Garry Breitkreuz

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member did not ask me anything about the main point of my speech. That should be obvious by his question.

We are spending an inordinate amount of resources tracking law-abiding citizens and not tracking criminals. If the government were serious about that it would have fixed CPIC so that the criminals whose whereabouts we know nothing about would be the emphasis and the focus. Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on something that is producing a benefit, it spends it in a useless area.

The member mentioned his own area of Etobicoke North. Ontario Provincial Police officers have told people who have come to them asking for information on how to register their guns that they want to have nothing to do with it. They do not want to be told about the problems people were having with registering guns and complying with the legislation. They do not want to have anything to do with it. It does not do them any good. Rather they emphasized that they need resources to deal with the criminal element, that they need to put more police on the street.

The government is not doing what is necessary even in the area the member just mentioned: improving the CPIC system. It is not tracking sex offenders and properly registering them.

The government has put forward a spurious argument. We need a sex offender registry. The government committed to it and now it is backtracking on it. At least it should keep one promise.

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would like to bring a completely different perspective to the discussion on the motion the official opposition has brought forward today for a national sex offender registry.

In November we received a report from a man who moved from Manitoba to a small town in Alberta. A short time after he moved he received a call from an official in the federal Department of Justice asking him if he had reported his change of address as it was a criminal offence not to do so. The man then moved to Calgary, where once again he received a call from the justice department official who asked if he had reported his change of address.

Was this a convicted sex offender who had a federal Department of Justice official tracking him across Canada? Not at all. Was this a dangerous repeat offender who had the federal government checking up on him? Not at all. This man was a law-abiding Canadian who had just applied for, passed a test for, paid for and was issued a firearms possession and acquisition licence.

According to regulations made by the governor in council, and it is really the justice minister, in accordance with section 117(a) of the Firearms Act it is a criminal offence for a firearms owner to move without telling the government within 30 days. The maximum penalty for violating this law is two years in jail.

The problem was that the man whom the government tracked from Manitoba to a small town in Alberta and then on to Calgary did not even own a gun. He just had a licence to acquire one. One would think that after spending $700 million on a gun registry the government might have known that from the information on this man's file.

Why is the government not so diligent about tracking the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders or dangerous repeat offenders? The actions of this overzealous Department of Justice bureaucrat prove that the government thinks it is more important to track a law-abiding citizen than it is to track convicted sex offenders. Hopefully the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will report to parliament on this horrendous breach of privacy.

Now to my key point: The Liberals have turned the justice system on its head. Instead of focusing on known criminals who are a real threat to society, they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars focusing on law-abiding citizens who, by issuing them a firearms licence, the government has declared are no threat to public safety.

As has been reported here today, the government's own research shows that 50% of child molesters reoffend 10 to 30 years after serving their sentence. Why is the government so reluctant to track the whereabouts of these individuals?

Unfortunately the privacy breaches for law-abiding citizens do not stop with mandatory reporting of addresses under threats of two years in jail. The RCMP has created a huge database in CPIC with private and personal information on 3,731,716 individuals as of November 3, 2001. The database is called the firearms interest police database. Last August the Privacy Commissioner of Canada reported that this database is full of garbage that has been loaded on those files without RCMP knowledge or consent.

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Souris--Moose Mountain.

On pages 28 and 29 of his report, the privacy commissioner states:

As a result, in some cases, the database contains entries on individuals who should never have been flagged as they do not meet the ineligibility criteria under section 5 of the Firearms Act. A FIP hit sometimes directs the FO to unsubstantiated and derogatory information, unproven charges or allegations, hearsay, records that are older than 5 years, incidents and charges that have been cleared or acquitted, duplicate entries as well as information about witnesses, victims of crime and various other associated subjects. People are unaware that they are being flagged in FIP as possible risks to public safety. Also, inaccurate information on FIP or information that has already been the subject of a previous investigation and cleared, is used over and over.

At this time, neither the RCMP nor DOJ has a framework or methodology in place to verify how many of the FIP records fall outside of the requirements of section 5 of the Firearms Act.

That is the end of the quotation from the privacy commissioner. We ought to take careful note of what he has said.

The government has no compunction about violating the privacy rights of millions of law abiding Canadians but it is concerned about the privacy rights of a few thousand convicted sex offenders. Has the government completely lost its senses? It absolutely does not make sense. I introduced a private member's motion which read:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should enact legislation to require convicted sex offenders and those prohibited from owning firearms to report any change of address to police.

Hopefully after today the government will include this sensible provision in the new legislation implementing its national sex offender registry.

My sympathies go out to all young children who will be exposed to danger, injury and death if the government fails to act. As mentioned earlier today, it is absolutely crucial that police have the capability to track child molesters and to track them quickly.

Of children who are abducted for sexual purpose, of those victims who are murdered, 44% are dead within one hour of the abduction, 74% within three hours and 91% within 24 hours. This is an extremely important life and death discussion in which we are engaged.

A sex offender registry would assist police by identifying all the registered sex offenders living within a particular geographic area, something CPIC does not do. In excess of 75% of the time an offender lives within a two kilometre radius of where the incident occurs.

Almost a year ago on March 13, 2001, the House unanimously passed a Canadian Alliance motion which read:

That the government establish a national sex offender registry by January 30, 2002.

That deadline has come and gone and no real action has been taken. While the government tracks law abiding gun owners, convicted sex offenders roam freely. It is time for the government to keep at least one of its promises, and let that one promise be to establish a national sex offender registry.

The government just argued that the system was not perfect and implied that it was working on it. Where are its priorities? Where is it spending its money? It is being spent tracking duck hunters and not dangerous sex offenders. It is not tracking terrorists or people who are in Canada illegally. We know there are 27,000 people whose addresses are not known to the government who have been ordered deported. Nothing is being done.

