Evidence of meeting #15 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was policy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
But that registration is with the Ontario registry, not the national registry.
10:40 a.m.
Director General, Corrections and Criminal Justice Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
That's correct. The national registry has a different approach.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Right. So I take it that there are very few, if any, Ontario offenders registered in the national registry as a result.
10:40 a.m.
Supt David Truax
Our experience has been that Ontario courts order offenders registered on the national registry in 50% to 60% of the cases.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I'm wondering whether there is any research on the relationship between non-compliance with the registry and repeat offending. Do people who are non-compliant have any greater instance of reoffending?
10:40 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
There is a number of risk assessment tools, not specifically tied to sex reoffending, for different types of violent offenders. General non-compliance with court orders or regulations is usually a risk enhancer. It just flows that if you have no respect for the law or an order that you have to follow, you're at higher risk than others to commit other offences. But we do not have statistics on non-compliance and repeat offending.
10:40 a.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
In New Brunswick, the RCMP requested some 150 door-knocks, but only about 40 were actually accomplished because the local police didn't have the ability, the time, the resources, or the will to do the door-knocking to see if the people were there. It seems that even when the registry is working, there is an implementation part that isn't working. Is that true?
10:40 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
The National Policy Centre for the RCMP recommends one door-knock per year in all our jurisdictions, just to confirm the data provided through the offender and computer checks. There is a number of reasons why some places are successful at doing it and others are not. It's important to remember that we're trying to balance the privacy interests of the offender and enforce the law as well.
Because the RCMP police a lot of small areas, the police know pretty much everyone in town. In those places, they may not be doing the door-knocks. It's not recorded, but the compliance check is done because they know John Doe. They see him every day at Tim Hortons or whatever it may be. So saying it's 40% is not necessarily an accurate picture of the compliance.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
It's just that I'm finding some odd statistics. Actually, I'm following up on what Mr. Rathgeber said. As of 2007, Ontario actually had 8,229 people in the national registry, and 4% were non-compliant, which is one of the lowest non-compliance rates. Quebec, with one-quarter of the registered offenders, 2,500, has 19% non-compliant, so there are more non-compliant people, objectively, at 480 versus 317, with one-quarter of the population on the registry.
There seems to be something very odd in this. It may be that the judges in Quebec are less prone to issue the orders or.... I'm not sure that there's a difference in the actual number of convictions in those provinces.
10:45 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
Each province and territory is responsible for administering and enforcing the act. In Quebec, the Sûreté du Québec is responsible. I think those compliance rates you're quoting are dated.
10:45 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
Right. There's been a dramatic increase. In Quebec, the Sûreté du Québec reported to me just last year that their non-compliance rate is down to about 8%, so there's been some improvement.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
It seems that as we're poking away at this we have to look beyond just the actual registry to how it lives out further down the chain, and that may not be your fault. That's somewhere else. We're trying to--
10:45 a.m.
Director, Corrections and Community Development, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
If I can add to that, though, the point I think you're raising is that the administration of the initiative is in fact the responsibility of the provinces and territories. The resources come from these jurisdictions. That's why you may see a difference in terms of application across the country.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Ms. Lines, I'm wondering about the cost of the Ontario registry versus the cost of maintaining the national registry on a pro-rated basis. Do we have any figures on that?
10:45 a.m.
C/Supt Kate Lines
On the funding for our registry, following up on the comments that have just been made, you're quite right that the administration, the maintenance, and the verification exercises always require resources for those purposes. Ontario has many larger municipalities and jurisdictions where, when driving by somebody's house, you're not going to recognize that person, so there are resourcing issues, which is why the resolution passed by the CACP does request financial assistance in this area.
In Ontario, we do have a central unit that Superintendent Truax is responsible for and that provides all of the training and all of the liaison with the national registry. That is a funded unit and it does give some support.
In the past and in the early days of implementation, it provided some support in relation to equipment and cameras for taking pictures and that type of thing, but there's not a significant amount of resourcing provided. It is obviously an issue for police across the country to have the resources to properly implement this registry, to not just have it exist and not be able to do the things you need to do because you don't have the resources to do them.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
10:45 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I'm going to do a kind of summary.
Mr. Nezan, you said earlier that the changes that you would like to see made to the act—that's what we're talking about today—are automatic registration, a notice of absence before the absence, information on vehicles, a map showing residences and, lastly, you mentioned new funding, new money.
Does that accurately summarize the changes you would like us to make to the act?
10:45 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
Those are some of them. I don't think I mentioned funds in my comments, but now that you bring it up....
10:45 a.m.
Insp Pierre Nezan
The program is national, not federal, so the cost of deploying the program belongs to the provinces and territories. For the RCMP, for us, the National Policy Centre here in Ottawa, my job and my staff, our budget historically has been about $400,000. Last year, it was about $600,000. But when we received this responsibility to manage this program we didn't get the commensurate funds, so it is an internal pressure for the RCMP. We have to identify those budget needs from existing budgets.
On the other point you mentioned, yes, I agree with everything you said. Those are some of the things we'd like to see, but it doesn't capture all of them.
10:50 a.m.
Supt David Truax
If I may add to that, Madam Lavallée, in Ontario, the annual operating budget for the Ontario sex offender registry is approximately $4 million. That allows us to provide support and training to law enforcement agencies across Ontario. The other piece, as well, is the emerging technology we have, which of course comes at a cost but provides great efficiencies. In relation to funding, those are pieces that are being expanded upon and reviewed as well.
10:50 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
All right. Do you have any statistics on use of that data base in Ontario?
