Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and a pleasure for me to stand and speak in support of establishing a national sex offender registry. I do so today in memory of Christopher Stephenson, an 11 year old Toronto boy who was abducted, raped and murdered by a repeat sex offender.
Joseph Fredericks had a long history of assaulting children. He spent most of his life in psychiatric institutions. He was on mandatory supervision when Christopher was killed. I fully recognize that in this particular case a registry may not have prevented this sadistic killer from committing such a horrific act. However, as many have argued here today, it may have prevented him from killing the young boy. It may have allowed police officers to find and incarcerate Fredericks before Christopher's death.
As noted in many of the speeches already presented by my colleagues, we are proposing to establish a registry that would contain the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders. Every offender would be required to register in person at his or her local police station at least once a year. During that time they would be required to provide any updated information that the police force may ask for in order to combat sex offences.
As already mentioned today, a number of provincial jurisdictions have established this registry already. In the case of Ontario, Christopher's law, or Bill C-31, received royal assent in April 2000. It established a registry that aims to ensure the safety and security of all persons in that province by providing the information and investigative tools required to prevent and solve crimes of a sexual nature.
Before proceeding further, I would like to caution members on the other side of the House, particularly those who were here in or prior to 1993, to carefully consider their position on the motion today.
I issue such a warning because I have a copy of an April 1993 document titled “A Liberal Perspective on Crime and Justice Issues”. Contained within that document are a number of recommendations put forward by the then official opposition, one being to “combat Canada's growing violent crime problem.”
I commend the Liberal Party that while it was in opposition it recognized and realized there was a growing violent crime problem. That problem is still here today.
One of the recommendations that was put forward appears on page 7 of the Liberal document: “to support the establishment of a national registry of convicted child abusers”. The rationale for the recommendation was:
Sex offenders represent almost 20 per cent of the incarcerated population and 10 per cent of the conditionally released population. These numbers are not an accurate representation as they include only those sentenced to two years or more in prison. Actual figures are much higher.
Over the past five years there has been a 20.4 per cent increase in the rate of admission of sex offences. Evidently more and more sex offenders will be reintegrating into Canadian communities.
The Liberal's own findings went on to reveal:
Repeat sex offenders are more than twice as likely to commit further sex offences, much more likely to violate conditional release conditions and more likely than any other offenders to reoffend with a non-sexual offence. However, treatment programs for sexual offenders are sorely lacking.
When referring to the Tory government at the time the document stated:
The federal government is spending approximately $98 million a year to incarcerate sex offenders and only $2 million a year on treatment programs to rehabilitate them.
It went on to state:
It is the norm, when it should be the exception, that convicted sexual offenders return to communities without any counselling or rehabilitation therapy.
I do not often agree with the Liberal Party, but I certainly agree with its findings in this instance. Most of my colleagues and I agree with the information that was given out by the Liberal Party in 1993 to support its own recommendation for a national registry of convicted child abusers.
The Liberal's information is fully supported by a number of good studies which repeatedly indicate that sex offenders have one of the highest recidivism rates of any criminal group, with an estimated 40% reoffending within five years of release.
As well, research indicates that offender treatment programs have shown limited results. Practitioners in the field of sex offender treatment never claim to cure sex offenders, but rather they claim to manage the risk of reoffending.
What has changed over the last eight years? What has changed since the Liberals produced this great document on growth and violent crime? What is it that has so adamantly changed their minds that they have not implemented the program they wished to implement in 1993? Why have they not established this registry?
Moderately more money is being spent on treatment programs. According to the CSC's most recent figures, approximately $150 million is spent to incarcerate offenders and a little over $8 million is spent on treatment. That is a slight improvement over the figures released by the Liberals when the Tories were in power.
Not all sex offenders are fully completing the courses, the necessary plans that are prescribed by the CSC officials, because treatment is not compulsory. When they are incarcerated it is not compulsory that they undergo rehabilitation programs.
I can only surmise that it must be amnesia. Perhaps the Liberal Party is growing old or perhaps it is strictly amnesia that is causing it to forget about the recommendations or promises it once so believed in, or claimed to believe in.
The Liberal government forgot the recommendation to support a registry just like it forgot the recommendation to scrap the GST, just like it forgot the recommendation to forget free trade, just like it forgot the recommendation to have an ethics counsellor who reported directly to parliament. We have a very forgetful government.
To better illustrate the need for a national registry I will read some excerpts from an article that appeared in the Montreal Gazette a number of years ago. It stated:
A pedophile named Martin Dubuc was convicted...for offences against children—again. This is the same Martin Dubuc who, as a boys' hockey coach in Laval, was convicted in 1986 for molesting team members, the same creep who, after his release from prison, did not let a lifetime ban on coaching in Quebec stop him.
He simply changed locales, becoming a coach and eventually president of the Minor Hockey Association of Southwest Montreal. But that neglect by the recreation establishment is an old scandal. The new scandal involves the schools. It came to light last week when Dubuc pleaded guilty to using the telephone to threaten several boys aged 10 to 13 and to incite them to touch themselves sexually. Somehow, he had slithered his way into elementary schools as a substitute teacher. And this was not a slip-up by just one organization. In recent years, three different school boards in the Montreal area had hired Dubuc.
The Gazette went on to say:
This case illustrates the chilling way in which predators with long criminal records can worm their way into positions of trust and authority to harm children.
The author of the article went on to say that this was not a slip-up by simply one organization. It was a slip up by many organizations. One of those organizations was the Liberal organization across the way. One of them was the Liberal government because it failed to establish the national registry that it had once recommended.
In closing, I call upon members sitting opposite to honour their past promises. It is better to be late than never. Sexual criminal offences are all about control and power. For the sake of our children, let us take control away from the offender and give it back to our police forces, back to those who would fight crime. For the sake of our children, let us protect society and let us begin now with a national sex offender program and registry.