Madam Speaker, I want to take this issue a little further. I think we are now getting into more substance around the necessity for a national sex offender registry.
We have seen through the Department of Justice on numerous occasions what I would call charter constipation, a fear that if by some means any legislation might in some way be conceived or contrived to infringe upon an individual's rights we should try to stay away from it.
We are mandated and in fact expected to bring forward legislation that will respect individual's rights but also protect people. It becomes a matter of proportionality. There are numerous legal maxims and tests that apply when cases come before the court and there are these inevitable competing interests.
The hon. member has touched on the importance of protecting those in society who, in many instances, cannot protect themselves or are preyed upon by sexual offenders. By virtue of an individual having displayed tendencies of sexual aggression toward children and having been convicted through due process in a court of law, the hon. member is right to suggest that those rights that attach to other citizens are to some degree forfeited or the state then has a right to curtail that person's rights of movement, rights of access and rights of interaction. That is what parole conditions are about.
A person who has been convicted of murder is under parole conditions for life. Similarly, sex offenders upon release, in many cases, are given certain restrictions about where they can go, whether they can attend schoolyards or places where children are found. Therefore, it is that balance and that proportionality.
Is it not incumbent upon the government to put those rights of children ahead of others?