Mr. Speaker, I would like to give credit to members of my party in the justice portfolio who have done an outstanding job to bring forth this issue not only in this Parliament but also in the last Parliament. It is something we find very difficult to disagree with because it does so much good not only in apprehending the guilty in our society but also in ensuring that false convictions do not occur. It helps the innocent and it helps society to prosecute the guilty.
It is a shame and the government should be embarrassed that in the last Parliament it did not take the initiative with this tool that can be so effective in helping the police do their job. Heaven knows they have such a difficult time already. In many cases their hands are tied behind their backs by bureaucratic entanglements and rules and regulations which prevent them from apprehending the guilty.
Bill C-3 and the amendments we put forward can help the police and can help society in building stronger and safer communities. This bill is a disappointment. The government has taken a very simple and good concept and has complicated it. It has not dealt with the issue in a meaningful way. It has once again merely nibbled around the edges.
That is why my colleagues in the Reform Party in the justice portfolio have been forced to put forth amendments to toughen up the bill. They do not come merely from us. They come from police officers and the public who are very knowledgeable about this issue. They have put forth constructive solutions to make Bill C-3 an effective tool and an effective weapon in defeating crime. There are many aspects that must be included in the bill.
The issue of how the national data bank will assist the police and the courts is very important. It has to be dealt with in a way that involves the following points. We have to ensure the data bank will be applied to individuals who will be convicted in the future and to individuals who have been convicted in the past. Individuals such as Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson should have their DNA taken and put in this bank. It makes eminent sense.
I cannot think of an intelligent reason why the government would oppose that other than on purely philosophical grounds. Philosophical grounds do not make our country safe. They are important but we cannot lose sight of the fact that our objective is to make our country stronger and safer.
It does not mean that we need to trample on the rights of anybody. An innocent person would have absolutely no compunction whatsoever about having DNA extracted and put into the bank in order to be exonerated from a criminal act. That is important. If guilty of course the person would be afraid and would put up any number of roadblocks to prevent that from happening. It is very important that this bill be applied retroactively to individuals now in jail who have committed serious offences.
One thing I found very disturbing about the bill was that the government chose not to apply it to all serious and indictable offences. Why I am not sure. Perhaps only the justice minister knows the answer. What we want to do for the sake of the Canadian public is to ensure that the DNA data bank would be applied to every person convicted of a serious indictable offence in Canada. The government cannot argue this. It is irresponsible not to apply this to all serious offences.
The other point we would like talk about is to ensure that the DNA samples and data are going to be taken properly and that access is going to be only for forensic purposes. We are very sensitive to the privacy needs for all Canadians. We are also very sensitive to the needs of ensuring that we have an effective justice system and that the police have the effective tools to enable them to do their job. This data bank must be treated with that respect.
Other aspects we would like to bring up include the fact that this bill and the precursors to it have been employed in a number of countries around the world. Great Britain, many states in the United States, and a number of European countries have all brought forward their own DNA data banks and they have been very effective. They have been effective not only in apprehending the guilty but also in exonerating the innocent.
It is also important that the samples and data be kept for a number of reasons. One is to ensure that the innocent are not convicted. Also, a person who commits a violent crime today could easily commit a violent crime at some time in the future. A convicted person who spends 10 years in jail for a serious offence and is let out unfortunately sometimes will continue to commit serious and violent offences. We must have that data because it would enable us to make a rapid intervention and a rapid apprehension. One of the amendments we are putting forward is to ask the government to please ensure that this good and valuable data is not tossed away.
I would like to talk about an important issue the government has failed to do. The Reform Party caucus has continued to try to impress upon the government the need to not only apply its funds to apprehending the guilty but also to apply funds to crime prevention. The government has had one mandate and has failed to introduce into this House any effective measures to prevent crime.
In this country, crime is on the increase. The government likes to put forth information saying it is on the decrease and some statistics do show that. But when we peer beyond those statistics, what do we find? We find that only 28% of violent offences in this country were actually reported to the police. Ninety per cent of sexual offences were not reported. Sixty-eight per cent of other violent victimizations were never reported to the police. This extends beyond violent interventions into other serious interventions too.
The Canadian public is having a crisis of conscience with respect to the justice system. It is not that they have a lack of faith in the police officers, the men and women who work very hard and put their lives on the line day in and day out, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. It is because the justice system impedes and impairs the police officers from doing their job.
We in the Reform Party have repeatedly and continually put forth constructive, pragmatic and effective legislation that this government could have adopted to try to address the serious problem of crime that we have in our country. The government has also failed to address the Young Offenders Act. We have put forth interventions on that. There is much that we have done in our party on crime prevention and the government has failed to grasp it.
We cannot simply do what we have been doing. Crime costs this country $46 billion a year. That is more than our entire education budget. It is more than twice as much as what we spend on employment insurance. We cannot continue to do it, not from human terms nor economic terms.
I implore the government to really address this problem, get to the heart of it. Engage in the punitive actions that will keep our country safe but also address in the long range measures that we can implement in a very pragmatic way to prevent crime, to address crime in its early nascent period during the first eight years of life. The government should introduce programs that are going to address and deal with those issues. If we do that it will help people not only in human terms but also in cold hard dollars and cents.
Again I implore the government to look at Bill C-3. Look at the amendments that my colleagues in the Reform Party have put forth, adopt them and I am sure we will have widespread support for this bill.