JUST Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 29, 2003

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1110

The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)

Mr. Steve Sullivan (President, Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime)

The Chair

Staff Sergeant Charles Young (Ontario Provincial Police)

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1115

The Chair

Mr. Steve Sullivan

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1120

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1125

The Chair

Ms. Tamra Thomson (Director, Legislation and Law Reform, Canadian Bar Association)

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1135

Mr. Allan Manson (Chair, Committee on Imprisonment & Release, Canadian Bar Association)

The Chair

Mr. Allan Manson

Mr. Allan Manson

Mr. Allan Manson

The Chair

Mr. Glen Thompson (Executive Director, Canadian Criminal Justice Association)

Mr. Matthew Yeager (Member of the Board, Canadian Criminal Justice Association)

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1140

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1145

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.)

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay)

Mr. Steve Sullivan

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1150

Mr. Randy White

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay)

Mr. Randy White

Mr. Allan Manson

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay)

Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ)

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1155

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay)

Mr. Allan Manson

Mr. Matthew Yeager

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay)

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

Â

1200

The Chair

Mr. Allan Manson

The Chair

Mr. John Maloney (Erie—Lincoln, Lib.)

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Steve Sullivan

Mr. John Maloney

Mr. Matthew Yeager

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1205

Mr. John Maloney

Mr. Steve Sullivan

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. John Maloney

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Allan Manson

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Allan Manson

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance)

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1210

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Matthew Yeager

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

The Chair

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. Matthew Yeager

Â

1215

The Chair

Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.)

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Â

1220

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lanctôt

The Chair

S/Sgt Charles Young

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1225

The Chair

Mr. Glen Thompson

The Chair

Mr. Allan Manson

The Chair

Ms. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Allan Manson

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1230

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Mr. Matthew Yeager

Ms. Hedy Fry

Mr. Matthew Yeager

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

Mr. Steve Sullivan

Mr. Randy White

S/Sgt Charles Young

Â

1235

The Chair

Mr. Allan Manson

Mr. Matthew Yeager

The Chair

Mr. Randy White

The Chair

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

Â

1240

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Derek Lee

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Derek Lee

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. Derek Lee

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.)

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. John McKay

S/Sgt Charles Young

Â

1245

Mr. John McKay

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. John McKay

S/Sgt Charles Young

The Chair

Mr. Matthew Yeager

The Chair

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

Â

1250

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mr. Kevin Sorenson

The Chair

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Mr. Glen Thompson

Ms. Hedy Fry

Â

1255

The Chair

Mr. Steve Sullivan

Ms. Hedy Fry

The Chair

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

S/Sgt Charles Young

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

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NUMBER 051

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 29, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.): I call to order the 51st meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

    Today we are considering Bill C-23, An Act respecting the registration of information relating to sex offenders, to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

    From now until 1 o'clock we have the following witnesses: from the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, Steve Sullivan, president; the Canadian Bar Association, Allan Manson, chair of the Committee on Imprisonment and Release, and Tamra Thomson, director of legislation and law reform; the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, Glenn Thompson, executive director, and Matthew Yeager, member of the board; and Staff Sergeant Charles Young, Ontario Provincial Police.

    We have a panel of four with a little less than two hours, so I hope that each group keeps inside the 10 minutes they've been asked to live with. I will indicate when there's a minute left, and I will indicate more forcefully when there isn't. Please try to bring your thoughts to a conclusion when I do that so that we'll have lots of opportunity to discuss this with members of the committee.

    Before we proceed I would ask members of the committee to consider their response to a question that might be asked. I don't know that we'll be making a decision at the end of the day in terms of where we want to go from here with this bill. We had originally planned, on the basis of the number of witnesses who had expressed an interest in appearing, to have one more panel and clause-by-clause next Tuesday. More witnesses have expressed a desire to appear, which would probably cause this to take a little bit longer than I would like. At the end of the day, although with four people we may not get around to it, please let the chair know your disposition on that question.

    Following the order in which I read them off, I will go now to the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, Steve Sullivan, president.

    Mr. Steve Sullivan (President, Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    If it is okay with the committee and the chair, I've spoken with Charles Young, and he has agreed to go before me, because I think that much of what I would say will be summed up by Charles. Certainly, he is more knowledgeable about Ontario.

    The Chair: Mr. Young.

    Staff Sergeant Charles Young (Ontario Provincial Police): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Ontario has participated with the federal government and our provincial counterparts in the development of a national sex offender registry strategy. Ontario is the first jurisdiction in Canada to have established a Sex Offender Registry and has been a driving force, along with Alberta, to have the federal government implement a national strategy supported by legislation.

    The Ontario Sex Offender Registry was established in response to the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of 11-year-old Christopher Stephenson by a convicted pedophile on statutory release. Christopher's Law was proclaimed into force on April 23, 2001. It requires sex offenders to report to local police on an annual basis and to provide prescribed information, including a current address within 15 days of release from custody and a change of address prior to moving out of Ontario. It applies to all criteria offenders who are serving a sentence for a sex offence at the time of proclamation and to every person convicted of or found not criminally responsible for a sex offence on or after the date of proclamation. The Ontario registry is intended to serve as a tool that will help police investigate crimes of a sexual nature by providing them with access to current reliable information relating to sex offenders.

    We remain consistent in our belief that a national sex offender registry strategy should be inclusive of a crime prevention and law enforcement perspective and should provide police with a modern electronic database with extensive mapping, photographic, and search capabilities. Interactive technology could quickly and proactively assist police in identifying or eliminating potential suspects in the investigative process. This technology could also within minutes identify offenders residing within a specific area or distance from an abduction or incident. The technology and key investigative features currently exist and are successfully employed in Ontario. The Ministry of Public Safety and Security conducted extensive consultations with senior police managers, investigators, and police information technology specialists in the development of the Ontario Sex Offender Registry application.

    Ontario has been operating a very successful registry for over two years. It has maintained in excess of a 90% compliance rate, with over 5,700 offenders in the program. Victims, community residents, and police are committed to the success of this program.

    Ontario has consistently maintained the position that it is imperative to include Ontario's offenders in the national registration scheme and that the federal government should honour its commitment to electronically link with existing registries. Ontario has also maintained the position, which is consistent with Ontario's Christopher's Law, that a national registration strategy include offenders convicted of a criteria sex offence as defined by legislation who were serving a sentence on the day of proclamation in addition to anyone convicted of a criteria sex offence on or after the legislation comes into force. We are supported in this position, calling for a retroactive element, by Alberta and Manitoba.

    On March 5, 2003, the United States Supreme Court, as we heard earlier with the federal minister, in a six-to-three decision ruled the requirement in the Alaska Sex Offender Registry Act for certain sex offenders to register quarterly was neither burdensome nor punitive, understanding that jurisprudence in the United States does not carry over into Canada.

    Also on March 5, 2003, the same court in a unanimous decision, a nine-to-zero decision, ruled that Connecticut did not have to hold separate hearings to determine the risk posed by sex criminals who have completed their prison sentences before putting them in a registry pursuant to Connecticut's Megan's Law.

    Ontario continues to identify the requirement for national leadership on this issue and remains committed to work with the federal government and our provincial partners to implement and enhance a national sex offender registry strategy. All Canadians deserve to benefit equally from initiatives, processes, and technology that will enhance community and public safety. To reiterate, Ontario supports Bill C-23 but will continue to work with the federal government and our provincial counterparts to address our outstanding issues and increase the investigational value of the national scheme for all.

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    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Sullivan, did you want to add something to that?

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: Yes, I'll make a few brief comments, Mr. Chair.

    We have submitted a written brief. In it are a couple of the arguments we made and some of the concerns we raised.

    First, I would echo the minister's comment that this is a tool for police. It's not a panacea to solve all sexual assaults. It won't be a tool used in all sexual assaults. We know that most sexual assaults involve a question of consent. The offenders are known to the victims. But it is another investigative tool, and evidence from the United States shows that it does assist police in identifying suspects sooner when there are no known suspects. That, in our opinion, can help prevent future crimes.

    When Ontario held its hearings on Christopher's Law, Dr. Howard Barbaree of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto testified in support of the registry. He said that it would be an important component of a comprehensive approach to the prevention of sexual assault, which includes proper treatment and supervision. I think that is an important element to remember, that this is supported by people who work with sex offenders as part of the comprehensive approach to dealing with them.

