Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member opposite.
For the benefit of those who are listening today and also for those who are in the House, I think we should clarify the issue which Bill C-69 is attempting to address.
In Canada today many people do not realize what a pardon is. I always thought when there was a pardon it meant that some new information had come to light and the person had been convicted wrongly, was not guilty of the offence and, therefore, they were pardoned and the whole record was struck.
However, that is not the case in Canada with the way our parole board and pardons division work. What happens in Canada today is that once a person has been convicted, sentenced and then released on parole, if they have not been caught committing another offence and have not re-offended, they can apply for a pardon.
Many people do apply for pardons. Let me quote some numbers for the clarification of those listening.
When a person applies for a pardon, what are their chances of getting it? According to the National Parole Board records for the last number of years, only about 1% of the total decisions that it makes every year are denials. In 1996-97 there were over 18,000 decisions made with respect to pardons. Of those decisions, 184 were denials, which is about 1%, and 12,566 pardons were granted for mixed indictable offences or summary offences. In effect, about 96% of the people who applied for pardons received them. It is almost a fait accompli.
The effect of a pardon is that a person's record is now sealed, hidden, and no one will ever know they had this on their record.
This bill would allow, in certain circumstances, for that pardoned record to be opened. We think that is laudable and it is consistent with a bill which our party put forward, which has been in the House for some time, Bill C-284, which calls for basically the same thing. The government has come forward with its bill which has followed ours in the same vein.
The type of pardons that we want to bring to light are the ones that relate to sexual offences, particularly sexual offences against children. There are some good reasons for that when we look at the recidivism rates of those people who are involved in that kind of thing.
The government member equated a pardon with being rehabilitated. From government studies we can see that just because a person has received a pardon for a grievous offence, such as a sexual offence against children, the recidivism rates are so high that we cannot equate a pardon with rehabilitation.
A report was prepared by Corrections Research and Development, which is a government department, concerning child molester recidivism. It states:
The initial follow-up of the child molesters found that 42% were reconvicted of a sexual or violent crime during the 15 to 30 year follow-up period.... The highest rate of recidivism, 77%, was for those with previous sexual offences, who selected extrafamilial boy victims, and who were never married.
This is a 15 to 30 year program with rates as high as 77%.
A report to the federal, provincial and territorial ministers on information systems on sex offenders against children stated:
Reconvictions underestimates the rate of reoffending—as only a fraction of the sexual offences against children result in the offender being convicted. Consequently, the proportion of child molesters in the present study who reoffended would be expected to be greater than 50%, but the precise proportion is difficult to estimate. All the men could have reoffended, but only half got caught.
Hon. members can see that the concern is the rate of recidivism, and rightly so I would submit.
What about the ability of our medical profession and our institutions to rehabilitate people who are in this situation? Again I quote from a government report by the Correctional Service of Canada, entitled “Factors Related to Recidivism Among Released Federal Sex Offenders”. It states:
It is notable that the pedophile group had the highest rate of sexual recidivism relative to incest offenders or rapists.... This finding suggests that pedophiles may be more persistent with respect to committing sex crimes over time.
Another report of the Correctional Service of Canada states:
Does sex offender treatment work? We are still uncertain. There is disagreement even amongst the most prolific and knowledgeable researchers in the area.
As hon. members can see, the whole concept of rehabilitating people who have fallen to this level of depravity is in question. Therefore, the whole premise of giving pardons to people who have not been caught is a moot point and in fact puts our children at risk. That is why, in some ways, I am glad that Bill C-69 has come forward. However, later I will make the point that it needs to be strengthened.
Who should have access to this information if there is a pardoned record out there? It is our premise and the premise of the bill that we put forward that the key people who should have access to this information are those who are hiring people or bringing in volunteers to look after children. These organizations want to know that every possible check has been made to ensure that those they are bringing in to care for the children which they are responsible for have been thoroughly examined and that they are not putting their children at risk or putting these people back in a situation where they will fall prey to old problems.
We questioned various groups. We looked for support on this issue and we asked how they felt about it. We have support from groups right across the country. I have in my hand a list of 40 different national child care organizations which desperately are asking why we are hiding these pardoned pedophile records from them when they are bringing people on board. What is the point of not informing them of this kind of information? They want change.
These groups include the Adoption Council of Canada, boys and girls clubs, Canadians Addressing Sexual Exploitation, minor hockey associations, and even The Sheldon Kennedy Foundation. These groups point out that people who are predisposed to this type of depravity work to put themselves in positions of trust or care over children. They purposely do it. That is why we need to make every attempt to protect children from this situation.
We have also heard from the YMCA and, interestingly enough, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General and the Minister of Family and Social Services from my province of Alberta. Both of those ministers have sent strong letters endorsing the bill which we put forward, Bill C-284, which requires passing along information concerning pardoned records to groups which care for children. In some ways Bill C-69 attempts to do the same thing.
It is probably not surprising to anyone that all of these groups want access to this information. We all say publicly that we want to do all we can to care for children. It is important and incumbent upon this House that we make every move possible and I am glad we are debating this bill today.
There are some key points in Bill C-69 which need to be strengthened. This bill is the weaker sister of Bill C-284, which was brought forward some months back and is now before the justice committee. Bill C-69 proposes to possibly extend—and possibly is the key word here—greater background check information to a person or organization responsible for the well-being of one or more children, or vulnerable persons, or to the person to whom the application has been made for a volunteer position. The government is saying that possibly it will release this information under Bill C-69.
