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.

[Mary Campbell]

Again, I'm not in a position to speculate. We have had a number of court decisions, the government felt that it was important to respond to those situations, and the law continued to evolve. It's an effort to keep up with that.

You'll recall, of course, that in Bill S-2, the national sex offender registry bill, there is a provision that requires returning sex offenders to disclose the fact of their conviction abroad and to register. There are changes to the law being made on a number of fronts to address the issue of society's greater mobility, greater than what existed 20 or 30 years ago.

Public Safety and National Security

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure, as the chair of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts.

The committee has studied the bill and is now reporting the bill back to the House without amendments.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Because all the parties had agreed that, if we finished Bill S-2 today, we would immediately tackle the report on the Correctional Service. It is now 4:30 p.m. and we have an hour left.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I would like to finish making my first point. I would ask my colleagues to reconsider their decision. The whole purpose of the Committee's work is to try and improve the bill. I think Mr. Davies' first amendment brings a dimension that will make it possible to set aside the vast majority of cases. Whenever the offence involved is sexual assault, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation or incest—it's very well defined—that person's name will automatically be listed in the registry. Automatic registration is not being removed. Whenever an individual commits a sexual offence, as laid out in Bill S-2, that person's name will automatically find its way into the registry.

Having said that, the additional dimension included in this amendment is such that consideration can be given to a situation where the offence is extremely minor and of little consequence. An example might be an 18-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl who love and enjoy each other. If the parents are not in favour of the relationship and make a complaint of sexual assault involving a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old male, what is going to happen? Should that young man be labelled a sexual offender for the rest of his life, even though he was actually only involved in a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old girl? I think we have to consider these issues and allow the judge to determine whether the accused has proven that the effect of registering that individual would be grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society.

Mr. Chairman, I believe Mr. Davies' amendment brings a new dimension that is worth considering.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

My ruling has been that it's out of order, and of course it's not something I've just indiscriminately made a ruling on; it has come from legal services. Again, I can read you the whole ruling, but this amendment proposes to allow the court to exercise discretion and to not make that order if it is satisfied that certain conditions have been met. The amendment goes against the very principle of Bill S-2, and for that reason I've ruled it inadmissible or out of order.

Mr. Holland.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We welcome our listening audience to meeting number 32 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, on Bill S-2. We will proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-2, an act to amend the Criminal Code and other acts.

We also have some senior officials here today. I would invite you at your convenience to come to the table. You are welcome to. It looks like you are all set up over there, but it's wherever you feel most comfortable, I guess.

Mr. Holland.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, perhaps to deal with the issue that was raised by one of my colleagues, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, about Jazz Air, the Minister of Labour, who has been working diligently on this file for weeks now and certainly at an intensified rate over the last 48 to 72 hours, has addressed that issue.

As she noted, the government filed a notice that appeared on the order paper this morning, indicating that were there to be a work stoppage that would threaten our communities serviced by Jazz Air, threaten the livelihoods of many Canadians, indeed inconvenience business, threaten the fragile economic recovery that we are seeing in all parts of Canada, but obviously would severely threaten the economic recovery in those parts serviced by that airline, the government is prepared to act expeditiously to ensure that work stoppage would be of the shortest possible duration.

As for the business of the House, as it is the Thursday question, today we will continue to debate the opposition motion and then later this evening, the business of supply.

In a few minutes, to address the other question that the official opposition House leader asked, I hope to create and complete, at all its remaining stages, Bill C-23A, an act to amend the Criminal Records Act. We will also be adopting, at all stages, Bill C-40, celebrating Canada's seniors.

When the House meets again, we will continue to debate on Bill S-2, the sex offender registry, and Bill S-9, tackling auto theft.

As we near the end of this sitting, I want to thank my colleagues for their co-operation, particularly in these last few weeks. We have had many challenges and I think we have met most of them. Most notably was the challenge of these two five-week sitting blocks. I would point out, however, that anyone who just watched question period would have to draw the conclusion that it truly is silly season here in the House of Commons, given the level of the debate.

However, the challenge being that we had to be absent from our constituents and families, the upside of course was that we as members had the opportunity to spend so much quality time together. Just like any good family visit, unfortunately all good things must come to an end.

I would also like to speak briefly to express my appreciation to the House staff who serve us so well.

Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have answered so many questions that I would have liked my colleague for Hochelaga to indicate which one, although I have an idea.