    There are a couple of issues that I want to touch on briefly. The main one is the government's charter argument. From what I've heard this morning, it really has less to do with the charter and more to do with the buy-in from the provinces. That means more work for us, to lobby the provinces who don't agree with retroactivity. I find it somewhat inconsistent in that sometimes the federal government requires the approval of the provinces for registries and other times it doesn't. If you were to apply that standard, unfortunately, we would see the firearms registry be cancelled. I'm a supporter of the firearms registry, but we know that not all provinces are. Yet somehow the federal government feels it's important enough to go ahead and do it, anyway. I would argue that this is important enough to go ahead and do it, anyway.

    I also would challenge the argument that it would automatically be struck down by the charter. I think Charles has referenced the case in the U.S. Supreme Court where they found that retroactivity was not unconstitutional because registration is not about punishment. Mr. Mosley did comment that although we're not bound by those decisions, they do have an influence on how the Supreme Court would handle those arguments under section 1.

    I think it's also inconsistent with the government's approach to DNA. When the DNA data bank legislation was passed, a particular group of offenders who were serving sentences were required to give their DNA for the data bank, arguably not a broad enough group. The authorities were able to go back into prisons, and for repeat sex offenders, dangerous offenders, and multiple killers, they were able to take their DNA and put it into the data bank.

    I find it inconsistent to say that we can't make this legislation retroactive and do something similar when we know that people coming out of prison will present a high risk to reoffend. Every province in the country has a notification system. Two provinces, in fact, have websites where they put on pictures and information about individuals who have been identified by police as a high risk to reoffend. And, as I mentioned, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that registration is not about punishment.

    I would also draw your attention to provisions in the Criminal Code under section 810, which were referenced by the minister. They allow a court, even if someone has served their entire sentence or has never been convicted of a criminal offence, to place conditions on that individual. We see more and more police forces using it for people coming out of prison who are a high risk. Courts can impose fairly restrictive conditions on people, and the courts have found that is not unconstitutional.

    I just want to read you a quick comment from Mr. Justice John Laskin. He said a “law that aims to prevent future harm is as valid as a law aimed at punishing an offender.... ...I cannot think of a more important use than the protection of young children from likely sexual predators.... The state should not be obliged to wait until children are victimized before it acts.”

    So I think the court's approach to the DNA and the section 810 orders would comparatively look at the registration conditions.

    If, however, the government continues to refuse to amend the legislation to make it completely retroactive, we would offer a couple of suggestions for compromise: make it partially retroactive, as they have the DNA data bank, so that at least you catch the most high-risk people in the prisons currently; create a special mechanism where a crown attorney can apply to have someone who is serving a sentence or has served a sentence be required to register; or pass the bill as it is and simply refer the question to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the Supreme Court of Canada says it's okay, then go back and amend your bill.

Á  (1120)  

    I think what Canadians would like to see the federal government do once in a while is instead of pretending they know what the Supreme Court is going to do, because, frankly, none of us do.... The Department of Justice doesn't know what the Supreme Court is going to do. Instead of assuming what the Supreme Court will do, stand up and argue for us. Go to court and say, these are the reasons we think it's important. Decide it's a good idea. We all agree that if you're going to have a registry, it makes it more effective to have everybody on there as opposed to just people committing it on a certain day. So decide it's a good idea, and then make the argument. Stand up for the people who are potentially victims of these individuals, as opposed to just simply assuming that the rights of convicted sex offenders will be protected by the courts.

    The final comment I want to make is with regard to process. The process by which after a conviction a crown attorney will ask a court to make a registration order is quite similar to the process that's used with the DNA data bank. If someone is convicted of a schedule offence, the crown attorney will ask that the judge make an order that the DNA will go into the data bank. The recent report from the RCMP says that they're getting those orders in less than 50% of cases. That's a concern because it's a similar process. You could make the argument that less than 50% of sex offenders convicted after this bill comes into effect will actually be on the registry. So that is of concern as well.

    We echo the concerns about the young offenders.

    I want to make one brief comment in relation to some of the discussions. We work with a wide range of victims, some who are abused by stepfathers and fathers, and they are not problems just with families. I use different terms. I use rape, sexual abuse, manipulation, and punishment. I can think of one case in particular where the offender molested all of his daughters. People assume that if you molest your daughters, you molest within your family, and therefore you're not a risk to the general public. When he was charged and convicted, a number of people from the church community and a number of their daughters' friends came forward and said that he had abused them as well. Let's not assume that simply because you molest your child, you are not going to be a danger to other people.

    I know what the statistics say and I know that the recidivism rates for those people are lower, but I think that the registry has to err on the side of caution. Let's be realistic. What we're asking is for sex offenders to go to a police station once a year and say, I live at this address, period. That's all we're asking sex offenders to do. With the harm they have caused, it is simply not too much to ask.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Á  (1125)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    I go now to the Canadian Bar Association.

    Ms. Tamra Thomson (Director, Legislation and Law Reform, Canadian Bar Association): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The Canadian Bar Association welcomes the opportunity to give the committee its comments on the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, which is before you.

    We are a national association, which represents about 38,000 members across the country. The written submission you have before you was prepared by the National Criminal Justice Section of the CBA, which represents both crown and defence attorneys across Canada. Also contributing to the submission was the Committee on Imprisonment and Release, whose members are experts on sentencing matters and everything that happens from there on within the criminal justice system.

    I am going to ask Professor Manson to speak to the substantive matters of the bill, summarizing some of our recommendations and speaking a bit more about the details.

Á  (1135)  

    Mr. Allan Manson (Chair, Committee on Imprisonment & Release, Canadian Bar Association): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    This submission, which you all have now, is the product of discussions amongst the members of the National Criminal Justice Section, which is made up of defence counsel, crown counsel, and academics. It is their consensus view. It contains 18 recommendations of a legal nature about the legislation. You will note that they are all cast in conditional language. That's as if to say, if you pass this legislation. Why? Because it's our view that this is bad criminal law policy in the sense that it achieves very little, will cost very much, and will distract attention from real sources of risk and harm to children for which there are other avenues that could be pursued.

    I want to talk first about that general approach and then get to the technical arguments in a minute.

    I want to thank my committee colleagues, who are lawyers, and my colleague Professor Doob from the Centre of Criminology, who has provided me with a lot of social science data and background for this submission.

    First, let me ask you what the cost of this scheme is going to be. I have not seen any estimates, but we know that any estimates will likely be underestimates. The cost will be huge. That's the dollar cost. Every time there's a dollar cost, there's an opportunity cost. When you spend a dollar on X, it's a dollar you're not spending on Y, whether the Y is enhancing police forces or other avenues for protecting and promoting the safety of children.

    Let's look at homicides for a second. In the year 2001 there were 554 homicides in Canada, and 39 victims were children under 12 years. Of those 39, 30 were killed by their parents, six were killed by family and friends, and three were killed by strangers. So while everyone is concerned about protecting children, we're talking about a small fraction that could in the best of all worlds potentially be protected by this kind of scheme.

    As the previous speakers pointed out, a number of American jurisdictions have moved in this direction. Massachusetts has a Megan's Law. In volume 45 of Crime & Delinquency they report on a 1999 study. In Massachusetts they took 136 prisoners who had been described as either habitual sexual offenders or compulsive sexual offenders and they viewed their histories to ask the question, had there been a registration law, would anyone have been protected? Assuming the best of all worlds, the most efficient and best responses by police, in four cases out of 136 there was at least a possibility of protection.

    So our point is this. Money is going to be spent that could be spent elsewhere. But it's more than just money. There is a policy distraction. When you create the impression that you are doing something, you discourage people from pursuing other avenues. You cut off resources for other avenues. And it's not just policy distraction. It's creating the impression that what we really should fear is the other, the monster, when in fact, if you look at the statistics about harm to children, who we should fear are ourselves or at least people that look at ourselves. It's always impolitic and unattractive to be fearful about ourselves. It's better to fool ourselves.

    I agree with Mr. Sullivan, let's be realistic. And if you want to be realistic, it seems to our committee that this is not the most efficient and economical way to approach criminal justice policy. There are concerns about dysfunctional families, incompetent parenting, drug and alcohol abuse, and all the other incidents of poverty where money can be spent that will truly protect children, not simply enhance police budgets.

