Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 4 - Evidence - April 21, 2010
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts, met this day at 4:24 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator John D. Wallace (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: We will begin the committee meeting. I thank colleagues for attending. We still have a couple yet to appear and I am sure they will show up shortly.
Briefly, by way of background, we will be continuing our study of Bill S-2, the short title of which is ``Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act.'' This particular bill would amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, the National Defence Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act. The declared purpose and objective of Bill S-2 is to provide better protection for Canadians from sexual offenders by strengthening the national sex offender registry and the national DNA data bank to enable law enforcement officials to both prevent and investigate crimes sexual in nature more effectively.
Against that backdrop, various witnesses have appeared before us. It has been extremely informative. We are most pleased today that we have two eminently qualified witnesses. From the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, we have Dr. Paul Fedoroff, director of the sexual behaviours clinic, and Lisa Murphy, a forensic psychometrist.
Before I ask you to make your presentation, we have three panels today and in two hours time some of the committee members are required at other committee meetings, so please keep your comments pointed. As one of the worst offenders, if we can avoid speechification of our questions, I feel that might help condense the time and enable us to get through this more quickly. Having said that, we want to do it effectively.
Without further ado, Dr. Fedoroff, we would like to hear your presentation.
Dr. Paul Fedoroff, Director, Sexual Behaviours Clinic, Royal Ottawa Health Care Group: Thank you for inviting me. I am the director of the sexual behaviours clinic. You probably will want to hear most from Lisa Murphy, who has written the articles that specifically deal with the issues in which I think you are most interested. In fact, she was first contacted by this committee and kindly invited me along. Ms. Anwar, the clerk with whom I corresponded and who was fantastic at helping organize this, said that I should try to restrict my comments to the issue of recidivism, which is slightly separate from what the main committee's interest is. I presume that that is still the case. I have prepared some handouts which summarize the issue. Obviously, we could talk a great deal about that issue, but I will highlight some of the features that are in the handouts you have.
The first is a cover from The Economist with the title ``America's unjust sex laws.'' I put that in because the article actually references some of the other materials that I have presented, and to point out to you that questions have arisen around the world about how sex offenders are dealt with. I can tell you that Canada is one of the leaders in terms of presenting ideas to the rest of the world. The sexual behaviours clinic has been consulted by many other countries to match the success that we have had. The United States is another country that has sent people to our committee for training and advice about how to improve their system.
The next one is a paper by Andrew J.R. Harris and R. Karl Hanson, which is probably the best paper, if you just want to look at a summary of the recidivism rate for sexual behaviour, particularly in Canada. This is available on the Internet in both languages. There is a lot of material there, but the most important element is probably the top line that begins with ``5 years, 10 years and 15 years.''
The basic summary, which is more or less agreed to by everyone in the scientific world, is that the recidivism rate is 15 per cent at five years for sex offenders who are in the community and have an opportunity. In other words, 85 per cent of sex offenders do not reoffend, regardless of what you do. That rate increases to 20 per cent at 10 years of opportunity and goes up to 25 per cent at 15 years. That is basically the bottom line. That is the recidivism rate for sex offenders pretty well everywhere in the world, regardless of treatment.
The next graph shows a finding which I think is now accepted throughout the world: The rate of sexual offences is decreasing, not just in North America but around the world, and it is decreasing dramatically. You can see from the graph that, in 1982, rape offences in the U.S. were 250 per 100,000. That has now dropped to about 75 per 100,000 in the year 2002. That is a dramatic drop. In the social sciences, you do not usually see those kinds of changes. I can say those trends have continued since the end of that graph.
The next graph is one from a Harris and Hanson paper. It is what we call a survival curve. There are a couple points I would like to infer. If you look at the line across the top of the page, the successes are the area under that line. Those are people who have not reoffended. Again, you will see that the majority of sex offenders who are in the community, even at 22 years of follow-up, have not reoffended; about 75 per cent have not reoffended at 22 years after follow-up. This is obviously over a 20-year period. In a minute, I will show you how we have gotten better, so this line should be looking even straighter across the top in the future.
That is the first point.
The second point is that the line levels out as you go out. This mean that the majority of offences occur during the first year a sex offender is released into the community. The risk of reoffending drops for every year that person is in the community and has not reoffended. That is sometimes not understood by people who have some idea that it is just a matter of time until the offender will reoffend.
It is the reverse, and it is that way for many problematic behaviours, by the way. If a person quits smoking, every year they do not smoke decreases their risk of becoming a smoker again. The same goes for sex offenders.
The next page is a summary of some research that was done by Dr. Bill Marshall, who is one the people in our program and a very distinguished psychiatrist who has received the Order of Canada. He is basically presenting some data that was done at Bath Institution, which is a federal correctional facility dealing with medium- to high-risk sex offenders. These are more than your usual sex offenders. These are high-risk men; 534 have been released into the community for at least five years; the mean was 5.4 years. On the far right side, you will see the expected recidivism rate, which is a little over 15 per cent because these are high-risk offenders. You will see that the actual sexual recidivism rate is, in fact, 3.2 per cent. This illustrates the effectiveness of the treatments. There are other factors, but the recidivism rates have been dropping.
They have dropped so much that Static-99, which is one the actuarial risk scales, has actually been revised because the recidivism rates have dropped so much from when the scale was originally constructed.
The next page actually gives you a breakdown of the financial benefits of running a program like Dr. Marshall's. This omits the saving in terms of repeat offences and sexual victimization. It shows that the government saves about $1.3 million per year by running that program.
I will stop at that point. I expect there may be some questions. I think there are some other materials in your handouts that address specifically recidivism rates, so I will stop at that point and welcome any questions or comments you may have.
The Deputy Chair: We can do that. Ms. Murphy, do you wish to make your presentation?
Lisa Murphy, Forensic Psychometrist, Royal Ottawa Health Care Group: I can do that. Good afternoon. I want to take this opportunity to thank the chair and honourable senators for inviting us here today to speak about this important topic. There are many things that need to be discussed and I will try to keep my comments brief.
There are two things I wants to talk about. The first is looking at research that has been done on sex offender registries, largely within the American context, which is where a lot of the research which looks at sex offender registries comes from.
We see many Canadian academics looking at the research. However, from the Canadian perspective, there is limited research. Oftentimes, we see them referring more to the American research. This is where I want to caution you. I presume much of the research you have been hearing about is coming from the American perspective. However, we have to be careful when comparing research done in the U.S. versus research done on the Canadian perspective.
The U.S. registry is quite different than ours in that their sex offender registry is linked to their system of public notification of sex offenders. Within Canada, we have this legislation as well, but it is separate from the process of registration. For example, in the U.S., an individual can go online to the national or state sex offender registry and look up information that would appear on the registry. It is open to the public whereas it is not the case in Canada. This is not the case for the national registry or the Ontario registry. When making comparisons about the research that has been done there, we are possibly looking at very different results.
Therefore, in terms of generalizing over to the Canadian perspective, we have to be very cautious about the numbers we are looking at. If there is anything I can suggest, it is that more research needs to be done within the Canadian perspective: Looking at the unique needs of the registered offenders here, and the unique impact of being a registered sex offender within the Canadian context.
That is the first point I would like to talk about. During questioning, we can also talk more about the particulars of the research.
The second thing I would like to talk about today has to do with research I undertook during my Master's. We essentially took a group of registered sex offenders. We wanted to understand how being a registered sex offender impacts them, so we looked at the views and perceptions of their experiences. This had not been done from the Canadian perspective before.
Many people would generally think that these offenders would find it to be quite onerous and intrusive to be on the sex offender registry. Anecdotally, from the sexual behaviours clinic, we were hearing that this might not be the case. In fact, one individual had even described the process of registration as being as easy as going to renew his driver's licence. We wanted to look further into this and see if this was the case. Maybe they do not see it as being that onerous.
We took a group of 30 registered sex offenders who were receiving treatment at the sexual behaviours clinic and looked at the impact on them. We found that over 60 per cent of the participants expressed that being a registrant was not very onerous. Many largely adhered to the statement that it was only a ``mild irritant'', which was quite interesting. As I said, many people would generally see this as being onerous.
Additionally, many also commented on the fact that they understood the need for a system of registration as long as it was properly utilized, meaning it was private and their privacy was respected. That is generally what we found.
Of the concerns noted, there are three general themes. The first was misidentification of the source of difficulty. We would have registrants come forward and say, ``Yes, I have a difficulty being on the registry because of this.'' For example, one registrant said, ``I want to travel with work to the U.S. and I have difficulty doing that because I am on the registry.'' In all reality, that is not the case. He is having difficulties because of his criminal record, not because he is on the sex offender registry. Often, there is misidentification. We saw that many times.
The second main theme was concerns with the length of the reporting period. Typically, men who were on the registry for 20 years or life had issues with the fact that they would have to register either for 20 years or for life. They would say, ``I am going through treatment and trying to fully reintegrate into the community, but 10, 15, 20 years into the future I still have to go annually and report, and that is going to follow me.'' That was one concern we saw as well.
The last main theme that we saw was the manner in which police drop-in visits were conducted. Essentially, when a registered sex offender goes to report his information annually, about two weeks later the police will go to the house to ensure that this information is correct, for example, that he reported the right address. During these times, the registrants largely did not have a huge issue with the fact that the police were going to come to ensure that they provided the correct information. They struggled more with events that would occur during these meetings that would increase the likelihood of what they call being ``outed'' within their community. They noted inconsistent attire by the police officers. For example, one year the police would show up in full uniform and come to the door; in other years, they would show up in street clothes with just their badge. For them, inconsistent application became a difficulty. We often saw that, when the police did show up in plainclothes, the registrant was much more likely to report that they found the overall interaction to be positive, and that they were less likely to experience anxiety coming up to the next annual drop-in, as they call it. Generally, that is what we were finding.
I want to stress that their main concern was the attempts to ensure privacy. We know that the intention of the national sex offender registry is to act as an investigative tool. In no way is it supposed to be added punishment for their offence, because that would be a violation of their rights. It is important to note that during these police visits, as much is done as possible to ensure that the individual's rights to privacy are respected. There was an example for one where a registrant had said, ``Well, I had a great experience. When the police came to me, they parked a couple doors down from my house and walked up and made sure that they were in my house before they started talking to me about being on the sex offender registry.'' That one was great, but you also hear commentary on other ones where a man will say, ``I live in an apartment building and the police buzzed into the lobby of my apartment and said, `We are here for the national sex offender registry check.''' There are large inconsistencies within this approach. The recommendation for that would be a general protocol of consistency that works to ensure privacy.
Based on that, there were also some recommendations as a result of my research. To ensure that we have enough time, I will open those up in the event you have questions about possible recommendations and I will allow questions for now.
Senator Baker: I would like to welcome the witnesses and to say what a pleasure it is to have you here, and to recognize the tremendous work you do in your jobs. Everyone appreciates your dedication.
I would like to ask my first question of Dr. Fedoroff. We all know you from case law. You spend an incredible amount of time, perhaps more so than any other psychiatrist, before the courts in answer to court orders where you provide your opinion at sentencing on whether someone will likely repeat their offences. You provide your opinion as to whether or not they are not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, NCRMD. Is that the correct terminology?
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes.
Senator Baker: This bill covers both the offences in which there would be an automatic registration and those judged to be not criminally responsible because of an MD in much the same manner as far as registration is concerned.
From the incredible experience you have had concerning these two matters on sentencing, namely, the likelihood of someone reoffending and on being not criminally responsible for those offences, do you have any immediate thoughts on this bill that is being introduced to amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the DNA Identification Act? Do you have any immediate observations on it or anything you would like to see in the bill that is not there? Do you have any concerns about it?
Dr. Fedoroff: People who are found not criminally responsible for a sexual offence are a different group. By and large, that group is followed extremely closely by the Ontario Review Board, at least in Ontario, and by the provincial boards in all the other provinces as well. The main benefit of the registry is to know where the person lives. You get that information from the registry, along with their DNA. The people who are NCR are known by the boards until they get an absolute discharge. That is not such a great benefit as it may be for others. Some people have wondered whether, if they are not criminally responsible, they should be put on the registry. That is more of a legal debate.
