Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to enter the debate on Motions Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5 in group one.
I would like to focus my remarks on three areas: first, DNA as a technology; second, the privacy issue which is addressed by these amendments; and, third, getting to the point which the Deputy Prime Minister made such a point of in question period today of doing what is right.
Referring to DNA as a new technology, we now have at the disposal of our law enforcement agencies a technology that allows them to pinpoint more accurately the identity of a perpetrator of a particular crime. Not only is it a very useful tool. It is a reliable tool and it is a valid tool. Those are the two absolutely essential criteria that need to be applied to any scientific test.
If two different scientists looking at the same sample come up with the same conclusion then we have some reason to believe the tests are reliable and are in fact are honestly depicting on a continuing basis, no matter who does the test, what the result will be. It is also valid in the sense that it is an accurate depiction of who gave a particular sample and to whom it belongs. This is a very useful and necessary tool to make sure that mistakes are not made.
Why is this tool so important when it comes to crime detection and to identification of perpetrators of crime? The number one point is obviously to protect society. We want nothing more in our society than to be secure, to have happy families and to be safe on our streets. We want to predict with reliability that we will be able to go down to the corner store to pick up our groceries and our lives will be safe, and that our children will be able to go to their school buses or walk to school without the need bodyguards and things of that sort. That is what it is for. It is also there to protect the suspect.
All kinds of cases in this regard come to mind. Most directly is the Milgaard case. He was incarcerated after being accused of having committed a crime until the DNA samples revealed unequivocally that he was not the person who had committed the crime but that someone else had committed it. For many years he suffered incarceration because he was improperly identified. We have here a very useful tool which should be available to law enforcement agencies.
A couple of the motions deal with privacy. Of course we are concerned about privacy. There is nothing more significant than privacy of the individual. In fact we have appointed in the country a privacy commissioner whose job it is to make sure that there is not an unusual, unnecessary or unconstitutional intrusion into the privacy of individuals.
Last weekend we had in this city a discussion on electronic commerce. The Information Technology Association of Canada came together with major business interests. What did they talk about? They talked about privacy. They talked about the security of information. They talked about the security of transferring funds from one institution to another or from one account to another.
What was the news report on Saturday in the Globe and Mail ? It reported that the CIBC had some chip problems. What was the problem? Several individuals had deposited money and it was not credited to their account via the automatic bank machine. The bank assures us and assures those individuals that they have a record and will be credited with those moneys. However it points out that the need for privacy is absolutely imperative and must be reliable and valid. It is essential that this be provided for in the act and it is provided for in the act.
It goes beyond that. We need to be sure that communication is maintained in a secure manner so that it goes only to those people who need to know, who have to know and for whose protection that information exists. We need to recognize that not only is it protected from eyes that should not see it but also protected from use by people who have no right or need to use that information. Privacy needs to be provided for and it is being provided for. The amendments that are being proposed are redundant in that sense and I commend the government for having done that.
I want to move to the third area of doing what is right. We need to do what is right. In this connection I refer to the kind of statement that has been made with regard to hepatitis C victims. The issue here is doing what is right. In the hep C case it is making sure the people who are suffering are properly looked after. That is one issue.
When it comes to the area of crime with which the bill deals we have three issues to consider. One is the careful identification and punishment of those who committed the crime. The second is to identify in order to protect future victims from further perpetration of the same individual against them. The third is the protection of society at large.
In a sense when somebody commits a murder, a robbery or a violent act of any kind indirectly we are all victims because we do not know where the criminal will hit next. It is important to protect the rest of us against that kind of perpetration.
What is the right thing to do? The right thing to do is to use the absolute best technology and tools available for the identification of those who have committed crimes so that future victims can be protected and that the victim who is currently the object of a crime may say the person who did it has been properly identified and punished accordingly.
It goes beyond that as well. It means to do what is morally right. The moral thing to do is to provide the assurance for all of society that the number one concern of the government is to have a justice system that is fair and that has laws that are right. The laws must come out on the side of what is right and must punish that which is wrong. That generates confidence on the part of the individuals that they can rely on the law. More important and beyond that is the enforcement of the law.
We spent a lot of money hiring good, qualified and trained police officers and other law enforcement officers. We want to be sure that these people not only understand the law but recognize the significance of the law and are provided with all tools necessary to carry out the requirements of enforcing the law.
If we deny them the proper tools we cannot expect them to ensure our justice system meets the objectives for which it has been set out. We as the official opposition submit that the DNA test is one of those. The government will argue that is exactly what the bill is about. It provides exactly that but it is just the beginning. The government could have done so much better. It could have done a complete recognition of the DNA act and have given it to the law enforcement officers in such a manner that they could use it unequivocally, unassumably and without restriction.
Yet the bill restricts. It does not help. It starts and goes so far and suddenly the persons trying to enforce the law say they cannot go any further and the very thing needed to bring about a conviction is denied.
That is not the way a good legal system, a good justice system should work. It is not the way a solid, good enforcement agency should operate. It goes beyond this as well. It goes to the point of recognizing that in order to do this job right we need to ensure that evidence is intact, remains intact and is accessible only to those who need to know, and those individuals are the enforcement officers, the judges and the courts.
I submit that these three motions in Group No. 1 should be dealt with as being proposed. We would oppose the first motion. The second one we would support. The third and fifth ones we would oppose.