Mr. Speaker, I too would like to add a few comments on the motion. I am a little concerned about why the government has at this late date brought this bill forward.
As the member who just spoke knows, the justice committee has been mandated to review this legislation in 2005. This appears to be no more than an election ploy designed to garner a few votes indicating that maybe the government is, after all, serious about fighting crime at this late date in its tenure.
Having read the bill I am concerned that what will happen, if the bill is brought forward in the next Parliament, is that it will tie the hands of the committee rather than allowing the committee to take a good strong look at the legislation and determine what needs to be done.
This is a direct contradiction of what the government has stated, that the committee is to be the master of its own process. This seems to be a direction by the government saying “this is as far as you go and no further”.
I noted with interest some of the comments by the member suggesting that the legislation was great legislation as it was because the courts had upheld the legislation. Frankly, I do not think that is a test of good legislation at all. The test of good legislation is not whether the court agrees with the legislation but whether it is effective in carrying out its purpose. Its purpose, of course, is to reduce crime by apprehending offenders.
Instead, we have a bill that simply has the lowest common denominator. Therefore it is no surprise that courts uphold the legislation. The reason there is no interference with constitutional rights is because there is no effective legislation in terms of apprehending individuals.
The government has chosen to depart from a constitutionally sound process. Let us look at the fingerprint situation. For a long period of time we have accepted that if people are charged with an indictable offence they are fingerprinted. There should be no difference with the DNA if it is done in an unobtrusive way. Similarly, there is no problem with the Constitution.
However, what the government is doing is limiting the powers of the police, not in a way that is in any way mindful of constitutional liberties but in a way that simply ties the hands of the police officers.
I have yet to hear a valid argument presented by the government on why we do not take the same approach with DNA as we do with fingerprinting. If someone has been charged with an indictable offence, DNA testing should take place in the same way as we do it with fingerprinting.
However it would not be automatic that the DNA is taken even where there are convictions. What the Liberal bill would do is divide the offences into different types of offences. There are three different types of DNA data bank orders: retrospective, prospective and retroactive.
In respect of the retrospective, the designated offence must have been committed before June 30, 2000 and the offender was convicted after that date. Prospective means that the designated offence was committed after June 30, 2000 and retroactive. In the retroactive situation, there needs to be an order of a judge in respect of the individual who was convicted before June 30, 2000 and is still under sentence.
One of the problems with the legislation is resourcing. If a crown attorney is required to go to the courts for these kinds of orders, given the burden on these crown attorneys and other justice officials to actually proceed to court, the chances that these orders will actually be taken are virtually nil.
This is very reminiscent of the Liberal sex offender registry. The Liberals said, after years of pressure from the Conservative opposition, that they would bring forward a sex offender registry but that the sex offender registry would not include anyone who had been convicted prior to the date of the registry coming into force. In fact, we would have had a registry with absolutely no names on it. It is quite disgusting that after a dangerous sex offender goes through a trial and is convicted by a judge or a jury that somehow there would be a violation of the offender's rights. That is just so much nonsense.
It is time the government balanced, not only the rights of a convicted accused, but the rights of the victim. It seems that the victims are consistently forgotten in the legislation and, indeed, the ability of police officers to effectively protect potential victims, never mind those who have already been violated by offenders.
The legislation brings forward all kinds of procedural matters that would hinder the ability of police officers and other justice officials to do their job.
I will not oppose the referral of the legislation to a committee but I am concerned with it. I am concerned that the government is trying to bind the hands of the committee and that the committee will not look at effective options for dealing with these problems because it will consider itself bound by the direction of the government as set out in the bill.
I would like to hear from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice that in no way will the legislation bind the legislatively mandated review that will take place of the DNA registry in 2005.
With those comments I am prepared to allow this to proceed forward to committee. I trust that the Minister of Justice will be giving the House and all Canadians some assurance that the committee will be entitled to look at the broader scope of the issues involved here.