    Having said that, we've made 18 recommendations. I'm not going to go through all 18. You have the submission. There are a couple of significant ones. Recommendation number one. Why is it that in subparagraph 2(2)(c)(i), in terms of principles, the basis is reasonable grounds rather than reasonable and probable grounds, a standard we've used historically in the criminal justice system and that we know about?

    I'll try to do my editing as I go through them.

    Recommendation number three. What is a crime of a sexual nature? The definition is in subclause 3(2). It's our submission that it should be a crime under the Criminal Code. That may be the implication, but when you look at the legislation, a strong argument can be made that's not the only implication because paragraph 3(2)(b) says “constitute an offence”. An offence could be under a variety of acts, including the Contraventions Act, which is in the news as we speak.

    Recommendation number four. There is no provision for staying an order to register pending an appeal, although if there is a successful appeal, the registration order is vitiated and any registered information is removed. We submit that there ought to be some ability to go to a judge of the court of appeal, just like we do now with other applications, and say, I have a legitimate appeal. Here are my grounds. Stay this order. Give the judge of the court of appeal that discretion.

    Recommendation number five. We object in principle to the person being included who has either received an absolute discharge or has been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. The absolute discharge is clear. A judge has made the finding that there should be no consequences of the prosecution. With regard to the person who is found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, this group of people is under the control, scrutiny, and review of provincial review boards. This group of people by definition suffers from serious psychiatric problems. Is this the kind of people we want to make subject to registration requirements and then generate in the community future offences based on potential non-compliance? It's our submission that there's no justification for including this group. The public is well protected by the section 672 mental disorder provisions.

    I would add, if I can just jump ahead, with regard to defences, that the proposed section 490.03 code provisions, if there's non-compliance, lead to a section 490.09 prosecution. There is only one possible defence, other than it didn't--

    The Chair: You have one minute left.

    Mr. Allan Manson: I wasn't sure what a finger meant. Thank you.

    An hon. member: It depends on which finger.

    Mr. Allan Manson: That's right. It depends on whose finger and which one.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Allan Manson: If you look at the defence, it's a defence if your liberty is restricted under lawful authority. There's no defence of lawful excuse or reasonable excuse, which we see throughout the code. If someone is in the hospital, unless you're there under an order, you have no defence to not complying. It seems to us that needs to be rectified.

    Let me say one thing about retroactivity. The previous speakers have been arguing in favour of greater retroactivity. We agree completely with the position of the Department of Justice. Paragraph 11(h) is clear. This is a sanction. I understand the American jurisprudence, but in Canadian terms this is a sanction that includes stigma, which to our Supreme Court has been an important aspect of blameworthiness. I have been involved in section 1 cases. I was one of the counsel in Sauvé versus the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. I don't for a second accept the position that this kind of scheme, with the very limited utility it presents, could ever meet a section 1 test. So to make it more retroactive than it is would be a huge mistake. We're even concerned about the extent to which it's retroactive. Perhaps I can just finish my sentence. If you look at proposed subsection 490.03(3), previous offences can be brought back into the matrix if there is a current prosecution. We find that to be a retrospective implication of a previous conviction, which also likely violates paragraph 11(h) of the charter.

    I'd be happy, if any of you have had an opportunity to read the submission, to address any of the other technical arguments.

    We think this is a serious piece of legislation that really ought to be stopped. If it's not stopped, it ought to be improved.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll go now to the Canadian Criminal Justice Association.

    Mr. Thompson.

    Mr. Glen Thompson (Executive Director, Canadian Criminal Justice Association): Mr. Chair, my name is Glen Thompson. I am the executive director of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. We're very appreciative of being here today and having an opportunity to speak to you. I think you have our submission.

    Matthew Yeager, a criminologist who practises here in Ottawa and has been doing so since 1991, will do the majority of the presentation.

    But I just say to you that the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, as you may well know, publishes widely in Canada, including the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice and other publications, and is widely representative in its membership. So I think we bring you a well-thought-out, balanced opinion from a wide variety of sources in the system.

    Matthew's background is in the U.S., where he was trained as a criminologist, and he has practised here for some time.

    My background is as a social worker. I worked in the Ontario government for 30 years and was a deputy minister for 16 of those. Most recently, after a stint of 10 years or so with the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, I have been in the Arctic for two years with the Government of Nunavut dealing in health and social services. So we bring you a breadth of experience that might be useful.

    You will find that our position is similar in some respects to the Canadian Bar Association's in that we're concerned about the disposition of funds on this process when we think that there are better processes, indeed. Opportunity costs, I found in my 20 years in corrections in Ontario, are a terribly important subject.

    Matthew.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager (Member of the Board, Canadian Criminal Justice Association): This legislation, from our point of view, is founded upon some basic assumptions: one, the registry will reduce sexual offence rates; two, it will likely increase police clearance rates and convictions; three, it will make sexual recidivism less prevalent; four, it will contribute to the overall safety of Canadians; and five, it will be relatively inexpensive to administer. None of those five assumptions is supported in the research literature at this time. So you are considering legislation that has very little empirical support in the research literature with regard to either suppression rates, effectiveness, or cost.

    What is unique about this legislation is that at the very time you are considering it, your own Law Commission is looking at the overcriminalization of behaviour in Canada. We now have over 50,000 acts that are criminal in Canada. That's twice as many as occurred in 1976. To quote your own chair of the Law Commission, whose name is Nathalie Des Rosiers, “Criminalization is the most costly tool that we have, not only because of the expense of incarceration but the social costs.”

    Our organization represents a lot of the practitioners, the hands-on people, who actually work in our institutions across Canada and in the community, some of us with sex offenders. I have a 20-year career of working with sex offenders in terms of sentencing, parole, and putting together intervention packages and treatment strategies. So the testimony that I'm going to offer today comes from a lot of the practitioners who actually work with these people in the country.

    It appears to us that this legislation is a very severe example of double mandatory sentencing, in which the judge only considers the application once, sentence is pronounced, and then receives an application to extend police surveillance for either 10, 20, or even a lifetime period.

    In this legislation there is no definition of what “grossly disproportionate” means, which is the review criterion upon which a judge can determine that perhaps the registry is not substantive. There's no definition in the legislation of what the heck that means. The exception is narrowly drawn and does not, as has been admitted here by the government, deal with the issue of proportionality and does not consider individual risk, age--we have very few sex offenders older than their mid-fifties--and the offender's recognizance history.

    What this translates into--and I echo the words of the Canadian Bar Association--is that this legislation is not designed to help the offender with their reintegration. It does not provide them any new services. It does not address circles of support or their employment problems as offenders. What it does is create a “suspect list”, so that whenever a major crime is committed near their place of employment or home, they can be rounded up for interrogation purposes or because they are considered to be a suspect. Indeed, what is unique about this legislation is that the offenders you are addressing have not been asked what they need to succeed in the community. They're not even part of the equation in this particular document, because the operating assumption is that they are all potentially dangerous. What is unique about that operating assumption is that empirically it is invalid. The research indicates that sex offenders have lower reprocessing rates than other convicts generally.

    It is facile, in our view, to assume that employers, co-workers, and neighbours are not going to suspect that something is awfully wrong when a police officer shows up to interview the registrant at his home or place of employment or carts that individual off to the station and charges him or her under the registry act. This is in fact a stigma. It is a criminal sanction. It is not for the benefit of some other civil process.

    Bill C-23 further criminalizes offenders by requiring updated information about their residence; place of employment; and even their telephone, pager, and cell phone numbers. I can't think of a better piece of criminal legislation that's going to criminalize a lot of conduct and potentially generate a lot of charges over what are essentially extremely minor technical infractions.

    It also raises, in our view, an equal protection issue. How is this justified, as Mr. McKay so aptly pointed out, with regard to other offender groups with higher recidivism rates? I cite motor vehicle thieves as an example or other violent offenders. How is it going to be justified on an equal protection basis?

Á  (1140)  

    Our research suggests that a substantial portion of offenders will likely refuse to register--we cite the California example in our testimony--subjecting the registry to incompleteness, and that these individuals also would be subject to further criminal conviction, including going to prison.

