Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. member for Charlevoix with whom I have had discussions on this bill and who sits on the justice committee with me.
It is also a pleasure to say that for the second time in two days we see the beginning of some co-operation between all parties in this House on a particular measure that is important to the people of Canada.
Yesterday we had an opportunity to discuss in this House the unanimous report of the justice committee dealing with victims of crime. The speeches yesterday reflected the commitment of all parties to ensure that those people who are victims of crime have a role to play in the criminal justice system.
For those who are watching on CPAC and for those who read Hansard it is important to know that government sometimes can work together with others. That is not to say there are not some areas in this bill that need addressing and they have been raised by other members in the House.
We in the New Democratic Party will ensure that this important legislation gets to the justice committee as quickly as possible. It deals with protecting those who are most vulnerable in our society, children and adults who may be vulnerable.
This has always been the commitment of the New Democratic Party. It is why we have always pushed for inquiries into child poverty. It is why we have always ensured that the disabled are protected under human rights legislation. We in the New Democratic Party recognize that the strength of our society is measured in the way it protects those who are most vulnerable.
We applaud this piece of legislation. It is important to know that it did come forward in another bill, a private member's bill which is now before the justice committee. Recognizing that there was mounting support for that, the solicitor general drafted his own legislation and introduced it to the House a few days ago and it will now go to committee.
That legislation does a number of things. It attempts to protect children from pedophiles. The mechanism by which it allows that responds to those many groups that have been mentioned by other speakers, the boys and girls clubs, the YMCA.
I was the president of the board of directors of the YMCA in my own community. We had to deal on an ongoing basis with hiring people, with volunteers who came in to work with children. We had to ensure that we were not submitting the children to any kind of risk.
I also recall in my own riding when an organization through no fault of its own did find itself subject to litigation. One of its volunteers was found to have abused children in the care of that organization. The community was concerned. That organization, which had good principles and laudable goals, was set back many years.
Those organizations will be pleased to see this legislation come before the House today.
It would be remiss if we did not say that for a long time in this society we did not recognize that children and vulnerable people could be the subject of criminal actions of a sexual nature. It is to the credit and strength of character of the many people who have come forward in the last few years. The Sheldon Kennedy organization has been mentioned. Children and adults have come forward to expose what has happened to them. Whether it was at Mount Cashel, residential schools, hockey rinks, it takes tremendous courage to come forward. Today, by the passage and examination of this legislation, I think we are responding to those needs in our society.
I echo the comments I made yesterday. It is important to recognize there has to be a balance. Where we have to be careful with this legislation is in the protection of human rights and the protection of privacy. This bill makes an effort and we will examine it very closely in committee to ensure that it meets all the qualifications so that privacy is protected.
One of the good things in the bill and one of the things we pushed for in the private member's bill was that the individuals who apply to work with children in an organization be notified. They have to give their consent to the searching of their records to see if they have been pardoned for any kind of sex offence against children. By ensuring they have to consent to that, we allow them to withdraw their names if that is the way they want to go, or to allow them to know this check is taking place.
The member for Calgary Centre spoke to this and raised some very good questions. I think they are questions we will examine in committee. I expect he, our party, the Bloc and the Progressive Conservative Party will bring forward amendments to the legislation to ensure that it meets both of those needs. The member made some good points but there are some other points I have to raise in response to what he said.
The hon. member discussed what pardons were and how many people receive pardons. It is important to note that 97% of those who receive pardons never reoffend. There is some indication that those who receive pardons are deserving. We are a human system. There are those who do reoffend and perhaps they ought not to have been granted a pardon. A 3% error rate is not perfect, but it does justify that the pardon is appropriate for the other 97% who have not reoffended.
Many pardons are granted for things other than sexual offences. It is important for people to understand that the vast majority are for shoplifting offences that occurred 20 years ago, or a disturbing the peace charge that happened when someone was in university. They may have been minor incidents but they provide those persons with criminal records for the rest of their lives. When they apply for a position where they have to be bonded, where they cannot have a criminal record, they may lose that job for that kind of thing. The pardon is there for a purpose.
My colleague from Calgary Centre talked about the recidivism rate of pedophiles. He is right. We are right to be concerned about that. When we talk about pardons, it is important to understand that in order to receive a pardon, one must have been clear of any reoffence for at least eight years. If there is a high rate of recidivism among pedophiles, one would hope they are not getting pardons. Clearly if that reoffence happens in four or five years, they are not going to receive that pardon. That being said, we can never be too cautious when it comes to protecting the innocent and the vulnerable.
Some of the sections of this proposed law we support strongly in the New Democratic Party. We think it is important there be measures to ensure that the criminal records of pardoned sex offenders seeking positions of trust are available for screening purposes by placing a flag on the records of the sex offender so that police can be alerted and that a sealed pardoned record exists and that the police can request that record and request from the solicitor general authorization to open it. It is important for those organizations and for the protection of the children that those amendments be made to the law.
As I have indicated, it is important that the individual be advised that that is going to happen. They can then disclose to the organization themselves that such a record exists, or they will know at least that it will be brought forward. If they have nothing to fear, then they have nothing to fear.
There are questions however and some of them were raised by other speakers. In the interests of time I will not go through all of them. There is some question as to discretion and why the discretion would be permitted to the police to notify the organization or not. I question why that discretion exists. As a member of the justice committee, it is one I look forward to debating at committee.
I am struck that perhaps that discretion ought to be there in case of an error, but I cannot imagine that this type of check would result in an error. One would hope it would not. Even if there were three John Smiths who applied for a position with an organization dealing with children and one of those John Smiths had been pardoned for a sexual offence, one would hope that there would be a way of distinguishing that person from the others.
These and other questions have to be raised in committee. They will be. I think there is broad based support for this legislation among all parties. I hope and expect at the justice committee that the amendments will be brought forward in the same way and accepted in the same way. I have to say that in my experience on the justice committee, for the most part that is what happens and it results in legislation like we had the other day.
If we can work together on this in an all-party fair manner in the interests of our children and those who are vulnerable, it may well bring forward in a timely fashion legislation to protect our children. We in the New Democratic Party are committed to that and that is the spirit in which we will approach this legislation.