Madam Speaker, I gather that is not taken as a point of order. I did not make any remark about members opposite but since the point has been raised I will say that normally one finds more members in the opposition benches than on the government benches.
I was remarking on the heckle of a member opposite who said what a waste of time to have a quorum call. They believe it is a waste of time participating here in the highest chamber of democratic deliberation in the country.
That reflects the sterling commitment to democracy and conscientious representation we saw from members opposite on the hepatitis C vote. It is shameful.
It is interesting that members opposite are not willing to sit here and discuss this important bill to provide amendments to Bill C-3 on DNA identification.
The Reform Party supports the principle of the bill which is to provide access to our police forces and agencies to use the new biological technology available to them to develop evidence for the prosecution of criminals accused of serious crimes.
This kind of DNA identification is something the Reform Party has been pressing for over several years. It is well known one of the raisons d'être of our party is to promote a justice system where the rights of victims are placed in greater balance contra the rights of criminals.
In all these bills dealing with the Criminal Code and evidentiary matters, sentencing matters, we must as members of this place strike a balance, an equilibrium between the civil liberties of citizens to not be convicted except in accordance with due process of law and in accordance with principles of fundamental justice on the one hand and on the other hand to ensure that we have a justice system that functions and throws away the bad guys.
I think all too often we end up with the wrong balance. All too often we become too concerned about the civil liberties of the Karla Homolkas of the world and not sufficiently concerned with empowering our peace officers and our police to enforce the criminal law.
It is a good thing from our perspective that the government finally has come forward with some step in the right direction of DNA identification in Bill C-3 but we do find the bill falls short on a number of points.
Motion No. 1 from a member of the Bloc Quebecois is with regard to respect for privacy rights. This proposed amendment goes on through six clauses giving detail of safeguards that should be in the legislation with respect to privacy. Quite frankly, this motion is redundant in so far as the bill already contains adequate safeguards to protect privacy of people vis-à-vis DNA identification.
Section 487.07(1) on the respect of privacy and sections 487.08(1) and (2) on the use of bodily substances already recognize the potential damage if DNA information is improperly used. Also there are penalties included in section 487.08(4) which provide penalties for the contravention of these areas protecting privacy. As a result we find Motion No. 1 redundant and therefore we will be opposing it.
Motion No. 2 comes from an hon. member of the New Democratic caucus. It precludes private agencies and labs from taking samples. It essentially limits the collection of DNA samples to the government through public agencies. This seems like a sensible enough safeguard and we will therefore support Motion No. 2.
Motion No. 3 in this group of amendments deals with safeguards against the wrong kinds of people accessing information stored in the DNA databank and proposes a registry of those who would be accessing the information.
Again we find this redundant in so far as provisions are already included in the act to protect against unauthorized personnel from accessing the personal DNA information included in the databank.
Finally, Motion No. 5 deals with a review for the privacy commissioner to ensure that the act is not contravening the privacy rights of Canadians. This seems like a completely unnecessary amendment in so far as Bill C-3 already empowers the privacy commissioner to review violations of people's privacy rights as enumerated in the privacy laws. We will be opposing Motion No. 5 for that reason.
We really need to ensure with respect to all the amendments in Bill C-3 that our police agents, our peace officers, are able to enforce the law without undue red tape, burdens and hurdles. We want to ensure that the civil liberties of Canadians and their rights to privacy are protected, but not at the expense of hamstringing the people who have the difficult job of investigating serious crimes and who need the evidence to convict and effectively prosecute the worst criminals in society.
I look forward to speaking to future amendments on Bill C-3 as we proceed through the debate.