Lost his last election, in 2006, with 35% of the vote.
Tobacco Industry April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, members will permit my not commenting on the tone of the question, but going rather to the substance of the matter.
The substance of the matter is as follows. The RCMP negotiates nothing. It accumulates evidence it will subsequently pass on to the crown, which then decides accordingly.
So it is time to stop implying that the RCMP is negotiating. It gathers evidence for the crown.
Justice April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the supreme court decided on these video tapes. The decision does not mean that the tapes will be made public. They are considered evidence in the matter.
Accordingly, the tapes are being kept in a sealed container, and there was never any question of their becoming public. It would be a mistake to do either of two things. The first would be to assume that, because of the decision, they would be made public. The other would be to want to use something as tragic as what befell these people and their families for political gain.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police April 23rd, 1999
I could not dream of any better question and I will take advantage of it to reinforce the announcement that has just been made by the Solicitor General of Canada.
He has just announced $115 million to reinforce the Canadian Police Information Centre, commonly called the CPIC. I thank my colleague for giving me this opportunity.
Young Offenders Act April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, if I am asked questions based on facts, then I can respond with facts. If I am asked questions based on speculations, then I have no answer at all.
They presume that the courts will decide. They presume that the Quebec program will be undermined. They presume that we will abandon prevention to focus on cracking down on crime. I cannot provide any answer to that.
Young Offenders Act April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by making the same statement I made in committee. The situation in Quebec with respect to young offenders and the province's accomplishments in preventing youth crime are totally remarkable.
That said, the bill before us at this time contains all the flexibility necessary to both pay tribute to what Quebec is doing and ensure that the public is better protected everywhere in this country.
Correctional Service Canada April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see that less attention is being paid to the answers given that to the upcoming questions.
To answer my colleague's question, I just want to go back to one point. In his report, the auditor general deals primarily with the management of social reintegration activities, and he acknowledges the very significant and impressive progress made by Correctional Service Canada.
Correctional Service Canada April 23rd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that any human system can be improved on, and I am pleased to see that the hon. member is prepared to help us in that regard.
But if the member wants to quote the auditor general, he should also mention the positive comments made by the auditor general about our efforts, including improved training for officers, information on program costs, program effectiveness evaluation, surveillance in the communities, risk assessment in the case of offenders, lessons learned and shared, and the management of social reintegration activities. These are the good things that are done by Correctional Service Canada.
Criminal Records Act April 21st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to and comment on the motion at second reading of Bill C-69.
Since coming to power, our government has shown through specific actions its desire to thoroughly reform our criminal system, by passing, for example, a number of administrative and legislative measures to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.
First off, in 1995, our government passed amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to allow, among other things, certain offenders to be kept in prison until the very last day of their sentence, if it had been shown that they were likely to commit another sexual offence against a child.
In 1997, we added a new category of offender to the Criminal Code, that of long term offender, which applies to sexual offenders and provides for their surveillance for up to ten years after the end of their sentence.
In 1995, we created the national flagging system, which through the intermediary or the use of the Canadian police information centre, which I will call the CPIC throughout my text, enables prosecutors to better identify and try violent offenders, under the provisions of the Criminal Code pertaining to dangerous offenders.
The national screening system, created in 1994, also uses information from the CPIC on criminal records to help certain agencies identify child molesters seeking work where they could be in contact with children.
The planned measures will therefore allow the organizations concerned to protect the vulnerable individuals for whom they are responsible. When we speak of vulnerable individuals, we mean primarily all those who are more at risk than the rest of the population, because of age, disability or handicap.
We have all heard about troubling cases where children having been sexually abused by individuals in a position of trust. Of course this has a devastating impact on the victims and their families, but it also has one on the community as a whole.
In addition, the provincial and municipal governments, as well as the volunteer organizations, adopt policies and practices aimed at preventing such occurrences. While a criminal record check by the police is an important screening tool, this must not be considered the first, last, or only method.
The organizations must have a reliable recruiting, training, and supervision system. Any properly designed screening system must make unqualified candidates, pedophiles included, withdraw of their own accord, when they see how careful the organizations are about selecting candidates and ensuring the safety and protection of those for whom they are responsible.
In this connection, I will refer briefly, but with the utmost pride, to the very close collaboration that has been in place since 1994 between the government and an organization called Volunteer Canada, in promoting a national information campaign on this important topic.
We produced educational material for distribution across Canada via volunteer organizations and local communities. Thanks to these measures, increasing numbers of organizations are gaining an awareness of the importance of an effective screening mechanism. Despite all that has been done, more needs to be done, and we want to do more.
This is what is behind Bill C-69. It provides for a flagging system. This system of flags for certain files has the support of our provincial and territorial colleagues.
In fact, I would remind members that, during the past year, the federal-provincial-territorial task force on high risk offenders met on several occasions to discuss certain issues with respect to information systems on sex offenders, and the pardon of sex offenders.