What I wanted to say earlier is that the government has to stop holding press conferences to give press conferences. It has to stop holding press conferences to tell us that it is fighting crime and taking care of victims. With regard to the matter before us, Bill C-22, the House is clear and unanimous. Unless I am told otherwise, the last I heard it was unanimous: everyone here is against child pornography.

Therefore, the government must stop holding press conferences and start taking action. That is what we are debating. We have to provide the means to implement this bill as well as others. Barely one hour ago, we were discussing Bill S-2. How are they going to implement Bill S-2 if they do not provide police forces with the money to carry out their responsibilities when these bills are passed?

Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House to speak to this very important Bill S-2. However, I find that it is a little late in the session for this, even very late, because we will be adjourning soon. I also wonder whether the government is ultimately responsible for things dragging on like this. We know that this bill has been introduced a number of times, but when the government prorogued Parliament and then called an election, bills have died on the order paper.

The government often accuses the Bloc Québécois of siding with the criminals. When we see what is going on with this bill today, we wonder whether it is the government that is siding with the criminals since the government is the one that has been holding up this bill and delaying its passage until now. We were in favour of this bill. My colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles can make faces and shake his head, but it is his government's fault that the bill is being debated in this House right now when it should have been debated and passed a long time ago.

When we talk about criminals who commit offences against young people, who are pedophiles or who commit offences against women or even men, we must ensure that the police have all the necessary tools to find those criminals and ensure that they do not commit any more offences. We were talking about pedophilia on the Internet. I must say that I had a particularly traumatic experience with that.

My grandson is 17 years old now. Two years ago, he called me at my office in Laval, where I see my constituents one day a week. He called to tell me the police were coming to the house. I wondered, “Why are the police coming to the house? What have you done?” Obviously, that was a gut reaction. We do not think it is because someone else did something. We think right away that our children are the guilty ones. So I asked, “What did you do, Alexis? Why are the police going to the house?” He said, “Grandma, someone made advances toward me on the Internet and I did what you told me, I called the police. They are coming here to see if they can catch him. They asked me to remain in contact with him on the Internet until they arrive. They are coming, they are on the way.” So I said, “OK, let me know what happens. I am in my office. I am meeting people here and cannot leave right away, but I am anxious to know what happens”.

About 30 minutes later, a policeman called me to say, “Madam, we are at your place and your grandson is with us. Do not worry. We should tell you we are going to take action to arrest this person. Through your grandson, we set up a meeting with him in a particular place and we are going to wait for him. We will hide and your grandson will be the bait so that we can catch the person”. I said, “Well, excuse me but I do not agree with that entirely. You are going to use him as a lure, as bait. How do I know that he will be safe, that he will not be at risk? We do not know who the person is. How can I be sure my grandson will not be in danger?” I was very worried and told him, “I am going home and will try to get there before you leave with my grandson”.

I obviously wanted justice to be done and this criminal arrested. That is for sure. I was also thinking about my grandson’s safety. I arrived at the house, but they had already left. My blood just froze. I thought, “What is going on? Where have they taken him? Where are they meeting this man, this criminal? Are they going to arrest him or something?” I waited and waited very impatiently for the phone to ring. I did not dare use it for anything because I did not want to miss the call. Finally, about 45 minutes later, the phone rang and my grandson said, “Grandma, it is OK, they arrested him”, and he told me where they were. They were at the variety store at the corner of Montée Masson and des Mille-Îles boulevard. They laid a trap. My grandson had said he would meet the person there. The police told my grandson, “Regardless of what he says, do not get into his vehicle. Talk to him through the window on the driver’s side to say hello and tell him you are the person he was talking to. There has to be contact. Go to the other side, but stay outside the vehicle and wait for him to say to get in”.

The two police officers were hiding; one was inside the convenience store and the other behind a bush. The man twice told my grandson to get into the car. The officers had told my grandson that when the man asked him the second time he was to open the car door. At that point, the officers would take action and arrest the man in question.

After the man asked my grandson to get into the car a second time, the police arrested him. There was a coil of rope and a knife on the back seat of his car. The police also found videos. This person had been charged a number of times in the past. Thanks to my grandson's presence of mind, and what I had taught him, this man was arrested. Today, he is in prison for a full seven years.

Under the bill presently before us, he will have to register with the registry when he leaves prison. If the bill we are debating is adopted now, he will have to register. The police will know who he is; they will know this person and be aware of his criminal activities. That may save the lives of other children. One never knows.

