Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to move this amendment.
This goes to the heart of our justice system in how it treats the victims of sexual offences and how it protects our communities.
The sex offender registry, prior to the Supreme Court decision, required the automatic registration of individuals who had committed certain sexual offences. There are nine members of the Supreme Court. A five-to-four decision, with a very strong dissent, found that this automatic listing violated the Constitution. They gave the government a year to respond. Now we're up against that deadline. That deadline is at the end of this month.
What has come back with Bill S-12 does not go far enough, in my opinion. For example, for an automatic listing now on the sex offender registry, if you read the dissent in the Supreme Court decision, you see that they said that judges were not properly exercising their discretion by excluding individuals. The federal registry had only a 50% inclusion rate. That was the same as in Ontario, where, when it was left to discretion, there was only about 50% inclusion. The Supreme Court found that an offender on the registry is eight times more likely to offend than someone in the general public. There is a pressing reason to have sex offenders on the sex offender registry. That has been established.
This is what Bill S-12 says, under proposed subsection 490.012(1). In order for someone to be automatically listed, it requires that:
(a) the designated offence was prosecuted by indictment;
(b) the sentence for the designated offence is a term of imprisonment of two years or more; and
—this is key, that “and” word—
(c) the victim of the designated offence is under the age of 18 years.
That is how an automatic listing on the registry would take place. This is far too narrow. That is why I've introduced our amendment, which would delete proposed paragraphs 490.012(1)(a) and (b) on page 11 of the bill, so that all designated offences, regardless, proceeding by way of summary or indictment, if they are committed against a child victim—someone under the age of 18—will require mandatory registration. We heard testimony that suggests that this would meet the decision laid out by the Supreme Court.
I would urge members to consider broadening this piece of legislation so that we can protect child victims of sexual offences, protect our communities against sex offenders and require the mandatory listing in the sex offender registry of individuals who commit an offence against a victim who is under 18 years of age. That is what this amendment does.