Bill C-69 states that certain criminal records for which a pardon has been granted or issued would be flagged in the system, retroactively if necessary, as part of the criminal convictions retrieval system. That is a good idea. We support it. However, it does not specify which offences would be flagged. It states that those will later be mentioned in the regulations. We have not seen those regulations. We are not sure exactly which ones are going to be included and which are not. When this bill goes to committee we will be calling for a clear disclosure of which offences will be included in the regulations under by Bill C-69 because they are not explicit in the legislation.
Section 6.3 of Bill C-69 requires the consent of the job applicant, in writing, for the authorities to check to see if there is a flagged criminal record. I do not have a problem with that, but even when the person has given consent the solicitor general still has the authority not to disclose this information to the hiring body. It seems strange to me that a person can give consent for his pardoned record to be checked, after it has been confirmed that he is applying for a position of trust or care over children, and yet the solicitor general will not make it automatic that this group know the person's past. The government wants to continue to have the discretion to say that it will decide in every case whether it will release this information.
It is hard to understand why the solicitor general might choose not to release this information if the applicant himself or herself has already approved its release.
This concerns me. We have been pardoning pedophiles for 20 years and we have never released this information. There is a lengthy process involved to get it. It is so lengthy and cumbersome that most people do not even know it exists. We have never made any attempt to advise people that they could be bringing on board someone who has been pardoned of a sexual offence against children.
Will anything change with Bill C-69? We are still leaving the discretion in the hands of the solicitor general. If we know there is a risk, and the person has signed off on it, it seems to me that it should be automatic, as opposed to more red tape and more bureaucracy.
There is a real problem with this. Julian Fantino, head of the police association, said the police are put in a difficult position because of Bill C-69. An organization requests to have a record checked. The person signs off on information with respect to his pardon and criminal activity. They go in and find that there is a flag for a pardon. Under Bill C-69 the police could not tell the hiring organization that the flag is there because they would be violating the Canadian Human Rights Act for revealing that there is a pardoned record. It has to go all the way up the ladder and all the way back down, and they still may not be able to give the information if the solicitor general says no.
That puts the police in a very difficult situation. If the conditions are met, we should be releasing the information. That is one of the amendments we will be calling for and that is consistent with what is called for in Bill C-284 which is already before the committee.
In the same vein, Bill C-284 calls for an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act which would allow organizations which are looking after children, or other vulnerable individuals, to make a decision not to hire if they find that someone has a pardoned record for a sexual offence against children. They could make a decision not to hire and not be later dragged into court for violating someone's human rights because of making that decision based on the existence of a pardoned record.
As crazy as that sounds, the fact is that if people are not hired because of a pardoned record their rights are being violated. Therefore, we thought it necessary to include, as advised by legal counsel of the House, a clause in the Canadian Human Rights Act that would allow these organizations to make a decision not to hire and not be held accountable for breaching the Canadian Human Rights Act.
This has not been touched by Bill C-69 and I think that it opens up children's organizations to all kinds of new litigation and liability should they decide not to hire someone who has a pardoned record.
The government is again following Reform's lead by putting forward legislation which the solicitor general initially opposed. He opposed Bill C-284 when it was introduced. Now he has introduced a weaker sister, a look alike bill, under his own name, Bill C-69.
Part of the reason he has done that is because there has been such strong public support for Bill C-284, which has come in the form of letters and petitions. In fact, the whole reason the bill came to the House and was passed on second reading was because of a 25,000 name petition from parents and children's organization who were saying that they had to have access to this kind of information.
We have seen the government come forward with its own bill, Bill C-69. As it is presently worded, Bill C-69 only goes part of the way toward better protecting our most vulnerable. It puts too much discretion in the hands of the solicitor general, the same solicitor general who has held this information for 20 years and not revealed it to these same children's organizations. There is discretion all the way up in Bill C-69 as to whether or not these organizations will be informed of the pardoned record.
All the criteria has been met. A children's organization is hiring somebody to look after children. The person has agreed that his or her record can be checked including the pardoned record. But that record is still not going to be released without the solicitor general's okay.
By not requiring disclosure once the criteria is met and the consent is given, or specifying the type of crimes it is aimed at, Bill C-69 is much weaker than Bill C-284 which is at committee.
By not amending the Canadian Human Rights Act which I just mentioned, Bill C-69 opens up children's organizations and agencies caring for vulnerable individuals to liability and litigation by an individual who feels that he or she was discriminated against on the basis of his or her pardoned record.
Even with the shortcomings of Bill C-69, Reform still supports its intent. However, we would much rather work with the current Bill C-284 at committee stage. It essentially proposes the same thing as the bill the solicitor general has belatedly introduced here. We have expressed our desire to work with both bills and to work with the solicitor general by accepting amendments to Bill C-284 in committee and combining them on the merits of both bills.
By co-operating at committee stage the House will not have to start at square one in the legislative process as the solicitor general is proposing with Bill C-69. After passing second reading it took four months to get Bill C-284 to its current committee stage. We can see what might be entailed in a potential delay of starting back at second reading of Bill C-69. It is good today that we are moving ahead to get both these bills in committee at the same time.
We hope the solicitor general will go beyond partisan politics and ensure prompt passage of strengthened legislation that will better protect our children from individuals who are predisposed to targeting and victimizing the most innocent of our society, our children. In the days ahead we look forward to bringing forward strengthening amendments to both bills in committee and coming back to the House with an improved package that will go through third reading quickly, then on to the Senate and eventually into law.