It is very important to the Bloc Québécois that this bill be debated, voted on and adopted. We hope that, for once, the government will do more than just talk to convince us that it wants to help victims, especially since it is not renewing the mandate of the Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. The government does not even have the courage to renew the mandate of a man who has done remarkable things for victims. His major mistake may have been to ask for money to help them.

Why does the government want to spend so much on criminals and so little on victims? If we really want to help victims, we should also provide money for them. It is nice to have a registry, but I will only be satisfied once it is efficient and once police officers can use it on a daily basis, just like they use the gun registry every day to prevent crime and to ensure that people we love are not murdered. In order to achieve that result, the government must stop introducing bills at the end of sessions. The government always pretends that it wants to put criminals behind bars. However, when we introduce legislation that would keep these criminals in jail, such as abolishing parole after serving one-sixth of a sentence, the government shows no interest.

There is a French song that goes like this: “Paroles, paroles, paroles”, talk, talk, talk. That is all the government does when it comes to dealing with criminals. And it is even worse in the case of victims. The government calls on people who make senseless speeches about deer, hunting and single mothers. It makes no sense at all. It is as if single mothers are responsible for the fact that there are no hunters anymore. And because there are no hunters, there are too many deer, and if there are too many deer around, then we do not need the gun registry. If the gun registry exists, some deer will get killed. And if deer are killed, what will single mothers do? That just does not make sense. It is as ridiculous as the billions of dollars that are being spent on the G8 and the G20. It is insane. There is no consistency at all in the government's policy against criminals. The only thing that is consistent is the lack of consistency.

Still, I hope we can vote on this bill, because it is very important for the future of our children, of the women and of the persons who are sexually abused. We also need to know the identity of those individuals who have committed other crimes.

We want to do more prevention, but we must be careful not to violate the rights and freedoms of individuals who are found not guilty by the courts, after being targeted because of a judicial error, or any other reason.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for taking the time to listen to my remarks. I will be pleased to answer my colleague's questions.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, do I still have 45 minutes to respond?

The answer is clear. I think that the Conservatives are stuck in the 20th century. They need to understand that we are now in the 21st century. These days, people do not commit crimes the same way they did just 20 years ago. The best example of that are crimes committed using a computer.

There are offences in Bill S-2 such as “luring a child by means of a computer system”. That is all well and good, but how do we catch these people? That is the problem, and it will continue to be a problem. This bill will not give the police the means to catch criminals.

My colleague from Ahuntsic is absolutely right. There are currently millions, perhaps even billions of pornographic images on the net. We have to find ways to give the authorities effective means to catch these criminals, who use very sophisticated tools. With all due respect, we need the right tools to do that.

Bill S-2 is good. However, the problem with the bill is that if we do not give the RCMP money to run the registry, we can call the world's biggest press conference and bring out as many victims as we want, but it will not make a difference. For a year and a half now, we have been asking the Conservatives to implement Bill S-2, but they have refused. The problem is not that they do not have the means; it is that they do not have the political will. Calling a press conference to announce their plans is just an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator and engage in petty electioneering. They should lay off that kind of behaviour.

To my fellow MP, I say that we must absolutely tackle this issue and that to do that, we have to give law enforcement the tools they need to put an end to these new aberrations and to catch criminals.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, do I have half an hour to respond to the very interesting question from the member for Ahuntsic? If I were allowed, I could take three-quarters of an hour, until question period, to explain the answer, which is, of course, yes.

It is obvious. Bill S-2 is just a rehash of earlier material and everyone knows it. It is surprising that the government went through the Senate to bring it back to us since that was not what they wanted to get through the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I see this every day. I was at this committee about an hour ago. They are trying to speed up the timeline and hear more witnesses. They want to move faster but they prorogued the session and we lost six weeks.

Senator Boisvenu introduced a bill concerning the Parole Act. We have been calling for the elimination of the one-sixth of the sentence rule for a long time. I worked in criminal law for 30 years and we plea bargained all the time. We have been told for a long time that the public does not want harsher sentences. With all due respect, that is not true. Those who are saying that are liars.

What the public wants is for people to serve their full sentences. When a person is sentenced to 12 years, he must serve that sentence, unless he is very well behaved.That is the current problem.

With all due respect, do not try to make me believe that victims are being taken care of. I have not seen a single bill that helps victims. What is more, funding meant to help victims is being cut. When it comes to justice, sometimes we need to go easy. Not much would be changed. They need to stop taking the cheap populist approach on this issue.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.

