Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

To be as close as possible, $4.1 million includes the personnel, equipment, office space, etc.

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

Yes, sir, and initially there wasn't funding per se to the Ontario Provincial Police to implement this program. There was some initial funding to provide cameras, etc. Our officers still go around to all of the locations in the province, municipal and provincial agencies, to provide that assistance. But there was no funding.

As you can well imagine, at the time this was first implemented it was a concern. I know the investigative value to investigations that the registry brings for the Ontario Provincial Police. I would imagine there's only a small number who are trained, and this would be their full-time position.

Perhaps I could turn it over to the sergeant to talk about the practicalities in those locations, how they do it, as he'd be more familiar with that.

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

What we've done is we've broken down the province into regions. There's a coordinator for each region, both OPP or within the municipal service, and they're the contact or liaison with us. So they will be fully trained on any portion of the registry, but they also have people who continue to do registrations or can do queries or have limited access, depending on the type of training they've had.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

One of the questions had to do with the inclusion of other offences, not necessarily sexually related ones. Would I be correct in saying that when there is an investigation into a sex crime, there's a utilization of all investigative techniques, as well as the sex offender registry? Would I also be correct in saying that you, the investigator, would probably at least consider the use of a profiler, who might then, because they're an expert in it, be able to link some of the investigative findings to indicate that perhaps one should access the registry, even though it isn't a sex crime, or vice versa?

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

Yes, sir, the nexus you mention is why our Ontario sex offender registry is located within the behavioural sciences area of the Ontario Provincial Police. As a criminal profiler in past years, I would have loved to have had this additional information. A profiler tends to become more involved in analyzing behaviour within a crime scene. As you'll see, there are pieces of information in the registry about the behaviour of or interaction of the offender with a victim. But in addition to that criminal profiler, we have others in the office who are trained in threat assessment. Now I'm talking about the Ontario registry.

As I say, this is a collection of like-minded, like-trained people, but they have their specific capabilities as well. And in agencies where the sex offender registry is being utilized by them in an ongoing investigation, they often access the other services of the behavioural sciences.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You have two and a half minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Good.

One of the main or serious considerations to all of us in this day and age is the security of a site, because there is very, very damaging information in this registry, as alluded to by Monsieur Ménard, about people who are able to control their aberrant sexual tendencies. One of the fears, as I say, is the security of the site.

Would I be correct in saying that the site is as secure as the Canadian Police Information Centre? Would it be equally, less, or more secure? And without going into detail about this, of course, do you have an ability to assess whether or not someone is trying to access the site?

[Supt David Truax]

That is correct. Access to the Ontario sex offender registry is governed through an Entrust PKI certificate, so it's an encryption certificate. Access to the registry is controlled, and there is monitoring of that access as well. We can terminate a police officer's access, and we monitor that and do follow-up audits in relation to user access, etc.

We're able to control all of that, so that it's restricted to police for law enforcement purposes only. Through the encryption key that's provided, the access code, etc., it's very, very limited and controlled.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So any officer investigating a complaint of, let's say, a sexual offence would have ready access to that through their police cruiser? Would they call headquarters or a communications location and access it, or does it have to be at a particular site by a particular person?

[Supt David Truax]

They would not be able to access the Ontario sex offender registry from the police vehicle itself. However, that police officer would have officers in their agency who are trained and have access to the registry who would be able to assist them in that investigation. That would be done back at the police station. In addition to that, if it were a situation where an officer needed immediate assistance in the police cruiser itself, they could access the Ontario sex offender registry through their communications network and have one of our experts, such as Sergeant Mascola, provide them with support 24/7, 365 days a year.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

There would be no automatic access to the registry through a CPIC check?

[Supt David Truax]

That's correct. They are flagged on CPIC, as was mentioned earlier. In Ontario, any offender who's registered with the Ontario registry is flagged as a person of special interest to police. Therefore, a CPIC notification does occur to advise the officer that an individual is a registered sex offender in Ontario.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I have one more really quick question, and it goes back to my first question in relation to cost. Is the cost based on the number of entries or is it simply a question of the human hours it takes to add the information to the system? In other words, does a really large system cost significantly more? I guess I'm comparing a registry for Ontario to a central Canadian registry. Would you have a guesstimate or estimate as to the cost?

[Supt David Truax]

I would expect costs to rise. At this point, we're just over the 12,000 mark in Ontario for registered offenders. Obviously computer system capacity will need to be addressed as the registry grows, etc. There will be those types of issues, as well as technological improvements and electronic interfaces between agencies. So those costs could in fact rise.

Obviously, we operate within the budget that the provincial government provides us. I would say that the opportunity to add to that particular budget for additional improvements or to address technological costs will likely present itself in the future.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Kania, please.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I have four main areas, but I want to start off with the research on how quickly somebody is murdered after being abducted. I think this is one of the major reasons we have to have a really effective system, because time is of the essence. So I'd like to focus on that.

I think what's going to occur here--and I'm not speaking for the committee--is that we're going to recommend moving towards an Ontario model of some type and fixing the problems of the federal system. What more do you need for the Ontario system? Is there anything else that you would like to see in terms of trying to prevent exactly these quick abductions and then murders?

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

The one thing I know--and again, I'm speaking on behalf of the CACP--is that we should have a national registry so that we would know sex offender information from right across the country. Obviously, in Ontario we're only capturing those offenders who, through the judicial process, have been entered into the registry. But we also know about the mobility of offenders, particularly sex offenders, so certainly a national registry would be something. This is why Ontario supports a national registry that might be modelled after that. Electronic linkages are certainly important so that we know at the earliest opportunity when offenders are being released from institutions. Again, we have that connection only within our own province.

I'll let the sergeant go ahead and add some more.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I understand about the deficiencies of the federal system. The Ontario system is, in my view, better, but the question is how it should be--and maybe it shouldn't be--improved to avoid this, to do our best if somebody is abducted, so that they will be found as soon as possible. Is there anything else that you need based on the Ontario system?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

As I mentioned earlier, the pardons would be a very major issue for us, which we'd love to resolve. There are some other issues like travel advisories and people coming in from other countries. We get Americans moving up to Canada who may have had similar convictions. We'd like to put them on our registry as well, because they reside in Ontario, and we can't. They have to be convicted in Canada. So if there were legislation to indicate that somebody from another country was coming in, we'd like to be able to capture that information.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

So you'd like to be able to add foreign convictions as well?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

That's correct.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

What about the police cars themselves? Do you have access in the police car to the system? I believe you mentioned a home computer, and obviously there are computers at the stations, but what about in any of the police cars? Would it not be better to be able to do that?

[Supt David Truax]

Access from the car would be ideal in most cases, depending upon the type of investigation. However, if it's a missing child investigation, a lot of work can go on simultaneously back at the police station, where the registry can be accessed to assist the officers in the field. Access from the car would be ideal, but technology may not permit it quite yet.