I run a group with sex offenders who are at all stages, including NCR. Some are pre-trial; some are just out of custody and on probation or parole. We often have people who are facing charges before the courts. We talk about what is going on. I then throw it open to the group and ask, ``Do you have any advice for them?'' Something you may find surprising is that one of the most consistent pieces of advice that the guys who have been around for a while say is this: Make sure your lawyer gets you on the registry. Among offenders, their view is that you get fewer door knocks if you are on the registry because you are ruled out quicker when there is a new offence if there is DNA evidence. I actually checked this again last night. I asked them, ``Is that true?'' They all agreed that their lives have improved because they are on the registry and can be ruled out quicker. That applies for NCR as well.
Senator Baker: The Ontario registry has been working much better than the national registry in that you do have police that check regularly on people who are on these lists. We do not have it to the same degree nationally or in other provinces.
You mentioned the review board. That is the review board that is set up. The chair is a former judge and there is a psychiatrist on the board, and so on. Someone who is normally in an institution is being monitored. I think most people are concerned about a repeat offender, and whether or not you think there is anything that can be done in any way in legislation in an effort to try to prevent reoffending at a later date, after release. I understand the NCR is released after an absolute discharge, but they still are recognized as committing the offence. They are not acquitted of the offence, they are just NCR. Could anything be done further to assist matters? Would you also include your opinion of the federal jails in which these people are put and whether or not they have ready access to alcohol and drugs in those institutions, and whether or not you recommend to the courts that they be sent to a federal institution or some other institution when you give your opinions on sentencing?
That is two questions in one; one deals with whether there is anything that can be done to prevent the repetition of the crime, and the second is what you think of our federal jails.
Dr. Fedoroff: Those are two big questions. Let me say for the first question that I actually think the biggest thing we could do to further reduce sex offences is actually the prevention of offences in the first place, which is why we are trying to get people into our clinics before they commit crimes, and we are becoming more successful about that.
The other important thing is — and I am a therapist and may be biased — I think therapy does help these individuals and the efforts to reintegrate them into the community. The registry in the United States is not as successful as ours, and it is not as successful because it stigmatizes. It is publicly available and people get stigmatized by being on it. It has the effect of driving people underground and away from therapy and pro-social contact. Anything that can be done with our registry that helps to identify but not stigmatize would be helpful.
I think Lisa mentioned some things. It makes a big difference if people are able to register discreetly, and our patients have said it would be nice if they could call in to register every year and they can check to ensure that we are actually there, rather than having to go down to the police station, or if the police, when they check to make sure they are living where they say, could come in unmarked cars and not identify themselves as police publicly. That makes a huge difference and makes it much more likely that people will sign up and obey the rules of the registry.
Those are small changes but they make a huge difference in how well the system works. As I have said, the main benefit of the registry is knowing where the guys live and having DNA tracking. Everything else you can get from CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, which really duplicates almost everything that the registry is adding.
Our federal systems, again, are far ahead of the American system. There is no question that drugs and alcohol do get into those institutions. They are big institutions, they have lots of people coming and going, so that is another huge issue. If you read case law you will know that.
Senator Baker: You recommended against sending them to federal prison.
Dr. Fedoroff: The reason I say that is because, from my point of view, the issues are what they do when they get back into the community. The federal institutions are really set up to hold men for a long time. They are not as good at reintegrating. It is not part of what they think about as much, whereas the provincial institutions know the guy will be going back in two years less a day, so they start thinking about what will happen when they leave. That is a very important part of making sure that, when they do go back, they never have to go back into prison again.
Senator Joyal: I would like to raise an issue that is a follow-up to your answer to Senator Baker, which is contained in a letter that has been circulated to the members of this committee, whereby you were responding to an article in The Globe and Mail in 2004. In that letter you mention that the treatment of sex offenders has undergone three revolutions. The first three, in your opinion, are the use of different drugs, and I do not dare to list their names because they are rather cryptic to me, but I would like to focus on the fourth one. You say that the fourth revolution is currently underway, which involves the identification of sexual problems in juveniles under 18 years, and even in individuals who have never acted under criminal sexual interest.
I am mostly interested to know how that could be done as a joint effort with the improvement of the sex registry as being, in my opinion, a very important initiative to be taken if we do not want to have what I call the `fireman syndrome', that is, to come when the house is already almost burned down, rather than preventing the owners from taking proper care of it in order to avoid the fire. As I understand, your fourth revolution is avoiding the fire. What is the approach you have developed on that aspect of the work you do?
Dr. Fedoroff: In the handout I gave you, the last page is one that is a picture which says, ``Do you like kids too much?'' This is a slide from a program from Germany, in Berlin. It was actually funded by Volkswagen, the car maker. They put up billboards and posters around Berlin with this slogan, ``Do you like kids too much?'', and a very brave actor, and also a phone number to call and information about what to do if you do have abnormal sexual interests. It has been, I understand, very successful in getting the message out that there is treatment and that it is effective. This is something that I would very much like to see us taking an initiative in Canada of letting people know, because Ms. Murphy and I often will see men coming in who have been arrested who say if they had known about this program, if they had known they could come and get treatment and it did not mean they would be going to jail, they would have come before they did anything, and I actually believe that.
We actually are seeing more and more people now who are, in fact, doing that. They hear about our program from things like this, or I did a radio show for the CBC this afternoon in which we talk about this. That is the way of the future, I think. If we can prevent crimes like this from happening, that will be a huge step forward.
Senator Joyal: Would you say that that approach could be used by institutions which happen to have the responsibility of kids, for instance?
Let me be more specific. When you have a church that has within its ranks adults who will ask to take care of kids in whatever capacity, do you think it would be a fair question to submit them to that kind of test?
Dr. Fedoroff: That is a controversial issue.
Senator Joyal: I know; that is why I am asking you.
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes. I do not think that testing is at the level where we can say, yes, this is a problem yet or not. I think it may cause more problems than solutions, but what is important is to include, when we do sex education and so forth and talk about these things, the information that there is treatment for these types of problems and one can go to these places to get help.
When people think there is no treatment or nothing that can be done, they tend not to do anything; they keep quiet about it, but if they know there is a place they could go where they will be listened to and understood and helped, I believe many teenagers who are developing abnormal interests would be willing to go on their own before they are tested.
Senator Joyal: I will put another question to you.
The Deputy Chair: I am sorry to cut you off but I am concerned about the three panels we have. Will you mind holding your question for the second round?
Senator Joyal: I will, or I will make an appointment with the doctor.
[Translation]
Senator Rivest: My question is a general one. Based on your experience, generally speaking, has the increase in the severity of prison terms and minimum Criminal Code sentences had a significant impact on the observed decrease in the number of sex offences?
[English]
Dr. Fedoroff: I do not think so. We know that in the United States, for example, the penalties are much harsher than they are in Canada. They do not have a lower rate of sexual offences. When I talk to my patients, they never say, ``I thought this was worth it because the penalty would not be too much.'' They never think of being on the registry as an issue. I do not think that increasing the penalties is a deterrent.
I would like to say one other thing that is important with regard to the federal registry. It is optional. I am suspicious that sometimes, although it was not supposed to be used this way, it has been used for plea bargaining so that the Crown counsel could say, ``You plead to this or we will go for the registry.'' That explains why the Crowns do not always go for the registry; it is used as a plea bargain. I am in favour of it being mandatory as opposed to optional.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like Senator Rivest, what interests me most are the repeat offenders and criminals who have completed their sentences whom we release and that the correctional system has not managed to treat. I have two or three brief questions. I may have tens of questions because this is a subject of considerable interest to me. Did you say earlier that the repeat offender statistics from one country to another seem to be similar over time?
[English]
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes, the trend of a decrease in the incidence of sexual abuse has been observed around the world.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Does that mean that all the treatment programs in our correctional systems — some countries treat prisoners and others do not — have little effect on recidivism? Here I will refer you to a study that was conducted in Vancouver in which they followed 800 sexual predators and 800 other predators who had never been treated in prison. For those who had been treated, the recidivism rate was 20 per cent; for those who had not been treated, it was 21 per cent. What concerns me about these statistics is, if we say that all of the statistics in the correctional systems of modern countries show a similar recidivism rate, do the programs in our penitentiary institutions have little effect?
[English]
Dr. Fedoroff: You have touched on a big area. In fact, there was an even larger study done in the United States that failed to show an effect of the treatment. Even though, again, the majority of the people did not reoffend, the treatment did not make an appreciable difference.
There have been advances in the treatment from the time that those ones were done. There were several treatments used at that time. We have now actually moved to a more sophisticated type of treatment, which has now been adopted by the federal prison system, as well as provincial. The big change is that, instead of telling offenders not to do it again and that being the focus of treatment, it has moved to what to do instead. It is focused on helping people to change their lifestyles to get jobs and to develop healthy consensual relationships that are different from the ones they had before.
That does seem to have made a difference. I showed you some data from Dr. Marshall's program, which is achieving significant results that are even better than expected.
It would be a shame to say the treatment is ineffective because of a couple of studies. We can do better, but the treatments actually do make a difference. We have a group every Tuesday night. If you would like to see first-hand what the offenders say, one evening there would give you some sense of the differences that treatment can make in peoples' lives.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Do you share the opinion of many scientists and psychiatrists who say that pedophilia cannot be treated, but rather controlled?
[English]
Dr. Fedoroff: I do not. I admit I am controversial in that opinion. In my experience, people can not only stop offending but can actually change their sexual interests. I was taught, like many were, 20 years ago that this is a lifelong condition that is unchangeable. I have since then modified that to think that, in fact, it is possible for people to change their sexual interests. I think that that is normal. I do not think it is unusual. Most normal people change in the people they were attracted to when they were 12 to the people they are attracted to when they are 70. The people we follow in the clinic do show an ability to change their interests.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I understand that you can be attracted by a blond at the age of 14 and by a brunette at the age of 20. However, many people claim that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is a virtually innate orientation and that, in the view of many researchers, making an effort to switch orientation from homosexual to heterosexual or from pedophile to mature heterosexual is tantamount to trying to change sexual orientation. Based on your experience, can a pedophile be put back on the right track?
[English]
Dr. Fedoroff: I do. When we talk about sexuality, we talk about three dimensions: gender, which is whether people feel they are male or female, which is fixed; orientation, which is who people fall in love with in an erotic way; and sexual interest, which is the problem that pedophiles have. The third is more changeable than the first two, I think. The problem that true pedophiles have is that they are only interested in children and are unable to develop an interest in same-aged people. That can change in the way that it changes in normal people, and that is part of what we try to do in therapy.
In some people we cannot do that, and then we use antiandrogens, which suppress all their sexual interests, at least until they can develop a more pro-social way of life.
Senator Runciman: I am somewhat familiar with the good work that the Royal Ottawa does. My question is related somewhat to Senator Baker's comments. Our time is brief so I will go to a pet interest of mine, which is the ability of the federal corrections system to deal effectively, not just with sex offenders, and I know that is the primary focus of our discussion here today, but with people in the criminal justice system who have varying degrees of mental illness.
I am also somewhat familiar with the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, which I think is unique in Canada if not North America. The Correctional Service of Canada sends individuals suffering mental illness to this 100-bed secure treatment facility and the treatment is provided by the Royal Ottawa Hospital.
I know it is a provincial facility and we are dealing with two years less a day. I am not sure how many of these individuals who go through that system are sex offenders. I have talked to a series of solicitors general and both parties in office about taking a look at the idea of a specific facility that would deal with these kinds of challenges of federal inmates, rather than being this huge institution, as an example, and contrast the challenges associated with that.
Do either or both of you have comments on that, and the federal applicability of the process we are seeing at the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre?