    The legislation does not address the special needs of aboriginal sex offenders.

    If anything, the penalties for unauthorized disclosure should be the same as for failure to provide adequate information on the registry and should apply generally to the media.

    To conclude, as Professor Michael Petrunik has observed--and, ladies and gentlemen, he is here in the audience today:

While the question of how effective various community protection measures are awaits the findings of research yet to be carried out, one can legitimately question whether such measures are more symbolic than instrumental in nature, their essential purpose being to address public fear.

Á  (1145)  

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thank you.

    I appreciate all the witnesses staying within their time limit.

    Mr. White, seven minutes.

    Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance): I'm not quite sure how to get into those last two presentations.

    But I want to say this. I want to clarify once again, Mr. Chairman, what I understand the facts to be for this registry. On opening day this registry will have nobody on it--in other words, it's not retroactive--with the exception of sex offenders who are currently incarcerated in Ontario. I'd like to hear your views as to whether or not you think it's appropriate to have somebody on it at all or retroactively. Specifically picking a group from Ontario and not from British Columbia, Quebec, or any other area seems to me to be an inappropriate and unacceptable way to handle a registry.

    Someone here, Mr. Manson, I believe, talked about the gun registry, but the penalties for not registering a gun are much more severe than for a sex offender not registering the changes in their personal data.

    The registry will not record people under the age of 18 unless they're convicted as adults, which leads to a question in my mind, what is a sex offender? Is a sex offender just somebody who's over 18 or a young offender who has been convicted as an adult?

    We seem to have a schedule of offences. But it's not mandatory that somebody convicted under that schedule go on it, because discretion is left up to crown counsel as to whether or not they put in an application for it. It also allows appeal, once you're convicted, of the schedule of offences. We're probably going to see appeals from every sex offender, which will tie up the courts even more. Why an appeal is necessary is beyond me. After all that, the judge then gets some discretion to assess whether or not the privacy and liberty of a sex offender is impacted so much that they should not be on the registry in the first place.

    For different reasons, I would agree with some of the witnesses here who say, what are you spending your time and money on?

    I agree with the registry. I not only agree, but I wrote the initial registry three and a half years ago based on Christopher's Law in Ontario. But I find that what's before us today does not necessarily represent an effective registry at all.

    I'd like to ask Mr. Sullivan a question. Given these facts, how effective will the sex offender registry be on opening day? Even further to that, with all of the legal industry out there getting involved, as they apparently plan to do, how effective do you think this is really going to be in comparison to what already exists in Ontario?

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay): Mr. Sullivan.

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: I don't think the registry as it's legislated currently will be much use to law enforcement for some time to come. You're right in that no one will be on the registry in the beginning, and it will build up rather slowly. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait till some offenders get out of prison and reoffend before they will be on the registry.

    The Ontario model shows that the compliance rate for offenders is extremely high. The danger in making comparisons with the U.S. is that their registries are also often public, so there's much more of a cost to offenders in registering because they might find their picture on a website. That's not the situation in Ontario. It will not be the situation here. I think it's dangerous to make direct comparisons.

    In answer to your question, I am torn between saying the committee should rush to pass this bill and there isn't any rush at all, because I don't think it's going to be very effective for a long time to come.

Á  (1150)  

    Mr. Randy White: Do I have time for another question?

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay): You have about three minutes left.

    Mr. Randy White: I want to get back to this opening day thing. I don't consider this--I think I heard something different from one of our witnesses--to be a punishment. It's actually a law enforcement tool. It's not open to the public. It's not a discretionary thing that is available to just anybody. The police and other people, such as parole officers, already have this information. This information is available to those in the right spots. If it is such an affront to the charter because it's put on a registry, why is keeping the record of an offender in the first place not an affront, because it's really one and the same?

    Mr. Allan Manson: The Canadian Bar Association supports good police work, and an important element of good police work is collecting, assimilating, integrating, and sharing information. I didn't mention gun control, but I will throw out another name. Paul Bernardo is the perfect example of someone who would not be caught by anything like this because he was a first offender. But after that prosecution a very careful examination of police practices was conducted by Justice Archie Campbell of the Ontario Superior Court. One of the recommendations of that study was the use of integrated information systems for Canadian police forces dealing with all violent offenders, keeping track of all the data and sharing them among police forces. That's good police work.

    Here it is not just data that you're keeping track of. You're imposing obligations on people on a regular basis--every 15 days following a change of address and every year, potentially up to life--with serious criminal sanctions for failing to comply with those obligations. So it is not data collection. As you pointed out, and you're absolutely correct, the police, corrections officials, and parole boards have the data now.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay): I think you're out of time, Mr. White. Thank you.

    Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt (Châteauguay, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I would like to cover a few topics. My first question is for the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. In your brief, statements and presentations, you do not really talk about the bill which has been introduced and which is before us. Rejecting it out of hand is one thing, and proving or at least ensuring that it is constitutional is another.

    We must not focus solely on the nature of the offence, but also on the individual's degree of dangerousness. I am a bit surprised that you did not cover this very important aspect in your brief or in your comments. We are in the process of establishing this registry and you say that you are concerned by such things as a lack of efficiency and misplaced money. This is indeed important. Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are clearly headed towards a legal debate. Later on I will ask Mr. Sullivan some questions on this issue. This infamous registry is already being challenged in the first instance.

    This file will definitely be submitted to the Supreme Court. Accordingly, I feel that the suggestion to make a reference is quite appropriate. A little earlier on, the minister and the deputy minister told us that there was a high risk. Mr. McKay gave us an example and there is also the issue of adolescents. There are a lot of potential problems considering the fact that even though sex offenders are not dangerous, their names will be included in this registry, because it has been designed to cover all sexually related crimes.

    The bill provides for a shifting of the burden of proof, which is serious. That means that, in addition to being accused of something, the person has to prove that he or she is not dangerous. And the deputy minister has the audacity to tell us that the bill is worded this way because the Crown may not have enough evidence. How will such a provision be able to resist article 1 of the Charter? How can a free and democratic society accept such a huge thing?

    I would like to hear what you have to say on the matter.

Á  (1155)  

[English]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay): Are you directing it to Mr. Manson or Mr. Yeager?

    Mr. Allan Manson: I agree completely with what you're saying about dangerousness. We're looking at a scheme that is mandatory in nature with the exception of the gross disproportionality provision, which was already talked about. In our submission there are a number of places where the concern about a gap between potential risk and the statutory obligation exists. First, there's no flexibility in the periods. They seem to require the judge, if the application is made, to look at the 10, 20, life. There's no room for a judge to fashion an order that meets the blameworthiness or the risk of the situation. So that's one clear defect.

    The second is with regard to the potential defence or rebuttal of gross disproportionality. That is the term our Supreme Court has used in defining section 12 of the charter when a punishment is cruel and unusual, and it means shocking the conscience of the community. It seems to us that the burdens of registration ought not to be imposed when they're disproportionate. If there's no balance, they ought not to be proposed. Gross disproportionality, that standard, will offend section 7. We agree with that.

    Going back to mental disorder, if you look at the mental disorder provisions, section 672.54--and this was validated by the Supreme Court in the late 1990s in the Winko case--you'll see that the state can only impose conditions when there is a significant risk to the safety of the public. In these circumstances people who have been found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder are immediately thrown in with the rest of the group regardless of the standard that has already been validated. So perhaps the submission should have been stronger and clearer about our concerns about the dissidence between risk and the mandatory order.

    That's one of our great concerns. You can see it in the conclusion where we say, if you're going to go forward, surely changes have to be made to ensure that this conforms with the charter standards, which exist in sections 7, 9, 12, and 15.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: One of the great misgivings about this legislation--and we have opposed these kinds of bills before--is the use of generalized labels. One of the reasons this particular registry is not going to have much impact is the fact that a good portion of the people on it are going to be low risk and not particularly dangerous at all. Essentially, you're putting in a lot of low-risk individuals, who often don't have extensive prior records or who may be in their fifties or sixties, and they're not going to be much of a risk at all. But you're going to subject them, on an indictable, to a 20-year minimum supervision period. If their cellphone goes buggy or they lose their pager, like I did two days ago, they have to report to the police that they've lost it or give the new number or they're rounded up.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Do I still have a little bit of time left?

