Madam Speaker, I do not know that I can do justice to my hon. colleagues's questions in two minutes. He raises a number of important points.
This bill is about the national sex offender information registry. It is about setting up a federal registry that can be accessed by all police forces. That registry would contain the names of all offenders who have been convicted of designated offences and sentenced to two years or more in federal custody. Nothing prevents the provinces from setting up their own provincial registry, as Ontario has already done. Ontario has a registry and this is the federal registry.
In terms of access, this is a computerized database. An offender who has been convicted of a sexual offence and is properly registerable would then have the information entered into this data system. I have commented before on what those are, including modus operandi.
I must say that a lot of good work was done by the Bloc Québécois on that aspect. The modi operandi of offenders, identifying marks, details of their crimes, where they live, what kinds of cars they drive would be in the registry.
Let us say a phone call is made to the police by someone saying a person is driving around a school trying to entice children into a car. If that call goes in to a police station, police officers can immediately access the database, input that information and immediately identify what suspects might be living in that area that they can target. That is important because it may save a life. It may prevent a sexual assault on a young child, a woman or anybody, and may prevent a death.
That is why we want to ensure that police have rapid access. I believe loosening the criteria is an important step and I congratulate the government on making that move.
I look forward to working with all parties in committee to strengthen the registry and make it work while still preserving some of the other important principles that the government seems to forget about, principles like rehabilitation, respect for privacy, respect for judicial process, and ensuring that we do not put politics above sound, solid legislative improvements, which I think all parties are committed to.