Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the member turned this into partisan politics when this is private members' hour because Bill C-284 is very important. If he is seeking the support on this side of the House he should have spared us the shots against the government and the shots against the Liberals in suggesting that we have no compassion.
Indeed this is an important bill. On this side of the House we do have free votes in Private Members' Business. This is why we are here. This is why we hear different points of view.
I have to say to the member for Calgary Centre that I think it is a very good bill. He has introduced something that a chord that is of great concern to all of us. What is interesting to me is he actually touches on a much broader issue, privacy and criminality.
We have a situation now where we can make the parallel between what is proposed by Bill C-284, the release of certain criminal record information in relation to people who have received pardons, and the Young Offenders Act. Young offenders after being convicted have certain protections, certainly in family court.
This whole issue of whether when a person is convicted of a serious criminal offence they should be entitled under any circumstances to privacy I think is a broader issue that deserves a lot of future debate.
Normally I am uncomfortable with some of the anti-crime stances the Reform Party takes. Often they seem to be very extreme. In this instance the member for Calgary Centre is proposing something the government should pay very careful attention to.
In the last parliament the government proposed Bill C-55. That bill was related to the one we are talking about and the parliamentary secretary to solicitor general made reference to it in his speech. That bill addressed the problem of what to do about convicted and released sexual offenders to avoid them coming back to the environment in which they are tempted to act out another crime. That bill proposed electronic monitoring. It was to give judges the discretion to put electronic shackles on individuals without warrants, without charges even, so that when they came into the area of a playground or something like that a bell would go off via satellite and the police would come and pick them up.
If there is ever any question in this House that the debates we have on legislation can have an impact, the debates that Bill C-55 sparked and the criticism that came in this House as a result of the concept of putting electronic shackles on people before there had been any arrest or charge resulted in that bill being thrown out. In other words, in the last parliament a bill came forward from the justice department which in comparison to what has been proposed by the member for Calgary Centre was draconian. What the member for Calgary Centre proposes does have merit.
What the member is simply saying is that when a pardon is granted it should be a discretionary pardon in the sense that the solicitor general through the Criminal Records Act reserves the right to release the information of that record to certain groups and individuals who seek to know whether a person soliciting employment that involves responsibility with children has a previous conviction.
This is not unreasonable. This is actually much more reasonable than having some sort of device attached permanently to someone to prevent them from coming anywhere near children.
My problem is simply that I am not sure we need the legislation of Bill C-284 to accomplish the mission the member for Calgary Centre is setting out to do. I cannot pretend to be an expert on the Criminal Records Act but I have read all the previous speeches, including his, and it does seem the solicitor general already has latitude. I agree with this legislation in principle, but rather than using legislation to accomplish what he is trying to do we could probably do it by regulation.
Partisan politics aside, this is where private members' hour becomes very important. The member for Calgary Centre has raised an issue that does concern us. He suggests the direction the government may take and if we set aside partisan politics, if hon. members listened carefully to the speech of the parliamentary secretary for the justice department, they would have heard her say the government is interested in this. The government is listening. The government does care about it.
I think the member for Calgary Centre has accomplished something very important. He is touching on an issue that is much broader, privacy and criminality.
I congratulate him on bringing this before the House and I think at the very least he has brought his message forward to all Liberals on this side and to the government. This is an area where a fix can and should be made.