We are going to support this amendment for basically the same reasons. I see that there is a huge difference of opinion. I do not think that people who go out and commit very low-level sexual offences will necessarily commit much more serious sexual offences down the line. I do not buy into that, just as I do not buy into the idea that people who have smoked a few joints will necessarily develop a drug problem later or that someone who starts drinking beer will end up becoming an alcoholic.
I was aware of hundreds of charges involving minor sexual offences. When I started practising, there was a public washroom squad in Montreal. It no doubt arrested a good hundred or so people a day. Senior counsel at my law firm had connections in the police force and would have those cases referred to him. I cannot believe that, after being arrested and arraigned in court, all those people became sexual predators.
What's worse, I have always believed that people with the exact opposite opinion, that is, those who think the most minor offence will necessarily lead to a major one, were engaging in demagoguery. I still respect their opinion, but if we look at other types of crime, we see that it does not apply in those cases, either. Just consider cases that involve drugs, alcohol and even theft. Therefore, it seems to me that one of the provisions put forward by Mr. Davies—not the only one, for that matter—with a view to bringing the act more in line with reality, does more to achieve the true objective behind creating a sex offender registry.
Furthermore, I am not sure where I picked up the idea of “dangerous”. I did a lot of reading to prepare, and I had it in my head that the registry was for dangerous sex offenders. Even though that is not the case, the purpose of the registry is to protect the public and potential victims of serious crimes. If we fill the registry with the names of individuals who have committed minor sex offences....
When I began working in private practice in Montreal in 1968, after being a crown attorney for two years, there was a court that dealt solely with minor sex offences. It handled approximately 100 to 150 cases per day. I find it hard to believe that those individuals were dangerous because they gave in to a certain temptation in a public washroom one time. If everyone arraigned in that court became a dangerous sex offender, Montreal's streets would have become extremely dangerous a long time ago. That court may no longer be around because since then, we implemented a smart measure: we separated urinals. That helped to bring the situation under control, as compared with the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In any case, I want to say again that I quite like this kind of provision. It encourages police officers to use their judgment, which they have, in my opinion.