Mr. Speaker, obviously, I am sure that the Minister of Justice has done his due diligence and obtained opinions, and there will probably be some range of opinions.
However, we are not talking about someone who comes before the court presumed to be innocent of any offences and with a clean record. In this case, we are talking about someone who has been before the courts on a violent or sexual offence that has encountered a two years sentence, sentenced once to two years, and then repeats the offence. The individual comes before the court, is convicted of a serious offence, either injury or sexual offence, with another two year sentence, and then appears before the court yet again. The individual is not innocent, but is proven guilty of that offence and has a sentence of two years or greater. At that point the court is saying that this individual must then be presumed to be a dangerous offender unless the individual can prove otherwise.
That is an appropriate thing to be done. I would hope that our constitution, at some point, would say that these individuals have done enough damage to society, they have hurt enough young children in society, they have done enough damage to them emotionally, physically and otherwise that it is incumbent upon them to show why they should not be put away with an indeterminate sentence where society is protected.
Of course, they could raise that issue, but at some point the threshold is crossed where it is constitutional. Certainly, in other cases where there has been reverse onus positions in either bail provisions or other ones, the court has found them to be constitutional and to stand the test of constitutionality.
There may be a test that we would like to see happen, but if we ask any mother or father of a young child, they would be very much concerned and would be very much offended if our Constitution did not allow them that additional avenue of protection that is specified in Bill C-27.