Peter MacKay

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would only add that we have made efforts to contact the mover of the motion. I of course had to remain here in the Chamber so as not to miss my spot in the rotation. Perhaps we could have some indication from a member of the Alliance who is in the Chamber if that consent might be forthcoming.

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to once again participate in the debate surrounding the implementation of a national sex offender registry. This is an incredibly sound idea. The concept has been in public discussion for some time and is very much the purpose of the motion.

Ironically the motion has already been before the House. As has been stated, members unanimously supported it, yet here we are again with the same motion because of the disingenuous efforts of the government to support it. What took place was lip service, to use the vernacular, saying that we supported it yet we did nothing.

There is a record of occurrences on other subject matters where that has been the case. I personally brought in a motion pertaining to workplace safety. That motion stemmed from the terrible disaster at the Westray mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Once again it was debated. It went through the entire process of private members' business. The motion was debated and was unanimously supported. It went to committee where we heard from witnesses and it was supported there. Nothing has happened, nothing.

Yet the government, through the solicitor general and other speakers, says it supports it because it already has happened. That simply is false. It has not happened. A separate stand-alone system is what is required. That is how members understand the motion to read.

It truly is deliberate and wilful blindness on the part of the solicitor general and other speakers on the Liberal side to stand and say they support it only because it already exists. It does not exist. That is the fact. Police officers, provincial attorneys general and other people working in the system will verify that the current CPIC system does not allow for a mandatory registry of information pertaining to sex offenders. That is what is needed. That is what is necessary and imperative to protect children in particular.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague and seatmate from Prince George--Peace River.

I personally moved a motion very similar to the motion before the House. Therefore I would be following in the Liberal tradition of hypocrisy and duplicity if I did not support the motion.

The motion before the House is one which the provinces certainly support. Provincial attorneys general have repeatedly called upon the government to enact a national sex offender registry. The Canadian Police Association, the victims' resource centre and citizens generally are looking to the government to show some leadership, to show some political will if that is what it takes, and bring this system about.

That is what happened with the firearms registry. I do not want to mix messages or continually bring this into the debate, but in the past five or six years the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to register long guns in Canada based upon voluntary participation. It is voluntary only insofar as the coming year and then it will be upon pain of criminal conviction.

The government is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, which it has done before. There are ample examples of where it has done this. The cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter program is another example of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money being spent. The Pearson airport contract cancellation cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

We are talking about setting up a system for far less. That system would impact on crime. It would actually protect and prevent victims under that type of criminal activity.

The CPIC system which is in place now is very good. It has been upgraded. It was near a state of collapse a few years ago because of Liberal neglect and cutbacks in the law enforcement area.

Presently, convicted offenders may be released into a community and change their residence or their appearance; the entire population is aware that sex offenders prey upon those least able to defend themselves. They do so by deceit, by disguise and very much by subterfuge. Those types of nefarious activities are done intentionally, to go undetected.

There is no faith that a sex offender registry will ever work unless there is some necessity that the offender comply upon pain of having conditions breached and going back to court. Bringing back some accountability is what is required. That does not exist under the current system. As I stated before in questions and comments, it is relying upon court records, probation officers, police and those who work in the system to enter that data.

Coupled with all the other information that is found on the Canadian Police Information Centre, it is impossible to sort it out in such a way that communities, police and those in the law enforcement community can access it in such a way that it can be used for prevention.

We know that recidivism is extremely high with sex offenders. In the event of reoccurrence, such as a heinous act of abduction or sexual assault, valuable time is lost in trying to identify the suspect who is oftentimes not known to local police or to the community because of the issue of mobility which is so prevalent.

A national sex offender registry would provide police with an enhanced ability to protect society and carry out this absolutely critical task of enforcing a safe and orderly society. It would give police better access to information about the specific whereabouts of offenders and about all convictions of a sexual nature that have been registered with the courts.