Dr. Fedoroff: Thank you for mentioning the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre. You are quite correct. It is within the provincial corrections system and it is run by correctional guards on the outside. Once you get inside, all the staff are mental health professionals and it is designed to actually work like a hospital with the aim of providing treatment.
Senator Runciman: What about the recidivism rates in terms of the six years it has been in operation?
Dr. Fedoroff: It has been in operation for three years and we are collecting the data now. Recidivism rates take a while because you need to have people out and have a chance to find out whether anything has gone wrong. They are delayed.
We are collecting that data and I cannot tell you that right now. I expect they should be good because we do work on the integration. We do not just let them out and forget about them; we work hard on how they are followed afterwards.
The model is an excellent one. There are approximations of it in the federal system. The Kingston Penitentiary has a mental health unit within its walls, but the idea of ramping up the treatment aspect for men who will be returned back to the community would be helpful.
Senator Runciman: I have a supplementary. In your observations, regarding the terms of the professionals involved in providing treatment in the federal system versus those who stay outside the system like yourself and the Royal Ottawa Hospital or other private providers, I am curious about the ability for the corrections system to attract the best people as possible.
I do not want to be derogatory at all about the individuals who go into the correction system, in terms of the highly skilled individuals who give treatment. I suspect you will be reluctant to respond to this, as well as to the contrast you see in terms of the ability of the corrections system to attract the best people possible into those kinds of roles?
Dr. Fedoroff: Let me answer by way of analogy. I started off as a GP, general practitioner, and I used to work in the emergency room. I had a great mentor in the emergency room who insisted that, after we did a day in the ER, we go up to the ward and walk around to see what happened to all people we had gone through, stabilized, and shipped off to surgery and internal medicine. He said you do so because, if you just stay in the ER, all you see are the disasters and you do not see the effects of what you do.
I mention that because I think there is a danger for people in the federal system to see only the failures. To get to the federal system, you generally have to relapse and have committed terrible crimes. If you stay there, you never see the successes. They are my colleagues and we work together and meet at conferences.
They are a fantastic group of people, so I have nothing wrong to say about the federal system except to acknowledge that I think they often see the disasters. I think that applies to the public, as well. They only see the disasters on the front pages of the papers and when something goes wrong. You do not hear about the majority of offenders who never reoffend and who actually change their lives to be functioning contributors to society.
The Deputy Chair: Dr. Fedoroff, I understand your time is limited. How much longer will we have you here?
Dr. Fedoroff: Can we say until 5:30?
The Deputy Chair: That would fine.
Senator Angus: Thank you both very much, Ms. Murphy and Dr. Fedoroff. I find your evidence terrific and I congratulate you.
Unlike Senator Runciman, I am not totally familiar with the Royal Ottawa Health Group. Could you put on the record for us whether this is a large university medical centre, generally?
Dr. Fedoroff: It is. It is fully affiliated with the University of Ottawa and has two campuses. One is down the street on Carling Avenue and the other is in Brockville. It is a psychiatric consortium hospital. We only deal with psychiatric problems, but we deal with the whole range of problems in both Ottawa and Brockville.
Senator Angus: Is it a specialized psychiatric institute? I am involved with the McGill University Health Centre, which is the whole nine yards. There is also the Douglas Hospital, which is psychiatric, but we have a large psychology department, as you know, run by Dr. Warren Steiner. We discuss many of these issues.
Are the groups you conduct and have invited us to perhaps share — which I will take you up on — analogous to Alcoholics Anonymous? You described the concept of people being able to discuss things. Am I right?
Dr. Fedoroff: Alcoholics Anonymous is a voluntary self-help group, which sometimes happens in hospitals but more often in church basements or wherever people can get together.
This is different. I am always at the meeting and I have a co-therapist. They are therapy groups. The men come in and we have a structure. We have two groups, but the one I would recommend you come to is our evening group from 5:30 to 7:30.
We frequently have guests. We have been on the Discovery Channel and in the London Times. A lot of media people come and lots guests often come. The men welcome guests to come in and see how they do.
Some weeks are better than others. I think people often come away with a very different idea of what offenders are like. These are men who are very motivated to change.
It is a therapy group. There is no holding hands or things like that. It is very much focused on the issues of never reoffending again.
Senator Angus: Is it voluntary?
Dr. Fedoroff: I insist that people come voluntarily. Some are told it is a good idea by their probation and parole officers. However, from my point of view, they do not have to admit their offences. We spend very little time talking about the past because I do not care about that. I care about what is happening now and what will happen in the future. Yes, it is voluntary.
Senator Angus: If I may pursue this line, you made the statement we are looking for any reasonable way to prevent these types of offences from occurring. However, Bill S-2 is but one tool I would suggest that is available. The government has brought it forward to try to strengthen the registry and so on. Are you both in favour of the bill as a positive step forward?
Dr. Fedoroff: I have nothing against the bill. The information is good. My only concern is whether there are limited resources. If it costs a lot of money and, if it takes away from other things, I am not sure how much of a difference the registry actually makes in terms of preventing future offences. It may be of some use to offenders, however.
I will give an example. A car is parked in front of a child care unit and we do not know who it is. Would it not be good for the police to go to the registry to see if that person is on the registry? I hope that they do not do that. I hope that they knock on that guy's windshield anyway. I am worried that the registry may reduce the amount of face-to-face police work, which I think is an important part of prevention. From that point of view, I am not sure it is that helpful. There may be other interventions that may have more payoffs.
Senator Angus: At the beginning of your testimony — and I think Ms. Murphy was part of your study — you stated that these perpetrators indicated to you that they were glad to be on the registry. I then drew the conclusion that you felt it was effective in that respect. That got my attention because, last Thursday morning, we sat here for two hours listening to the Privacy Commissioner say that she has I read all the literature and sex registries are not effective, quite apart from whether it will infringe on privacy laws.
I said that you cannot compare apples and oranges. In the U.S., it is a different system. As you said yourself, it is public. The minister who came here to introduce the bill, Minister Toews, said that it may not be that effective at the moment and that is why we are trying to make it more effective and to strengthen it. His data indicated that only 42 per cent of offenders are in the registry. This bill was introduced as a result of the advice given to him by his advisors and his officials that it would help to get a better percentage.
Would you agree with that? Do you have any comments on the point that I made? It troubles me a lot that the Privacy Commissioner was so negative.
Ms. Murphy: I have to gather my thoughts. This is good, though.
Senator Angus: I take that as a compliment.
Dr. Fedoroff: I think that the Privacy Commissioner is correct. There is little data to say that the registries add anything to reduce offences or rates of arrest. If you do not plan to reoffend, whether or not you are on the registry does not make that much difference. The ones who do reoffend do not think about registries. They can take buses to another neighbourhood.
The majority of offences are committed by people known to the victim. In a large way, the registries have less of an effect than you might think when you first look at this.
Senator Angus: Is that from a deterrent point of view, although they are not supposed to be punitive?
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes. I do not think they are that effective in terms of deterrence, so I guess that is my answer.
Ms. Murphy: From an investigative point of view, I noted that individuals are put on the registry for 10 years, or 20 years, or life. Over time, as we continue to put registrants on it — and, if we make it mandatory that they go on it — this registry will become extremely large. Therefore, it will become costly to manage. When, for example, a child is abducted from a mall and there are certain characteristics that have been reported — that is, a general description and location — the police are able to search for that. However, they will come up with a list of 10 different possible suspects. At that point, there is no way to prioritize in terms of risk assessment because there is no assessment of risk associated with the registry.
If you were able to put in something that noted the individual's risk level, automatically you would be able to prioritize that. Over time, as it becomes more bogged down, that will become more important.
Senator Carstairs: I would like to take the discussion in a different direction.
Dr. Fedoroff, you mentioned prevention programs. We know that a great number of sexual assaults are never reported. Furthermore, of all the sexual assaults that are reported, maybe 30 per cent to 40 per cent are actually convicted. It seems to me that we should be shifting into the prevention field.
Do you have any idea of how much money is spent in this country on prevention programs?
Dr. Fedoroff: I am not aware of any prevention programs per se, at the moment.
Senator Carstairs: There are no programs in Canada that you know of that actually target young people within schools who, for example, frequently exhibit behaviour that indicates that they are, perhaps, not exhibiting normal sexual behaviour?
Dr. Fedoroff: I do not know of any. There may be some, but I do not think it is seen in terms of prevention. It tends to be looking after youth who have committed crimes and catching up. In terms of actually preventing from the beginning, I am not aware of any.
Senator Carstairs: How early do you think that abnormal sexual behaviour begins to show in both boys and girls?
Dr. Fedoroff: For the kind we are talking about, I have seen it as young as age eight. It can begin early.
Senator Joyal: In terms of priority, do you think there should be a capacity for a court to order to a person who has been found guilty to be treated according to the approach that you have developed over the years?
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes, I think that is possible and is done now. There is an issue, however, when judges want to prescribe a particular medication. That is problematic for obvious reasons.
It is reasonable for a judge to order that someone be seen, for example, at our clinic, and to follow the treatment recommendations of myself or one of my colleagues. That seems reasonable. We meet with them and tell them what the approaches are. At times they may say, ``We are not willing to take that kind of treatment,'' and then we can report that back so that other interventions can be made such as closer monitoring, and so on. It is a reasonable and ethical thing to do.
Senator Joyal: Are you the only example of such a service available in Canada or do you know of other institutions that offer a service similar to yours?
Dr. Fedoroff: Yes. In Toronto, CAMH, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, has a well developed program. There are programs in most major cities for sex offenders.
The Deputy Chair: Dr. Fedoroff and Ms. Murphy, thank you very much. That was an informative presentation.
Ms. Murphy: In terms of recidivism as it is linked to the registry, I want to note Canada versus the U.S. in terms of compliance rates. That is very important. Within Canada as of right now, the compliance rates are around 95 per cent, which is quite impressive when we compare it to the compliance rates in the United States.
For example, within the last 10 years it has been estimated, for example, in the State of Iowa, that of all the sex offenders who were to report for registration, 40 per cent of them became lost; that is, over the years they stopped reporting, and they were never charged and relocated. Technically, they only have a compliance rate of 60 per cent, which is very significant.
Earlier, I discussed how important it is to remember that theirs is open to the public so, in terms of the compliance rates, that could have a very large impact on the difference between Canada and the U.S. Another American study about which we must be cautious indicates that individuals who go underground, become non-compliant with the registry and are later charged with not being compliant, are two times more likely to sexually recidivate than those who remain compliant. Our concern is not really the individuals who are complaint on the registry, it is the individuals who go underground, so to speak. That is an important point I wanted to make.
The Deputy Chair: Once again, thank you so much.
We are pleased to have with us now, from the Department of Justice, Greg Yost, with whom we are familiar and have seen on other occasions.
Welcome, Mr. Yost.
To remind all committee members, Mr. Yost submitted some statistical information. It is one page and has his name in the upper right-hand corner. I suspect Mr. Yost may be referring to that.
Greg Yost, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice Canada: Thank you. I have no opening statement. A number of questions came up last time that seemed to be connecting DNA and the sex offender registry, and it was indicated that perhaps someone from the department should come and answer any questions you might have. That is what I am here to do.
I would say that the paper I presented was an update from Bill C-34 when that legislation came through. The issue was what impact might this have on the national DNA data bank. You have to do a financial analysis. As you can see from the figures, it is almost a rounding error for the national DNA data bank. They are not concerned about a flood of extra submissions that they will have to analyze.
The Deputy Chair: We will move to questions.
Senator Watt: In regard to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, in relation to the public interest in rehabilitating sex offenders and reintegrating them into the community, I have one question. What elements of the act are aimed at rehabilitation of sex offenders and their reintegration to the community? Second, how much money is available to support that?
