Public Safety Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2009

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm happy to hear that.

I might also point out that further testimony said that in the case of a national sex offender registry where they're missing vehicle data, that was a problem because they're “not allowed to record that”, and also, “Oftentimes in a case of sexual assault, that's basically all you have to go on”. That was the testimony of Inspector Pierre Nezan.

The point I would make, Mr. Minister, is that it may have been helpful for you to have waited until this committee gave you the benefit of the report after it did a lot of work listening to witnesses. I think it's a big deficiency for you to proceed without waiting for that.

I want to move to another question. It's on the constitutionality of automatic registration. Mr. Douglas Hoover, who appeared before this committee, said that from the Dyck case in Ontario there is an issue as to whether the registry that was automatic is constitutional. He said that the matter has still not been settled--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You'll have to wrap it up, Mr. Davies, very quickly.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

He said that the matter has still not been settled by the Supreme Court of Canada, so if we do go automatic it will be an issue.

Do you have any comment on the constitutionality? That might strike down the entire registry if it's deemed unconstitutional in your haste to go automatic.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

As I have indicated, we've had examples where you've had automatic inclusion. In the case of the Ontario registry, that's now been in operation for almost a decade, really, and it has not been struck down in the Ontario situation.

I'm optimistic that automatic inclusion will be upheld. It's easily and clearly the case.... I would almost make an analogy to a criminal record. Criminal records exist and there's nothing unconstitutional about police having access to criminal records, because we are not putting it in the public realm. That's a different matter.

These are registries that are available to the police for their use. I would say that I am optimistic that it would withstand a constitutional challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McColeman, please.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If there is any time left over, I'd like it to go to Mr. MacKenzie.

Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thanks to you and Ms. Campbell for taking time out of your busy schedules.

I had the occasion of serving on a local police services board as a civilian. Prior to that, like many in the public, I think, I didn't know about the kind of culture there is out there or about the effect it has on the victims of these heinous crimes and on their families.

I reflect back on two of our witnesses that appeared before the committee, the parents of Christopher, who were ultimately advocates and courageous people who put themselves forward. I believe that Christopher's Law was in large part due to their testimony and their courageous battle to defend victims.

So my question is how does this protect the victims of sex-based crimes?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

The hope and theory of a sex offender registry is that it does a number of things. It allows police to be aware of where individuals who pose a potential risk of repeat offending may be. As you know, perhaps the best predictor of whether you will commit an offence in the future is whether you've committed an offence in the past, and in a whole range of crimes, unfortunately.

We hope that our rehabilitation and other interventions reduce that risk and that our community integration is effective, but you cannot always be sure of that. This provides another measure for police awareness when someone represents a risk.

In our most dangerous cases when people have served time, under our system they get released into the community eventually, even if they are considered at a high risk of reoffending. There are people like that. This provides an opportunity for the police to monitor them and to be aware of their presence. In exceptional cases--it does happen occasionally and only in exceptional cases--there is an opportunity to provide public notice to the community itself so the community can be aware of the risks that exist.

That is the objective. Where were there gaps before? Well, if someone managed to avoid registration through a plea bargain or oversight, when they were eventually released into the community they were not subject to that kind of oversight. This bill seeks to address that. Those who have deliberately or just by happenstance committed their offences outside of this country would potentially at present escape that kind of oversight. This seeks to solve that kind of problem.

This bill is really aimed at making the device that we put in place to achieve that purpose more effective at filling in the gaps that exist.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you.

I noted in your opening remarks that you commented that we heard from many witnesses that sex offenders are not automatically included in the database. For my second question, could you elaborate on the mandatory inclusion provisions within the amendments?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I think you already heard my comments to some extent. I think it is something that makes sense. Without it, what is the rationale for non-inclusion? As we know, crowns are busy, they're trying to get convictions. There's significant advantage to having a guilty plea over a lengthy trial, and this became an easy marker for some to trade.

I'm not going to say that practice was practised by all, but there were certainly some crowns who did that, and of course the simple oversights that occurred. There's not a rational basis there.

A rational basis would be if everybody were required to apply and then the judges would say whether a case is exceptional or not. It wasn't even that. Here we didn't even have that. The automatic inclusion overcomes that gap, overcomes that problem, so that people won't be slipping through the cracks through advertence or inadvertence, or people following the easiest path at the courtroom door.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the minister and the officials for being here today.

This is an important piece of legislation. I'd like to concur with the minister that on more than one occasion this side did ask that this study be conducted, because we were well aware of the review period that was in the original legislation, not only in this bill but also on the DNA data bank.

