Mr. Speaker, like you, I am very appreciative of any allotted time and I hope to make good use of it here this afternoon.
Prior to the interruption for question period I was speaking about the national sex offender registry and the need to implement it in such a way that the information would be both accurate and readily available, that is to say, that the information would be recorded in the first instance and would be available through a stand-alone system so that the information collected, for example, in British Columbia would be equally available to courts in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. It would be coast to coast.
I know that ministers like Tim Olive, who is here today, and John Hamm, the Premier of Nova Scotia, appreciate the fact that we need to have a national system in place that will allow policing services, victims services, the courts, the justice system generally to function with information that is accurate, that allows the system to protect, which is what it is supposed to do, at its most basic level.
The harm of a sexual assault is life-lasting. I would suggest that a failed prosecution or unsuccessful investigations can exacerbate the harm caused by these heinous crimes. It can further undermine the faith in the system. Again, the importance of having a stand-alone sex offender registry to ensure that information is disseminated across the country in a timely fashion and allows police to get this information and protect the public cannot be overstated.
Seriously, flaws can occur when the full picture is not before the court. I know you, Mr. Speaker, having practised law yourself, can appreciate the importance of evidence being accurate. If a person has a previous offence and has shown a previous proclivity toward sexual aggression, that necessary information must be available.
Under the current system and under a system that is combined with the existing CPIC, I suggest there is a reasonable expectation that the information will not be available. With critical pieces of the puzzle missing, it may result in an entirely different outcome at trial or perhaps an important element at the sentencing stage of a conviction if that information is not there.
Not unlike the taking of DNA at the time of arrest, which was a shortcoming of previous legislations, I would suggest that there are inherent flaws in the current bill. When the bill is sent to the justice committee we will have the opportunity to make the necessary corrections through amendment.
Those shortcomings have been pointed out by previous members. I would call the inability to have a stand-alone system as the most serious flaw in the bill before the House. The result is, of course, that a critical bit of information, a critical piece of evidence, may not be brought forward which might result in the police not having the ability to protect a young person from a serious assault.
A national system would also allow police greater access to this information and a greater ability to protect. This is the bottom line. It is a simple, good idea that would work and would require an investment of resource. Much of that resource, I suggest, already exists.
Again, to state it clearly, we should follow the infrastructure of the gun registry, which is used to register millions of inanimate objects with a purpose that does not work and will not protect the public, and apply that to a registry of some tens of thousands of sex offenders. We could then make that information available to the police, the courts and the justice system generally. We would then see a profound impact on the protection of the public.
The United States has registries that are currently up and operating. Ontario was the first Canadian province to establish such a registry of convicted sex offenders. It has, very genuinely, put forward the presumption that we can work together in using its system as a model. It demonstrates again where the initiative and the origin of goodwill is coming from in this instance.
Far too often we have seen the federal government demonstrate an arrogant, dismissive attitude toward the provinces. We have seen it with health and certainly with justice. This is another example where the provinces have said that we should take an existing system and apply it nationally.
What on God's green earth could be more important and more fundamental than protecting children from sexual offenders? I would suggest that this should be a top priority. I am quick to point out that the government has finally brought the bill forward but there are ways in which we can improve it and, sadly, the way in which it is presented is flawed.
The technology to create a stand-alone registry is available. It must be one of the government's top priorities. We have had upgrades to the CPIC system that allow for the flagging of pardoned records of sex offenders, so clearly there are inherent protections available. We have a system that hopefully will monitor those who are currently on probation and who have conditions of parole to adhere to. Yet a national sex offender registry, set up in a comprehensive national computer system and made available to police, is what is critical to improve the way in which we deliver the services today and monitor those who are currently under conditions of the court. The community has a right to know, I would suggest, and this leads me to the important issue of retroactivity.
I support the concept of retroactivity in this instance, as do attorneys general across the country, as do many police, victims' services and individuals working in the justice system who want to see that this system is working properly.
It is not double jeopardy, as has been suggested by members of the Liberal government. It is not a double punishment for those who are currently serving time for sex offences set out specifically in the Criminal Code to suggest that information about them be made available through a protected system of this registry to police and to the community in certain instances. There are safeguards that the government is aware of, yet there is some suggestion that for heinous criminals who are currently there, having conducted themselves in an abhorrent way and abused children, making it retroactive somehow would violate their rights, that it would violate their rights to have this information made available to certain individuals who are tasked specifically with protecting children.
There is a suggestion that there would be a constitutional challenge. Of course there would. As sure as night follows day, when there is a new bill from the government there is going to be a challenge. That goes without saying. Let it happen, but let us hope that it happens quickly. I would suggest again, for emphasis, that the importance here is that the proportionality test, which is always applied when it comes to issues such as this, the balancing of the rights of the individual versus the rights of Canadians to be protected, clearly is going to be weighted in favour of protecting children. It would be saved by one, so to speak, under a charter challenge.
For those who are currently convicted of sexual offences, who are currently serving time, who had the benefit of due process and appeals that have been exhausted, I would suggest that this would not be an infringement of their rights. To not do so, to not make that information available, I would suggest, is offensive not only to common sense but also offensive to the rule of law when one considers the benefit that comes from having information about those offenders and the threat that may be posed to young children.
Clearly it is always easy to criticize, but when there are easy, practical solutions, why would we not act? Why would we not do the right thing? Again I commend the government for having brought forward this legislation, finally, and having made this a government priority, but it is clearly not enough.
In terms of the practical solutions and many of those issues that we will revisit at the justice committee, I would suggest that the government could go a long way to restoring lost public faith in efficiencies and in priorities of government by simply scrapping the long gun registry and using that infrastructure to apply to a national sex offender registry. We could tailor existing infrastructure, that is, computers, personnel and systems, in a stand-alone way that is separate from the CPIC system to effectively have a registry that would protect Canadians.
Ontario, as I mentioned, was willing to put forward a plan that would apply the system it is currently using to the federal system in the hopes of encouraging the government to adopt this.
I want to suggest as well that there are many other ways in which we can tailor the existing criminal law to help protect young people. I have a private member's bill which would expand the probation orders to allow judges to make orders to protect young persons in dwelling houses, which is where most sex offences occur, sadly, by persons known to young individuals.
In conclusion, I want to say that with the bill we have an opportunity here to do something very significant and substantive to protect children and to at the same time restore faith if the government will in fact adopt a stand-alone sex offender registry and treat these occasions with the greatest of seriousness in bringing in a registry system that will truly protect young people in the country.