That's an important question from our perspective, because we're met all the time with, “Under the Privacy Act, this is very personal information, so we can't share with you the psychiatric and psychological reports that have been generated with respect to a particular offender.”
Let's remember that what the Privacy Act says is that, if it is personal information and it is private, you have to weigh the public interest against the privacy interests of the particular offender. Let's understand that legally. Everyone throws up privacy rights, and they just ignore the law that requires there to be this evaluation, this proportionality, between the public interest to know and the offender's right to privacy.
Those very reports that you refer to, they are discussed openly at the parole hearings, so where's the privacy interest? I urge the committee to read both Parole Board decisions as they relate to Paul Bernardo and look at the incredible amount of personal information—as there should be—that is in their decisions, which are a matter of public record.
It's like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. This is not personal, private information. This is part of the criminal justice system. This is part of a public parole hearing. This is asking for a public remedy.
Of course we should have access to the information rather than just trusting the Parole Board. In this case, they did a good job with Bernardo in the last two hearings, but the principle is transparency. The public has a right to see this evidence, just like like they did at the trial and at his dangerous offender application.
This notion that, because they are psychological records, psychiatric records or things of that nature, he's asking, as are other offenders similarly situated.... He's relying on that very evidence to persuade the Parole Board to let him out of jail to integrate with the public.
Does the public not have a right to know that evidence?