Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion, which reads:
That the government establish a national sex offender registry, by January 1, 2002.
Obviously I am able to support that motion because there already exists such a national registry. It is called the Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC. I want to make it perfectly clear that while I am able to support the motion, I certainly do not support some of the premises and some of the arguments we have been hearing from the official opposition in the course of today's debate.
If we would listen to the official opposition, we would believe that the government has been sitting on its hands and doing absolutely nothing as far as protection of society is concerned.
Madam Speaker, I know that as a former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice you are fully aware of many of the initiatives the government has undertaken over the last few years.
I would like to mention just a few of them. There is the national screening system that was put in place in 1994 and allows an agency serving children to request a local police criminal background check through CPIC on anybody wanting to be involved with that agency. In 1999 the solicitor general announced an additional $115 million to renew and enhance CPIC.
The Liberal government has taken a number of steps to protect our children and other targets of sex offenders. For instance, in 1997 the Liberal government passed a number of tough measures dealing with high risk offenders, including sex offenders, to strengthen the sentencing and correctional regime. These include a new long term offender designation which permits supervision of up to 10 years following release from prison. There is also a strengthening of the dangerous offender provision which requires judges to impose indeterminate sentences on all dangerous offenders. There are also new measures in judicial restraining provisions for certain individuals.
There is also the national flagging system. In the year 2000, Bill C-7 was passed, which ensures that even the records of pardoned sex offenders are available through the screening process. Colleagues have made also reference to the DNA identification act, whereby DNA profiles are preserved in a convicted offenders index.
These are all measures that have been put in place by the government to ensure the protection of society, and in particular, children and people who might be susceptible to sex offenders.
I will take the rest of my time to concentrate on what it is that we are doing here today and what the gist of the motion is. Today is a supply day, commonly known as an opposition day, when the opposition gets to choose the topic for debate and put a motion forward for consideration by the House.
Unfortunately, inasmuch as the whole issue of sex offenders is a very serious subject, we are once again seeing partisan politics coming from the opposition party. We hear those party members complain about the way things function around here and about how the government does not listen to their concerns, et cetera. When they have an opportunity to bring forward serious subjects in a serious fashion, we get tricked up opposition day motions. They employ a little device whereby, in this case, they amend the date on the motion, which prevents the government from bringing forward meaningful amendments to the motion so that we can deal with the very serious issues that this whole topic engenders.
There are a lot of things we could be discussing. There are a lot of implications in the subject matter we have here, but with the limited motion designed to entrap the government members so that they would be embarrassed by the vote, it is that trick question where a person is held culpable whether he or she says yes or no. This is the type of tactic that has been employed here. That is why I personally have no compulsion in supporting the motion on the basis that the registry already exists, because I think that is more or less in the spirit of the motion that has been presented.
It also gets us to the point that the opposition would have Canadians believe that crime is out of control in our streets and that we need these draconian measures that have been suggested from time to time in order to increase penalties and in order to protect society. That is the spirit I do not want to be seen to be contributing to and supporting through my support for this motion.
We have a perfect example of this, and that was the Sharpe decision on possession of child pornography, where the opposition, in an opposition day motion, brought a motion to invoke the notwithstanding clause to overturn the B.C. court's decision. Obviously the government was not prepared to invoke the notwithstanding clause to overturn a trial court decision or even the British Columbia Court of Appeal decision when we had recourse to the Supreme Court of Canada, so the government voted against that opposition day motion.
Lo and behold, in the most recent campaign in November 2000 it became an issue when the Alliance candidate in my riding said that the member of parliament for Simcoe North obviously supported child pornography because he voted against an opposition day motion, refusing to invoke the notwithstanding clause to overturn the Sharpe decision. By the way, the Alliance candidate was only parroting what his leader was saying on that same motion in the middle of the campaign. To that I attribute the increase in my plurality from 45% to 51%.
The constituents of Simcoe North know their member. They know that he does not condone child pornography, but that these arguments go too far. When one is dealing with extremists who take their arguments too far, this is a big help in opposing them.
The House should also know that polls were released this week showing that 54% of the Canadians questioned think that more funding is needed for crime prevention programs. What we do not need are measures such as those proposed by the opposition, which keeps calling for tougher sentences because they think that is what the public wants, even though all the experts say the opposite.
However, I think the Canadian public has passed the opposition on this issue. The Canadian public in that poll this week is way ahead of the opposition and knows full well that crime prevention and measures that lead toward rehabilitation are the best ways to protect Canadian society. The best way is not necessarily to bring in more draconian measures.
In conclusion, I just want to confirm that since the CPIC system already exists, which is in conformity with the motion, I will be able to support the motion, but I do want to make it very clear that I certainly do not support the spirit behind the motion.