Since it came to power, the government has been introducing public safety and justice bills that have often been rehashed, sometimes to death. The government prorogues Parliament and then re-introduces old bills with big press conferences and lots of grandstanding, saying that they care about public safety. Bill S-2 is just that kind of rehashed bill. It has already been studied in committee. A report on the registry has even been produced.

Would my colleague not agree that when it comes to public safety, the government likes to make a show of things, instead of actually tackling crime?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his comments. I will continue along the same lines, but I want to explore the aspects of this bill that we find particularly interesting a little more.

The Conservatives should re-read this bill a little more carefully. They want to create a Canada-wide sex offender registry, yet they want to abolish the firearms registry. It is a little—how shall I put it—strange. I will leave it up to the public to decide. They want to create something with one hand while destroying it with the other. In 10 years they will probably want to abolish the sex offender registry. That would not surprise me, but of course we would oppose that.

It is important that both registries be maintained. I do not plan to talk about the firearms registry for the 20 minutes I have here today. We see that issue as having been settled. It is important to maintain it, considering how effective it is. Yes, that is what I said: effective. I think effectiveness is what should guide our work on Bill S-2.

We had begun studying Bill C-34 during the last Parliament. In fact, Bill S-2 is an exact copy of Bill C-34. It is important to remind those watching us at home that when a session ends with prorogation or an election, all bills die on the order paper. One of those bills was Bill C-34. The government decided to fast-track it and therefore introduced it in the Senate, which is why it is now Bill S-2. It is before us here today to be passed.

I would like to say right away that we will vote in favour of this bill, which is very interesting, although it still needs more fine tuning. As part of its proceedings the committee heard from a number of witnesses and a great deal of work was done, but there is still more to do. I would like to focus on a few points that still need to be debated.

Let us look at what this bill entails. There are many laws that deal with sex offenders. Today there is the Sex Offender Information Registration Act. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the same as the DNA Identification Act or the Identification of Criminals Act. The latter requires an individual who is found guilty of or has pleaded guilty to an offence to provide his or her fingerprints and photos. We looked at this briefly yesterday and we will have the opportunity to study it in committee. That is the gist of the Identification of Criminals Act.

The DNA Identification Act is different. In cases of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault—I am not going to list every crime—this legislation requires the individual to provide a DNA sample, in other words saliva, a hair or a drop of blood. The DNA is analyzed and entered into a data bank. This data bank is consulted by those who need it to conduct a criminal investigation in order to track an individual, for example. It is this DNA data bank that helped solve a 34 year old murder case in Montreal a year ago.

But we are not talking about that today. We are talking about the Sex Offender Information Registration Act. It is very important to point out at this stage that this legislation implies that the individual has been found guilty or has pleaded guilty to the offence.

I will not name every offence, even though there are some in the new bill that I wonder about and which I will come back to in a few moments. I can name a few such as aggravated sexual assault, sexual contact, sexual exploitation, incest, exhibitionism, sexual assault with a weapon and so forth that are in section 490 and subsequent sections of the Criminal Code.

An individual is found guilty or pleads guilty to one of these charges and receives a sentence from the court, whatever that may be. The court could—and that is the key word here—order this individual to register. Pursuant to clause 5 of this bill, registration means that the individual must supply his or her name, address, date of birth, gender, military title, such as officer, and so on. Everything is there. The individual must re-register every year, and that is the problem, and it was noted. It works very well for monitoring an individual who was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to five years in prison and three years of probation. There is no need to look for the person so that he or she can register; it all works very well. It is once the probation is over that we start having problems. There are time periods set out in the legislation, which generally exceed the duration of the sentence, including probation.

But 80% to 90% of these individuals deliberately “forgot” to register. They did not care, because they were out of prison and had finished their probation. They perhaps had a job, and so we lost track of them. That is exactly what has happened many times in recent years, and Bill S-2 aims to put an end to these “lost” individuals, who disappear without a trace and suddenly reappear near a school or day care centre, or who find a job as a caregiver in a day care centre or school. We must absolutely put a stop to this.

