Mr. Speaker, the bill we are debating here is a very important one. It is important on two counts. The sex offender registry has been in place for some time now. The legislation provided a deadline for a committee to review it before Parliament would decide whether or not to make additions or amendments. The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security was tasked with conducting that study, which it had undertaken and was about to conclude. But then came the minister with his bill, and it is clear that he did not pay any attention to the committee's suggestions, since the committee was still in the process of preparing its report.
The committee made haste, but the minister obviously has no intention of taking into account any suggestions that might be made, any of the hearings held or any of the witnesses heard by the committee. That is insulting to the committee, but it is not the end of world because, in politics, one has to be prepared to endure some very unfair insults from time to time. We have to develop thicker skins over time, while remaining sensitive to our constituents' opinions. I think that, above all, this is a discredit to the work of Parliament. The way this government works, it is as if there were no Parliament to which it had to account.
This is also an insult to voters who, when there is a matter important to them—and I believe there are many in Quebec and Canada who feel strongly about this issue—express their opinion to their MPs so that it can be taken into account. That has happened. Our members talk to us about it because they know that we sit on the committee. It allows us to make suggestions but they are to no avail because the minister has decided that he will ignore them and present his bill.
Although this is a serious matter, it does remind me of an amusing story from my career. When I was a lawyer, a judge once invited both sides to provide sentencing submissions. When we had finished making our submissions, without leaving the hearing, the judge pulled out a written decision. Fortunately, there was a court of appeal to correct the errors he had made by not taking into account my very pertinent remarks, which were taken into consideration by the court of appeal.
It is also interesting to see the minister running away. He comes here to defend his bill. At the end of the day, when there is not enough time to listen to his speech and ask him some questions, he runs away at the end, because the House is scheduled to talk about another subject at that time, but he never comes back. I understand he might be ashamed of his behaviour, although I doubt it. Maybe he is not ashamed of himself. In any case, he will never face the music.
However, it is an overly complex bill on a subject that could have been set out much more simply. It introduces some improvements, which we could probably elaborate on, but I do not want to let any secrets slip until we have finished our report. There are, still, some improvements here, such as that of adding to the list of offences for which a judge should order the offender be on a list of dangerous offenders the offence of compelling the commission of bestiality. It is a rare crime. In 27 years of practice, I am aware of only one such case and it was not one I represented. It was a case I watched being argued. It was ordered to be in camera. The room had never been so full. All the lawyers in the region had come to attend this bizarre case. It was bestiality involving a cow. The farm worker had been surprised by a girl who reported the strange tale. The individual could be heard denying it.
In any case, I think that bestiality is more a matter of mental illness than a criminal matter. It is a crime committed usually by people of lower intellect who are on the edge of mental illness. Obviously, if they go so far as forcing the commission of it, this is the offence provided for bestiality. It is indicative of depravity that should be on the offender registry. As for murder, it could be added, but murderers, as far as I know, are sentenced to heavy prison terms and are in prison for a considerable time as it is.
There is another improvement. It is typical of Conservative behaviour. The law provided it already for the most dangerous offences, but, in fact, it covers just about the whole gamut of sexual offences, especially all those involving children. That is totally understandable and also desirable in this legislation.
However, for all these offences, the judge should automatically order the individual be placed on the list of dangerous sexual offenders. This unfortunately does not happen in all cases. The judge essentially had no discretion, except in one instance, which I will explain shortly. It was found that the crown prosecutors did not use this power often enough. And so, rather than correct the problem with the crown prosecutors—and this is typical of the provisions of the Conservatives, who take no chances and settle the matter—it will now be automatic.
What will happen if the crown prosecutors—who failed to indicate, through inadvertence or some other reason, that the individual should not be included in the registry—do not so advise the judge or if the judge does not think of it? Will it be an administrative decision? We will likely get our answer on this a little later on.
I am surprised that this opportunity is not seized to ask ourselves serious questions. The funding for Crown prosecutors across Canada, and Quebec also, has been insufficient for quite some time. That is certainly an area where there is still a fiscal imbalance and where the provinces do not have enough money to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. As we know, while criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction, the provinces are responsible for the administration of justice. The complexity of criminal law is increasing and that makes Crown prosecutors work very hard. It is therefore not surprising that some of them refrain from requesting enforcement under such circumstances.