[English]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. John McKay): Yes.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Did you hear the minister? I do not know whether or not you were in the room. Let's not forget that a bill has been introduced and that we are here to discuss it. We will examine it, quickly, clause by clause. This is why I agreed to hear you. We must at least make this bill accessible, because if the people and the politicians want it, we at least have to make sure that the registry complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or at least ensure that there are fewer possible risks that it does not comply.

    The same applies with respect to the retroactivity. We were told that this concept was not included because of the Charter. However, the issue of dangerousness is also important and probably more problematic. Why include it? We need to persuade the minister that that will not change the premise of his bill, because his purpose is to establish a registry of dangerous sexual offenders, and not a registry that includes anybody who has ever committed a minor offence.

    So we at least have to make this bill acceptable and more likely to comply with article 1. We have to do the opposite of what we have done. It must not be up to the accused to prove that he or she should not be included in this registry. On the contrary, it must be up to the Crown to demonstrate that the person is dangerous and should be included on this list. By doing that, we would resolve the problems alluded to by Mr. Yeager and that would enable the police officers and society to have a registry that is constitutional.

  (1200)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lanctôt.

[English]

    Mr. Manson.

    Mr. Allan Manson: There is one word that can be changed that would enhance the bill enormously. I agree with you completely about reverse onus. But without getting into that argument, in proposed subsections 490.03(1) and (2), if you took the “shall” and turned it into “may”, if you gave the sentencing judge the discretion, that would blunt a lot of the charges. In subsections 490.03(1), (2), and (3)--we consider the latter to be retroactive and a problem for other reasons--it says “shall”. If you turn it into “may”, you've now said to the sentencing judge, this is part of the sentencing arsenal. You take a look at the individual circumstances. You weigh blameworthiness and risk with the potential consequences. You exercise discretion. That would make an enormous difference, in my opinion.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Maloney.

    Mr. John Maloney (Erie—Lincoln, Lib.): My initial question is addressed to Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Young. Mr. Manson made the comment in his brief that there's no empirical support for the assumption that it would reduce the offence rate, increase police clearance rates, reduce recidivism, and increase safety for Canadians. What are your comments on that? What do you think?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: In Ontario the experience has been that we move this forward, and the Ontario government supported it as a community and public safety initiative. It was not based on recidivism rates or police clearance rates. It is a public and community safety initiative.

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: From what I've read, the police in the U.S. like the registration part but aren't so crazy about the notification. But there's evidence that says the registration element helps them identify suspects sooner than when there isn't one.

    There was the suggestion that if there's a serious incident and the police find 100 sex offenders in a particular area, everyone is an equal suspect. That's simply not the case. Charles could probably tell you about this better than I can, but you search on particular elements and you identify the suspects who have those elements, and there will be a priority list. The guy who molests his daughter will probably not be a real big suspect in, for example, the Holly Jones case. So it's not just that the police get a list of sex offenders and then run them through their task force and interview everybody. That's not the case. Let's be realistic about how it's done. There's a priority list. Police will continue to use their investigative knowledge and experience in identifying those people.

    Mr. John Maloney: Mr. Yeager.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: I find these kinds of assumptions facile. If you create a suspect list, it automatically by definition means that the police have an easier time beginning to create their interview list. That's almost beside the point.

    Remember what I argue with regard to the research literature on these kinds of registries. We have no evidence yet that they reduce sexual offence rates in the community, increase police clearance rates and convictions, and make sexual recidivism less prevalent, and we certainly don't have any evidence that they're inexpensive and easy to administer, not with regard to what you're considering.

    Did I hear correctly that the Solicitor General of Canada wants this committee to consider amendments so that photographs will be taken as well? Think about that.

  (1205)  

    Mr. John Maloney: Go ahead, Mr. Sullivan.

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: I think identifying suspects sooner for police is a good thing and will possibly prevent future offences.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: Mr. Chair, I'd like to respond as well to the comments that were made about the gross disproportionate and the balance of proportionality. From an operational perspective, which is what I bring to the table, the DNA example is that if you give judges total discretion and you lower the test from gross disproportionate for the orders that are going to be requested, right now less than 40% are being granted across the country and in the province of Ontario. If you have a sex offender registry and you have less than 40% or 50% of sex offenders who have been convicted of a sexual offence--these are people who have demonstrated that they are going to victimize our children and the vulnerable in our society--then you might as well close the doors on a sex offender registry. If you are not incorporating those people who have been convicted of an offence of a sexual nature, then the effectiveness of a registry is totally undermined, and one must be cognizant of that from an operational perspective. I understand the intellectual arguments, but from an operational perspective it will totally undermine the whole process.

    Mr. John Maloney: We heard this morning about the issue of cost. The Solicitor General indicated that he feels the cost would be roughly $400,000. Do you feel that's high or low?

    Mr. Young, what are the costs in Ontario, to your knowledge, on an annual basis?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: I was the project manager during the research, development, and implementation of the Sex Offender Registry in Ontario. We operate on $4 million a year. Our enhancements, as well as our licensing fees, are in the area of $856,000 annually. We continue to enhance the Ontario sex offender registry program as we speak.

    In Ontario we make no bones about it. We have an issue with the investigative value of the national strategy. We will continue with the Ontario Sex Offender Registry as it is, and we will provide an uplink into the national sex offender registry to maintain our functionality, integrity, and investigational value in the province of Ontario. We obviously are very supportive of a national sex offender registry strategy, and we wish to participate on a national level, but without undermining our own investigational value and functionality in Ontario. We don't want to take a step back when it comes to the added value to the policing community, which is what this is all about, and that is to assist police in investigating crimes of a sexual nature.

    Mr. Allan Manson: I didn't hear the minister. Mr. Young just said an annual budget of $4 million, and it's being enhanced by $800,000.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: That's the Ontario Sex Offender Registry.

    Mr. Allan Manson: Yes. So if the minister said $400,000 as an annual budget, that's about 10% of what Ontario is spending. I'm not an accountant and I'm not the minister, but it seems to me that the real figures have to be much, much higher than that. You're talking about a national registry. You're talking about registration centres in every province and territory. People will be coming in and saying, I'm here to register. Somebody has to be there to fulfill the requirements of the act. Then there's the processing and the sharing. I can't put a number on it, but it's not small potatoes. It's not $400,000.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Maloney.

    I'll now go to Mr. Sorenson for three minutes.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

    I don't have a lot of questions, and I have only a three-minute round.

    I'm not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to understand all of it, but when we talk about this type of registry, I don't see why it has to be considered as a form of punishment. Why is it that having your name put on this registry, which the public cannot gain access to, is all of a sudden an added punishment to the individual who is coming out? I know that Mr. Manson said that any listing that presents a stigma is deemed to be a sanction. I really believe that in drawing up this bill they have minimized the amount of stigma that is directly put on the offender--and remember, he is the offender--just to have their name listed. This is not about adding a punishment. This is about protecting society. This is about an element that we've forgotten in so much of the justice system, and that is the protection of society as a guiding principle. Maybe you would have a few comments on that.

    I understand that the Ontario Sex Offender Registry is before the courts right now. So there are some who believe it contravenes part of the charter. Is that correct?

  (1210)  

    S/Sgt Charles Young: Yes. We've been operating since April--

    The Chair: Excuse me, it's in the interest of the panel that I move to this bit of business. I see that Mr. Maloney is about to leave and we'll lose our quorum, and I won't be able to pay our panel. I'd like, if I could, to have the committee pass this motion so that I can go to the liaison committee on Tuesday and we can continue to find the resources that would allow us to remunerate the panel. The motion is that an operational budget in the amount of $14,400 be adopted for the study of Bill C-23 and that the chair present the said budget to the liaison committee.

    Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): I so move.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Before you answer, Mr. Young, I'd like to direct a question to Mr. Yeager. You talked about the notification element being a huge infringement. You talked about losing a cellphone or a pager. Isn't it a fact that they are going to have to report once a year or when they change their address? When you talk about them coming out and rounding everybody up, it sounds like it's a huge invasion and it's almost like a police state. They're going to come and round everybody up. But they have to report once a year. They have a quarter or a dime. Make a phone call.

    I want to go to Mr. Young on the first one.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: Mr. Sorenson, since you directed the question to me, may I--

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: The first one was to Mr. Young.