It is easy now because the courts render a verdict and are obliged, in some cases, to issue an order to register. An easy example would be a case of aggravated assault or sexual assault with a weapon, when the courts would obviously issue an order. We have no problem with that. However, there are other crimes. In my day, they called it indecent assault, that is to say, a less serious sexual assault. It is harder in those cases because the word “assault” always implies violence, unfortunately, and we are trying to find the right words. There are some cases of sexual assault, for example touching at a party, where somebody gets drunk and unfortunately does something unacceptable. He is convicted and appears before a court. He could lose his job. He is charged with sexual assault, but as a summary conviction offence. Very often, the court passes sentence in this kind of case. Each case is obviously unique. I definitely would not want to generalize and would not want people to think I was generalizing about the kind of sentence the courts handed down. But in my career, I certainly saw a client of mine get this kind of sentence.

The court obviously did not issue an order to register because it was a moment of madness due to the overconsumption of alcohol and the person had never done anything wrong in his life. He is 55 years old and has a family. This is where the debate gets critical. We in the Bloc Québécois think that individualized sentences should be a priority. We believe it is very important that before a court passes sentence on someone, it should be careful to individualize the sentence.

When we start talking about individualizing sentences, this registry is directly involved. If we codify everything, we will have to take a very close look at all this in Bill S-2. In the schedule alone, there are four pages of designated offences. Included are offences of a sexual nature involving children, sexual touching, invitation to sexual touching, child pornography, luring by means of a computer—oops, I already start to have problems with that— and trespassing at night. When it comes to the latter offence, a question arises. If someone entered a house, was it for sexual activity or to commit the offence of theft? It is not clear. Throughout the list, there are offences that will have to be examined very carefully when the bill is studied in committee.

On the face of it, I think all of this will have to be studied very carefully, hence my questions about individualized sentences. We in the Bloc Québécois are convinced that if we want to rehabilitate people, it starts with individualized sentences that they accept. If sentences are handed down according to a formula and there is a single sentence including an order to register for both serious and less serious sexual assaults, there could well be a problem because the purpose of it all is distorted. The purpose of this bill—I agree and we agree—is very commendable. We think, just like our colleagues in the other three parties, that a registry is an absolute necessity.

I am having a little difficulty with the registry and I am going to come back to what my colleague said earlier. We think this should be a national registry. Who better than the RCMP to keep the registry, to know who is on file where? I will give an example of a case that has happened. My riding of Abitibi—Témiscamingue borders all of northwestern Ontario. So the only border we have is Lake Abitibi and Lake Timiskaming. On the other side, you are in Ontario. It has happened, unfortunately, that individuals who are on file only in Quebec or only in Ontario—we are not talking about the same individuals—cross over and commit offences on one side of the border or the other and the police forces are not aware of it.

We think it is important that there be one registry for all of Canada. As we know, people move around. We know that very often, unfortunately, sex offenders travel. They travel a lot and they move. Not just from one city to another, but from one province to another. They leave Quebec and go to New Brunswick or to Ontario or somewhere else. So we think there should be one registry. That is the first point that has to be considered.

The second point is automatic registration. There may be some difficulty in terms of the number of offences. It seems to us that there needs to be automatic registration. Consider the example of a person who is convicted.

Consider a case where the sentencing decision is very easy to make, a case of sexual assault with a weapon. It seems to us that this individual should be put on file and registered automatically. It cannot be left to the offender himself to give his name when he gets out of prison. That cannot be the case. We think it should be done automatically and there should be no hesitation.

For actual sex offences, the sentence does not present any problems for us, but the problem is all the fuzzy situations, as I said earlier. Consider a break-in at night, or luring by computer. We saw offences in the list that are somewhat difficult to analyze. For the moment, we will look at them very carefully, but we think it is important for it to be automatic registration.

As well, a problem arises in determining who may consult the registry. It also seems to us to be important that the registry be confidential and only people who are entitled have access to it. Obviously we are talking about police forces and investigators in certain cases. However, and I will say it straight, it seems to us to be essential to find resources, such as making sure there is adequate funding and making sure the laboratories and the sex offenders registry are able to absorb the anticipated increase in the number of DNA profiles to be analyzed, an increase caused by the change to the list of designated offences.

In other words, it is nice to have a piece of legislation, but if we are not able to implement it we will have problems, and that is what could happen with Bill S-2.

We are going to need appropriate tools. For the Bloc Québécois and for myself it is extremely important that police officers be able to act quickly. As my colleague mentioned earlier, when police officers receive a call from a school principal or from a kindergarten teacher, to the effect that a vehicle bearing such and such licence plate number has gone around the school three times, has stopped close to the entrance door, and so on, time is of the essence and police officers must know immediately whether they can make a quick check in the registry. They must be able to proceed very quickly, because the purpose of this registry is to identify potential sex offenders.