Mr. Yost: I regret, senator, but those are the kinds of questions that the people who are essentially responsible for the sex offender registry and the drawing up of this bill may be able to answer. I can tell you that the DNA data bank spent $3.66 million last year but I have no idea what the sex offender registry paid. Of course, the DNA data bank serves a completely different purpose, if I can put it that way, from the sex offender registry. There are really basically three major registries. The first is the fingerprint one, which is the system required in order to make certain we have the right person before the court, et cetera, as the basis of all the criminal records. The second is the DNA data bank, which is in some ways like that. It is anonymous information that just sits there and, if you do not leave your DNA at a crime scene, it will not bother you. The third is the sex offender registry, which imposes what I would call onerous obligations. I heard the previous testimony, but I have always thought that having to report whether you are going out of town, for example, is a very different thing from the DNA registry. They do not even know who they have in there. They deliberately separated the identifying information from the rest of it.
While I can answer on the DNA data bank registry and its effects, I cannot answer on the sex offender registry. I can tell you that, in the United Kingdom, many people have volunteered to be on their DNA registry because they know that if there has been a sex offence and some DNA has been found, the fact that that is checked through their registry will clear them of suspicion, and they will not have police officers knocking on their door asking them what is going on. We cannot do that in Canada.
Senator Carstairs: I will ask a different question than I intended to. You mentioned that, in the United Kingdom, there were people who were voluntarily being put on the data bank and then you said that was not possible in Canada. If I want to be on a data bank, I cannot do that?
Mr. Yost: At this moment, you cannot, senator. Of course, we have had the other house complete its review of the DNA Identification Act and we await eagerly the recommendations of this committee, but that issue was raised in front of this committee. There is nothing that allows a person to volunteer to get on to the DNA data bank.
Senator Carstairs: I will go back to my original question. I just wanted that to be clear.
In terms of your department, which I know focuses on narrow issues, do you know the percentage of dollars that are put in for prevention as opposed to all the other issues in which the Department of Justice engages itself?
Mr. Yost: No, senator, I could not tell you that. We are pretty narrowly focused in criminal law policy.
Senator Carstairs: I do know that.
I know that is your focus and your emphasis, but it seems to me that we are missing something. If our focus is on criminal law, then it would seem to me that what we really want to do is to make sure that the greatest number of Canadians never come into contact with criminal law because they never make any offences, and therefore we should be spending some money trying to direct them against committing offences as opposed to doing nothing toward directing them against committing offences.
Mr. Yost: I certainly agree with you, but I have absolutely no influence over how the dollars are spent on these matters.
I would say, if I may, that the argument about the expenditures and deterrence, to the extent that DNA registration has a deterrent value, some people, including the father of forensic DNA in the United Kingdom, argue that everyone should be in the DNA data bank because then we would have essentially a 100-per-cent chance of identifying the perpetrator every time DNA was left at a crime scene. That is not something that would apply to a sex offender registry. We obviously would not put everybody in a sex offender registry.
Senator Runciman: In Great Britain, they have cameras at every corner as well and sometimes it is proven to be of real benefit.
I am not sure that this is your area of expertise, but I would certainly like to get your opinion on it anyway. The house committee that reviewed the Sex Offender Information Registration Act in 2009 recommended, as part of the report, that information about the release of registered offenders from federal facilities should be automatically conveyed to the national registry.
The bill that we are dealing with gives federal and provincial correctional agencies the authority to advise officials of registered sex offenders release or readmission to a correctional facility.
In addition, it is allowing them to notify the registration centre of the address of a registered offender who is serving part of the sentence in the community.
We know about relatively high recidivism rates for certain types of sex offenders so I would think, from my perspective anyway, it would be critical, and I guess from the house committee's perspective, that authorities know when sexual offenders are put back on the street. I have tried to get an answer with respect to why this is optional for the corrections officials and, when I asked the public safety folks about this they could not give me a specific answer, just simply said they were exercising an abundance of caution.
When I queried the Privacy Commissioner as to whether she was involved in this decision in any way, shape or form she said, no, she was not contacted by corrections officials or by the ministry in terms of any privacy concerns related to the provision of this kind of information.
The Privacy Act, and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, both allow this to occur so I am wondering whether there is an opinion from the Department of Justice with respect to this. I am trying to understand why this is happening.
Mr. Yost: I cannot speak to the decision that was made with respect to that provision. I was not involved in the development of the policy or the drafting of this bill. I was merely consulted when it was intended to make the DNA and SOIRA, Sex Offender Information Registration Act, automatic registration provisions the same.
I do know from other contexts that there is a general concern that if there is a ``shall'' and you slip up by human error, et cetera, you are hung, and if it is a ``may'' you may have a slightly better chance. That is not connected with this bill. That has happened in other contexts that I will not go into.
Senator Runciman: Interesting.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: I just looked at your table on offences and I am interested to read your conclusion. The changes in the list of mandatory primary designated offences will have a minimal impact on the data base. I have looked at Bill S-2. In your view, what elements in this bill will make citizens feel safer as a result of the bill?
Mr. Yost: First, to the extent that we make registration in the sex offender registry mandatory, that should have an effect. That is why we have presented it and why the minister defended it before this committee. I am not an expert in the field. There will be a very small impact on the number of submissions to the National DNA Data Bank. I nevertheless think that every entry in the data bank makes a small contribution to the safety of Canadians.
The idea that our DNA and our DNA profile is in the hands of the National DNA Data Bank can guarantee, at times 1 in 15 billion, that that is the person who left his DNA at the scene of the crime, and that should have a deterrent effect.
I sent the clerk — I do not know whether it has been distributed yet — an article from a newspaper; it is a comment from the FBI on a decline in the rate of rapes per 100 persons in the United States. That was attributed to two factors: first, this is now being taken more seriously and is being prosecuted with more determination than in the past and, second, because of DNA, people knew that the possibility of conviction was greatly increased and had a deterrent effect.
[English]
Senator Joyal: Mr. Yost, do you have any idea why, when the court ordered that the DNA sample be removed when a youth is involved, that it seems the registry fails to follow up the court order and, as you know, there has been a case in Ontario where the judge was rather stringent on the way the DNA bank is managed insofar as the court orders to remove DNA samples in due time?
Mr. Yost: A study was done by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The results of that study were provided to this committee. The RCMP maintains that it is respecting the law. A similar case has come forward in Alberta that I looked at and made some comments on, affidavits are being prepared by the national DNA data bank for filing in that case, the statistics have been updated since the ones you received, and which demonstrate to my satisfaction — I do not know if it will be to the satisfaction of the judge in Alberta — that, in fact, the RCMP is respecting the law.
The fact is that you have to do a fair amount, as a youth, to get yourself found guilty and you have to do more than that to get the order made to have your DNA put in. It appears that the youth courts have been doing a pretty good job of picking out the ones that are likely to reoffend. I do not have that report in front of me, but my recollection was that, of the about 10,000 where the five or three years had come up, well over 90 per cent of those had reoffended. It was transferred to an adult record and, therefore, the DNA was kept on file.
I can also say that the CS case is under appeal. We expect that the Government of Canada will be an intervener at the Ontario Court of Appeal in order to defend the integrity of the national DNA data bank.
Senator Joyal: You say that the figures have changed since the ones that were provided to the members of this committee. Would you happen to have them?
Mr. Yost: I have seen them in the affidavits. I can see no reason why updated figures would not be provided to this committee. We wanted to give Alberta the latest figures as to what had happened so it was done.
Senator Joyal: If it is in the court paper then it is accessible to anyone.
Mr. Yost: I believe the affidavit has been forwarded to counsel in Alberta. I will raise this with the national DNA data bank tomorrow. I can see no reason why they would object.
Senator Joyal: If you can provide it within confines of the law, we would appreciate having a copy of it.
Senator Baker: First, I would like to congratulate members of the staff of Justice Canada who appeared before the committee at the last meeting, Mr. Yost. They did an excellent job.
My question concerns some cases that have been reported recently. Last month, for example, there was a case here in Ontario, 2010 Carswell, Ontario, 1156, R. v. Luedecke. Are you aware of that case — ``as soon as possible''?
Mr. Yost: I have heard of that case, yes.
Senator Baker: In some recent case law, the interpretation of the act has also resulted in a non-registry in the sex registry, and, in that particular case, of someone who was held to be not criminally responsible but who had a sleeping disorder and who had a history of assault.
Do you have anything to say about that?
Mr. Yost: Using the DNA example, in the original legislation, it was provided that the sample was to be taken upon conviction, and that turned out to be basically impractical. They could not have police officers everywhere, et cetera. Therefore, in Bill C-13 and Bill C-18, amendments were brought forward, which allowed the judge either to order to take it immediately or to set a time and place, and we put in provisions for warrants, et cetera, for people who do not show up.
The issue of ``as soon as possible'' has been addressed in the DNA context. It always causes difficulties when that is used. There has to be some flexibility in the time to take into account various things that happen in the DNA context.
Senator Baker: You escape the registry.
Mr. Yost: Yes, so we tried to put into the DNA legislation enough tools to get someone in even if they tried to avoid it.
Senator Baker: At the last meeting when the minister was here, you will recall, and I am sure you are aware, that we had a thorough discussion on the retrospectivity of certain sections of this act. There are certain committee members who are concerned that the law is not retrospective in the sense that the original act was.
The original act passed in 2004 had a section that, in five cases, the Court of Appeal of Quebec said were retrospective in nature and every single other Court of Appeal has agreed with the Court of Appeal of Quebec.
I will give you the example of 2009, Carswell, Quebec, 529, R. v. Thériault, and then there is a whole list of other cases. I just want to read for you one sentence at paragraph 10 of that case. It said there are two general mechanisms for the application of the sex registration act, namely, prospective and retrospective applications, and then the court says that prospective orders are defined by section 490.012. They are applicable to persons who are convicted, found not criminally responsible and so on, for a designated offence after the date of proclamation of the legislation, which was December 15, 2004.
Then it says that retrospective orders are defined in section 490.019. They are applicable to offenders serving a sentence for a designated sexual offence on the day that the act comes into force — serving a sentence. A sentence, as you know, not only includes your jail time but your probationary period and all of the orders that a judge makes. When we introduced this bill, we introduced retrospectivity to the bill that allowed the application of the registry to apply to persons who were still serving a sentence. It could have been for a 30-day jail sentence, but their probationary period could have been for 10 or 20 years.
However, in the bill — and I do not understand why we did this — we said this will only apply for one year following the passage of the bill. Therefore, in British Columbia, the Attorney General said they would apply this immediately to all persons under sentence. No other province did it, to my knowledge.
Let me hear your defence of this because your minister seems to be on a different page. Your minister said to this committee that he would not be surprised if the committee recommended that this be retrospectively applied as the act was when it was passed, in other words, to someone serving a sentence, which means their entire probationary period and all other orders that are given by the judge upon sentencing.
What is your argument against a member of a committee instituting that kind of an amendment?
Mr. Yost: I have no argument against it. You can advance any amendments you wish and the sex offender registry expert over there, Mr. Hoover, will deal with it.
I will, however, make some remarks about the retrospectivity issue. I have provided this kind of information to Mr. Hoover, and we have discussed it, but the department is developing the proper submissions. I will talk about the two fields that I deal with, which are impaired driving and DNA, and, of course, I will start with DNA.
What you described to me regarding serving a sentence is what was characterized in the original DNA legislation as retroactive. There was a section then, and there is still one, that allows for an application to a provincial court judge for a person who was still serving a sentence for certain enumerated offences to be ordered to enter — to provide a DNA sample. The original legislation provided that a person had to be a dangerous offender or convicted of two murders, committed at different times, or two sexual offences committed at different times.
Under that provision, in round numbers, approximately 4,000 people were put into the DNA data bank over a period of about three years. It was a major project for the RCMP to pull out all the records to find out who fit within and provide that to Crown attorneys, who then made the decision whether to apply. Obviously, they did not apply if the person was in their 80s and the offence had occurred 50 years before.
That provision was amended by Bill C-13 and Bill C-18, so it applied for only one murder or one sexual offence. I believe that project is now completed, and it has added approximately 2,200. These were retroactive. These people had all been convicted before June 30, 2000, when the legislation came in.