    The Chair: And then to Mr. Yeager.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: When it comes to constitutional challenge, in Ontario both the Attorney General's office and the Ministry of Public Safety and Security are together on this. When we rolled out the Ontario Sex Offender Registry on April 23, 2001, there was a consensus of both ministries that we had sound charter reviews that indicated we were on very solid ground in the province of Ontario with regard to our retroactivity. The retroactivity element included any offender who was serving his sentence on the day of proclamation, which included those individuals who were incarcerated and any individual serving a form of community supervision; that is, probation or parole. So we included those offenders. We are not shrinking back in our chairs thinking about the idea of a charter argument. We welcome it. We welcome the opportunity to go before the courts to find out where the courts are going to sit on this, and we've taken a very strong position in the province of Ontario that we're on very solid ground.

    The Chair: Mr. Yeager.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: I believe the law would sustain my position because this is a Criminal Code amendment with criminal sanctions that attach for reporting under the registry. Having worked with sex offenders for much of my career, I think this is going to be regarded as a significant stigma and punishment by the people you are attempting to affect. If you don't believe me, at least have some hearings and call some people who are familiar with this process and ask their opinions about that.

    With regard to the issue of reporting, it's my understanding that under the bill, once you change a phone number, a place of employment, or an address, whether it is your primary address or your secondary address, you have 15 days to get into the office or to use some mechanism to provide the correct information. Otherwise, you are in violation of the Canadian Criminal Code.

  (1215)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Jennings.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): My question is for you, Mr. Young. You talked about the cost of the Ontario Sex Offender Registry. If I understood you correctly, you said it cost $4 million to design, develop, and then put into actual practice. Is that correct? Or is it $4 million a year to actually operate and enforce it?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: The cost to develop the software program and the research involved in doing so was $1.5 million. For staffing and providing training to officers across the province of Ontario, we operate on a $4 million a year budget. Within that $4 million, $856,000 is set aside for enhancements and technology costs, licensing fees, etc., to support that.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: My understanding is that when Solicitor General Easter talked about the cost and mentioned a figure in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that was based on what the RCMP costs would be. But under the national sex offender registry the cost to the provinces, which will be administering it, will be determined by how much they buy into it, what they put into it, how much they enforce it, etc. Is that correct? For instance, if yours is folded in, your cost would remain virtually the same, except that I believe the sex offender list in the national registry would be much more extensive than the one you have in your provincial sex offender registry. Is that correct?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: That's correct. There will be a review of Christopher's Law should Bill C-23 move further down the line toward royal assent. We are looking to making us consistent with the national sex offender registry legislation. So as it moves down the line, we will review Christopher's Law from an investigational perspective.

    From a software perspective we're looking at maintaining the status quo, because of our investigational value and because of the photographic capabilities, the mapping capabilities, the geographic mapping, and the radius searches we have. The capabilities we have with our system are far superior, and we're not prepared to give up that functionality in the national scheme. We're going to continue to work with the federal government--

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: If I understand the system correctly, Ontario will be bearing the cost of its system, because it has decided that it wants to have a certain amount of information available as an investigative tool for the police. If Bill C-23 becomes legislation, another province may decide that it wishes to put in a bare bones operation. Notwithstanding the fact that it's a national sex offender registry, each province will decide how much it's going to buy into it. Is that correct?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: That is correct. My understanding of the dollar values presented to the committee by the federal minister was that was only in relation to the federal costs associated with it. Each province will have to come up with the resources and implement the registry as they deem appropriate within their own jurisdiction.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Thank you.

    I have one last short question. On the issue of the challenge to Christopher's Law, are you in a position to be able to explain to this committee exactly on what points Christopher's Law is being challenged?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: Nothing other than that it's the shotgun approach. It's on many fronts.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Can you give us a summary?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: I know that it's multiple, but I can't speak to it specifically. I have met with the Attorney General's office and the prosecuting crown attorney on it. We have had one meeting. But I couldn't tell you here today what specifically....

  (1220)  

    The Chair: Merci, Ms. Jennings.

    Monsieur Lanctôt.

[Translation]

    Mr. Robert Lanctôt: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Young, we have to go back to this issue of efficiency. You said that it is dangerous to draw comparisons, but that is what you are doing, Mr. Sullivan. In your presentation, you used the example of a United States Supreme Court decision. We know full well that it is very different there. The system in the United States is very repressive and very prohibitive, and the mentality is totally different. You are using the US Supreme Court decision to say that judges could study that issue. However, when we talk about efficiency, you say that it is dangerous to draw comparisons. You have to choose. We live in a different country. Just because a decision was rendered in the United States doesn't mean that a similar decision would be rendered here.

    In my opinion, what is important is that people want to have a registry in order to protect our children and other potential victims from sexual offenders. The purpose is not to create a new data bank. You already have so many data banks.

    Nevertheless, I find it even more upsetting when I hear today that it will cost $400,000 to set up this registry. And you are saying that the provinces will assume the costs. Wait a minute! If, as you say, this is a national system, we're going to have to transfer money to Quebec and Ontario. It is incorrect to say that this will cost $400,000.

    In Ontario alone, this will cost $4 million. This makes me think about the problems that we have experienced with the registration of firearms. And we were all in agreement with the principle behind it. In Quebec, we were in favour of the gun registry. We still are in favour of this registry, but it is going to cost a billion dollars. The way all of that has been managed is scary.

    Today, in two short hours, we have gone from $400,000 for all of Canada to $4 million for one province alone. Where are we going with all of these costs? Problems will crop up; you have already experienced this. You have not even estimated the cost of court challenges, when in fact this issue is already being challenged. You said earlier that this was more like a calculated risk.

    Does this court challenge deal only with the constitutionality of the retroactivity? Just imagine! The question of dangerousness is an even more glaring constitutional problem and will result in even more challenges. The issue of retroactivity will be resolved once and for all; either it will be included in the act or not. But the level of dangerousness is an issue that will bring you to the courts for every or just about every case.

    How do you see that? I find this dangerous. The principle is all well and good, but how are you going to implement it in administrative terms? That is why it is important to listen to what the two associations sitting beside you are saying. How efficient will the registry be if it is potentially unconstitutional?

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Young and then Mr. Thompson.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: Mr. Chair, from our perspective we will be able to manage the ongoing and anticipated litigation within the $4 million a year budget, with resources already allocated.

    My comments in association with the U.S. Supreme Court decisions were obviously made with the caveat that I understand that their jurisprudence does not enter into Canada. However, the system in the United States is based on public notification. Offenders are terribly afraid of the public. That's who they fear the most. They are not afraid of the police. Police and offenders have an ongoing relationship that goes back a very long time.

    When it comes to people who choose to be non-compliant with the registration, obviously the police are not going to be lenient with a specific offender group. There is no question about it. When it comes to effectiveness and a public notification component, the example I heard here is California. California currently has 33,000 sex offenders that it can't locate. That's from a news release. You always have to balance it off. Do you want a public notification component for effectiveness and to allow the public to go to an Internet site? Yet you don't know where the 33,000 offenders are, neither the police nor the public. So how much safer are you? On the other side of it--and nothing is 100%, that's for certain--for police purposes only, for investigational value, as of this morning there is in excess of a 92% compliance rate in Ontario, and I can tell you that we do know where those offenders are. You try to balance that off in the administration of the program. In the province of Ontario we've maintained that compliance rate. I would tell the committee that in the month of May alone we had 1,500 offenders re-register. So there are severe impacts. But when it comes to efficiencies, there are differences.

  (1225)  

    The Chair: Mr. Thompson.

    Mr. Glen Thompson: Mr. Chair, it seems to me that the costs that are being spoken of don't recognize the costs on the front line in the police services of registration and re-registration. So I would encourage the committee to look hard at the submerged costs, as there are in any system, beyond the actual formal registry that's set up and the formal processes.

    I will talk a minute about opportunity costs and say that if we're disposing of money in this fashion and not disposing of it upstream, if I can put it that way, as the health system often has not done, either.... It treats illness more often than it treats preventive health measures. We are seeing it now in SARS, the lack of attention to public health. I think that in this system we need to do the same. Creating a false sense of security by making the public feel that they are now safe in this regard doesn't recognize the fact that we might very well do much more with those individuals at a much earlier point in their career.