It focused primarily on ways of simplifying police access to the criminal records of pardoned sex offenders.
Following its discussions, the task force produced a report containing ten recommendations, one of which specifically deals with the flagging system the CPIC should adopt to identify criminal records of pardoned sex offenders. This report received the approval of federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers at their October 1998 meeting.
Right now, the provisions of the Criminal Records Act and administrative guidelines allow access to the sealed records of pedophiles, particularly when the police are looking for a criminal record. Naturally, when the police know or suspect that an individual with a record has been granted a pardon, they may, based on fingerprints, submit the sealed record to the attention of the solicitor general.
However, if the police are unaware that a pardon has been granted, they do not necessarily look up fingerprints while they search for a criminal record. In such a case, a normal query of the CPIC system does not reveal the existence of a criminal record for which a pardon has been granted.
So that the procedure I have just described can apply in all cases—I repeat, in all cases—where a pardoned sex offender is being screened prior to being given a position of trust, Bill C-69 proposes that such files be flagged.
A police officer doing a check would immediately see that a pardon had been granted and that the file was sealed. He could then apply to the solicitor general for permission to break the seal.
This indicator appears only to police officers authorized to do screening research at the request of an agency acting in good faith and with the consent of the person the research is on. These are important mechanisms intended to ensure the credibility of the process. By requiring finger prints be taken, we are making sure the person in question is correctly identified.
The new arrangement will have retroactive effect, so that the files of rehabilitated individuals already in the system may have these indicators attached to them.
The bill also contains provisions guaranteeing the rights of rehabilitated individuals. Only authorized police officers and officials responsible for applying the law will have access to the information on the offenders, and each applicant must sign a consent form in this regard. By requiring this consent, we give applicants the choice of having their job application processed or of withdrawing it.
If they refuse to co-operate, applicants will be making it clear to the agency responsible that they are not perhaps the best individuals for the job.
Bill C-69 will also continue to give the solicitor general the discretionary power to remove the seal on the file of a rehabilitated individual.
As there is no reason to think that the minister's use of his current discretionary power is causing a problem, we must keep it to ensure the integrity of the system.
The government also carefully re-examined the legislative provisions of Bill C-69 to ensure they are in keeping with the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
We therefore have the national police data bank, the CPIC, the Canadian police information centre, which is operated by the RCMP on behalf of all police services. This bank contains information on offenders' criminal records.
We also have the national screening system I referred to before, by which employers or volunteer groups working with children and other vulnerable individuals may require a record check of applicants as a condition for hiring or for volunteer work.
In conjunction with the notation system proposed in Bill C-69, the CPIC and the national screening system are designed to prevent sex offenders from infiltrating positions of trust.
Some people may wonder “Why not do away with pardons, or considerably restrict access to them?”
As we know, a pardon allows persons found guilty of a criminal offence, who have served their sentence and proven that they have become law-abiding citizens, to have their records sealed.
Those making this request have led crime-free lives for an average of eight years before applying for pardon.
The fact that the majority of pardoned individuals live as honest citizens is clear proof that ex-offenders can indeed become law-abiding members of the community.
In my opinion, it is important to defend the principle of pardon, while taking care not to diminish the integrity of the sytem and making changes which will help provide children and other vulnerable groups with better protection.
I would like to conclude with a comment that may be a bit unusual for this House. In this process, on behalf of the Solicitor General, and with his approval, I pledged before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that we would do everything in our power to speed up the process of getting Bill C-69 to a committee if it passes second reading. There, it will be able to be examined by serious and conscientious people with one common goal: to protect our population, particularly our children and people with certain disabilities.
Today, I would like to pay tribute to all the political parties represented in this House, which have helped ensure that this will be possible.
Secretary Of State For Asia-Pacific April 13th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, during his recent mission to Indonesia in October, raised the issue of human rights with President Habibie.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the secretary of state for his initiative, not only in Indonesia but in raising human rights issues wherever he goes at every forum which is open to him.
I must say that Indonesia's President Habibie was defensive about these issues. Our secretary of state refused to be intimidated by President Habibie. I understand that his October visit enabled Canada to obtain first-hand information on the situation in Indonesia with regards to human rights, the social impact—
Kosovo April 12th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I was about to say I can feel all the sincerity in my colleague's remarks, but I have a hard time understanding his premise.
He is taking the stand that NATO's air strikes have been unproductive. Maybe he is in the know and I am not, but nothing indicates that they have been unproductive.
He contends that the presence of ground forces will make it easier to put an end to ethnic cleansing and to genocide. This kind of operation is not a matter of hours. I have a hard time understanding the logic of it all.
We should make a clear distinction between what we wish and what the facts really are. Since I have only 30 seconds, I will ask my question later on if I am given another chance.