In the original legislation, there was a specific section dealing with the retrospective application. It provided that a person who was sentenced after the legislation came into force for a designated offence committed before could be put in the data bank.
The twist there was that it changed the rules with respect to a primary designated offence. They were all to be treated as if they were a secondary designated offence.
When we made all the amendments in Bill C-13 and Bill C-18, adding, as you know, quite a few offences, the issue arose again: What about people who are perhaps serving a sentence for what was a primary designated offence, but for some reason they got through? What about an individual who committed this offence before but was convicted after? We were quite convinced, based on the Ontario Court of Appeal decision R. v. Hendry, that there was no problem with the retrospective application, that these people could have been sentenced.
However, in order to make it 100 per cent clear, even to an inexperienced prosecutor in some rural area, we defined in all the sections that the court could do this: ``. . .found guilty under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. . . . of an offence committed at any time, including before June 30, 2000.''
It is impossible to read that and have an argument. That has never been challenged to my knowledge since we passed it. That was the DNA story on retroactive and retrospective.
The impaired driving one, Bill C-2, led to a mass of litigation as to whether that was retrospective or not. Did these changes in the legislation apply to people who had committed their offence prior to it coming into force, which was July 2, 2008, or did the old rules apply? I gave up counting at approximately 50 decisions in the lower courts, which were running about three to one in favour of retrospectivity.
There it was all an issue as to whether these were procedural or evidentiary provisions which apply retrospectively — there is a great deal of jurisprudence to that effect — or were they so substantial — stripping a defendant of a defence that he used to have, which is the evidence to the contrary defence — that it amounted to changing the law in so fundamental a way that this did not work?
In a case called R. v. Dineley, the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously found that these were procedural and evidentiary and, therefore, they applied to everyone.
Senator Baker: Getting back to the questions I asked you, you will have to admit that we have every Court of Appeal on the record. I have just given you the Quebec Court of Appeal. In that judgment, there are seven judgments made at the same time. The Quebec Court of Appeal has recognized the constitutionality of the retrospective application of the act that we are amending that, when the provision was there, it would be for anyone who is serving a sentence. Serving a sentence means any portion of the sentence, which means your probationary period, which we allowed in our legislation and which only took effect for a year.
Since it has been upheld by all courts of appeal, you are telling the committee you cannot see any reason if a member of this committee were to move an amendment and have the same section apply to this bill so that anybody under sentence would be treated just like somebody would who was sentenced after the coming into the force of the act.
Mr. Yost: I am not familiar with the Quebec Court of Appeal decision you cited. It sounds like what we heard about in the DNA and I cannot find a legal argument against what you have put forward, based on what I know on the DNA jurisprudence.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Yost, as you know, Bill S-2 requires the registration of sex offenders who are convicted abroad. Upon their entry into Canada, they are required to register under both the sex registry and I suspect the DNA data bank, as well.
From your perspective, what are the practicalities of that? Do you foresee issues that would make it difficult to actually pick up all of these, or any of these, sexual offenders who may have been convicted abroad? Is there an issue with the process by which we would have notice of it in Canada? How does it affect worldwide jurisdictions? Would there be no issues with the difficulties in having interconnection between the judiciaries of various countries?
Are there practical issues that may negate the purpose of that provision?
Mr. Yost: First, the DNA legislation does not, at this time, have any provision whatsoever for somebody who was convicted abroad. We have no tool with which to get them into the DNA data bank. It is a recommendation of the other house that we do have such a tool. In these circumstances, you can understand that, within our own section, Mr. Hoover and I talk about our various issues and we have already had one meeting of officials to discuss, inter alia, that recommendation.
There are serious problems with finding these people. It is unlikely they will come forward. How we would find out about them other than them coming in under the International Transfer of Offenders Act is a conundrum.
The two pieces of legislation have fed on each other because the same problems exist with getting DNA orders made, people registered in the sex offender registry, busy prosecutors who forgot to do it, et cetera. We came up with a 90-day window to apply and that idea was looked at by the committee on which Mr. Hoover is co-chair.
Similarly, we are following how this will work for the sex offender registry and if there is a way of doing it. It may be that the best we can do is to have the power there and it will be ``catch-as-catch-can.''
Senator Joyal: Do I understand, in the way it is spelled out at section 19, that the person, who would be the object of a transfer to Canada under the formal authorities of the treaties and so on, would have to be included in the sex offender registry, but is that also true for the DNA data bank?
Mr. Yost: No similar amendment has been made with respect to the DNA provisions. Therefore, they would get into the sex offender registry but we would not have a tool to get them in the DNA registry.
The Deputy Chair: Mr. Yost, thank you for appearing again. It is always helpful to us and much appreciated.
I wish to welcome our second panel, which will conclude our day's work.
From the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec, we have Jean-Guy Dagenais. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Pierre Nezan and Leo O'Brien, and from the Sûreté du Québec, we have René Lavigne and Jean Manseau.
Gentlemen, we are pleased to have you here today.
We will begin with the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec.
[Translation]
Jean-Guy Dagenais, President, Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec: Mr. Chairman, thank you for welcoming us to the committee. The Association des policières et policiers provinciaux represents 5,000 unionized Sûreté du Québec police officers who cover all of Quebec in addition to the territory of a number of municipalities.
For the association, Bill S-2 is particularly important because it raises the priority that must be given to the registration of information on sex offenders, and more particularly for the police departments, consideration must also be given to providing easier access to the sex offender registry. For the members I represent, we understand that every sex offence or crime reported to us, either through a complaint or as a result of an investigation, presents a high risk, and police must intervene quickly.
To talk to you more particularly about the National Sex Offender Registry, you must bear in mind that the role of police officers — everyone understands this — is to protect the victims from sex offenders, which is why it is important for us that all information concerning sex offenders is entered in a data base and that police officers have quick access to it.
We must, first and foremost, protect society and enable police departments, in the performance of their duties, to intervene more quickly, to enhance the effectiveness of their investigations and to try to prevent sex crimes as best they can and also to prevent the risk of recidivism as far as possible. I will not conceal the fact that there is one unavoidable aspect to all this: serious consideration will have to be given to adding to the police workforce and providing an adequate training framework.
To be effective in their work, police officers must have quick access to the registry. If we want to get sex offenders off the streets, prevent any repetition of these kinds of crimes, ensure the safety of victims and give them reasons to inform on their attackers, we must have a registry with easy access that is constantly updated. It must never be forgotten that the primary aim is always to protect society. In addition, access to the registry will have to be expanded. In other words, at the start of an investigation, we may not immediately arrive at the scene of a sex crime, hence the notion of reasonable grounds and suspicion. This will have to be expanded. Let us not wait to be faced with a fait accompli. In order to be able to consult the registry, priority must be given to prevention.
As an organization representing more than one-third of police officers in Quebec, we must also ensure that sex offenders meet their obligations and, as soon as it is brought to our attention that they are not meeting them, it is our duty to inform the authorities in place, always in order to protect the victims and guard them from the dishonest intentions of offenders who might be tempted to reoffend.
In child kidnappings, among other things, it is fundamentally important that response times be very short. Every minute counts. The entire investigation process must be carried out in an expedited manner so that the investigators on the case are not slowed down in their investigation by administrative delays that could prevent quick registry access. Every detail is important. Time is a crucial factor in the proper conduct of the investigation and regarding all relevant information on potential sex offenders who might be involved.
There must also be cooperation among the various police departments, an exchange of information, required assistance, cooperation and collaboration, as we did in the investigations involving joint regional units.
In conclusion, the Association des policières et des policiers du Québec believes it is important for police officers to have the tools to make their investigations more effective and facilitate their work in order to protect the lives of citizens, which is a fundamentally important aspect of our mandate. That is why we unreservedly support the introduction of a pedophile registry that, while respecting the privacy of individuals, will protect the victims of potential attackers. Not only will it facilitate police officers' work, it will make the victims of sexual predators aware that it is in their interest to inform on their attackers and that the laws in place will get them off the streets and keep them away from other potential victims.
We believe that we must take action against crime to ensure that sex offenders are chased off our streets and put behind bars in order to better protect our children.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Dagenais.
Mr. Arel, I did not acknowledge you earlier. You are with the association as well?
Laurent Arel, Director of Communications, Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec: Yes. My name is Laurent Arel.
The Deputy Chair: Do you have anything to add to Mr. Dagenais's presentation?
Mr. Arel: No.
[Translation]
Jean Manseau, Counsel, Sûreté du Québec: Our speech today is more a presentation of the principles of Bill S-2 than a technical criticism of its provisions.
I am a counsel at the Office of the Assistant Director General for Criminal Investigations at the Sûreté du Québec. I am accompanied by Captain René Lavigne, Chief of the Behavioural Analysis Unit and hence responsible for the Centre québécois d'enregistrement des délinquants sexuels, known under its acronym CQEDS.
We appreciate the opportunity offered to us to appear before your committee. It allows us, as the national police force of Quebec, to present our assessment of the provisions of Bill S-2, particularly the extent to which they will enable us to improve protection of the population against the threat of sex offenders.
I should explain that, for a good dozen years, I have been a member of the Federal-Provincial and Territorial Task Force on High-Risk Offenders. In that capacity, I therefore participated in development of the principles of the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the associated amendments to the Criminal Code adopted in 2004. In recent months, the FPT Task Force has also reviewed the problems that have arisen and the shortcomings that have come to light in the course of enforcing this act, and identified the corrections that ought to be made.
The Sex Offender Registration Act, which came into force on December 15, 2004, authorizes the creation of a national data registry on persons found guilty of a sexual offence. In the months following the implementation of this act, however, certain deficiencies were noticed.
Presentation 3 shows the elements that we consider critical for protecting the population. As I was saying, I will confine myself in my remarks to matters of principle rather than technical problems.
First of all, it is the purpose of the Sex Offender Registration Act, in requiring the registration of certain information on sex offenders, to assist the police in investigating crimes of a sexual nature. Hence it is proving impossible to consult the national registry in order to prevent the commission of an offence.
A clause in Bill S-2 stipulates that police officers may consult the national registry to prevent sex offences. A suspicious individual loitering near a school yard, child care centre or park where children play is often cited. At present, it is impossible for police officers to know whether that individual is entered in the national registry. Under Bill S-2, if the individual agrees to identify himself or it is possible to identify him, we will be able to determine whether he is registered. This will be an invaluable prevention tool.
The automatic subjection of an offender found guilty of a designated offence to an order for registration in the registry eliminates the possibility, unlike in the current system of issuing orders on request, of certain persons convicted of sex offences not being registered in the national registry. Automatic registration in the national registry is accompanied by an order to take a bodily substance sample in order to establish the DNA profile to be entered in the National DNA Data Bank. The addition of this clause makes it easier to eventually trace the perpetrator of a sex crime. By consulting the National DNA Data Bank, police officers will thus be provided with a very efficient tool for conducting investigations when sex offences are committed.
The amendments proposed by Bill S-2 constitute a fundamental reform of the existing system. While there is no question of the amendments' positive impact on police work with respect to the enforcement of the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, some doubt persists as to the administrative costs they are liable to generate. The same remark applies to the time that police officers will devote to taking bodily substance samples to establish the DNA profile of convicted sex offenders. In any case, what matters is that Parliament remedy the shortcomings of the existing measures and complete the provisions adopted a few years ago to effectively thwart sex offences.
With the passage of Bill S-2, which is similar to Bill C-34 which died on the Order Paper with the prorogation of the previous session, Parliament completes and improves the measures adopted a few years ago enabling police forces to more effectively suppress crimes of a sexual nature. The Sûreté du Québec is pleased that the government is taking steps to strengthen the National Sex Offender Registry and the DNA Data Bank, thereby correcting the shortcomings that we have identified.
We are at your disposal to answer any questions you may have.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Manseau.
Senator Angus: Just for clarification, we have heard about the national registry and the Ontario one. Since we have these groups from Quebec, can we find out if there is a Quebec registry?