We must be able to have some control over an individual whose name is already in the registry, and for as long as he is registered. Otherwise, what is the point? So, we will have to quickly find ways to ensure that analyses are done and that the database is quickly established, because with the legislation now before us, prevention is obviously the goal. With regard to this bill, we should be able to engage in prevention.

Clause 40 provides that the registry can only be used when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime of a sexual nature was committed. Under the proposed change, Bill S-2 would extend the scope of section 16(2) by allowing the use of the registry for prevention purposes.

In conclusion, it is critical that, once the registry is established, it can be used for prevention purposes. We must also be careful with the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, we must respect the person's privacy. However, if an individual's name is already in the registry, and if that individual is required to stay away from schools but happens to be in his vehicle close to a school, we have a problem. Police officers must be able to make a quick check. As for the other provisions, we will be pleased to answer questions. I am looking forward to this bill being referred to the committee, so that we can take a close look at it.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will try to do it more quickly. I would like my colleague to talk about the obligation to consult. How can it be done rapidly? That is not clear in the bill, and it is one of the points that should be studied in committee.

What really bothers me—this is what I would like my colleague to shed light on—is, if we were to pass Bill S-2, I understand that there would then be only one registry. If that is the case, which I believe it is, what criteria would my colleague consider to ensure rapid consultation? He said it clearly just now, the objective is to allow police officers to consult it quickly, especially in the case of a vehicle near a school, for example. I would like him to talk about that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-2, which is the reintroduction of Bill C-34 from last session, including amendments made by the committee to that bill.

New Democrats generally support the bill at second reading. We support a productive and, we hope, collaborative review of the bill at committee, as happened with Bill C-34 in the last session. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out by many of my colleagues, the bill died with the government's decision to prorogue Parliament.

The bill contains many important changes to the sex offender registry. The New Democrats support the general thrust of this. We believe there are important loopholes in the present legislation to close and there are strategic and surgical improvements that can be made to the bill that would strengthen the registry.

However, as with a lot of bills, the New Democrats have concerns with the bill. We have reservations around certain specific issues, which I will highlight in my remarks this morning. We trust that all parliamentarians will work together to ensure we have a strong sex offender registry that not only works to make our community safer but also is effective and, at the same time, respects the human and judicial rights of everybody involved in the justice system.

Sex offences generate a great deal of public concern and suffering for the victims of these offences. Many times offences of a sexual nature involve children. As parliamentarians, we are never more engaged than when we talk about protecting women, children and any type of victim from the egregious and horrific offence of a sexual nature.

As a result of these high personal and social costs, governments are constantly looking for tools and methods capable of reducing the incidents of sex offences and protecting the public against the threat that some sex offenders represent.

One attempt to find a solution was the creation, in 2004, of a national registry containing information on offenders who had been convicted of a sexual offence or who had been found not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder. This resulted in the creation of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act, which established, for the first time, a national sex offender registry. This registry has been available to law enforcement agencies in Canada for slightly less than five years.

That original legislation contained a mandatory legislative review, which was supposed to take place after two years. Because of previous Conservative and Liberal governments, that review did not take place within the statutorily required two years. They will have to answer to Canadians for that.

However, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security did commence and complete a review of this registry, beginning in 2009. I sat on that committee on behalf of my party and I was pleased to have participated in that review.

What is the sex offender registry? It is a national data bank that contains information on certain sex offenders who have been found guilty of designated offences under the Criminal Code of Canada. These include things such as sexual assault, child pornography, child luring and exhibitionism or, once again, those who were convicted of such offences but held not criminally responsibly on account of incapacity or mental disorder.

Pursuant to the code, the Crown must initiate the registration process. If a court rules that the offender should be registered in the national registry, then an order is issued that requires the offender to report to a designated registration office in the 15 days following the issuance of the order or the offender's release. In April 2009 the committee was informed that the national registry contained the names of over 19,000 offenders.

SOIRA is designed to help the police officers investigate crimes of a sexual nature by giving them access to reliable information on offenders found guilty of these crimes. The registry then contains information that is essential to police investigations, such as the offender's address and telephone number, the nature of the offence committed, the age and gender of the victim, the victim's relationship to the attacker, any aliases that the offender uses and a description of any distinguishing marks or tattoos that the offender might have.