Sadly not all offences make it into the CPIC system, and I experienced this myself as a crown attorney. When the offence has occurred in British Columbia, there may be a delay in entering the information in the system if the individual is before the courts in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.

The full picture is not before the courts. If a person has a previous offence and has shown a previous proclivity toward sexual aggression, that necessary information may not be available. That critical missing piece of the puzzle may result in an entirely different outcome at trial or perhaps more important at the sentencing stage if a conviction is returned.

A national system would allow the police much greater access to information and a much greater ability to protect. It is simply a good idea that would work. It requires investment of resources. Again, we have seen the government invest in all sorts of much less important areas of public expenditure.

The United States has state registries which are currently up and operating. The province of Ontario, as alluded to by others, is in the process of enforcing this type of system.

That technology is now available. It should be a priority. It should be a system that we are prepared to use. We have had upgrades to CPIC that include flagging pardoned records of sex offenders. We have a system that will hopefully monitor those who are on probation and who are on conditions of parole. Yet a national sex offender registry set up in a comprehensive national computer system and made available to police is an absolute necessity if we are to improve the way in which we deliver services now and monitor those in the community who have already been convicted of a sexual offence.

It could also be tailored to replace and basically adopt the computer infrastructure for the long gun registry which has been a complete waste of money.

Ontario has offered to try to apply its system to the current federal system in hopes of encouraging the federal government to adopt this.

There are two questions; one is of process. The government has tried to simply by a wink and a nod put this issue to one side by saying it has already done it. It has not done it. It comes back to the main issue. Why would the government not be prepared to support and act on the recommendation in this motion?

I want to conclude my remarks by saying that we have an opportunity here to also restore a bit of faith, if the government were to actually support the system and act on it. We must treat these occasions with the greatest of seriousness. Bringing in a national sex offender registry would be good in and of itself.

Before turning over the floor to my very able seatmate and colleague, I would like to move an amendment to the Alliance supply day motion, seconded by my colleague from Prince George Peace River. The amendment would essentially add to the wording in the first paragraph after the word “a” the following: “separate and stand-alone” sex offender registry.

I realize under the new rules there has to be agreement for this amendment to be inserted. I would suggest, by virtue of the comments we have heard from the Alliance members today, that they would not object to the insertion of the words separate and stand-alone, categorizing this from what the government has tried to lead people to believe; that we already have a system under CPIC that qualifies as a national sex offender registry.

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give my colleague from Winnipeg--Transcona, a fellow House leader, an opportunity to expand a little on what I think is the crux of the issue. That is the inability of the current CPIC system to provide for penalties when an individual who is convicted of an offence relating to sexual violence, particularly sexual violence directed at children, does not register.

Under the current system we are relying upon the good graces and the efficiency of court officials, the police, judges and prosecutors to ensure that the information is entered into a central computer bank called CPIC. We also know that the CPIC system contains all criminal convictions. It contains parole conditions. It contains the probation orders that are attached to sentences that are handed out.

What is envisioned by the motion, by the provinces and by the police is a stand-alone registry system. Sex offenders would be required to register their changes of address and their conditions of probation. That stand-alone information is what would comprise the preventive nature of the system. We know that stand-alone systems can exist because we have the cumbersome, costly, ineffective, unenforceable long gun registry.

This stand-alone system in my estimation would cost far less and would actually work. It would actually provide police with that type of information. The member is right to key in on that particular area of the motion.

The member is also right to suggest that there was an element of hypocrisy when we last had this issue before us. It begs the question, if a tree fell in the Chamber, would the Liberals hear it?

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

It is like “Groundhog Day”.

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will not congratulate the hon. member. I will point out that what he has told us about the government accepting and implementing the motion is the complete opposite of the truth.

In fact, what the new system does not do is allow for updated information that could be used in a preventive way by the police and the communities. The system simply does not do that. It does not take into account the mobility of offenders. Therefore, much of the prevention is lost. The system is only as good as the information that is entered into it. Unfortunately, these changes in location are currently not available under the CPIC system. Therefore, it is failing. It is not up to snuff. It is not what is needed at this time.

