Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure today to table a petition from two of my constituents about dangerous sexual offenders. This petition was initiated because there is a dangerous sexual offender in our community. There has been much discussion of this in the media. Citizens and people interested in this issue realized that there is a flaw in the 1996 legislation on dangerous offenders and those under long-term supervision.
Even though legislation is not retroactive, the people who signed this petition are asking us to amend section 818, which makes conditional release available to dangerous sexual offenders. Furthermore, they are asking us to ensure that offenders like Mr. Bégin will remain in jail as long as they are still considered dangerous.
We collected about 5,000 names on this petition and it is my great pleasure to table it in the House today.