absurd bill, ensuring that everyone is against it and wants to amend it; second, this government has gotten in the habit of putting on a show in the name of public safety; third, this government claims that these things are important and then turns around and prorogues the House, allowing all the bills to die on the order paper.

The opposition is not responsible for this delay. I have seen my colleagues work hard on getting this bill passed and on making worthwhile amendments to make the bill even better. I feel that the blame lies with the government, which unfortunately does not put its money where its mouth is. This is not the first time we have seen the Conservatives do this. I would not be bringing this up if I did not have a number of other examples.

Take for example former bills C-46 and C-47, which have been renamed and brought back to the House. The police have been calling for such legislation for over 10 years to help them conduct investigations, especially when it comes to the producers and consumers of child pornography. One of these bills ended up in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the other, in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Then, all of a sudden, they disappeared. And then the House was prorogued. I have had to ask why a million times in the House.

Not too long ago, I do not have the exact dates, they reappeared with new names. And we are still not working on them. The government should bring them forward because I would like to start working on them.

This government likes putting on a show in the name of public safety and too often shirks its fiduciary responsibilities with respect to our collective security. We saw this recently with its irresponsible attitude towards the firearms registry, which, despite everything the Conservatives are doing, works relatively well, in spite of their amnesties and their many attempts to secretly abolish it through private members' bills.

I would like to come back to the fact that police forces want another tool to protect our children and to catch producers and consumers of child pornography.

Since 1999, police forces across Canada have been calling for legislation that, within a certain framework—this is not a free-for-all—would require Internet service providers to disclose IP addresses, which identify their clients computers, without being forced to ask for authorization in court, since these authorizations would be given later.

An IP address is like 411, a telephone book where you can find a person's name, address and telephone number. It is the same for a computer. This makes it possible to take action and save lives in an urgent situation.

I am not the only one saying this. On April 22, when he testified before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime, Mr. Sullivan, who was appointed by this government, said:

...if I were the Prime Minister today the Internet bill would be my absolute priority; it would be number one in the justice reform areas.

Mr. Sullivan gave a good picture of the tragedy the absence of such legislation causes. He said:

The longer we delay these initiatives to give law enforcement the tools, the more kids are going to be abused. I think that makes everybody angry.

That is true. It makes no sense that we do not currently have any regulations like these for the Internet. I can give some examples. In less than 10 years, we have seen a huge increase in the amount of child pornography on the Internet. We have gone from thousands of images to millions of images and videos. Every single image and every single video shows children being abused. I spoke to investigators from the child sexual exploitation unit who told me that the youngest sexual abuse victim they had seen was a two-week-old baby. That is unbelievable.

Imagine my indignation when, rather than passing a bill that would actually make it possible to save lives by giving the police important tools, the members of the House prefer to talk about other things. I would ask my fellow members to excuse me for being emotional but I find this so mind-boggling that I cannot even believe it. I think that a way must be found to let the police do their work and to also protect our children.

It is important to understand, as the Bloc Québécois did during the consideration of the bill that was the original version of Bill S-2, that the government must question and change its behaviour for everyone's benefit. It must do so to protect public safety and preserve Canada's credibility in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the international community.

It is rather paradoxical that I, a sovereignist, am saying this. I strongly believe that Quebec and Canada are sister countries. So, when things go wrong in Canada, they cannot help but go wrong for us as well.

Unfortunately, we are still in Canada. Sometimes extraordinary laws are passed that help us to grow; however, there are other laws that diminish us completely both as individuals and as a society.

It is important for the government to understand that human rights are more than mere words. Human rights are fundamental. This institution is based on human rights in general and on the rights of children. The government must show its good faith by ordering a public inquiry on the G20 in Toronto. I asked the Minister of Public Safety and the government several questions and, as I understand it, they have shut the door on this issue.

I have sat on five committees. People came from everywhere to testify. There were organizations as well as individuals who had been arrested and who are no longer facing charges. With what we are hearing, if I were the public safety minister, I would call a public inquiry for the sake of the credibility of Canada and its police. Right now, it is all just suspicion and allegations. People are not crazy. They go on the Internet and see things. Articles are published and we hear statements in committee. It is a disgrace. A public inquiry needs to be called to clean all of this up. If it finds nothing, so be it. At least everyone will be reassured and people will say that some incredible work was done. But that is not what is currently happening; there is nothing but suspicion.

More than 1,000 people were unfairly arrested at the G20, and a tiny minority were incarcerated after charges were laid. It was the largest number of arrests made at a single event in Canada. It brings back bad memories, such as the October crisis in 1970. We have to wonder. I hear my colleagues opposite, who are at a loss. It might help them understand if they realize that the link is human rights. Based on facts that are gradually coming to light, many observers feel it is increasingly probable that respect for human rights was not a concern for the infamous G8 and G20 integrated security unit, which was headed by the RCMP. Everyone is responsible, but no one is responsible. It is as though—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Once again, the opposition members seem to be talking about everything except the bill before the House. I would ask that you caveat the member to talk about Bill S-2, which is the bill before the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Ahuntsic has two minutes left.

I will remind the member to try to keep to the rules of relevance, especially regarding third reading of a bill, in her final two minutes.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of relevance, human rights have been trampled upon. The connection is very clear. Why was Bill S-2 created? Because there was balance, there were amendments and a better bill that should better reflect Canada was created.

At the G20, people were held for unacceptable periods of time in cages with constant bright lighting, with no beds and no covers despite the chilly air conditioning—

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, which has already been made. No matter how much the member massages the air around her bench, no matter how much she torques her voice, she has strayed off the topic, in my respectful view. I would ask her to please, out of respect for all the members in the House, get back to the issue in the bill. I do not mind listening to members stray a little, but I am here to debate the bill and the member has strayed way off topic, in my opinion.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I find I agree with the member for Scarborough—Rouge River. I will once again ask the member for Ahuntsic that she respect the rules of relevance in her final minute.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will. I understand that the member had no problem with his own colleague straying. It did not bother him when his colleague started talking about prisons and whatever, but I get it. He is partisan.

I also understand his position because his party does not want a public inquiry. That is why talking about the G20 makes the members so uncomfortable, especially the members from the Toronto region. They hope to sit on the other side. It would sure be nice for them to get Toronto.

About Bill S-2, I only have a minute, so I will wrap it up quickly. I want to say that when I look at all of this information in terms of values—