Thank you, Chair Wallace.
Mr. Chair, I want to thank you and the committee members for having me here today.
I am delighted to be here with my colleague, the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, to speak to the public safety component of the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act.
This legislation will enable our government to follow through on its promise to protect families, communities and, above all, children from pedophiles.
Let's be clear: tougher measures are needed to protect our children from sexual exploitation and abuse. As Minister MacKay indicated, while violent crime rates in Canada are trending downward, sexual violations against children are on the rise. Police reported some 4,200 incidents of sexual violations against children in 2013.
Canadians are rightfully concerned about the mobility and conduct of sexual predators who leave the country and commit sex offences abroad. We introduced the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act in order to address the deeply troubling reality behind that concern.
This bill comprises various elements, including measures to impose stricter obligations on registered sex offenders, in particular, those who have been convicted of committing sex offences against children or who travel abroad to engage in child sex tourism.
To complete Minister MacKay's opening remarks, I will discuss the components of the bill that will give law enforcement better tools to crack down on these despicable individuals: travel data, the database itself, and also the sharing of information between the CBSA and the RCMP.
We have already brought forward significant changes to the Sex Offender Information and Registration Act, legislation which established a national database of convicted sex offenders in Canada. Law enforcement relies on the National Sex Offender Registry, administered by the RCMP, in the prevention and investigation of sex crimes.
We currently have a database, which is only accessible at this time to law enforcement, where there are 36,000 sex offenders. Of these, nearly 25,000 have committed criminal acts against children.
Obviously, these are crimes of a sexual nature.
Currently, all registered sex offenders must report their address, their name, and the place where they work or volunteer, once a year or whenever that information changes. They are also required to report any periods of travel in Canada or abroad of seven days or more.
But in the case of international travel, the only information they have to report is their absence from the country for seven or more days and the approximate dates of their travel. They are not under any obligation to provide details on their destination, and that has to change. That is why we are here this afternoon discussing the legislative measures before you.
We have to do more to protect our children from sexual exploitation, and that responsibility starts here. That responsibility also extends beyond our borders, to children everywhere.
The tougher penalties for child predators act is important because if adopted, it would better protect children against people who want to steal their innocence for their own perverse sexual gratification. It would also hold those who commit these heinous crimes accountable for the harm they inflict on society.
For example, if a known sex offender living in Ontario wants to go to B.C. for two weeks, they must provide the address of and contact information for their destination. But, if they leave the country for two weeks, they are not subject to any rules requiring them to report where they are travelling to.
Under the legislation we are discussing today, this practice would end. The sex offender would have to provide travel details for trips outside Canada lasting seven or more days, and provide the precise dates of departure and return.
Unfortunately, sexual tourism exists. It is important to address this practice when it affects children and when it affects Canada.
The second key change this legislation will make is to close the information-sharing gap when it comes to communications between police and the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.
Under the current legislation, the information in the registry cannot be shared with the CBSA, because the agency is not considered a police service. Under the current regime, information cannot be shared with those who control access in and out of the country.
What's more, the legislation would authorize the CBSA to collect travel information on certain sex offenders upon their return and to share that information with the people in charge of administering the registry. The bill would allow the information to flow in both directions.
Given the crucial roles of the RCMP and the CBSA in ensuring public safety, this information-sharing authority is one of the key elements in the bill that will strengthen existing legislation and hold travelling sex offenders to account.
Finally, I'm pleased to discuss a measure that Canadians, including me as a father, are very concerned about, and that is the right of victims, children and families, to know whether there is a high-risk sex offender living in their neighbourhood, and I emphasize, a high-risk sex offender living in their neighbourhood. Canadians have the right to know the character of the individuals who are near their children. If a dangerous pedophile is within arm's reach of their child, they have the right to take proper action and precautions. That is why the bill would enact the high-risk child sex offender database act, which would allow our government to create a national public database. This bill would create a public registry of high-risk sex offenders so that parents could take responsible measures to keep their children safe.
I was pleased to see nearly all-party support for this important legislation, save for the Green Party, which voted against it. I hope that members of the committee will support our plan to make sex offenders more accountable, to better protect children in Canada and abroad from sexual exploitation, and to give Canadian families access to information that would help them keep their children safe. The tougher penalties for child predators act would do just that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.