Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that there is no proposal at this point to review the legislation in any time period. New Democrats are urging that this be done, but is not currently in the legislation.
The question of when the legislation will be in practice and working is a good one. A lot of that depends upon resources.
When we studied Bill S-2 at committee, we heard that it lacked the necessary resources to implement a registry. We heard testimony about the Ontario sex offender registry. Police and victims groups talked about that registry as a model. We heard that the national registry had an operating budget of between $400,000 and $600,000 a year. By comparison, the budget for the operation and centralized management of the Ontario model is close to $4 million per year, not including the expenses incurred by local police departments.
The bill would do nothing to increase resources for the sex offender registry and there is concern that it may download the burden onto already overstretched police forces, which is a continuing problem in our country. We hear from municipalities, in particularly rural areas, that the federal government keeps downloading problems to them without the resources to deal with them.
To answer my colleague's question, a lot of the effectiveness of the bill will depend upon whether the government puts the resources into making it successful, which I urge it to do.