The Deputy Chair: Yes, that is fine.
[Translation]
René Lavigne, Captain, Sûreté du Québec: There is no registry. We are a centre that is part of the national registry.
Senator Angus: That is what I thought. I asked the question to clarify matters.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Angus. We will conclude with the presentation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I believe Mr. Nezan will make a presentation.
[Translation]
Pierre Nezan, Officer in Charge, National Sex Offender Registry, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: I am the officer in charge of the National Sex Offender Registry Program for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With me today is Superintendent Leo O'Brien, who is the officer in charge of the Behavioural Sciences Branch.
[English]
Senator, I prepared a statement which I was going to read, but it is the same flavour as those of my colleagues. It has been shared with the committee, so if you would rather go to questions I would be prepared to do that, or I can read the statement.
The Deputy Chair: Please do whatever you feel most comfortable with. We want to make sure that, if there is anything that you may be covering off in your presentation that was not covered off earlier, it is not missed.
Senator Joyal: I have a point of order. Mr. Nezan, you understand that if you do not read your brief as the other witnesses have done, it is not printed in the minutes of the committee. It is important that it be there, because other authorities read the minutes of this committee in interpreting the acts. I think it would be important that you put it on the record.
[Translation]
Mr. Nezan: Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions concerning the National Sex Offender Registry and to discuss this very important program. The RCMP view a proper and robust registry as an enhancement to public safety and look forward not only to the government's continued support of this program, but also to the much needed efforts to strengthen it. That is why we firmly believe the proposals in Bill S-2 will provide important enhancements to the way the registry protects Canadians.
There are currently over 22,000 offenders in the data base, and law enforcement agencies across the country administer and enforce the sex offender registry through 14 centres. While the RCMP is proud to be stewards of this program, the legislation which governs the registry has presented us with very significant challenges, some of which are incongruent with the efficient and effective administration and enforcement of the program. I would like to briefly outline just a few of these challenges for the committee.
[English]
First, existing legislation is specific concerning the information that can be recorded on the data base. This means that we cannot include those important administrative fields that are necessary for us to ensure the integrity of the data. This conflicts with one of the existing legislative principles, calling for this repository to house current and reliable information.
In addition, basic personal data we are permitted to collect from convicted sex offenders is restricted. For instance, an offender's vehicle information cannot be collected or registered on this data base, despite the fact that governments, through motor vehicle branch systems, already possess that information. As a result, the registry is of no assistance to law enforcement in those sexual crime investigations where police may have nothing more than a suspect vehicle description as a lead.
Second, not all convicted sex offenders are ordered to the registry. In some provinces, applications are diligently made while in others orders are not being sought for a variety of reasons. The absence of an automatic inclusion on the registry of all offenders convicted of sexual crimes has led to the inconsistent application of the law across the country. Someone convicted of molesting a child in one province may be ordered to the registry, while in another, they may not. Given the difficulty in determining which sex offender will reoffend and which will not means some recidivists are falling through the cracks.
Third, in many cases, strict provisions concerning disclosure prohibit communication between the very agencies that share the responsibility for managing sex offenders. The successful management of sex offenders requires collaboration among different justice agencies, yet the NSOR, national sex offender registry, program is essentially prohibited from sharing information that would further this effort or even prevent a crime. This is detrimental not only to the public but also to the offender. Finally, the imposed legislated requirement that allows police to access the data base only after a sexual crime has occurred runs contrary to our efforts in this country to prevent crime.
Law enforcement agencies have a number of data bases at their disposal that are accessed routinely by police for law enforcement and public safety purposes. The NSOR data base is not among them and is purely a reactive tool. There is no opportunity for this law enforcement tool to prevent what amounts to some of the most serious and devastating crimes committed in our society. It is true that offenders who are truly motivated to perpetrate crimes of violence will usually do so. It be would disingenuous on my part to suggest that the NSOR would always or consistently prevent sexual crimes, but there have been cases with other registries where this very thing has happened.
While we do not view the sex offender registry as the panacea for solving or preventing sexual crimes, it nevertheless has a role to play and can support our efforts in identifying and prosecuting sexual crime offenders. More importantly, crime prevention should always be one of law enforcement's primary goals.
[Translation]
Crimes of a sexual nature can result in what is often irreparable trauma to the victims. The impact can be a life sentence for some. Therefore, every effort should be made to reduce the risk of these crimes.
The RCMP believes that a sex offender registry has value and can advance sexual crime investigations and in some instances potentially prevent crime. The federal government's introduction of Bill S-2 in our view brings important amendments that will remedy these concerns.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Nezan.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: My first question is for Sûreté du Québec representatives. In Quebec, the investigation that really marked the history of disappearance cases was that of Cédrika Provencher, in which the Sûreté du Québec put a lot of financial resources.
First, was the registry in its current form used? In what way was it useful to you? If the amendments under Bill S-2 had been in effect at the time Ms. Provencher disappeared, what would have been the chances of solving that case compared to the current registry?
Mr. Lavigne: With regard to the first question, we consulted the registry exhaustively. With respect to that incident, we went looking for the sex offenders entered in the registry, and we checked their sexual behaviour with Salvac to assist investigators in targeting and prioritizing the individuals we could investigate.
We absolutely started from scratch. We found a bicycle with no details on individuals. I would say that, within a very large radius, all sex offenders who were registered were checked. Once again with the assistance of behavioural analysis and profilers who belong to the same criminal service. So every effort was made.
As for the second question, if the amendments under Bill S-2 had been in place, I could not tell you what the chances of solving the case would have been because it was an isolated act. We were reacting to a criminal act. It would therefore be highly hypothetical to answer you that it could have helped or not.
Senator Boisvenu: Correct me if I am wrong, but the Sûreté du Québec investigated one vehicle for quite a long time.
Mr. Lavigne: That is correct, yes, among other things.
Senator Boisvenu: So if I understand correctly, for you the concept of vehicle registration in the Sexual Predators Registry is important?
Mr. Lavigne: That is correct. You are reminding me of the fact that one vehicle was indeed targeted, investigated and received media coverage. The check was done by Salvac, but if it had been entered in the Sex Offender Registry, that would have led us to conduct a check.
Even though that was subsequently done, it was more exhaustive to check to see whether one of the registered sex offenders had that type of vehicle in his possession or not. That was done, but I must say that the investigation was much longer, much tougher and more exhaustive.
Senator Boisvenu: My last question is for the RCMP representatives. Bill S-2 would enable the correctional system to provide information to the registrar in the event sexual predators are released. It is said that the act ``would enable''. Should we not make it an obligation instead?
[English]
Mr. Nezan: The lack of communication between the federal correctional service and the national sex offender registry has been identified to us by our centres over the last number of years. It has posed a problem for us in administering and enforcing the act. We have had to devise secondary systems to figure out exactly when an offender is being released.
I can say that we did identify that gap in service delivery and our ability to manage the system, and a remedy has been proposed in Bill S-2. If Bill S-2 is passed, I have no reason to believe that that communication will not be successful.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Going back again to the meaning of the word, in an enactment, what has meaning is the word. It currently states ``would enable''. Do you agree with me that we learn more from the media that a dangerous sexual predator has been released than we learn from official services?
This leads me to say that, when a dangerous criminal is released, if the media learn about it, it is no doubt because information has been leaked from the inside because there is no exchange of information between police departments, the correctional system and the registrar.
I think that is a major problem. Should the act not require the correctional system instead to inform the registrar of the police department when a dangerous criminal is released?
[English]
Mr. Nezan: I think that will have to be a government policy decision. I would not entirely agree that there is an absence of total communication between the correction services and the police. It is just with the national sex offender registry. We are excluded from this loop. There is communication with respect to corrections and the police concerning offenders, but not for the national sex offender registry purposes.
Concerning whether or not it should be mandatory as opposed to just the authority to do so is a question for the minister and not us.
Senator Baker: However, it would assist you if you had the information, would it not?
Mr. Nezan: Without a doubt. We need that information and, as I indicated earlier, I have no reason to believe that we will not get it if this bill passes.
Senator Baker: I have a general question for you. If you want someone's criminal record or the conditions imposed upon them after release, the courts of each province hold the records of individuals who are prosecuted in that province. If a defence attorney were to apply for someone's criminal record, they would get it in that jurisdiction. However, the Crown would get what is on CPIC. CPIC covers the entire nation.
I believe there is a second data base apart from CPIC which contains what you call ``source material'' on certain people. The question is this: I thought you had everything on CPIC. That was my belief and I think many people believe that. Are you telling us that you do not have everything on CPIC?
Mr. Nezan: CPIC is not my area of expertise. I am speaking here for the national sex offender registry. Certainly, the data contained on the national sex offender registry data base are not on CPIC.
Senator Baker: This bill will apply only to persons who are convicted, or found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder, after the coming into force of this bill. The original bill that was referenced earlier that came into effect December 15, 2004, had a provision in it that applied to everyone who was under sentence at the time of the coming into force of the act. However, then it had a clause that said ``you have to do this within one year of the coming into force of the act.''
This bill does not do that. This bill just says it will apply after this law is proclaimed and after it comes into force.
In terms of a scale, some of your ``worst ''offenders will escape capture under this legislation if the conviction was entered prior to the coming into force of this act. Do you believe that what was contained in the original bill back in December 2004 would be a much better system, but without the restricted one year of application?
Mr. Nezan: As government officials, we participated in a working group that was described by Mary Campbell last week. The obstacles, impediments and challenges the RCMP and law enforcement have had administering this act were proffered during those discussions.
The specific recommendations we made on behalf of the RCMP constitute advice to the minister. I think you are moving into that area, senator, so I am not sure I can comment on that, specifically. However, if I could talk from a practical, philosophical and a law enforcement point of view, it definitely would be an advantage to have every convicted sex offender in a data base because that is the purpose of a data base.
However, there are practical implications there. Again, we have not done the analysis, but that would involve perhaps tens of thousands of offenders that the police would have to identify, serve documentation to, and load them onto the data base. Therefore, there are some logistical issues associated with that idea.
Senator Baker: Money.
Mr. Nezan: Resources.
Senator Baker: You are convicted of a criminal offence under the Criminal Code and your condition of release is that you are on probation and you have various conditions that you must abide by. The same thing applies to judgments that are made under this act. Someone could be forbidden, for example, to use illegal drugs, drink alcohol, be in a place where alcohol is served, and so on.
There is usually a provision in the conditions that you agree that, upon release, a police officer can come and visit you at any time and test you to see if you violated those conditions. That is seen as a requirement in certain police forces, and they regularly go around checking to see if people are satisfying the requirements of their probation.
The same effect you have is not present in this bill because it only applies to people who are convicted. What do you have to say about that?
If someone is released on probation with very strict conditions, people normally expect the police would make regular checks on those people.
Mr. Nezan: That is a separate process, senator. The national sex offender registry was created with a specific purpose in mind. We are guided by the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, which I am confident you are intimately familiar with. The information we can put into the registry is strictly prescribed. We could not enter things like the conditions of a probation. This is a separate issue altogether according to the legislation.
Therefore, I cannot speak to what the practices are across the country with respect to probation orders. In the RCMP, I know that different jurisdictions, depending on priorities, might do some checks on people to see if they are adhering to their probation conditions, but that is an area completely outside of the NSOR.
Senator Baker: To conclude, do any of the other witnesses have an opinion about a possible amendment to the legislation that would apply to all those persons under sentence and the coming into effect of this act, so that it would apply to someone who had a sentence 20 years ago but who is still under probation or under conditions? Do any of you have an opinion or would you rather stay away from it?
[Translation]
Mr. Lavigne: It is still the same position. You cannot be opposed to virtue. We would get them all; we would really be pleased and happy. It is a police officer's job to prevent that. Is that possible? Anything is possible. Are we likely to be able to get them all? Not very likely. It is a matter of resources and time and that includes a lot of people in the process.
You cannot be opposed to virtue, but it could be difficult.
