Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Motions Nos. 10 and 11. I thought I would not get the opportunity. I thank the hon. member for her motion.
Having listened to the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice I wonder who is running this country. The parliamentary secretary gave very lucid arguments as to why we should not tackle the Supreme Court of Canada or put ourselves at risk of a showdown with the Supreme Court of Canada. If in the end the court prevailed and decided we had taken the wrong approach, those convicted during a period of three or four years prior to having the legislation declared void would have to be turned loose because they would have been wrongfully convicted. I appreciate the argument and I would not like to see the guilty going free or conversely the innocent being convicted because of any error on our part.
However, this is a country of laws. It is time we made it clear not only to the public but to ourselves that the House of Commons of Canada is the supreme legislative body of this country and that we do not have to cower in fear of what the supreme court may do. We are trying to make predictions that the supreme court will disallow this legislation or that we think it will disallow this legislation.
If you put three lawyers in a room and ask them for opinions on this or any other subject, you will get at least five opinions. Therefore we should not be cowering here. If the House in its wisdom feels these are good amendments, which I believe they are, then this is the direction we should take.
Compared with what was previously brought forward in committee, Motion No. 10 is relatively innocuous. It states that samples can be taken on charge from previous offenders, not from just anyone who has been arrested. This makes it unnecessary in the event that the charged person is exonerated of having to take special measures in order to rid the databank of the samples as can be done with fingerprints now. If we go only for people with previous convictions then surely we do not have the problem of having samples in the databank from people who have never been convicted of anything because they are convicted before a sample is taken. I think this makes eminent sense. In my opinion there is no civil liberties problem involved in this.
The other question gets a little closer to the bone with the question of civil liberties, taking DNA samples from convicted people who are already in jail. Again the social benefit of doing this in this case may outweigh the danger to civil liberties. These are convicted criminals. These are not people who have been pulled in off the street and hair plucked from their heads to see what their DNA is. These are people who have committed serious crimes, designated offences.
These people could very well have in the past committed violent offences, in particular rapes, for which they have not been caught or charged
When they are in jail and have already been convicted of a violent offence, does it not make practical sense to check to see if maybe the fellow being looked for during the previous five years might already be in custody? I see no harm in this. There is no one in this House who is a stronger defender of civil liberties than I am. People who have known me here for the last few years I think will stand behind me on this.
This is a case where it simply makes sense to go ahead, take the sample and find out if somebody being held has committed some gross crime and if that is the case another charge can be laid and the fellow is kept in for a very long period of time.
I do not buy the philosophy that we have to quiver and shake and say no, the supreme court may override us. If worst comes to worst as I understand the law we could still use the notwithstanding clause to avoid having to turn a bunch of convicted felons loose. I may be wrong on that. Perhaps some of our legal talent could advise me.
That is the way I see it, that the notwithstanding clause could be used and therefore, contrary to what the hon. parliamentary secretary said, no one would have to be turned loose as having been wrongly convicted even if the supreme court did go against us.