Don Davies

[Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act, June 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, that is another very thoughtful question from the member.

To be frank, there has been no discussion of merging registries. There is a jurisdictional issue in this country where provinces are free to set up their provincial systems. I presume that would be for offenders who are convicted of offences of two years less a day. Then there is the federal jurisdiction which is responsible for inmates who have been convicted of offences with a sentence of two years or more.

It goes back to the important question of loosening up access to the federal registry. The Ontario registry is accessed almost 500 times a day and the federal registry is accessed approximately a third of that. The reason for that is the criteria was set too tightly for police officers to search a federal registry. New Democrats support changes to that access criteria so that police officers can have access to that registry when they need it, as fast as they need it.

[Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act, June 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, that is a very thoughtful question. The mischief that was brought to our committee when we undertook our review was that prosecutors had the obligation to file the application for registration initially in the old act. That was a problem because sometimes they neglected to do so. What New Democrats proposed was that we would have a system where an application was automatically made upon conviction. So the judge convicts, the application is automatically before the court.

What New Democrats do think is a misguided legislative reaction is to have automatic registration of every single person who is convicted. The Ontario system has automatic registration, but it has a shorter list of offences that qualify. The list that is under the federal system includes a longer list of offences, including the hybrid offence of sexual assault. Now sexual assault can be preceded by summary conviction for less serious offences, to an indictable offence because it is a hybrid offence.

There are some cases of summary conviction sexual assaults where it may not be appropriate to have that person registered with the court. New Democrats believe that judicial discretion and prosecutorial discretion is important to remain in the system so that our prosecutors and judges can weed out those cases where it is not appropriate to have automatic registration because we trust judges and prosecutors in this country, unlike the government. They are the ones who are experienced in dealing with this. Before I conclude, there are a couple of really solid reasons for this.

Sometimes it is necessary to get a conviction. A prosecutor will sometimes need to make an arrangement for a plea of guilty to a sexual assault and in exchange for that may think it is appropriate to not have registration as a result. So we may get more convictions by having prosecutorial discretion. Again, I will not go into this in detail.

I will point out that police officers themselves have testified that they do not want full automatic registration for every single offender because then every single person in the country will be registered and it slows them down if they have to check out every one of those offenders in a case where there is a serious sexual assault. They waste time weeding out people who should not be in the registry to begin with.

[Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act, June 15th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, I am pleased to speak to Bill S-2, which is the reintroduction of Bill C-34 from last session, including amendments made by the committee to that bill.

New Democrats generally support the bill at second reading. We support a productive and, we hope, collaborative review of the bill at committee, as happened with Bill C-34 in the last session. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out by many of my colleagues, the bill died with the government's decision to prorogue Parliament.

The bill contains many important changes to the sex offender registry. The New Democrats support the general thrust of this. We believe there are important loopholes in the present legislation to close and there are strategic and surgical improvements that can be made to the bill that would strengthen the registry.

However, as with a lot of bills, the New Democrats have concerns with the bill. We have reservations around certain specific issues, which I will highlight in my remarks this morning. We trust that all parliamentarians will work together to ensure we have a strong sex offender registry that not only works to make our community safer but also is effective and, at the same time, respects the human and judicial rights of everybody involved in the justice system.

Sex offences generate a great deal of public concern and suffering for the victims of these offences. Many times offences of a sexual nature involve children. As parliamentarians, we are never more engaged than when we talk about protecting women, children and any type of victim from the egregious and horrific offence of a sexual nature.

As a result of these high personal and social costs, governments are constantly looking for tools and methods capable of reducing the incidents of sex offences and protecting the public against the threat that some sex offenders represent.

One attempt to find a solution was the creation, in 2004, of a national registry containing information on offenders who had been convicted of a sexual offence or who had been found not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder. This resulted in the creation of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act, which established, for the first time, a national sex offender registry. This registry has been available to law enforcement agencies in Canada for slightly less than five years.