As part of the public hearings that were held and that can be discussed here, we heard an extremely interesting presentation on the enforcement of the Ontario law. The hon. member for Ajax—Pickering quite rightly indicated that it was enforced four times more often in a single day than the federal one is in an entire year. These public hearings made it clear that it is important to know that this list is for the exclusive use of law enforcement personnel and must remain confidential.
This registry is created for preventive purposes, and must not be construed as punishing and stigmatizing individuals, which would have a discouraging effect on those who make genuine efforts to get treated for their sexual perversions while serving their sentences and after. Some sexual perversions are very hard to treat. I am told that the attraction to children is all but impossible to get rid of. What can be brought under control, however, is the urge to act on that attraction. If these individuals are too stigmatized or harassed by police, they risk becoming discouraged, which in turn will compromise their efforts to benefit from the treatments received.
In Ontario, the police are made aware of that. They act on it and, when they have to deal with registered individuals who could be suspected when a child has been abducted, simply because they live nearby, they do so with a professional attitude. They are not suspected on any other grounds. If they are not the perpetrators, they are to be approached in a professional fashion.
This registry can be used to prevent crimes. It is widely used by the police when a child has been kidnapped. This helps narrow down the areas to search. I do not recall the exact statistics, but the murder of a kidnapped child who has been sexually abused happens usually within the first few hours after kidnapping. The registry is a useful tool for the police. Once a child has been kidnapped, the police can quickly consult the registry to see whether it indicates that there are sex offenders in the surrounding area. The registry is also important for certain types of crimes, for example with kidnapping, when it is not yet known whether it was for sexual or other motivations. It is perfectly normal for this information to be given.
This brings us to the practical operation of such a system, and to some reflection. Is it really important to increase the number of sexual offences required in order to be placed on the registry? When police officers check the registry after a child has been kidnapped, instead of getting 15 potential suspects, they get 400 or 500. The time they spend looking into those 500 people is time that will not be spent on perhaps more relevant searches. There are also some drawbacks to the registry being overused. We must take this into account, and clearly the Conservatives are not in the habit of doing so. It is always the hardest way, and not the most efficient.
By the way, there is only one reason to not even wait for the committee report. They are trying to make it look as though they are doing something, without truly caring whether it is effective. One of the additions is the obligation to provide DNA samples. This is very important. This is another registry we have examined. Our report is not yet released, and we have not yet seen a bill. But we know from the Auditor General that the DNA registry is not getting the funding it needs.
Of course results can be obtained in very little time in urgent cases, but in 99% of the other cases, the ones deemed not urgent, it can take over a year to get an answer back from the DNA databank. The databank gets some $2 million or $3 million in funding per year but it is so backlogged with Parliament passing two bills last year allowing the collection of DNA samples that existing labs have not yet started recording data in the bank; they cannot start because they do not have enough funding.
We were told that it takes between 18 months and two years to train a scientist well enough to testify in court about DNA evidence. It is clear that the government must put up enough money to make the databank more functional. This is yet another case of the government demanding more from expert witnesses without providing enough funding to make it happen.
There are other improvements that this 35-page bill fails to make. This issue could have been dealt with in a much shorter bill. It is confusing and incomprehensible to most ordinary people, even to those used to reading legislation. For years, I have been telling the federal government that poorly written legislation is poorly understood and then poorly applied, but it persists in its ways. Here, crown prosecutors are once again not applying the law, but in this case, it seems to me that what they are being asked to do is relatively simple.
The databanks are being overloaded. There comes a point when we have to wonder, seriously, whether it is less useful to the police as a result.
In any case, there was a need to improve this act after three years. There is no requirement to do so, as with other acts, such as the Anti-Terrorism Act. We suggested improvements, but none of them were made. In this case, it is nice to think that if we had suggested a few amendments, they might have been implemented. For example, we would like to see an improvement whereby dangerous sexual offenders' vehicle registration numbers would be added to the registry. If a child is kidnapped and the kidnapper is seen getting into a vehicle, it is important to be able to consult the bank, and with a registration number, it is possible to see whether this person is on the list of dangerous sexual offenders.
We agree with the changes in principle. The problem is that we were willing to cooperate and we did cooperate, but the minister did not take any of our suggestions into consideration. Nevertheless, we are going to make ourselves useful by making the necessary changes to the bill he introduced at the wrong time.
