I would ask the Conservatives not to heckle me or I will embarrass them about their vote on the Tlicho bill.
They ensure we are getting privacy rights to support the objectives and the intent of Parliament for all Canadians. People can read about it in their annual reports, but I can tell everyone they give the DNA data bank and its operations an A plus.
The banking of DNA evidence from the past is like a justice time machine. It can help the investigator solve a case that went cold many years ago. The newest of DNA technologies helps to focus the investigation and can even exonerate the innocent.
The DNA data bank's success is based on a simple formula. The more profiles entered into the convicted offender index and the crime scene index, the more hits generated from comparing the two to help police investigators solve serious crimes.
One such hit solved the vicious 1992 murder of a convenience store attendant in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The killer used a 30 centimetre store knife to stab the victim dozens of times. As she lay bleeding to death on the floor, he snatched $300 from the cash register and two cartons of cigarettes.
His escape on foot in a blinding snowstorm made it impossible for police dogs to follow the trail. There were other leads, several cigarette butts, and a used coffee cup, but forensic science was not far enough advanced in 1992 to extract useful samples for DNA analysis.
Local police conducted a massive investigation but the murder remained unsolved for more than a decade. By January 2001 technology had progressed far enough to allow authorities to establish a DNA profile from the items carelessly discarded at the scene of the crime. The profile was added to the DNA data bank's crime scene index.
In a totally unrelated case nine years after the murder and hundreds of kilometres away, an Ontario court convicted a 28 year old man of assault causing bodily harm. The judge ordered the offender to provide a biological sample for the purpose of forensic DNA analysis.
When the profile was entered into the DNA data bank, it generated a hit with the convenience store crime scene. This discovery led to an elaborate undercover police operation that eventually led to the confession and mandatory life sentence for the brutal killing.
The DNA data bank's contributions are not limited to Canadian cases. Through an international agreement involving Interpol, police agencies are collaborating more frequently on challenging multinational investigations.
One such case involved police officers in Ohio who used a popular television program to profile a troubling case involving sexual assault and murder. The broadcast generated several telephone tips, including one from a viewer in western Canada who thought the suspect looked familiar. The tip was called into the local RCMP detachment and the suspect was eventually found under an alias in an Alberta prison.
At the time of conviction the offender had been ordered to provide a biological sample and his DNA profile had been entered into the DNA data bank's convicted offender index. Scientists at the DNA data bank found a match between the DNA profile from the Ohio scene and that of the convicted offender, clearly linking the offender to the murder scene. After serving out his prison term in Canada, the offender was deported to the U.S. to face murder charges.
I should point out that our international success using DNA evidence is carried out by a special international agreement. Any sharing of this kind of evidence is carried out according to the privilege of the justice system and with the privacy considerations that Canadians value and embrace.
I remind hon. members that the national DNA data bank serves as one of the most powerful enforcement tools available to Canadian police and courts. Almost 2,300 serious crimes have been solved over the past four years through the help of the evidence gathered by DNA data bank scientists.
Even more encouraging is the fact that as the data bank approaches full capacity, its impact will increase even further as a greater number of samples are processed. Enhanced automation in robotics will help scientists process even more DNA samples in a shorter period of time.
In Canada and abroad we can look forward to many more success stories as awareness increases and the legislation and technology continue to improve.