That original legislation contained a mandatory legislative review, which was supposed to take place after two years. Because of previous Conservative and Liberal governments, that review did not take place within the statutorily required two years. They will have to answer to Canadians for that.

However, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security did commence and complete a review of this registry, beginning in 2009. I sat on that committee on behalf of my party and I was pleased to have participated in that review.

What is the sex offender registry? It is a national data bank that contains information on certain sex offenders who have been found guilty of designated offences under the Criminal Code of Canada. These include things such as sexual assault, child pornography, child luring and exhibitionism or, once again, those who were convicted of such offences but held not criminally responsibly on account of incapacity or mental disorder.

Pursuant to the code, the Crown must initiate the registration process. If a court rules that the offender should be registered in the national registry, then an order is issued that requires the offender to report to a designated registration office in the 15 days following the issuance of the order or the offender's release. In April 2009 the committee was informed that the national registry contained the names of over 19,000 offenders.

SOIRA is designed to help the police officers investigate crimes of a sexual nature by giving them access to reliable information on offenders found guilty of these crimes. The registry then contains information that is essential to police investigations, such as the offender's address and telephone number, the nature of the offence committed, the age and gender of the victim, the victim's relationship to the attacker, any aliases that the offender uses and a description of any distinguishing marks or tattoos that the offender might have.

It is important to note that the public does not have access to the national registry. Only police officers can access it and, under the previous act, only when they are investigating a crime of a sexual nature and have reason to believe that a crime of a sexual nature has been committed. Querying the national registry allows police officers to identify possible suspects among the sex offenders living in the area where a crime of a sexual nature may have been committed. It allows them to eliminate certain people from the list of suspects in order to move the investigation in a rapid and hopefully productive direction.

During her appearance before the committee, Chief Superintendent Kate Lines of the Ontario Provincial Police noted that a registry system:

—saves a lot of time for investigators, who can now move in another direction....Taking someone off the list rather than identifying them has great value when investigative time is of the essence.

With this point in mind, the crucial factor in designing the registry and proposing amendments should be in ensuring that those who pose a danger to the public are in fact registered, but equally, those who pose no danger are not on the registry. That wastes police time investigating pointless leads in those crucial minutes when lives are at stake.

Ms. Lines presented statistics to our committee to illustrate the vital importance of a rapid response in these cases. She said that in cases where a child was kidnapped and murdered, 44% were dead within an hour of the kidnapping, 74% were dead within three hours and 91% were dead within 24 hours. A well-designed, properly functioning sex offender registry is clearly an important tool for police across the country.

The sex offender information registry's purpose has always been based on the following principles. This is language from the current legislation, which has been supported by all parties in the House.

First, in the interest of protecting society through the effective investigation of crimes of a sexual nature, police departments must have rapid access to certain information relating to sex offenders.

Second, the collection and recording of accurate information on an ongoing basis is the most effective way of ensuring that such information is current and reliable.

Third, the privacy interests of sex offenders and the public interest in their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens require that the information be collected only to enable police departments to investigate crimes that there are reasonable grounds to suspect are of a sexual nature and to ensure that access to the information and the use and disclosure of such information is restricted to police.

Proposals to amend the sex offender registry should be measured against those principles.

We have heard some reference to the current government playing politics with this issue and I reluctantly have to agree with that description. The bill could be law today, but the Conservatives prorogued Parliament and killed their own bill. This is a perfect example of the Conservatives playing politics instead of protecting victims of crime.

The public safety committee was 90% complete of our statutory review of the sex offender registry. While we were doing that mandatory legislative review and putting the finishing touches on our report, which had all-party co-operation and contained extensive recommendations after hearing voluminous evidence and careful study, the government introduced Bill C-34 in the last session without even waiting to read our report. Therefore, as might be expected, Bill C-34 contained many holes and did not include important changes that witnesses had proposed to the committee. I will give an example.