[English]
Leo O'Brien, Officer in Charge, Behavioural Sciences Branch, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: I would like to reinforce what Captain Lavigne already said. In the ideal world, that would be the ideal way to go. However, as you know, the RCMP and other police forces across the country are very strapped for resources. If you are thinking of going back, how far back do you go? How many sex offenders are we talking about? There would probably be hundreds of thousands.
It is a question of money and resources. In the ideal world, we would like to see that, but we have to deal with reality and practicality.
Senator Baker: Mr. O'Brien is in case law many times when he was an RCMP officer in Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: You seem to be telling us that retroactivity would require a lot of resources. If the bill is passed in June, all previously convicted criminals will be subject to it. However, we risk releasing dangerous criminals, those who did not undergo any rehabilitation programs in prison, those who show no remorse, and thus individuals who present a very high risk of reoffending.
For those criminals, those who the National Parole Board is convinced will reoffend, should there not be an obligation to enter them in the registry before they leave the penitentiary?
[English]
Mr. Nezan: As a policeman I agree. We want to have the most robust tool at our disposal to help prevent and solve crimes. I hate to rehash old arguments, but it does come down to a number of resources. I do not have figures to suggest how many offenders that would entail, how much work would be involved, and if we have the resources to respond to do that.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: We know that 50 per cent of incarcerated criminals take no rehabilitation programs and 40 per cent of inmates in federal prisons have criminal histories. On the one hand, we are providing police officers with tools to deal with these criminals more effectively. However, we would be releasing them without a minimum amount of information concerning them to ensure better public safety.
Consequently, would it not be logical for known dangerous criminals whose names and personal information we have to be entered in the registry?
Mr. Nezan: That would obviously be logical.
[English]
It is whether or not we have the resources to do it but certainly it is logical that, if the registry is going to house information on convicted sex offenders, it would be advantageous to have the most dangerous convicted sex offenders populate that registry. Again, we are not aware of how much work would be involved or how many numbers we are talking about.
[Translation]
Mr. Dagenais: As I mentioned in my presentation, additional resources will be required to ensure that these people comply with their release conditions. I will refer you to a brief submitted by the Canadian association in which it is stated that the bill should even be retroactive.
In my opinion, the bill, once adopted, should be retroactive to ensure that all individuals charged with sex offences are entered in the registry. Resources will obviously be necessary. However, crime is on the rise and people report it more readily and more quickly. We should therefore ensure that conditions are complied with.
If you will allow me one comment, the registry should be updated in cases where, for example, a repeat offender or a person who has been convicted changes vehicles. It is important for police officers on duty to be able to recognize sexual predators if they see them driving their vehicles.
Mr. Lavigne: By referring to sex offenders at high risk of reoffending, the measure provided for close supervision for one year. However, that period has been increased to two years. But if nothing happens in that two-year period, that is the way it is.
Senator Angus: Police officers here will agree that, despite the restrictions and having regard to resources, the act will provide a working tool in your tough field.
The minister appeared before our committee last week to present this bill. At that time, he stated, based on the information he had, that the registry included only 42 per cent of sex offenders. He emphasized that that figure was based on the information that had been provided to him.
In your view, is that figure correct? Based on your knowledge, does that 42 per cent figure seem reasonable to you? I also wonder why we are missing 58 per cent.
[English]
Mr. Nezan: I can tell you that we provided some of those figures and we are at the RCMP headquarters with the national policy centre. The act is administered and enforced by each province and territory. The numbers that the centres have reported to us were consistent with about 60 per cent of eligible offenders. People who were convicted of the designated offence were actually receiving a form 52 order. That varied from province to province. Some areas performed better than others, so we engaged our research and development branch to conduct a statistical analysis. It was their finding that about 58 per cent of eligible offenders were getting a form 52. That finding was consistent with what some of our centres were reporting to us.
There is a myriad of reasons why people were not getting a form 52, and some early on had to do more with just pure human error. The prosecutors, through pressures of time and workload, et cetera, had forgotten or did not ask. We do know it did form part of some plea bargains. There are a number of reasons it did not happen.
I would have hoped it would have gotten better from 2004 to 2009, but when we look at the statistics from year to year as to how many form 52s are being ordered they were fairly consistent from 2005 on, which was the first full calendar year that we could measure these, and it is about 2,200 per year. In our estimation, even though the assessment of the 60 per cent versus 40 per cent was made about two years ago, the numbers have not changed.
Senator Angus: In your opinion, will this law help to improve those numbers, or is that quite independent of the provisions in this bill?
Mr. Nezan: If the automatic inclusion model is adopted on a federal level, I think it would be a significant improvement and the numbers will significantly rise.
Senator Angus: I understand that you, as you said in your opening comment, are in charge of this national NSOR register.
[Translation]
That comes under the RCMP and does not concern you, or am I mistaken? I would like to know how you cooperate.
[English]
Mr. Nezan: We are responsible, from the national policy centre, and also the Sex Offender Information Registration Act mandates our role to maintain the data base. The data base, which is located in Ottawa, is under our stewardship, but in each province and territory a provincial centre has been established and law enforcement in each jurisdiction is responsible for managing the program within their area.
Senator Angus: On that, I want to be sure I understand. I had understood before, perhaps wrongly, that these 14 regional centres were GRC or RCMP outposts, but are they not?
Mr. Nezan: Just in two instances — in Ontario, the Ontario Provincial Police are responsible for the program, and in Quebec the Sûreté du Québec, but for all other provinces and territories it is the RCMP.
[Translation]
Mr. Lavigne: In Quebec, this is the responsibility of the Sûreté du Québec. Ontario, instead of creating its own registry, adheres to the federal registry. In the 2000s, at the Sûreté du Québec, the Police Act established the service levels based on the number of persons living in the urban centres. At the national level, for both sexual predators and other offenders, it was determined that the Sûreté du Québec would keep those kinds of registries. That is why the sex offender registry is managed by the Sûreté du Québec.
[English]
Mr. O'Brien: We are the national policy centre, so we work closely with the SQ, the OPP and the other 12 RCMP centres. As Mr. Nezan said, the legislation says that the data base is to be maintained by the RCMP. Our informatics people look after it and we work with them to develop, build and maintain it.
If Mr. Lavigne has a question in Quebec, he may call the national policy centre, and we would provide guidance and advice with regard to a policy issue, or we would go to our legal affairs department to get an interpretation on a legal issue and provide that advice to the various centres.
[Translation]
Senator Angus: The figures from the regions are filed with Ottawa and everything is computerized.
Mr. Lavigne, in Quebec, you can access the data from British Columbia through headquarters.
Mr. Lavigne: Exactly. The best part is that we are the only ones who record them and question them. That is how the identification of offenders is preserved through a single location. We have 167 registration points in Quebec, that is all the police departments in Quebec. We manage and receive information for all offender registration files. When they are registered and orders are filed, we get them, we monitor them and we also monitor non-compliance rates; that is at only one location. We monitor them and we try to find them so that they are registered.
Senator Angus: So if I understand correctly, you can assure us that the system is currently working well across the country, with financial resource restrictions.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Dagenais, you referred to the lack of resources in your presentation. Mr. Manseau, in your brief, you say, on page 3:
On this point, we wonder whether there might eventually be more work involved as a result of these measures and their consequences.
[English]
Mr. Nezan, you make the same kind of judgment on the lack of resources today for the objective of this and other bills.
Yesterday, the Canadian Press quoted Charles Momy, President of the Canadian Police Association, whom I am sure you gentlemen know, as saying:
While local police services must respond to traditional law-enforcement issues, there is a greater requirement to put resources into aspects of policing which are broader in scope and are driven by national issues.
I want particularly to draw your attention to the following:
Changes in federal legislation, while providing important tools to law enforcement, often have significant costs associated with them which place significant pressures on local police budgets.
He concluded:
We hope to persuade the federal government that they need to be much more sensitive to the impact of their decisions and the financial burden they place on local governments and police organizations.
This is important to us because we are improving the tool box, but we are not increasing the number of people who can carry the tool box, so the tool box will stay in the warehouse.
Do you have any idea of how much money we are talking about? We can amend sections of the Criminal Code to make it more stringent in following up with criminals, but I understand that if you do not have the person power and the money, all the implications that will follow from the bills we were adopting in this committee —
[Translation]
We will be deluding ourselves. We are working on people's safety, but in practice that will stay on the shelf.
Do you have any idea of the additional workload the government's 17 bills amending the Criminal Code may represent?
[English]
Mr. Nezan: I cannot speak for the RCMP as a whole on the 17 bills. I can speak to the national sex offender registry. When I talked about resources earlier, my comment was about whether we would go back and identify all previously convicted sex offenders or those under sentence, of which there could be tens of thousands. That would be a resource challenge for us.
As to Bill S-2, the RCMP has sufficient resources to manage the NSOR program currently, and we are of the opinion that, with this bill, we will be able to continue to manage the program as it is written.
With an automatic inclusion model, there will be more records to manage and more offenders to register, so at some point there will be more stress on human resources and more people will be required to do that job.
Under the current scheme and in the foreseeable future, the RCMP can manage this NSOR program, but I cannot speak to the other bills to which you refer.
[Translation]
Mr. Manseau: Although I omitted the paragraph, the idea of downplaying the importance of additional resources was far from my mind. Mr. Dagenais talked about it and I talked about it again in the following paragraph.
With automatic registration and the new preventive aspect provided for, which may eventually result in additional queries in the registry, there will have to be an adjustment at some point, and that is virtually inevitable. Without that, the tool will be inadequate. That will eventually require resources; that is what we will have to see.
Mr. Lavigne: I cannot respond regarding the 17 amendments either. I have been at the Sûreté du Québec for 22 years and the beautiful thing about a police department is its ability to adjust and to prioritize mandates and requests received. Ultimately, if we need the resources, we will request them with the support of the people around us. However, when we have to respond, whether in a crisis or another situation, the Sûreté du Québec and all police departments, the beautiful thing is to adjust to those requests, to prioritize them, and after that we try to meet them where there are needs.
To respond to Bill S-2, no problem; we will deploy the efforts and people; we will find the resources, and we will see the utilization requests. We will evaluate and adjust.
Mr. Dagenais: It is always difficult to come up with figures. For example, we know that Quebec has received $93 million over five years. To assist with cybercrime, I believe it is $1.5 million, the fight against drugs, street gangs and so on. I agree with police officers must be in the field to enforce them and verify them. You also have to consider that the arrest of a sex offender results in its share of investigations and court proceedings. It is hard to quantify. To date, Quebec has nevertheless received $93 million for five years.
For cybercrime, I believe $1.5 million has been budgeted. So only a few million dollars would have to be budgeted. Adopting the bill isn't the only thing; we need a workforce in the field, people to verify it. Obviously, the more tools we have, the more staff we need.
Senator Joyal: A simply calculation is to start with the figure of 42 per cent of sex offenders who are currently in the registry. So we have to add 58 per cent. You have to increase the number of officers in the field to monitor the registry so that these persons are regularly reregistered.
If you do not increase the number of officers, you must double the number of officers you have to second from other functions so that this bill is really effective. Otherwise, we are deluding ourselves.
Mr. Dagenais: Senator Joyal, you took the words out of my mouth because I have been calling for additional strength since I have been president of the association.
We were talking about a minimum of 250 police officers, and we know that, in roughly the past five years, 50 have been added, and I have always said we are still lacking 200 police officers at the Sûreté du Québec. But perhaps with those 200 more police officers, we would manage, not to meet the demand, but at least to respond to it.
[English]
Senator Joyal: Mr. O'Brien, your title is puzzling. Your title is Officer in Charge, Behavioural Sciences Branch. What is the archetype of a pedophile offender? What is the profile of a pedophile? What group of persons happen to be pedophiles? You are in behavioural sciences, not me. That is why I am trying to get it from you.
Mr. O'Brien: That is true. I am in charge of behavioural sciences.
That is a difficult question. I am sure you know what a pedophile is. I have dealt with many investigations of people who are labelled as pedophiles. They are people who are sexually attracted to children.
