Madam Speaker, I listened for 20 minutes to the hon. member for Mississauga West going through his rendition of how he sees this bill coming into effect.
I know he has concentrated, as have most members on the Liberal side of the House today, on the value of CPIC as a form of registration. Yes, CPIC is a tool. It is a tool used by the police. That is what it is designed for. It is designed to collect and build up a database on the criminal pasts of many people. Sex offenders certainly would be part and parcel of that whole affair. Nobody denies that CPIC is a tool. However we are talking about something far beyond what CPIC provides.
As a police officer for 22 years I know the value of CPIC. I also know it does not track pedophiles or sexual offenders. It does not require sexual offenders to register. That is the downfall of relying solely on the CPIC system that is designed for a police database and expecting it to account for that problem.
I recognize that the member realizes that CPIC is not the total panacea. It will not fix everything. This registry, I believe, will be a leap forward in making sex offenders more accountable.
To go back to the CPIC situation, what happens if a pedophile changes his name? They do that on a regular basis while in jail. What happens if a sex offender has a pardon? That is as much a part of the process as it is for any criminal. They are changing their names and receiving pardons, and a stop by a police officer on the street or even a check on the CPIC system will not reveal that they are in fact a criminal.