Mr. Speaker, in March 2001 the government voted in favour of establishing a sex offender registry. Parliament ordered the government to complete it by January 2002. Two years later it finally introduced a bill that does not address the problem.
First, the legislation is not retroactive. Sex offenders have a recidivism rate of 40% but still not a single sex offender currently doing time will be part of that date base, and it is in the thousands. Worse, once an offender is convicted, an application still has to be made at the time of sentencing to even put his name on the list. Even then, an offender can apply to have his name kept off the list if it would cause them “greater harm than public good”.
The last thing we need to do is clog up our already overworked courts with appeals by rapists to respect their privacy. Bill C-23 is a perfect example of how Liberals make policy. It is weak-kneed, it has no direction, and it relies on the courts to make the hard decisions instead of Parliament. They should be ashamed of this bill.