It is important to note that the public does not have access to the national registry. Only police officers can access it and, under the previous act, only when they are investigating a crime of a sexual nature and have reason to believe that a crime of a sexual nature has been committed. Querying the national registry allows police officers to identify possible suspects among the sex offenders living in the area where a crime of a sexual nature may have been committed. It allows them to eliminate certain people from the list of suspects in order to move the investigation in a rapid and hopefully productive direction.

During her appearance before the committee, Chief Superintendent Kate Lines of the Ontario Provincial Police noted that a registry system:

—saves a lot of time for investigators, who can now move in another direction....Taking someone off the list rather than identifying them has great value when investigative time is of the essence.

With this point in mind, the crucial factor in designing the registry and proposing amendments should be in ensuring that those who pose a danger to the public are in fact registered, but equally, those who pose no danger are not on the registry. That wastes police time investigating pointless leads in those crucial minutes when lives are at stake.

Ms. Lines presented statistics to our committee to illustrate the vital importance of a rapid response in these cases. She said that in cases where a child was kidnapped and murdered, 44% were dead within an hour of the kidnapping, 74% were dead within three hours and 91% were dead within 24 hours. A well-designed, properly functioning sex offender registry is clearly an important tool for police across the country.

The sex offender information registry's purpose has always been based on the following principles. This is language from the current legislation, which has been supported by all parties in the House.

First, in the interest of protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature, police departments must have rapid access to certain information relating to sex offenders.

Second, the collection and recording of accurate information on an ongoing basis is the most effective way of ensuring that such information is current and reliable.

Third, the privacy interests of sex offenders and the public interest in their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens require that the information be collected only to enable police departments to investigate crimes that there are reasonable grounds to suspect are of a sexual nature and to ensure that access to the information and the use and disclosure of such information is restricted to police.

Proposals to amend the sex offender registry should be measured against those principles.

We have heard some reference to the current government playing politics with this issue and I reluctantly have to agree with that description. The bill could be law today, but the Conservatives prorogued Parliament and killed their own bill. This is a perfect example of the Conservatives playing politics instead of protecting victims of crime.

The public safety committee was 90% complete of our statutory review of the sex offender registry. While we were doing that mandatory legislative review and putting the finishing touches on our report, which had all-party co-operation and contained extensive recommendations after hearing voluminous evidence and careful study, the government introduced Bill C-34 in the last session without even waiting to read our report. Therefore, as might be expected, Bill C-34 contained many holes and did not include important changes that witnesses had proposed to the committee. I will give an example.

The NDP had proposed an amendment at committee that would require sex offenders to disclose the make, colour, licence plate and registration of vehicles they owned or regularly used and add that to the registry. The New Democrats proposed that important closing of a loophole and strengthening of the registry. The government introduced Bill C-34, which did not even have that in it.

We all know that in a case where sex offenders might be in dangerous areas, trolling around schools, knowing the vehicles they have access to and are using is a critical component to protecting our children. Yet the Conservatives, who always claim to be tough on crime, introduced a bill in the House that did not even require sex offenders to disclose the cars that they drove or used. It was the New Democrats who caught that and improved the bill.

This was something police officers testified they needed in cases where all they had was a report of a suspicious vehicle seen near a playground or a school. This shows what happens when the government plays politics instead of making sound legislation that is careful, considered and effective.

The proposed bill before us closes some serious loopholes in the registry. Currently there is no way to track whether a sex offender is presently incarcerated or even deceased. The criteria are so strict that what information can be tracked, police officers are legally prohibited from recording, whether they can even get that information. The bill closes that loophole, which is a good thing.

Because every minute counts in investigations of sex offences and in cases of missing children, police officers would be wasting their time verifying the whereabouts of dead or incarcerated individuals because of this flaw in the current registry.

The proposed bill will expands the range of data that is tracked in the registry and this also is a good thing. If we are investing money and police resources into maintaining the registry, it should contain all the information needed for police to rapidly investigate crimes.

However, I want to talk about something that, again, the government, in its rush to play politics with this issue, overruled its committee on, which makes the bill questionable. It has to do with the concept of automatic registration. The bill proposes automatic registration for all offenders who commit designated offences.

The committee undergoing the study examined automatic registration in great detail. After hearing from all the witnesses, even the Conservative members of the committee agreed there should be judicial discretion to not put someone on the registry where it would harm public safety.

The police representatives who testified before our committee that speed was of the essence when they were investigating. If there were a number of sex offenders who did not pose a threat to the general public, adding those people to the list would actually waste their time at critical moments where speed was called for. If they had 1,000 people on the registry who they had to check in a certain area and they only had 2 hours to do it, they had to track down all those people to rule them out as possible suspects.

