Mr. Speaker, in the past few days we have heard a lot of talk in the House about passports. I asked one of the questions last week. I want to outline one case tonight that has happened in the last couple of days. It will let the Canadian public know that we have a serious problem in this country with passports, how they are inspected and how they are used.
A gentleman by the name of Alan Winter was convicted in 1987 of sexual assault in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He was declared a dangerous sexual offender and was sentenced to 16 years on 10 counts. After having served five years he was paroled in 1992. We might wonder why he was paroled. It was a condition of his parole that he return to his native England and not return to Canada until at least the expiration of his sentence in 2003. He was granted a valid British passport and returned to England.
He has returned to Canada. A Canada-wide warrant for his apprehension was issued yesterday for breaking parole. John Denham, a British member of Parliament, said “I can't believe that Mr. Winter was not fit to be released into Canadian society but he was fit to be released into my country. How could they have not told us?” Canada did not advise the British people that this man was convicted as a dangerous sexual offender.
We hear that Mr. Winter used a Canadian passport to get back into Canada. Where is our criminal check and record of parole conditions? This man is back on the streets of Canada, a danger to young people. He is a dangerous sexual offender.
What kinds of checks are we doing at our border with our own passports and foreign passports? I know that the RCMP in Vancouver have modern digital hand checks that they can do right away. Do we not have these checks for people? We check their passports, but again in this case something has slipped through the cracks. I hope some serious offence is not happening in Canada.
There are no conditions on these. It is a joke but a sad joke. I implore the government to sit down and look at the whole issue. The passport affair in Jordan was unfortunate, but this is an even worse situation. In our own country somebody has been let back in either with his British passport or a Canadian passport. He is a criminal. Maybe the police will arrest him. Perhaps by talking about it tonight people will realize who he is and he will be arrested and will be off the streets and back in jail where he belongs.