Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise again in the House of Commons to represent the people of Peace River—Westlock.
Today, we are talking about Bill C-12, which sounds a lot like Bill C-2. Bill C-2 has been replaced by this bill. It was less than a month ago that I stood in this place and gave a speech on Bill C-2, during which I outlined a number of deficiencies that I saw with the bill. When I heard the Liberals would be reintroducing Bill C-2 as Bill C-12, I mentioned a number of things for consideration as possible fixes and the concerns I had with the bill. I was hopeful they had the opportunity to listen to my speech and would address a number of the concerns I had. Unfortunately, it does not look like the Liberals listened, once again.
I want to address a number of things that were asked of us. At the time, the member for Winnipeg North pointed out that Canada Post needed to be able to open people's mail without a warrant, but then he said it was with a warrant. Interestingly, that has now been dropped. I guess that was something the Liberals recognized as a problem. I talked about the banning of cash payments and donations over $10,000 and said we had concerns with that, and that piece has also been dropped. Kudos to the government on that. The pressure from Conservatives caused that to happen as well. Then we talked a lot about concerns regarding warrantless access to information. These are some of the most dangerous parts of Bill C-2 and they have been dropped, and I am pleased about that.
At the time that I gave my speech, about a month ago, I was reprimanded and chastised by the members opposite, who said that we should get out of the way and let the bill pass quickly. We saw right away that there were major concerns with Bill C-2. I remember, in particular, that I was challenged on allowing Canada Post to open people's mail, as if we needed this to fight the fentanyl being mailed out. I am interested in knowing if members opposite still hold those positions and why these things have been dropped. I can tell the minister that my constituents and those across the country thought this was a dangerous inclusion in the bill, and I am happy to see that it is gone.
We have always worked hard to fight for everyday Canadians, and one of the other areas of concern was about the $10,000 donations. We see that the government continually goes after the freedoms that Canadians enjoy in Canada, and we see its subtle and dogged attack on things like charitable organizations in this country, whether it is through the recommendations that came out of the finance committee last year about stripping religious organizations of their charitable status, the Canada summer jobs changes or the charitable attestation changes. Now we see a ban on cash donations. The Conservatives will always stand up for the charitable sector and the good work it does.
The bulk of my speech last month was about the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the changes being made to it. I had not had the time to look at it in detail. As members know, when there are amendments to a piece of legislation in the abstract, it is often difficult to see what they are, but since then, I have had a chance to put them in their place in the act and see what kind of effect they would have. I was concerned at the time about the passport markings the Conservative government had put in place and the ability to revoke the passports of folks who are registered to the sex offender registry, and there has been zero action by the government over the last 10 years on either marking passports or revoking them.
I have been digging into this a bit, and I discovered that one of the issues is that the RCMP, which holds the registry, is unable to share this information with other levels of government, other organizations and other law enforcement agencies. The bill says that we could share it with other law enforcement agencies, but the challenge is that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is not law enforcement. The folks who issue passports are not law enforcement, so the bill is unclear. I do not think it will solve the problem of passport marking and the revocation of passports based on the registered sex offender list. This continues to be a problem.
I reached out to stakeholders who work in this space, like the folks from Ratanak International, based out of Vancouver, who flag this for me regularly. Registered sex offenders, convicted sex offenders, here in Canada often go abroad, likely to perpetrate more crimes. Countries around the world are pleading with Canada to alert them that a registered sex offender is coming or to prevent them from coming in the first place by withholding their passport.
I noted last time in debate the reality that a passport has, in the opening page, an endorsement of the individual. It endorses the individual and asks those viewing the passport to give the person free passage through their country. I am not convinced that folks in the sex offender registry are necessarily entitled to a passport. The law has been changed already so we can revoke these passports, but the Liberal government has failed to do this over the last number of years.
The RCMP was able to share with me how many notifications it had of sex offenders travelling. I see there is an update to the notification process. In 2022, the RCMP was notified 1,700 times. In 2023, it was notified 2,200 times. In 2024, it was notified 3,300 times. That was for registered sex offenders travelling abroad. However, the RCMP noted that it is unable to track the number of sex offenders who leave the country, given that if a sex offender does not register to do this, the RCMP does not know. We often know when they come back, as they seem to get flagged in the system then. As they come in, border security gets notified, but we do not know how many leave. Also, the RCMP was unable to ascertain how many times a registered sex offender failed to register when they left, because it does not track this.
For most of the last decade, countries, particularly the United States, have been begging and pleading with us to share this information with them. I think the bill would cover that. The changes the bill would make would allow our law enforcement to share with American law enforcement that a registered sex offender is travelling across the border. It is a particular annoyance for the Americans, and I understand that at a time when we are trying to mend relationships with the United States, rectifying this particular annoyance is the thing to do.
I would point out that I had flagged this for a number of years prior to this situation. I noted that, proactively, the United States has been sharing this information with us. In the first half of 2022, 165 Americans convicted of child sexual offences were allowed entry into Canada. We know this because the U.S. has a whole system to notify Canada that these folks are coming. Another question is whether we can stop them or refuse them entry, but that is another question altogether.
I look forward to seeing some of the questions I have about the bill clarified in committee. I also look forward to seeing if we need an amendment to fix the passport issue.