Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-3 at report stage. I will restrict my comments to Group No. 3.
I support the amendment as proposed by the member for Sydney—Victoria even though it causes me some concern.
Throughout the review of this legislation by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights we heard from many witnesses about their fears and worries over abuse, leaks and criminal misuse of the DNA databank. To overcome these fears and to protect against the wrongful use of DNA information we need some form of consequence.
The hon. member for Crowfoot proposed an amendment before the justice committee to limit the punishment in clause 11 to strictly indictable with a maximum term of two years. Motion No. 7 maintains the dual procedure aspect, but increases the maximum indictable procedure to five years. If we are to protect the information in the databank we require sufficient consequence to offenders.
I believe that many of the naysayers to DNA legislation will be brought on side when parliament impresses upon them how seriously we intend to attempt to protect potentially sensitive DNA information.