    The Chair: Mr. Manson.

    Mr. Allan Manson: I'm sorry Mr. Sorenson left. I think this whole debate really is about effectiveness as it relates to proportionality in the context of legal concerns. It is all about section 1. It is all about how the state is going to persuade the courts that they've balanced interests. In the section 1 context, the first issue is identifying the legislative objective, and then the second issue is examining the proportionality of the pursuit of that objective as it relates to interference with charter rights. When you are talking about proportionality, the first thing the state is going to have to do is not make eloquent, high-minded speeches about protection but show the benefits of the scheme. Not say that we have 5,700 names in the registry, but show how having those names promotes the safety and security of children and other vulnerable people. It's that showing that's going to be balanced against the burdens imposed on the offenders.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Fry.

    Ms. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    I always like to preface what I say because sometimes I may say things that are particularly wrong because I am not a lawyer and I don't understand some of the components of the law all that well. But I am a physician, and as a physician I can tell you that outcomes are what we look at mostly when we employ any strategy whatsoever.

    I have heard some people here saying that this registry is not going to result in true safety for the public. If you want to balance against section 1, public good against individual rights, then obviously this is going to have to be for the public good and not just for the public feel good. I need to ask you a couple of questions, then. I would like to know the recidivism rate of sexual offenders versus other offenders. I would also like to know the percentage of sexual offences that are done by family members, parents, and strangers. It would seem to me that if we really want to deal with this problem, we need to talk about how we register parents who are sexual offenders, and cousins, aunts, and babysitters, even people who work in social services. Do we register them as sexual offenders? Do we register priests as sexual offenders if they have offended against members of their diocese? Let us not just pick up Joe Blow who we think has horns and a tail as a stranger but who may be in the lowest percentage in proportion of sexual offenders. Otherwise, we will not have achieved any outcomes at the end of the day. So I need some answers on that, please.

    The Chair: Mr. Manson and then Mr. Yeager.

    Mr. Allan Manson: Let me give you some recidivism statistics from a 2002 study by Roger Hood and Stephen Shute, which was published in the British Journal of Criminology. Shute is from Birmingham, and Hood is from Oxford. He is the director of the Centre for Criminological Research.They studied 174 male prisoners convicted of serious sex offences and followed them after release for periods of two to six years. The point this study makes is that the public at large generally exaggerates recidivism of sex offenders when children are the victims. There is the sense that every sex offender repeats when they are released. Their statistics are quite amazing: 6.7% of the 162 offenders who had been in the community for at least four years had been reconvicted, and an additional 5.6% were reconvicted of a non-sexual violent offence. So you are talking about a recidivism rate of less than 10%.

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    Ms. Hedy Fry: There's also the question about the breakdown.

    The Chair: Mr. Yeager was going to answer as well.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: The data are referred to in our testimony, Dr. Fry. You'll note the Hanson study in 2002 and also the Hanson and Bussière study. By the way, Dr. Hanson is a research psychologist with the Department of the Solicitor General of Canada. I'd be fascinated to know why you're not going to take his testimony on this very issue of risk. He's here, he's available, and he's one of the nation's experts on the very question you have.

    What we do know in working with the sex offender category is that when you compare them with the non-offender category, the differentials are in the range of 5%, 10%, and 15% recidivism-wise. We also know that when we subject sex offenders to either community treatment or institutional treatment, we do get a suppression effect; that is, they are less likely to be reprocessed either as sex offenders or as in general recidivism. But in general, the recidivism of sex offenders--that is, their general recidivism--is lower than that of non-sex offenders. So this notion of fear and loathing that we have, this assumption that all sex offenders are potentially dangerous and therefore let's throw them on a suspect list, is simply not empirically justified in the current research literature.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: Can I have the answer to the question about the percentages of those who are sexual offenders with a view to parents, family members, etc.? Do we have those figures?

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: We do have the figures. I don't have them on the tip of my tongue, but I can indicate to you that they're very similar to the homicide pattern. As you know, over 70% of homicide victims and perpetrators have known each other. They are either family members, extended family members, former couples, or acquaintances. This is also very much the pattern in sex offences. In fact, what's ironic--and the public doesn't pick this up--is that statistically speaking, if you were a child, Dr. Fry, your risk of being sexually molested would be far greater from a family member or extended family member than of being kidnapped off the street by a stranger.

    The Chair: Mr. White.

    Mr. Randy White: I'm sure I'm hearing this wrong. Mr. Sullivan, is it not a fact that the recidivism rate for sex offenders is around 40%?

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: A study done by the Solicitor General's department on child molesters, which followed them for a 15- to 30-year period after conviction, found that the recidivism rate was 42%. That's an average. It's much higher for predatory-type offenders as opposed to family members.

    Mr. Randy White: Mr. Young, I know that you deal with these issues.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: What you're confronted with when you talk about recidivism rates is that there are studies all over the place. One has to come to the end result. You hear from studies that the recidivism cycle doesn't even begin until seven years and goes to approximately 20 years after that and that within that it's up to 40%. It seems that there are so many different studies out there talking about recidivism rates, and depending upon what criteria you're asking of the study, they're all over the map. I can tell you, with the National Joint Committee of Senior Criminal Justice Officials, that many of the high-risk offenders are sex offenders. You have that dichotomy with high-risk offenders in general. What study do you rely on, and what criteria are amenable to all?

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    The Chair: Mr. Manson.

    Mr. Allan Manson: Can I just correct the record. Mr. Sullivan was kind enough to hand me the summary of the research he was referring to. I should say first with regard to the Hood-Shute article I referred to that I know those two, and I was on a panel with Shute last year at this time in Glasgow where he presented that data. I've seen the methodology. It's tight.

    This study--I don't know who conducted it, but it was done for the Solicitor General--looked at RCMP files for a 15- to 30-year period. Mr. Sullivan is right. A minute ago I was talking about a two- to six-year period. They did find that 42% of sex offenders had been reconvicted when you looked up to 30 years. But if you go over to the next column and compare it to non-sexual offenders, you see that although the long-term recidivism rates for the child molesters were substantial, the recidivism rates for the non-sexual criminals were even higher--61% to 83.2%. So this study itself says that sex offenders are recidivating when you follow them for 30 years at a rate that's high and we should be concerned, but it is substantially lower than the rate of other prisoners.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: Let me add a methodological caveat to this. That is the Hanson study. Have him testify and ask him what database those sample individuals were drawn from. You will find that a substantial portion of that 30-year follow-up comes from people institutionalized in mental health facilities for being not criminally responsible.

    The Chair: Very briefly, Mr. White.

    Mr. Randy White: That's a great debate on statistical samples, but I'm interested in the offences to women and children. I'm not interested as much in a debate on statistical data as I am on the effects of the actual sex offender registry. It depends on what sample you take, doesn't it?

    I want to ask Mr. Young a question. For the first offence of not reporting, the penalty is a fine of up to $10,000 or six months in prison. You can get up to 10 years for not registering your gun. I really would like to hear your opinion as to why it is that a law-abiding gun owner could actually do so much more time than a sex offender. I just think it's a reverse onus on the problem. Can you comment on that.

    The Chair: Mr. Young, and then I'm going to go to Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Young.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: I would definitely be the wrong person to ask to defend that. I can't defend it. I know that in Ontario under Christopher's Law our penalities are up to $25,000 and one year in jail on a first conviction, and for the second conviction it's two years less a day and a $25,000 fine. We will have to review that in Christopher's Law if Bill C-23 goes further.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you.

    Mr. Chairman, I would say that if encroachments on charter-based freedoms are an issue, as they undoubtedly will be if there's a challenge, then statistics on recidivism among sex offenders have to be a very important piece of information. As a matter of fact, as a legislator trying to make a decision about this law, I would like to see the connection with the propensity to reoffend of a sex offender. I think we have to see some more data. There was some reference here to the Hanson study, if it was a study. But could I ask that we make an attempt to dig out this. I'm surprised that we don't have it nailed down a little better. I'm not critical of the witnesses. But it would be nice, if we're proceeding on this and we anticipate the possibility of a charter-based challenge, to have done our homework on the connection between this law and recidivism rates for sexual offenders. Can we make an attempt to locate that data?