The NDP had proposed an amendment at committee that would require sex offenders to disclose the make, colour, licence plate and registration of vehicles they owned or regularly used and add that to the registry. The New Democrats proposed that important closing of a loophole and strengthening of the registry. The government introduced Bill C-34, which did not even have that in it.

We all know that in a case where sex offenders might be in dangerous areas, trolling around schools, knowing the vehicles they have access to and are using is a critical component to protecting our children. Yet the Conservatives, who always claim to be tough on crime, introduced a bill in the House that did not even require sex offenders to disclose the cars that they drove or used. It was the New Democrats who caught that and improved the bill.

This was something police officers testified they needed in cases where all they had was a report of a suspicious vehicle seen near a playground or a school. This shows what happens when the government plays politics instead of making sound legislation that is careful, considered and effective.

The proposed bill before us closes some serious loopholes in the registry. Currently there is no way to track whether a sex offender is presently incarcerated or even deceased. The criteria are so strict that what information can be tracked, police officers are legally prohibited from recording, whether they can even get that information. The bill closes that loophole, which is a good thing.

Because every minute counts in investigations of sex offences and in cases of missing children, police officers would be wasting their time verifying the whereabouts of dead or incarcerated individuals because of this flaw in the current registry.

The proposed bill will expands the range of data that is tracked in the registry and this also is a good thing. If we are investing money and police resources into maintaining the registry, it should contain all the information needed for police to rapidly investigate crimes.

However, I want to talk about something that, again, the government, in its rush to play politics with this issue, overruled its committee on, which makes the bill questionable. It has to do with the concept of automatic registration. The bill proposes automatic registration for all offenders who commit designated offences.

The committee undergoing the study examined automatic registration in great detail. After hearing from all the witnesses, even the Conservative members of the committee agreed there should be judicial discretion to not put someone on the registry where it would harm public safety.

The police representatives who testified before our committee that speed was of the essence when they were investigating. If there were a number of sex offenders who did not pose a threat to the general public, adding those people to the list would actually waste their time at critical moments where speed was called for. If they had 1,000 people on the registry who they had to check in a certain area and they only had 2 hours to do it, they had to track down all those people to rule them out as possible suspects.

We heard from police officers who were familiar with this registry. They said that it was far more important to put people on the registry who did pose a risk so the police could target those suspects in those critical moments. That is why judicial discretion and prosecutorial discretion are important in this registry. We should not put every person convicted of every kind of sexual assault on the registry. Some offenders are not appropriately put on that registry.

As an example, it might be an 18 or 19 year old male who commits a minor transgression, which is still considered a sexual assault. I want to be clear that all sexual assaults are serious, but there is a degree on the continuum and it may well be that it is not appropriate to put the person on the list. Maybe the person is simply not at risk, by any rational examination, of committing a sexual assault in the future. To add that person to the list clogs the system and makes our communities less safe as a result.

I want to talk about sexual abuse in general. The government is quick to go to the punitive side when we talk about sexual offences. I want to talk about helping victims of sexual abuse and show how the government's misdirected and misguided agenda does not really help in many cases.

Earlier this year, Steve Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, testified at the public safety committee. He spoke about the need for the government to fund child advocacy centres in major cities across the country. These centres would provide counselling, support and referrals to other resources for child victims of crime, particularly victims of sexual abuse. We know, and there is no question, the data shows that many sex offenders were themselves sexually abused, often as children. Therefore, child advocacy centres would be an important part of helping to prevent future sex offences.

The victims ombudsman asked the government twice for $5 million to fund these centres and the government refused. The government refused to put up $5 million so that child victims of sexual abuse in this country would have a place to go to in the major urban centres of this country where they could be treated and counselled.

Despite the fact that this was an egregious and terrible decision made by a government, we should think of the implications for public safety because once again, some of those victims of child sexual abuse will be more likely to become adult child sex offenders or sex offenders when they grow up because of their own victimization.