Mr. Nezan is a certified criminal profiler. He might be better qualified to answer the question than I am.
Mr. Nezan: There is no typical profile. To begin with, the word ``pedophile'' is a clinical term and the clinical term to define a pedophile is someone who has a sexual preference for prepubescent children, generally accepted to be 13 and under. In our experience, however, most child molesters are not pedophiles. They are what we call situational offenders, who will prey on children for a number of reasons. It is not necessary that that child be their sexually preferred partner, but for a number of reasons such as opportunity, they may prey on children. The profile of a child molester, a rapist, a serial killer varies.
This is such a different group. I equate it to police officers — we all share commonalities amongst ourselves but we are unique individuals in our own right. It is the same with sex offenders. They are a broad group. I do not attach a profile to a pedophile. I am not qualified to talk about pedophiles. People like Dr. Fedoroff would be, because it is a clinical term.
Preferential sex offenders, those who have a sexual preference for children, come from all walks of life.
Senator Joyal: If you do not have elements of evidence in front of you, are there no classical profiles of the kind of person you would be looking for?
Mr. Nezan: No, there are no templates. There are basic data — for instance, male. The reality is, certainly, in our experience, most sex offenders are male. It does not mean there are not any female sex offenders, but it is overwhelmingly the province of the male gender.
After that, you can go in many different ways. The child molesters, in our experience, come in all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, experience, and levels of education, professions, et cetera.
It is erroneous, and I lecture quite a bit to investigators, to have stereotypes of what the profile looks like — for instance, the dirty old man with the cloak jacket at the park. Pedophiles or preferential child molesters can appear very professionally attired and can be educated people. They can occupy respectable professions. There are others who are more marginalized people of our society, who do not have much going for them otherwise, and everything in between.
[Translation]
Mr. Lavigne: I am in charge of the Behavioural Analysis Service and I have three profilers who work with me and who explain to me exactly the same thing at work, about what a pedophile is. I am not an expert, but experts work for me and I completely agree with what Mr. Nezan says.
Senator Joyal: This afternoon, Dr. Fedoroff talked about prevention. Is this something that concerns you in your work or, like fire-fighters, do you show up when a fire breaks out?
[English]
Mr. Nezan: In the NSOR scope, that is the problem right now. It is purely reactive. As law enforcement, crime prevention is important to us, as it is to the community, but the NSOR does not help us do any kind of crime prevention. I have had a number of incidents reported to me from centres across the country detailing incidents where they could not use the registry and were frustrated by it, because they think it could bring value to an investigation and perhaps prevent a sexual crime.
A colleague from the Ontario Provincial Police will be appearing before you. They have the Ontario sex offender registry, which allows proactive and preventive use. He would be able to give you examples where they use that registry to help prevent crime. In the NSOR currently, we cannot do it.
The Deputy Chair: We are running well into overtime. You have been patient with your time here tonight, I am sure beyond what you expected. I do not want to cut you off.
Mr. O'Brien: Bill S-2, if passed, will give us that ability to prevent crimes. It says we will be able to use the registry if we have reason to believe that a crime of a sexual nature may be committed. In the case of a vehicle or a person hanging around the schoolyard or playground, oftentimes those cases are reported to the police. I heard Dr. Fedoroff asking why the police do not just knock on the vehicle and inquire. They would if the vehicle was still there. Often, when the police, arrive the vehicle is long gone. That is where the registry would come in. If we have a description of the vehicle and can go to the registry in the future, we can query that type of vehicle and see if there are any sex offenders who live in the area and drive a vehicle fitting that description.
The Deputy Chair: Senator Boisvenu, do you have a short supplementary?
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: My question is further to that of Senator Joyal. It concerns funding and aims to provide police departments with potential solutions because financing should not be a barrier to passage of this bill.
Once again, I cite the case of Cédrika Provencher. I believe that investigation cost the Sûreté du Québec more than half a million dollars. It was even said that it was close to $1 million. If the registry had been more effective, the Sûreté du Québec might perhaps have saved $800,000 and the investigation would have been conducted in three or four weeks rather than two or three years.
Mr. Lavigne: Indeed.
Senator Boisvenu: So there would be a cost saving. As you said earlier, perhaps we will prevent crime. If we prevent crime, there will be fewer investigations, and if there are fewer investigations, we will spend less money. Is that not correct?
Mr. Lavigne: Hypothetically, yes. If we investigate less, we spend less.
Senator Boisvenu: I think there is one promising solution. If we are told that police work is more effective, savings should be made on investigations.
Mr. Lavigne: If information is more accessible and we can investigate more quickly, there will definitely be a cost saving.
[English]
Senator Watt: Thank you for your presentation.
I will try to cover an area that you have mentioned. You had communication with the authorities at the federal level regarding what could be provided in terms of the numbers from your files.
This legislation seems to capture some but not everyone. If the RCMP were to have provided information to this committee, I do not know exactly what files would be associated with that. You said it was hard to do that because you do not have the necessary resources to compile that information in order to fulfill the data bank in terms of the people who require that their DNA be filed on the sex offenders' data bank.
Is it truly impossible to provide that information to this committee? It might be a rough estimate in terms of the numbers that are not being captured by this legislation, but is it totally impossible in the eyes of the RCMP?
Mr. Nezan: I suppose we can frame it as to what figure you are looking for. For instance, are you referring to those currently under sentence for a sex offence?
Senator Watt: No. I am talking about people who have committed a crime before but they might be hiding somewhere. They could be underground, or whatever they are doing, but they are missed in this legislation. It is not covered by this legislation. I do not know whether I am making myself clear.
Mr. Nezan: Perhaps I am not following it. Are you referring to everyone previously convicted of a sex offence or under sentence? Under sentence, I would have to think about how to identify that. That might be easier than to try to identify the number of people who have ever been convicted of a sexual offence in this country. If we were to go back 20 years, it would be into six figures; I cannot imagine how large it would be. It would be difficult for us to come up with a number.
Senator Watt: For you to feel comfortable with it, how far back can you go?
Mr. Nezan: I would have to talk with the people who manage the records to give you an informed answer. I would be spitballing to tell you I can go back two years, or five years, or ten years; I do not have a sense of it.
Senator Watt: If that information is requested by this committee, could you try to provide it?
Mr. Nezan: Certainly, senator.
Senator Watt: The same thing would apply to the QPP, the provincial side.
What about the financing of it? I fully understood that you value this legislation. However, you are telling us that the cost associated with it is high. You need some additional resource people. I think you mentioned about 250 additional people on the provincial side. Could you make a further comment on that?
[Translation]
Mr. Dagenais: The addition, which I mentioned, of approximately 200 police officers referred to all sectors, including investigations and patrol officers.
In particular, we must not deprive ourselves of the benefits of this bill as a result of costs. It goes without saying that costs will be associated with this additional tool. It is difficult to assess those costs. In an interview, the director of the Sûreté du Québec said that 250 additional police officers would be needed to perform all duties. Some 50 police officers have recently been added to serve certain cities where contracts have been renewed and to respond to requests by elected officials for additional strength. The fact remains that personnel could be allocated for the implementation of this bill.
You also have to think of police officers in the field who will have to deal with sexual predators and intervene. Despite the costs, the bill will be effective only to the extent that it provides quick access to the registry. It goes without saying that will represent certain costs, but we must not deprive ourselves of this bill all the same.
Staff will be necessary and it will be up to Sûreté du Québec management to determine the number of staff that must be added to implement this bill.
It is important to think of the registry, but also of the people in the field. To prevent crime, you have to act quickly. The first responders are often police officers in the field. We must therefore not be short-handed.
I was a police officer in the field for 24 years. When we get a call concerning a disappearance, that officer must get to the scene as soon as possible, particularly in the case of child abductions.
A lack of staff can cause delays. However, a 15-minute delay and it is often too late. That is why we have to plan for staff. Obviously, 200 additional police officers represent nearly $1 million. However, those officers can be assigned to other duties.
[English]
Senator Watt: Regarding the additional $10 million that you might need, if you dig into your pocket you might say that, in your operation, you do not have the necessary funds that you need in order to implement this law. I guess you have two sources to approach for additional funding. You can ask either the provincial government or the federal government.
How do you go about getting the extra dollars that you need to implement this law? Where would you go?
[Translation]
Mr. Dagenais: As President of the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec, I can only make suggestions to the government. When we request additional staff or the association claims it is short of police officers, it is up to Quebec's Treasury Board to allocate additional funding. The federal government has paid $93 million under the five-year project, and we hope that funding will be recurring.
There are two ways of doing this. We can go to the provincial government and also ask the federal government to extend the commitments it has made and to pass on the message. After that, the association does not have the power to determine the funding to be allocated to certain investigations. We can only make suggestions. We appear before you and before other forums to assert that we are concerned about citizen safety. However, a cost is attached to that objective, particularly when we talk about child abductions and disappearances and sexual predators. These crimes are not necessarily on the rise. Although people increasingly denounce these crimes, we know that some sexual predators have been reported only 20 or 25 years later.
These measures represent costs. We cannot submit specific figures. However, we should not deprive ourselves of the bill all the same. We will assess the costs as we move forward.
[English]
Senator Watt: I am not quite finished yet. Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that I do not like this piece of legislation. I can even tell you what happened recently in my small community up North with regard to youngsters. I will not get into that at this point, but for this reason I am with you. I would like to see the resources given to you to properly implement this law. Again, I am also coming from another standpoint: If we do not have the resources to implement it, what is the use of trying to pass the law? You are basically giving people a misconception; they might think this is a safety net but it is not really, if it will not be implemented. That is where I am coming from.
I would like to switch to the RCMP if you do not mind, Mr. Chair. I will try to be brief.
I understand that the RCMP did receive some funds from the Government of Canada to administer the network you have. Could you tell me how much you received?
Mr. O'Brien: No, senator. When the Sex Offender Information Registration Act came into being in December 2004, we did not receive any funding with the bill to implement it. The costs for us at the national policy centre are approximately $400,000 a year. That money is found from within. As budgets get tighter, it gets more difficult.
Also, as I indicated earlier, the data base is maintained by our informatics people, our CIO sector, and I understand it costs them about $200,000 a year to maintain and keep the data base up to date. From the headquarters perspective, that is approximately $600,000 a year. The centres across the country, like in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories, are administered by the local area. In Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, the centre is in St. John's, so the RCMP, in cooperation with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, would do it. We have a number of secondments across the country. In Newfoundland, we have one member from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. In Halifax, we have one member from the Halifax Police and, in Winnipeg, there a member from the Winnipeg police working with the RCMP centre.
That cost is borne by the local police force. In Manitoba, for example, the province or the contract RCMP would pick up the costs. If they needed extra resources, I imagine they would take a business case to the commanding officer. If the money cannot be found from within, they would make a business case to the province for extra resources.
All those centres are now up and running because the Sex Offender Information Registration Act has been around since 2004. All the centres are running.
Will there be an increase in people registering? I guess there will be with automatic inclusion. However, we believe that, at least for the foreseeable future, it should be manageable. Eventually, they will probably require more resources but it is difficult to say, currently, how many resources that will be. Time will tell, I imagine.
Senator Watt: In due time, you hope improvements will be made. Knowing the fact that Ontario got $2 million, what is going on there?
Mr. O'Brien: I think the Ontario sex offender registry is funded by the provincial government. It has been around since 2001 and that is obviously funded by their provincial government.
Senator Watt: They got $2 million?
Mr. O'Brien: I am not sure of the figure.
Senator Watt: That is what I have been told. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Watt. Gentlemen, thank you for your presentations and the generous allotment of your time. We are well beyond time, but I can say it was very informative. We very much appreciate it.
Colleagues, we will be back in this room tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. to continue our review of Bill S-2. Our witnesses will be Jim and Anna Stephenson, the Victims of Violence Canadian Centre for Missing Children, Circles of Support and Accountability, and the Ontario Provincial Police.
(The committee adjourned.)