We heard from police officers who were familiar with this registry. They said that it was far more important to put people on the registry who did pose a risk so the police could target those suspects in those critical moments. That is why judicial discretion and prosecutorial discretion are important in this registry. We should not put every person convicted of every kind of sexual assault on the registry. Some offenders are not appropriately put on that registry.

As an example, it might be an 18 or 19 year old male who commits a minor transgression, which is still considered a sexual assault. I want to be clear that all sexual assaults are serious, but there is a degree on the continuum and it may well be that it is not appropriate to put the person on the list. Maybe the person is simply not at risk, by any rational examination, of committing a sexual assault in the future. To add that person to the list clogs the system and makes our communities less safe as a result.

I want to talk about sexual abuse in general. The government is quick to go to the punitive side when we talk about sexual offences. I want to talk about helping victims of sexual abuse and show how the government's misdirected and misguided agenda does not really help in many cases.

Earlier this year, Steve Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, testified at the public safety committee. He spoke about the need for the government to fund child advocacy centres in major cities across the country. These centres would provide counselling, support and referrals to other resources for child victims of crime, particularly victims of sexual abuse. We know, and there is no question, the data shows that many sex offenders were themselves sexually abused, often as children. Therefore, child advocacy centres would be an important part of helping to prevent future sex offences.

The victims ombudsman asked the government twice for $5 million to fund these centres and the government refused. The government refused to put up $5 million so that child victims of sexual abuse in this country would have a place to go to in the major urban centres of this country where they could be treated and counselled.

Despite the fact that this was an egregious and terrible decision made by a government, we should think of the implications for public safety because once again, some of those victims of child sexual abuse will be more likely to become adult child sex offenders or sex offenders when they grow up because of their own victimization.

For a very small amount of money, the government could have taken a concrete step that not only helps the children of our country, some of the most victimized children who are most in need of our assistance, but it has also lost an opportunity to make a dent in preventing future sexual offences.

The other thing that is important to note is that we cannot just have a registry. We also need the resources necessary so that our police forces can have access to the registry. Nothing I see in the bill before us contains any increased resources for the sex offender registry. I am concerned that it downloads the burden on to already overstretched police forces. We will need to ensure that if we are to increase registration in the registry, we ensure police forces have the resources necessary to access that registry.

I also want to talk about crime prevention. The bill adds crime prevention to the list of purposes to the act. New Democrats agree with this because originally police officers told us that access to the registry was too rigid. They testified before our committee that the test of waiting until they had reasonable ground to suspect a crime had been committed of a sexual nature was too strict. The example they gave was that they might get a call from a distraught mother who said her child was missing. That may be enough to suspect that a crime has been committed, but there is really no reasonable basis at that point to suspect it is of a sexual nature. New Democrats heard from police officers and we agreed with them that we needed to make changes and expand the opportunity for police to access the registry.

I am pleased to see in the bill that the government is moving in that regard. By putting in crime prevention, it allows police to access the registry in order to prevent a crime, and I think that is a positive thing. However, we must also be careful to ensure that there are parameters around that power because once again, it is important to control access to the registry and the way police use it so that sensitive information is not used in an inappropriate manner.

I also want to talk a little bit about the New Democrat position on crime prevention because it is one of the major deficiencies in the government's approach to the crime agenda. Its agenda is always about measures to deal with a crime after it has been committed and it is always about punishing harder and longer. It does not put resources into crime prevention, which I think is what Canadians really want.

Canadians want to live in safer communities. We want to ensure we reduce our crime rate. We want to ensure there are fewer victims of crime, not harsher punishment of the offender after the crime has been committed.

In terms of crime prevention, what I am looking for from the government, not only with this legislation that is important to deal with offenders after they have committed a sex offence, but with my New Democrat colleagues, we will continue to press the government to add resources and to take legislative measures that will help prevent crime in this country.

I have already mentioned child advocacy centres. We have already heard that Steve Sullivan, the victims ombudsman, has testified that victims want more resources put into crime prevention because nobody can undo or understand the damage that is felt by a victim of crime.

What we need to do and what victims want is for us to pour resources into helping ensure that those crimes are not committed in the first place.

The government has a responsibility to work with offenders. We call on the government to ensure that we take intelligent measures, that when offenders are caught they get the kind of help and therapy that hopefully will help them not to reoffend in the future.