Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Saint John for her passion and usual eloquence on this and many other issues.
Canadians watching this debate must be cynical. The Alliance Party put forward a motion which reads:
That the government establish a national sex offender registry, by January 1, 2002.
It is like putting a motion forward that says the government should manage the fiscal resources of a government with care and diligence, which we do. Of course we agree with this because the government is already doing it. To put a motion in front of the House where the government has already implemented the policy, of course we will to support it. Canadians must become cynical when they see the opposition party putting forward a motion on something that is already being done.
There is another sense of hypocrisy. The opposition talks about supporting a registry for sex offenders, but it will not support a registry for gun control, which is an equally serious matter. It also talks about the members on this side supporting the motion and argues that there is no parliamentary dignity. When we support a motion suddenly we are charged with being hypocritical.
I would like to come back to the point the member for Saint John made. In my riding last year a pedophile was released into my community, in fact about a block away from where I live. His name is Peter Whitmore. It was well documented in the media. He served his full term of five years in a federal correctional prison and was then released.
We enacted legislation to put conditions on release. Those conditions were put in place and the offender was put into provincial custody when he breached that order. I know it caused a great deal of consternation in my community and a town hall meeting was held.
Eventually, because of the publicity and the reaction in the community, he was moved from that area to downtown Toronto. I believe he re-offended again.
This is a very serious issue. I will have no problem supporting the motion because the government is acting on a broad number of fronts.
I would ask the member, if the police are acting on the various infrastructures that are in place, the CPIC and other mechanisms, why does she think there is a problem being brought to the Chamber?