For a very small amount of money, the government could have taken a concrete step that not only helps the children of our country, some of the most victimized children who are most in need of our assistance, but it has also lost an opportunity to make a dent in preventing future sexual offences.

The other thing that is important to note is that we cannot just have a registry. We also need the resources necessary so that our police forces can have access to the registry. Nothing I see in the bill before us contains any increased resources for the sex offender registry. I am concerned that it downloads the burden on to already overstretched police forces. We will need to ensure that if we are to increase registration in the registry, we ensure police forces have the resources necessary to access that registry.

I also want to talk about crime prevention. The bill adds crime prevention to the list of purposes to the act. New Democrats agree with this because originally police officers told us that access to the registry was too rigid. They testified before our committee that the test of waiting until they had reasonable ground to suspect a crime had been committed of a sexual nature was too strict. The example they gave was that they might get a call from a distraught mother who said her child was missing. That may be enough to suspect that a crime has been committed, but there is really no reasonable basis at that point to suspect it is of a sexual nature. New Democrats heard from police officers and we agreed with them that we needed to make changes and expand the opportunity for police to access the registry.

I am pleased to see in the bill that the government is moving in that regard. By putting in crime prevention, it allows police to access the registry in order to prevent a crime, and I think that is a positive thing. However, we must also be careful to ensure that there are parameters around that power because once again, it is important to control access to the registry and the way police use it so that sensitive information is not used in an inappropriate manner.

I also want to talk a little bit about the New Democrat position on crime prevention because it is one of the major deficiencies in the government's approach to the crime agenda. Its agenda is always about measures to deal with a crime after it has been committed and it is always about punishing harder and longer. It does not put resources into crime prevention, which I think is what Canadians really want.

Canadians want to live in safer communities. We want to ensure we reduce our crime rate. We want to ensure there are fewer victims of crime, not harsher punishment of the offender after the crime has been committed.

In terms of crime prevention, what I am looking for from the government, not only with this legislation that is important to deal with offenders after they have committed a sex offence, but with my New Democrat colleagues, we will continue to press the government to add resources and to take legislative measures that will help prevent crime in this country.

I have already mentioned child advocacy centres. We have already heard that Steve Sullivan, the victims ombudsman, has testified that victims want more resources put into crime prevention because nobody can undo or understand the damage that is felt by a victim of crime.

What we need to do and what victims want is for us to pour resources into helping ensure that those crimes are not committed in the first place.

The government has a responsibility to work with offenders. We call on the government to ensure that we take intelligent measures, that when offenders are caught they get the kind of help and therapy that hopefully will help them not to reoffend in the future.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, June 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I have said this in the House before and I will say it again.

I was a trade unionist for 16 years. I went to work every day and I defended workers when they had issues at work. I defended workers when they wanted to discuss, and sit down with their employers and talk about their working conditions.

Colombia is the number one country in the world for murdering trade unionists.

I stood in the House and read out the names of the number of trade unionists who were killed.

The Conservatives can make fun of us over there, they can make light of it all they want. I wonder how they would feel if people they worked with were murdered because they went to work every day.

This is the country that the government wants to sign a preferential trade deal with. I would hasten to add that there are other countries in the world right now that have better records of human rights that Canada could and should be trading with.

For the government to stand up and pursue a trade agreement with Colombia says a lot. It speaks volumes about the lack of values that the government has and the lack of respect it has for the rights of workers in this world.

This has nothing to do with trade. Our party has always stood up for trade with other countries. Canada is a trading nation. It is ludicrous to suggest that any party in the House does not support trade.

The question is this. Do we support trade with butchers? I would ask the government to stand up and tell Canadians why it wants to sign a trade deal with one of the worst butchering governments on this planet.

[Excise Tax Act, June 8th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-529, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Income Tax Act (extra-energy-efficient products).

