Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2009

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

We are talking about 44% of the abducted children murdered within an hour. I'm not suggesting anything. I'm not in the field. I'm asking whether it would be better to have access in the police car, whether it would assist you.

[Supt David Truax]

Absolutely.

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

As with other checks that are done by police, say, when they're stopping someone on the side of the road or conducting an investigation, there is a consideration of the immediacy of the situation. Some officers could have access through their cars. In other cases, detectives don't have that access. Many police vehicles do not contain the necessary technology, because often they are covert vehicles. But it only takes a phone call. Information is relayed to them within minutes.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

But for the actual police cars, this would be an improvement.

You mentioned pardons. I would assume that the same rationale would apply—no automatic removals from the system after, for example, 10 years. You have different categories when somebody is automatically removed. Would this not also apply?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

Automatic removals apply to pardons. Also, if they appeal their decision and the conviction is quashed, that takes them off.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

I don't think automatic removals are pardons. I think a pardon is when somebody actually seeks a pardon for the offence. But there's also a provision saying you will automatically come off the system after a certain period of time, depending upon the type of offence.

Can I ask one more?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, but let them answer this round.

[Supt David Truax]

I think the question you're asking is whether, at a certain point in time, an offender would be removed from the registry. Is that what you're alluding to?

The piece that we were trying to highlight for Ontario is back to the pardons. We've seen a dramatic increase in the number of requests to have individuals removed from the Ontario registry as a result of being granted a pardon. This is not the case for the national registry. Of course, in Ontario, we would like to move towards that point.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

You mentioned statistics on how many people are not currently compliant. What do you do about that, and do you need something more from us to assist you with it?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

Currently, as soon as an offender becomes non-compliant, the police service is responsible for that offender. They take as many steps as they can to try to identify his location. If they cannot identify the location, they seek a Christopher's law warrant in Ontario. It's a provincial warrant, but it's only for compliance purposes, so there's no charge attached to it. If the person was the Toronto Police Service's responsibility and he's found in Thunder Bay, they can register him in Thunder Bay, if they locate him. These are the provisions we have.

We would like to see a dual procedure offence for a person who goes non-compliant. This way, if we find someone who's non-compliant on the street, we can run him on CPIC, arrest him right there, and take him in for compliance purposes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Rathgeber.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to all the witnesses.

I'm curious about these offences. I'm picking up on Mr. Ménard's comments about arson. Perhaps I need to talk to a sociologist or a criminologist, but I'm having an intuitive difficulty understanding why arson and bed-wetting would profile an individual as someone more likely to commit a sexual offence. I'm wondering if any of you can provide me with any insight into my intuitive difficulty with that concept.

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

I think probably, to use a psychological term, correlation does not equal causation. Therefore, I know that this study saw correlation between these behaviours and serial offenders in their younger years, but it was not stating that it caused them. It was simply an observation made in a research project.

My apologies. I didn't mean to have it interpreted that they were more likely to commit; it was only a commonality that was found in a study.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

What is the name of the study you were citing?

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

I'm sorry, it's probably been 15 or 18 years since I looked at the study. However, if you would like a copy of it, I'd be happy to provide it. It would be with the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, but I can facilitate that.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I would find that quite interesting.

Obviously, bed-wetting is not an offence, but is it your position that arson ought to be included in that list of offences for mandatory registration?

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

No, sir, it's not my opinion.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay.

You've indicated that you believe the federal registry could use your system to improve itself. I'm curious. If the federal government were to make registration of the enumerated offences mandatory, would that render the Ontario registry superfluous? I know you're not policy makers, but do you believe at that point it ought to be wound down?

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

As I say, if the national registry had the investigative capabilities and the access for officers, and many of the things that we have mentioned in the document--in which I believe you were provided the key differences between the two--that's when I think consideration would seriously be given to abandoning the Ontario registry. As long as we have a national registry that is protecting our citizens the same as our provincial legislation did previously, that would be okay.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Besides mandatory registration, what else, in your view, Superintendent, would that require?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

The one thing we had was the CSC connection for federal and provincial offenders--the travel advisories, the access for police officers, and the expansion of what allows police officers to get onto the system, the definition, not only for crime of a sexual purpose, but reasonable grounds to believe.... You're providing an investigation of a crime.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

The privacy commissioners always have concerns over the breadth of the net that is cast in these matters. I'm curious. We've heard from the federal commissioner, but we have not heard from the Ontario commissioner. I was wondering—I only have a few seconds left—are you frequently doing battle with the Ontario Privacy Commissioner, or do you have a healthy working relationship?

[Sgt Jim Mascola]

We do have FOI requests for information from the registry. To date, we have not had to give up information, as far as I know.

[C/Supt Kate Lines]

I think I particularly recall that we do occasionally get media and private citizen requests. But I don't believe we've had a freedom of information.... Say, for example, it's for the release of postal codes, perhaps not where actual people live but the release of postal codes for sex offenders. One may think of municipalities, but if one considered some fairly remote locations, the release of postal codes could identify the offender, because there's only one offender living in that area or living in that postal code area. That could cause privacy concerns, so I know those requests have not been successful.

[Supt David Truax]

Perhaps I can also add. You saw the demonstration of the Ontario software application. We are making the offer that the software application that we utilize for the Ontario registry be available and provided to the national registry, if it is the wish to upgrade it to model the Ontario registry. Since that computer system has already been designed and that software application has proven to be operational, we would think, why reinvent the wheel if the software has already been developed?