Madam Speaker, I rise for a number of reasons.
First I rise in support of the Group No. 2 motions to amend Bill C-3, an act to establish a DNA databank. In speaking to those motions some things have to be clarified for those who will be listening to and reading this debate. I refer to some of the comments made earlier in the House.
There is a question everyone is interested in when we deal with this subject. It was raised at the committee on numerous occasions. My hon. colleague from Crowfoot and I had discussions about this matter. The question is what is the difference between the DNA samples and fingerprinting? We have heard various scenarios around that. It was the subject of reasoned debate and questions to many of the witnesses who came before the justice committee during the many weeks we took to examine this piece of legislation.
I have heard comments in the House today that there is no real difference, that this is the new fingerprinting technology as we move into the next millennium. But there is a clear difference and it has to be enunciated and understood. Although I have still not received the written decisions of the supreme court justices that were referred to earlier on a point of order, it is my understanding that they concur with my interpretation of the difference between fingerprinting and DNA analysis.
To put this into the simplest terms, I questioned different members of the justice department. Let me explain it this way. The taking of a DNA sample is a taking of the self. It is a taking of a piece of the person, whereas a fingerprint is an image of the person.
Perhaps even a simpler way to put it would be to say that if one thinks a crime was committed at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, one might take a photograph of that home. That is like a fingerprint. But to give the authorities the right to walk into the home and take the furniture is a completely different thing.
It is a misnomer to say, as we move with this new technology into the next millennium, that it is the same as fingerprinting. It is not. It is an intrusion into the very sense of the person, into the very being of an individual. When my colleague, the hon. member for Charlesbourg, talks about the necessity of making sure that we have safeguards, it is to protect the individual self from any intrusion by the state, by the government into a person's most fundamental being.
I think that point needed to be clarified. It is an interesting debate. It is an interesting question. As we enact this legislation and as it takes shape over the next three or four years before it comes back to this House for review, it will be interesting to see exactly how both the authorities and the courts deal with that question.
If I can move to the issue before the House, that is, the questions put by my hon. friend from the Bloc, I support them in part. I submitted myself a very similar amendment which I believe the government looked at carefully.
It was my contention that the DNA ought to be destroyed absolutely. My colleague has indicated in his amendment that the index should be destroyed without delay.
The interesting thing is that there was considerable concern among the committee members when we were told that the DNA index of an innocent person could not be destroyed absolutely. That was the question put to them. “Why do we not say that the index will be destroyed if the person is innocent?” There was a pause and then we were told “On the computer screen we cannot destroy, absolutely, that index. Fragments of it will remain, but they can't be used for anything. It is impossible for anybody to detect what it means”.
We have heard over and over again in this debate that technology is moving at a rapid pace, that we can barely keep up with the advances in science. Who is to say that if an innocent person's DNA is taken and analysed and put into the databank and traces of it remain that the technology in 10 years will not be there to take those traces and piece them together to determine what the genetic code of an individual is, whether they have a predisposition to certain illnesses, whether they ought to be insured and whether they ought to be hired for particular jobs?
I think the motion put forward by the member for Charlesbourg has some real merit. For that reason I would support Motions Nos. 4, 6 and 13, all of which provide safeguards for the destruction of the DNA profiles and bodily samples.
Why should we keep those samples? My colleague asks a good question. We live in an age of media celebrity. One can only imagine how much some hair samples from the scene of the accident where the Princess of Wales was killed might fetch on the open market if they were stored in some databank in some DNA laboratory for the next 20 years. Why not destroy them? Why not ensure that privacy is protected and that people are safeguarded?
There have been some comments that the bill does not go far enough in terms of giving the police what they want. That goes to the merit and the substance of the bill and I will speak to that later on.
Today I should point out that we are only at this point debating the amendments to the bill, so I do not want to use up any more time than I have to. With regard to the amendments in Group No. 2, I can indicate my support.