Mr. Speaker, I rise again to introduce a bill inspired by the second winner of the Vancouver Kingsway Create Your Canada contest, Hansel Fung, from Eric Hamber Secondary School. Hansel's winning entry proposed a system of tax incentives to encourage Canadian families to lower their energy consumption.

This bill would provide financial incentives for individual families to take action to lower their carbon footprint by reducing their energy consumption and use. It would create a GST exemption to lower the price on household appliances deemed by regulation to be extra energy efficient. The existing energy star program helps consumers make informed choices by highlighting energy efficient products, but this bill would go one step further by exempting such products from the GST.

Families would be rewarded for making green choices when they purchase low-energy household appliances and products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs. This bill would also create a tax credit to be claimed at the end of the year, where families could deduct 10% of the cost of the purchase of low-energy appliances.

In his submission, Hansel stated:

With this Bill, I am trying to encourage Canadians to think “green”. This is just an encouragement to think about the environment. This Bill would make Canada “greener”, but not just Canada, the entire world as well. This would give Canada a very good image and set an example for other countries to follow.

I commend Hansel Fung from Eric Hamber Secondary School for his innovative idea and his concern for the future of our planet. I also want to acknowledge the head of the social studies department, Mr. David Smith, for his help and collaboration in promoting the Create Your Canada contest at Eric Hamber Secondary. I ask my hon. colleagues to give Hansel's idea and this bill the support they both deserve.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, June 8th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-528, An Act to amend the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act (poverty reduction).

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to introduce legislation that would require Canada to contribute at least 0.7% of our gross national product to official development assistance.

This bill was drafted based upon an idea from a high school student in Vancouver Kingsway, Puneet Riar, one of the winning ideas from the contest I ran called Create Your Canada. This contest engaged high school students from my riding to suggest ideas to improve Canada and the world. Our office received over 50 submissions and the winners were picked by a panel of community judges.

Ms. Riar's idea was an entry that would require Canada to meet the target of 0.7% of our gross national product to be used for development assistance. Puneet is on the Hill today to watch her idea be introduced as legislation in Parliament. I am going to quote from Puneet's submission:

We who are fortunate enough to live in Canada cannot imagine the hardships that people in developing countries face…It is a tradition for Canada to be a donor. It has been a moral obligation for Canada to give aid to those who need it.

I congratulate Puneet from Windermere Secondary School for her compassion and for her vision of Canadian leadership in global poverty reduction. I also want to acknowledge her grade 12 history teacher, Jeff Mazo, who promoted the Create Your Canada contest, as well as principal Rob Schindel, and social studies department head, Corrie Clutchey, who offered their support for this program.

I urge all members of the House to support this important piece of legislation and congratulate Puneet Riar and all the students from Windermere Secondary School for their care and concern to help make Canada a better place for everyone.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

One would think that the government would know that, because as my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona has pointed out very accurately, the government, two public safety ministers ago, looked at the pardon system in a circumstance very similar to the one we have today. There was a convicted sex offender who was granted a pardon, and the government, again, in a knee-jerk reaction, sprang into action and did a quick review of the pardon system. However, it did not do it in an intelligent, policy-oriented way. It did not put it before the public safety committee, which has 12 MPs from all parties on it. It did not hear from sociologists, academics, corrections officers, and parole officers, the people with knowledge of the criminal justice system. It just reviewed it.

What did the former public safety minister do after that review? He did virtually nothing. What the former public safety minister did was make a couple of changes. He increased the number of people on the National Parole Board reviewing certain kinds of offences from one person to two people. That is about the net sum of what the government did.

Therefore, I ask, and Canadians ask, if the Conservative government reviewed the pardon system in 2006, found it fine, and made just a slight change, what is the difference now? Again, it is politics. Canadians know that the government uses public safety and crime as a political issue. It does not really care about making a criminal justice system in this country that works, keeps Canadians safe, is fair to victims, and is fair to everybody involved in this system.

