Mr. Speaker, I can give the commitment readily.
In fact as a result of work that the Solicitor General, the Minister of Health and I have done over the last several weeks, we are about to release an options paper during the month of May into the hands of interested parties across the country. It will set out specific steps we can take to put in place a registry of child abusers in the country.
Just this morning I met with Monica Rainey who has been the very active and very effective president of Citizens Against Child Exploitation. Her work and the message she brought me this morning serve to show the urgency of this undertaking. We have to protect children from repeat abuses by people who have been convicted of these offences.
The efforts we are making focus on both the short term and the long term. The first is to establish the registry perhaps through an adaptation of the CPIC system the police use for convictions. The second is to have an effective screening system so that employers who are about to hire people in positions of trust can find out whether they have been convicted.
I share the hon. member's sense of urgency on this issue. I assure him we are taking steps and our paper will be in his hands within the next four weeks.