Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the speeches that have been made here today concerning this very important question. I think that they have been very good. I commend the member for Brampton for bringing this subject matter forward today.
The intention behind the motion of the hon. member is very helpful. In proposing action by the government to exert greater control over sex offenders, particularly pedophiles, she is reflecting a concern shared by most Canadians.
A few days before introducing this motion the hon. member held a press conference in Brampton jointly with one of her constituents and announced that a public petition in support of her motion was being circulated. I also commend the member for Brampton for attempting to go beyond generalities by imposing a mechanism that might increase our power to incarcerate dangerous pedophiles.
In this case she proposes giving the National Parole Board the authority to enforce the long term incarceration of offenders whom it feels may reoffend. In my view that is where the practical problem lies. I do not believe that the National Parole Board is the proper body to determine what should be done with an offender after he or she completes their sentence. Nor do I believe that it is a simple matter, legally, to prolong the detention of an individual when he or she has served the entire sentence imposed by the court. The problem is with our Constitution.
Many say that the charter is a problem in a lot of areas. Maybe in some things it is very binding. However in this case there is a very good reason for this charter protection, and necessary if we are to maintain a proper judicial system in this country.
When someone goes to court they are innocent until proven guilty. They are heard. Both sides of the case are presented. Then the person is determined innocent or guilty and, if guilty, a sentence is imposed. Once that sentence is imposed that is the punishment for that individual for that crime. That sentence has been imposed by a court that has heard all aspects of the case.
If we are to say before the person is released at the end of that sentence imposed by the court that this sentence should be extended then we are extending the sentence arbitrarily without due process of law in violation of overturning what the courts have set down.
That is very important. That is not to minimize what is attempted in this motion. There are better ways of doing it.
The parole board is not to be the vehicle for determining law and order in Canada. It has a specific function. That function is well defined. The parole board knows it and is perfectly competent to do it.
We can do two very important things. This is what is being examined by the Department of Justice at the present time. The first is instead of extending the sentence and imposing a further legal period of incarceration that we should instead have the person toward the end of their sentence examined by medical experts, particularly psychiatrists, to determine whether this person is medically fit to go out into society.
If this person is not fit to go out into society, then refer this person at the end of his or her sentence to a provincial medical facility, thereby giving the person much better treatment than they would receive in incarceration. This is then a medical problem.
Second, there are in the Criminal Code right now provisions for dealing with dangerous offenders. Sometimes however we do not know and do not designate people as dangerous offenders until they have committed a horrendous crime after a series of lesser horrendous crimes. They are not targeted early enough.
What can be done? We are attempting in the Department of Justice, with the minister, with the people in the department and with the co-operation of the ministers of justice and attorneys general provincially, to designate these people earlier, to flag them so to speak.
When they are released and show the potential for causing further crimes in this ever escalating spiral that some of these dangerous offenders follow, and when they reoffend, we will take them to court and when they are found guilty to then make a motion through the crown prosecutor to have them designated as dangerous offenders under part IV of the Criminal Code. They can then be kept for an extended and indefinite period of time.
The law is there. There are ways of doing it. This has to be done. I cannot disagree that in a lot of ways the time that has been taken seems long and extensive to a lot of people.