The pardon system is an important part of our justice system. It is an important part of keeping us safe. It balances the punitive aspects of the penal system with the redemptive aspects of the pardon system. This helps because, as New Democrats say time and time again in the House, when an offender comes out of prison, we want the offender never to reoffend again.

Once someone has offended and has been given a sentence, the only intelligent, wise approach to take as policy makers, the only wise and reasonable approach to take to keep people safe in this country is to do what we can to make sure the person does not reoffend. Part of that process is to give the person who offended a reason, an incentive, a carrot for good behaviour. It is not just punishing bad behaviour which is important. It is ensuring that the person has an incentive and is rewarded for good behaviour. The pardon system is part of that. It allows a person to come out of prison and engage in good behaviour and respect the law and reintegrate into society as a law-abiding citizen. At the end of that, it allows the person to get the benefit of a pardon. That is an important part of our system. If we get rid of that or make changes to that system that are counterproductive, it will make people less safe in this country--

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I was on the second point regarding what the New Democrats believe in.

We are prepared to look at extending the eligibility periods for certain kinds of offences, because it could be the case that we may need an offender to demonstrate a longer period of good behaviour before being eligible for a pardon. We are prepared to look at that.

The third point is that New Democrats believe that the National Parole Board needs to have more discretion when evaluating whether a pardon ought to be granted. It is our view that the current pardon legislation does not give the National Parole Board sufficient discretion. That results, we think, in there being certain injustices that may occur.

I will say right now that I think all Canadians will immediately think of people like Karla Homolka, who under the current pardon legislation, would likely be granted a pardon. We in the NDP do not think that this is a just or fair result. Certainly someone like Karla Homolka, in our view, should not receive a pardon in this country, and we are prepared to amend the pardon legislation to ensure that this does not happen.

As I will expand on a little later, New Democrats propose what is the toughest wording when it comes to preventing people who ought not to get pardons from getting them. I will say right now that the government has proposed legislation that contains words that would give the National Parole Board the discretion to refuse a pardon when to do so would “bring the administration of justice into disrepute”. That is the language proposed by the government. The NDP thinks that is good language.

However, New Democrats would go further. We would add the words, “or would shock the conscience of Canadians”. That would give two separate grounds under the Criminal Records Act for the National Parole Board to deny a pardon. We think that is important for ensuring that we have credibility and faith in our pardon system.

Fourth and last, New Democrats believe that we need to hear from correctional experts, victims, police, offenders, sociologists, and every single person who has expertise and knowledge about the current Canadian pardon system. They need to come to the committee and have a thorough and intelligent discussion about each one of these points to ensure that we strengthen our pardon system in this country and ensure that it is fair.

New Democrats last week drafted a motion, and presented it to all parties in the House, that would have allowed a particular amendment to the Criminal Records Act to pass through the House quickly, before summer. It is a surgical, targeted amendment that would simply change the Criminal Records Act to say that the National Parole Board would have the power to refuse or decline a pardon where to do so would bring the administration of justice into disrepute or would shock the conscience of Canadians.

The NDP has done this because the government has been asleep at the switch for the last four years. Karla Homolka is eligible for a pardon this summer. The government waited until June 7 to introduce legislation in the House that would prevent her from getting a pardon. Of course, the government will not be able to get that legislation through the House, so it has proposed Bill C-23, which proposes many changes to the pardon system, many of which are undesirable or misguided or require further study.

New Democrats came forward with surgical, targeted legislation that would allow us to make one change to the Criminal Records Act to ensure that pardons are not given to people in this country who ought not to get them. It could be done without moving precipitously and ending up harming the pardon system that plays a very important role, not only in the justice system in this country but in keeping communities safe.

This bill would do a number of things. Some things are good, some are questionable, and some are, without question, misguided and undesirable.

This bill would rename pardons and call them “record suspensions”. We will have to study that to see what the impact would be. At this point, it is hard to know exactly what that would do, good or bad. It could be a cosmetic change. It could be something that has ramifications. New Democrats want to study the impact of that change.