For the government to argue that it is working on it is a spurious argument at best because if we look at where it is putting the resources we see that almost $700 million has been spent trying to track firearms in the country. It refuses to do a cost benefit analysis of whether it is producing any results worthy of the hundreds of millions being spent on it.

What is the government's priority? Is it tracking sex offenders? No. A huge amount of money is being spent in an area that has little benefit. It is not registering criminals. Instead it is registering law abiding citizens. It has established a huge bureaucratic gun registry with little benefit and instead it should be establishing a registry of sex offenders.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Alliance members present will be voting no to the motion.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will respectfully reply to what the government House leader has said. He made the point that because we are involved in an international conflict the minister should remain in his present position. However for the committee to properly do its work the opposite is true.

We are involved in an international conflict. It is for precisely that reason that the minister should step aside. Trust is a very important thing when a government is operating and running the affairs of the country. If the nation does not have confidence and trust in the minister we would ask that he step aside until the committee has finished its work. For the committee to properly do its work it is absolutely imperative that he step aside until the issue is resolved.

I appeal to the House leader to reconsider his decision in the matter.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thought it was very important at the beginning of this discussion and before it went to committee that members understand why this was so important to the way things operated in the House. That is my point here. I am using several examples to explain why the committee must properly examine it.

Canadians are becoming very cynical about what is happening in parliament and this can reverse that process. I urge the committee to properly examine this because it will enable us in opposition to do a much better job of holding the government accountable. We will end up with a much better government if we can have a free flow of exchange of information.

[Privilege, February 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you at this point for having the motion referred to committee.

I have observed the events as they have unfolded. I feel it is absolutely essential at this point to have this matter properly examined by the committee. When this comes forward, I urge the committee to take a look at all the circumstances here.

I would just make a point to lay the groundwork on why this matter is important for the committee to discuss. This really strikes to the very heart of what must happen in a democracy. For a democracy to work and for decisions to be made properly, there must be a free exchange of information and people must know what is happening so we as parliamentarians can make the proper decisions.

If that information, which should normally shared in the House, is not made available to us, we in opposition cannot perform our duties properly. That is why I want to underscore the importance of this matter. For a democracy to work properly, we must have an opposition that has information and can do its job effectively, and we must have a media that properly scrutinizes the issues and informs the people of the country about the issues.

Democracy cannot function if those things do not happen. For those things to happen, there must be information readily available to the members relevant to the decisions to made in the House of Commons. That is why this must be referred to committee. That is why this strikes at the very heart of this matter. That is why I feel it is so important that it is referred to committee.

I want to emphasize the fact that information which does not put the country at risk and does not violate the security of the country must be shared in a timely fashion. If the government withholds information, if it does not release it when it should and if we do not have the information in a timely fashion, those decisions which should be made, discussed and decided upon cannot be made.

This is something that is running through many questions of privilege and points of order in the last while. I have noticed and observed that. That is why it is so important for the committee to do a proper investigation of what has happened. It can set a precedent for a more open and accountable government and an improvement to the democracy in this place.

One frustration I have is we do not have the information that should be released to us through access to information. The committee could look at whether the information for which we apply comes forward properly. I have had a lot of experience in a certain area. Many times an application is made and the excuse is given that it is cabinet secrecy. There are times when that is the case, but not in relation to many of the things for which we in opposition apply. That excuse should not be given when there is no reason why certain information should not come to us.

I want to make one other brief point before my colleague replies to my comments. I have been involved in a battle to make private members' business votable. That impacts directly on what we are doing here. At the present time the government does not want to have all the private members' business that comes before the House made votable. Even though the members of the House have said they wish to have them made votable, this has not been the case. That means the government is trying to restrict information to the House and that strikes at the very core of what we are trying to get this committee to do.

[Privilege, January 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure it is clear, that it is on the record and when you do the investigation that you realize that no evidence was given. Conclusions were reached at the committee. A vote was taken by members of the committee before any evidence could even be heard. No investigation was made into why the rules were violated. That is contrary to the very intent of the rule that was set up to govern this kind of thing.

I would hope it would be clear. It tends to counter what my colleague has just said. That is what concerns me.

A lot of what happened was in relation to the question I had put on the order paper. That is why I rise to express my concern that we follow due process here, that we do not thwart democracy and the ability for the opposition to do its work properly. That is why this is so important. We need answers from the government but we also need it to be done in a timely fashion and according to good process. That is what concerns us and that is why this whole question is being raised.

[Business of the House, January 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is my duty at this time to ask the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons what business he has for the remainder of today and the following week.

[Question No. 98—, January 29th, 2002]

Concerning the implementation of the Canadian Firearms Program: ( a ) what is the projected cost to fully implement and operate the program and enforce the legislation; and ( b ) what is the cost to the Canadian economy including the projected impact on: (1) the number of firearms owners; (2) the number of hunters; (3) the number of visitors to Canada; (4) tourism and outfitting operations; (5) wildlife populations; (6) aboriginal people, communities, business and employment; (7) international trade; (8) shooting sports; (9) Olympic and international shooting competitions; (10) firearms and ammunition manufacturing, sales and service; (11) sporting goods sales and manufacturing; (12) recreational vehicle sales and manufacturing; (13) gun shows; (14) gun clubs and shooting ranges; (15) firearms collectors and museums; (16) movie and television production; (17) heritage and historical re-enactments; (18) employment in all impacted industries and activities?

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, my point is that I am asking the Speaker to rule on whether this would be better dealt with as a question of privilege rather than a point of order.