Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in the House to take part in the debate on Bill C-23.
I am pleased to rise at third reading to speak in support of the government's Bill C-23. The bill would create a new act of Parliament, the sex offender information registration act, and would make important amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada.
Together, these provisions would bring into place a national sex offender registry for use by all our provincial and territorial partners. As many of my colleagues in the House will know, provincial premiers have unanimously called upon the federal government to assist them in creating a seamless registration system. A system that includes every jurisdiction would ensure a consistent approach across the country. This is so important.
The national sex offender registry that I am referring to would have three key separate components, the first one being the legislation that I speak about today. It properly should emanate from the Parliament of Canada so that the system will be a truly national system in scope and consistent from place to place across the country.
The second component is a national database that will be operated by the RCMP on behalf of all police agencies for their use.
The third component will be the administration and enforcement of the registration system by law enforcement agencies everywhere across Canada.
These elements combine to create an important new tool to assist police in the investigation of sexual offences committed by unknown persons. It would allow police to quickly consult the registry, to search its contents using established criteria and to develop possible suspects in the vicinity of the crime, or to eliminate potential suspects.
I say “quickly” quite purposefully because this is the essence of the system. Police have always recognized that when children are abducted, usually for a sexual purpose, and then murdered, that tragic ending usually happens within the first hours of the abduction.
Unfortunately, all is lost even when the crime is eventually solved, unless police can move quickly. The sex offender information registration act would allow our police to move rapidly to determine whether convicted sex offenders reside in the vicinity of the offence, to determine who they are, where they reside and to quickly decide if further investigation is warranted or if those individuals can be eliminated as suspects.
In brief, here is how the system would work. Following conviction and sentencing for one of the designated offences listed in the Criminal Code amendments, such as sexual assault, child pornography or sexual exploitation, the crown would be able apply to the court for a registration order. Registration would occur for sexual offences. For other offences where there is clearly a sexual component, registration would occur when the crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the act was committed with the intent to commit one of the designated sexual offences. The offender would have the right to appeal the order.
Once a court has ordered registration, notice would be provided to the offender requiring him or her to register in person at a designated registration centre with 15 days after the order is made or release from custody. The registration period would begin on the day the order was made and re-registration would be required once per year, as well as within 15 days of a change of name or residence. If the offender were absent from his home address for more than 15 continuous days, the registration centre would have to be notified.
Sex offenders would be required to remain registered for one of three periods. These periods would be geared to the maximum penalty available for the offence for which they were convicted: 10 years registration for summary conviction offences and offences with two and five year maximums; 20 years registration for offences carrying a 10 or 14 year maximum sentence; and finally, lifetime registration for offences with a maximum life sentence or when there is a prior conviction for a sex offence.
If the offender were to receive more than one registration order, the most recent order would determine the reporting date and would override previous orders. However the review period eligibility would be calculated from the date of the first order if it is still active.
Offenders would be required to provide local police and to keep current certain information, such as addresses, telephone numbers, date of birth, given name, surname, alias or aliases, and identifying marks and tattoos. And on subsequent occasions, when they attend at the registration centre, they would be obligated to update any of the information about themselves that is contained on the registry.
Under the proposed legislation, persons authorized to register information must collect only the information pertaining to the offence and resulting order. Information should be registered in the sex offender database without delay and treated confidentially. The sex offender would be able to request correction of information in the case of an error or omission.
Sex offender information would remain on the database indefinitely, except for final acquittal on appeal or free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy or the Criminal Code. In these cases, information is permanently removed.
The government is aware that this new police tool could be life saving but it is also an extreme intrusion into the lives of those who would be subject to the registration. Most will remain registered long after they have completed the sentence of the court and most, in fact 65% after 30 years, will not again be convicted of a similar offence. For those who are making a sincere effort to lead a law-abiding life, their efforts should not be cancelled out by the stigma of registration. Consequently, there is no provision in the legislation for public access to the registry.
Access to registry data, except by authorized persons for sanctioned purposes, would be prohibited and criminal penalties are provided for misuse of the data. Public protection, which is the central purpose of the registration scheme, would be provided by police through their strategic use of the information. In other jurisdictions, particularly to the south of us, public access has often led to misuse and misunderstanding that mistakenly alarms the public, sometimes even resulting in acts of vigilantism.
In those states south of the border that allow public access to sex offender registry information, more than 20 have been ordered by the courts to either cease operation or to introduce elaborate safeguards to prevent abuse. In a number of cases south of the border, boards or tribunals have been ordered established by the courts by which each case must be individually assessed to justify inclusion on the registry.
Here in Canada, we do things differently. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and when we put in place national schemes we attempt to ensure that those schemes are based on those rights and that those rights are protected.
We and our provincial and territorial partners unanimously agreed to avoid such disruption by providing a judicial process and procedural safeguards, and by strictly limiting those persons and the purposes for which access to registry information would be allowed under the legislation.
The safeguards that are provided in Bill C-23 have been carefully crafted in collaboration with our provincial and territorial governments. They provide for a fair and equitable system, while at the same time, an effective and efficient system. They will help prevent a successful court challenge that would reduce or eliminate the scheme due to its undue impact on the rights and liberties of these registrants without compromising the registry's effectiveness.
Persons whose convictions would normally lead to registration would have an opportunity to defend themselves against this presumption in court. Upon application by a crown attorney, the individual would be able to argue that placing his or her information on a registry would be “grossly disproportionate to the public interest in protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature”. Moreover, these same persons would be given further opportunities to make out this defence after 5, 10 or 20 years of registration have elapsed. They would also have the entitlement to apply for a termination order after receiving a pardon under the Criminal Records Act.
These safeguards would not only protect the rights of these persons against unreasonable inclusion in the registry, they would prevent the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from being used as a device to have the whole scheme set aside by the courts.
The important thing about this legislation is that it would set into place a national registration scheme that all the provincial and territorial governments agreed to in the fall of 2002. However there was not consensus as to those individuals who should be included on the sex offender registry. Therefore, at the time that the government originally tabled the bill in the House in December 2002, it would have only included those sex offenders who were convicted after royal assent and proclamation of the legislation.
However the federal government committed to continue to work with its provincial and territorial partners to determine if a consensus and a scheme could be built to bring retroactivity. In June the government announced that it had found consensus to include the Ontario sex offender registry information, which was partial retroactivity.
The government's commitment was such that it continued discussions with the provincial and territorial governments through their ministers, and happily, early this fall there was unanimous agreement to include any sex offenders who were still serving a sentence, whether in penitentiaries or prisons or in the larger community. If their warrants have not expired when this bill comes into force, they will be included. I am really pleased about that. I think many Canadians will be pleased with that and I think my colleague across the way are pleased with that.
I ask and I hope all my colleagues in the House will support Bill C-23, the sex offender information registration act, when votes are called.