It increases the ineligibility period that must pass before a pardon application can be submitted to ten years from the current five years for indictable offences and to five years from the current three years for summary offences.

The New Democrats believe that there may be cause and good grounds to increase the probation period for some offences. I am thinking, for instance, of a repeat sex offender. It may be the case, once we hear from experts and people knowledgeable in the field, that we may want to have that person demonstrate a longer period of good behaviour before he or she is eligible for a pardon. We are prepared to look at that. However, to have a blanket rule that extends the time period for every single person in all circumstances represents the kind of blunt instrument the government uses for an issue that requires intelligence and nuance.

It prohibits those convicted of three or more indictable offences from ever receiving a pardon. This shows the government's continuing attachment to the American, U.S.-style approach to justice that does not work. This is a “three strikes and you are out” policy. That is what it is. I think everybody in this House who is paying attention and most Canadians know that most of the U.S.-style approaches to justice issues brought in by right-wing Republicans during the 1980s and 1990s are now being rejected by Americans across that country, because they are bankrupting the country, and more importantly, they are not having any impact whatsoever on making U.S. communities safer.

I will give an example. There could be a 19-year-old young offender who steals a car, who, in the course of being arrested, may resist arrest and may end up with an assault charge from resisting arrest. That kind of person, at 19 years old, under the government's legislation, would be prevented from ever receiving a pardon. That is obviously not an intelligent approach to a pardon policy in this country.

This legislation would prohibit anyone convicted of one or more offences, from a designated list of sex offences, from ever receiving a pardon.

Currently, under the eliminating pardons for serious crimes act, anybody who receives a life sentence is prohibited from ever receiving a pardon. The government proposes to expand that list. New Democrats are prepared to look at that.

With respect to pardon applications for indictable offences, the parole board would be required to deny a pardon if granting it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Once again, this is the kind of section that would be used that would otherwise prevent someone such as Karla Homolka from getting a pardon. However, it is too little, too late from the government. I wish it had brought in this legislation a year ago or two years ago, because it was no secret that Karla Homolka was approaching the fifth year after the conclusion of her sentence. Again, this government is a bad legislator and a bad policy-maker. It was asleep at the switch and is playing politics with crime.

I do not know whether the government understands that the pardon system plays a critical role in our justice system.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and speak to Bill C-23 on behalf of the New Democratic Party.

In short, the New Democrats support the bill at second reading. We support the bill at second reading because we believe fundamentally in four critical and profound points.

One, New Democrats believe, given a lot of the attention given to the pardon system in this country over the last several weeks and months, that a thorough study of the pardon system is in order. Canadians want parliamentarians to take a close look at the way pardons are granted in this country, and New Democrats are ready and able to do that.

Two, New Democrats want to look at extending the ineligibility period for certain kinds of offences. As Canadians know, there are currently only two time periods in the Criminal Records Act that apply to someone seeking a pardon. They are three years for those convicted of a summary conviction offence and five years for those convicted of an indictable offence. New Democrats are again interested--

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 4th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am sure the government would agree that important questions such as what Canada's policy should be with respect to developing nuclear power, with all the attendant jobs, high technology jobs and investment that Canadians should or should not make in this project, is something that is worthy of a full parliamentary debate.

We note that AECL is one of the largest crown corporations. Canadian taxpayers have invested some $22 billion over the course of its life. We are talking right now about potentially a sale of this crown corporation for approximately $300 million if we sell it now.

With respect to Canada Post, it is of course Canada's largest employer of the government with 70,000 employees, and important services to many communities, including rural communities, are at stake when we talk about reducing the services of Canada Post in any regard.

Would the government not agree that these are important, critical subjects that ought to be debated fully by parliamentarians in this House, so that we can make a considered, intelligent and thorough move going forward in these important areas, and not just put them in a budget bill that gets passed, yes or no, along with many other pedestrian economic issues?