Mr. Speaker, my answer to that is what the police testified before the committee. I use the Olson case as an example because it clearly illustrates the points I am trying to make. One is that violent sexual offenders progress to a pattern of other criminal activity. If we can take the sample when people are charged, at least somebody like Olson would have come up on the screen. It would have matched itself right away.
The government talked about a cost of $4,500 to process all this stuff. I quote Dr. Ron Fourney: “When the database gets established, we fully intend to use a control standard by way of collecting. I showed you some bloodstained cards. We can put blood on that card, do a one millimetre punch off the card and process the DNA in about 15 or 20 minutes. Having it ready for CPR and running it through the entire test it is estimated that one sample will cost $50 to $60”. Here is a case of 15 to 20 minutes.
If we could all buy life insurance for that same price would we not all buy it? That is what this is. DNA is life insurance for Canadian citizens.
It is insurance to make sure that one does not get raped or robbed by somebody who is a continuous offender. It allows society to know that the minute they are arrested and charged they can be checked in the databank. If they have committed rapes in Ontario and they are in British Columbia they are not going to escape.
I had an interesting case today about people going through the system. I just received a report a few minutes ago about a man in British Columbia who was charged and convicted for the rape of a young British Columbian woman with cerebral palsy a number of years ago. He was ordered deported with his conviction. He served his time, got one-third off for good behaviour and is on the streets today. The young woman who was raped and her mother are terrified that he is going to come back and go after them.
I phoned the immigration department and was told that he was ordered deported and that the department should find him. The system is failing. I use that as an example to match against the DNA. In this case we have a convicted rapist now wandering the streets of Vancouver. If we do not use DNA we are going to have convicted criminals coming in, getting out and then we go after them later. They know how to disappear very fast. That is why it is so important that we get this bill improved before it gets third reading.