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the solicitor general for being here and participating in the debate. I will be the first to say there have been improvements, some of which the solicitor general has pointed out: the flagging system that passed through the House recently; long term supervision; and the ability of the RCMP, prosecutors and municipal police to identify high risk offenders. We are quick to embrace all these things as good ideas.

Yet in his remarks the solicitor general made reference to jurisdictional concerns and the need for national consensus. First, sex offenders do not respect jurisdictional concerns. They do not respect the law, period. They are predatory. References have been made to the high rate of recidivism among sex offenders.

My question pertains to the minister's reference to national consensus. My first thought was that national consensus did not enter the government's mind at all when it imposed a gun registry, particularly on rural parts of the country which the solicitor general himself represents.

Where is this national consensus? We are hearing completely contradictory evidence from provincial governments and attorneys general with respect to the federal government's approach to implementing a national sex offender registry. They are calling for a separate and distinct stand-alone sex offender registry, not something rolled into the CPIC system.

Yes, what we have is better than nothing at all, but it does not provide the quick access to information required by police working in the field. There is no national consensus as the solicitor general would have us believe. How does he respond to that? What consensus is he speaking of?

[Supply, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from Langley--Abbotsford for the work he has done on this file. I wonder if he has turned his mind to the possibility of utilizing existing infrastructure in the way of computers and a registry system. He has alluded to the CPIC system, a national registry with respect to criminal records and warrants. Of course any system, as the hon. member will be quick to acknowledge, is only as good as the information that is in the particular system.

I have a question for the hon. member. I do not want to confuse the issue or mix messages here, but has the hon. member or anyone in his employ, in the research he has had available to him, ever looked at the possibility of using the infrastructure of the disastrous national firearms registry that exists, with the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been pumped into the system, and which will not work because people will not voluntarily register, especially Hell's Angels? Has he looked at the possibility of using that computer data system, that technology, that national registry, to apply to, at least in some way, registering sex offenders? Is it something that might be a practical use, at least, of the resources, the hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars that have been pumped into this useless registry system that was ill-fated from its very beginning? The government told people that it would cost $84 million and it is now in the range of $500 million or $600 million and counting. Is it possible to apply that infrastructure to a more practical and more realistic purpose that would allow police, parole officers and Canadians generally to have this national sex offender registry envisaged by the hon. member?

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

Mr. Speaker, members of the Progressive Conservative/Democratic Representative Caucus Coalition vote yes to the motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[Points of Order, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order, in support of the Bloc Quebecois member.

I believe there is a straightforward solution to all of this. I am quite surprised that the government House leader has not returned to the House with some solution to this.

As has been pointed out, there is a very substantial difference in the wording of the text of the amendment. In the English text, the term discretionary would allow a judge to imply that the issue of a person's aboriginal descent would be a factor to be considered. In the French version of the text it would be obligatory for judges to go through that discretionary exercise before meting out a sentence. This is something that goes to the very root of what would be expected in terms of drafting and professionalism and to avoid this issue having to make its way through the courts, as was suggested by my colleague.

Why on earth would we recognize that there is a flaw in this particular drafting, simply let it go by the wayside and suggest somehow that we would leave it up to the courts to fix this? I would suggest there should always be consistency in the drafting and interpretation. We hope the government would react to this quickly so that the vote tonight would be on a text that reflects the same intent from the Senate and from this place.

[Petitions, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition from constituents in the county of Antigonish, communities like Heatherton, Afton and Bayfield. The petitioners call upon the government to draw attention to the issue of coercion within the medical practice which directly contravenes deeply held ethical standards of some in the medical profession, particularly nurses.

They urge the government in this petition to enact legislation explicitly recognizing the freedom of conscience of health care workers, prohibiting coercion and unjust discrimination against those health care workers because of refusal to participate in matters contrary to the dictates of their conscience and establishing penalties for such coercion and unjust discrimination.