Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank Madam Boivin for proposing this amendment.
Unfortunately, the government does not support this amendment primarily because we do not believe it is necessary. I'll explain that.
Under clause 29, the RCMP would be required to only include information in the new public database that had previously been made public by a police service or other public authority. That would have already abided by any court orders that were in place to protect the victim's identity. Madam Boivin will know that in most of these cases those kinds of court orders are specifically in place to protect the identity of a victim in the circumstances that she outlined.
Also, we believe that it's overly broad. She may not have fully appreciated that this could provide a blanket prohibition that would restrain the RCMP in providing information that could be essential in advising the public of specific risks of an offender to the community. For example, that could be a description of the circumstances of the offence that would put the community on notice of the type of danger that the high risk child sex offender database is designed to protect the community against.
If I could, I'd like to ask Mr. Churney to add an explanation from a more technical and legal perspective.