Some of us on this side have been here a little bit longer, but we also dealt with other issues that were mandated by time, including the security certificates and so on.

The committee, for whatever reason, made its own decisions not to do this in a timely fashion, and I certainly wouldn't quarrel with that, but it has obviously resulted in some finger-pointing, which is not necessarily accurate.

Having said that, we do have the bill. I think it's a good bill and I think the minister has been very clear that amendments to the bill would, perhaps, be expected and would be accepted, coming from the committee. So I think what all of us need to do going forward is to make sure we have a very good bill that goes to the House.

I'd like to follow up a little bit on Mr. McColeman's comment about the automatic inclusion. Some of us on this side have perhaps had more dealings...but not only this side; I think Mr. Kania has had some dealings with folks in these incidents, both the victims and the perpetrators of the crime. I think most of us would agree that the automatic inclusion is so important, and in a broad sense, that the criminals who are sex offenders don't start at the top. They start at the bottom and work their way up. Some folks think that these are less than serious crimes, but they are the precursors to the more serious crimes. So automatic inclusion as a tool in the toolbox of the investigators is extremely important.

I'm wondering, Minister, if you could expand on any of those issues with respect to the importance of the automatic inclusion of the offences that are listed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, but as quickly as possible.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I'll spend a little time very quickly on the constitutional question that was raised on automatic inclusion, because that's one that I think is of legitimate concern.

As I say, my analogy is to a criminal record, but you could, for example, look at the gun registry. I know some here are not fans of the gun registry, but the gun registry has been upheld as valid under the criminal law competence of the federal government.

Well, you're dealing here with people who aren't criminals, who haven't committed any criminal act, and they're required to register themselves and property. That hasn't been tossed out. It's been upheld.

In a case like this, you're dealing with people who are criminals and have a criminal record. So the threshold, you'd think, would be a lot easier to cross here, so I'm not particularly concerned about the constitutionality when you put it in that context.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Oliphant, please, on a five-minute round.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, you're the Minister of Public Safety and you said that some of the work our committee has undertaken, since this review that you felt should have been done, is trivial and of a partisan nature. I'm wondering which work our committee has dealt with in the last two and one-half years that you would consider trivial. Is it Bill C-3, to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act? Is it our work on contraband tobacco, the witness protection program, the study of security issues concerning the Minister of Foreign Affairs, our taser study, agri-chemicals and agri-retail, arming of the CBSA officers? Is it Bill C-12, regarding emergency management? Is it Bill C-279, DNA identification? I could go on.

It has been significant work that this parliamentary committee has dealt with, none of which has been trivial, all of which may be partisan to some degree. But I would argue that it is unfair for you to assess this committee's work as either trivial or partisan.

Because I know you can run out the clock with that statement I want to ask you: were you aware that our committee was in the final process of finishing our report, and actually we changed our agenda, when you introduced this legislation on June 1 so you would not take advantage of our interest and expertise in this area?

It was not one year away, as you just suggested in your testimony.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Firstly, on the issue of trivial studies, the somewhat weighty-sounding “Study of Security Issues Concerning the Former Minister of Foreign Affairs” was the Bernier matter. It was narrow, it was partisan, it was designed for electoral advantage. There was no legitimate public interest being pursued here. It was all pursued elsewhere.

That this was put ahead of dealing with the sex offender registry is something that any member who was involved in advancing that should be accountable to Canadians for. You had a legal obligation under the law to conduct a parliamentary review in the sex offender registry.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

And we did.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

You're saying it's all-important, and you're telling me, “Why did you come forward so fast? We had to do more important things than the sex offender registry and protecting young victims of sex crimes. We had to look into Maxime Bernier's private life.”

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

And the Iacobucci commission--

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

That's what you were doing, and frankly, I don't think--

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

--or the O'Connor commission, or the DNA registry, or the CBSA.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I gave you the chance to finish your question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

One at a time, please.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I believe that is a classic example of what I was talking about. Canadians out there are looking at that and this is what they're saying: Parliament isn't protecting my interests, they're just playing games. These guys don't care about sex victims. They don't care about children. They don't care about that. They care about winning partisan gain at the next election. And then, after the fact, they don't even see that they did something wrong. Once things have faded into the distance and they have the benefit of a little perspective, they want to go on picking on people for partisan reasons instead of saying we should get on with protecting children and get on with the important business.

I find it even more shocking that you would say, too, we deliberately decided not to do our report because we weren't going to give you the benefit of our knowledge.