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    The Chair: We'll do that, Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Derek Lee: I have one question as just a piece of background information, and it's to Staff Sergeant Young. In Ontario is it the Ontario Provincial Police that runs this system?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: The Ontario Provincial Police operates the Ontario Sex Offender Registry on behalf of the Minister of Public Safety and Security.

    Mr. Derek Lee: You're with the Ontario Provincial Police. I got the impression that the police were part of the government operating this system. I got a strange feeling that I'm not used to around here. Police aren't normally part of the government. The police carry out the law. Can you help me out on that? How close to government is the Ontario Provincial Police in the administration of this procedure in Ontario?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: I am the manager of the Ontario Sex Offender Registry. I am also the chair of the working group within the Ministry of Public Safety and Security. I'm also the adviser, as a result of that position as chair, before it was disbanded but up until February, to the assistant deputy minister's steering committee, and, obviously, I am responsible for the briefings to the deputy minister and minister on the sex offender registry initiative. I'm also an Ontario representative on the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Working Group on High Risk Offenders in relation to their discussions on the sex offender registry initiative.

    Mr. Derek Lee: Ontario has made a valuable contribution to this particular file. Do corrections officials from Ontario manage this, or is it police managed?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: There is extensive liaison and interconnectivity with corrections in the province of Ontario. We in fact sweep the provincial corrections database on a daily basis for our offenders to ensure that our resources are appropriately allocated and we're not trying to make an inappropriate or needless contact with an offender, knowing that they've been reincarcerated for another purpose or for a reoffence.

    The Chair: Final question, Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Derek Lee: When you were talking about Christopher's Law, you used the royal plural in the sense that “we're” going to do a review of this. When you said that, were you talking about the legislature, the government, or the police?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: When I say “we”, I have participated in that process from the beginning in moving recommendations forward to senior government officials for decisions, including recommendations, pros, cons, etc.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Monsieur Lanctôt. No.

    Mr. McKay.

    Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thank you, Chair.

    You started off your comments, Mr. Young, by saying that this is a very successful registry. There's 90% compliance with it, and there are 5,700 people in the registry system. I just want to explore with you what very successful means. How often do the police in Ontario access your registry system? Is it on a daily basis?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: It is on a daily basis.

    We have a broader use of the Sex Offender Registry than what's proposed in Bill C-23 in that we not only have it for investigations of crimes of a sexual nature, but we also exist for crime prevention and law enforcement purposes. Therefore, it can be used for other investigative processes, including, for example, immigration, and can be actively involved in a deportation process. If they're looking for an offender's information, which has happened, then we will provide them with that offender's information. So it's an integration--

    Mr. John McKay: How many hits on the system occur on a daily basis?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: We don't have the capability of telling you exactly how many hits. Obviously, we're interconnected with every police service in the province of Ontario, and they have their own access to the registry. It's a huge network. Almost all police services go into the registry at least once a week.

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    Mr. John McKay: You don't have the capability to tell us how many hits you have, and that makes it very difficult to ascertain how frequently it's used, other than based upon your anecdotal evidence that you have a successful registry.

    S/Sgt Charles Young: It's not based solely on that. We have feedback from the policing community itself, which has been very supportive. Along with the 92% compliance rate, I can also tell you that we have 3,964 offenders out in the community who are under a reporting obligation, and 314 are non-compliant. What that 314 indicates to me as the manager of the registry is that we have 53 offenders before the courts in different processes right now, so we have the remainder in active investigations. I also know that in the 61 courts in Ontario we convict approximately 1,600 offenders annually of our criteria offences. So there's a steady flow under the provincial and federal institutions in the province of Ontario, which is all I can speak to. That 314 minus the 53 that are before the courts is a steady flow of our offenders coming out of the institutions. I can tell you that we've only convicted 18 offenders to date. This is not about charges. This is about compliance.

    Mr. John McKay: In the years it has been operating, has your anecdotally successful registry system led to or assisted in fresh convictions and actually enhanced public safety in any material way?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: It has done so through the address verification process. Police services have to establish, through our ministry guidelines, policies on the apprehension of non-compliant offenders, and within that is the address verification process. We have had offenders charged as a result of doing those address verifications.

    What we must remember--and we're very fortunate in this country--is that we live in a very safe society. We're very fortunate in that those children who are abducted for a sexual purpose and are murdered are few. None is acceptable, but, fortunately, they are few. We employ a program like this knowing that when a child is abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered, 44% of the time that child is murdered within one hour. Within three hours that goes up to 74% and up to 91% within 24 hours. It's not the amount of information that is important, it is the immediate availability of that information.

    We can talk about recidivism rates on specific offences, but what it comes down to is that we're trying to put a program in place that is there when we need it. You're right, we don't need it often. It rules individuals out of an investigation more than it rules people in. But that's an extremely important process for the police and community at the same time.

    The Chair: I'm going to go to Mr. Yeager, who wanted to answer, and then I'm going to go to Mr. Sorenson.

    Mr. Yeager.

    Mr. Matthew Yeager: The Canadian Criminal Justice Association, as you know, publishes the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. A number of very distinguished researchers are members of this association. If it were felt, Mr. McKay--I get a general idea of where your question is going--that what you really need is a lot more real information on the efficacy of this list and what substantively happens with it in terms of arrests or convictions and that maybe we ought to interview some of the people on that list to get their reactions to life under the list, our association would be delighted to conduct that research on behalf of the committee.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Sorenson.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: Obviously, with those kinds of stats, Mr. Young, there are some difficulties, given that when someone is abducted by someone who isn't a parent or a grandparent and they are sexually molested and killed, it happens in a quick period, and normally people wouldn't even be reporting somebody lost within the first little bit of the timeframe, the one hour, the eight hours. I would imagine that before any investigation began, there must be a lot of people who are reported missing and then show up. So that might be a problem in that we aren't going to prevent a lot of deaths. But it will help us to bring to justice the people who perpetrate such crimes.

    I have just one quick question, and then I'm done for the day. Is a deputy minister involved with the Ontario police?

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    S/Sgt Charles Young: I report to the director of the Behavioural Sciences Section, but I am also a direct report to Deputy Commissioner Vaughn Collins, and he reports to the deputy minister.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: But is he a deputy minister?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: He's an assistant deputy minister.

    Mr. Kevin Sorenson: In other words, it's a little more removed than what we have here with our RCMP, where the Commissioner of the RCMP is a deputy minister, really, of the Solicitor General's department. Mr. Lee need not feel quite so concerned about it.

    That's all I have. Thanks.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    I'll go next to Ms. Fry and then to Ms. Jennings. Then we'll be done.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: I suppose that I am following the trend of Mr. McKay and others. I think recidivism is an extremely important issue to ask about. It isn't about compiling a list and saying I have x people on a list if we don't know whether that list is going to result in people not reoffending or whether that will help you to pinpoint people who will reoffend. Is it an effective thing to do or not? I think that is the question one must ask. Outcomes are going to be extremely important in what you do.

    I can tell you that there is a real concern for me that if people are constantly having to report and be under the eye of the police all the time, their ability to be rehabilitated and to move back into society is impaired. The question then is, if you don't report and you have to face criminal charges and actual reincarceration, are you having people pay penalties for the same crime over and over even if they haven't actually committed a criminal act? By just not reporting they are recriminalized. I just don't know how that helps rehabilitation and therefore recidivism. Is having this list worth anything? I think those are the things we need to find out. You are certainly infringing on individual privacy. If we have to continue to balance that in a fair and democratic society, we have to believe that, like SARS, the steps you take to make people stay at home, to quarantine them, to remove their ability for mobility in a country, are for the public good. I need to see that it is, and I don't know that yet.

    The Chair: Mr. Thompson.

    Mr. Glen Thompson: Just a point, Mr. Chair, on efficacy. Having been in the Arctic for two years up until October, where I was in charge of health and social services, I can tell you that the number of child abuse offences is very high. In the small communities I lived in of 6,000 and 1,200 people, one does not need to dispose of the funds on this kind of system for the police to know what's going on in the community and to keep track of people. So I'd encourage the committee and the government to consider other options for the aboriginal and Inuit populations, which are so comparatively small. The management of whatever situation one is dealing with should be different.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: I know that there are different rates for the percentage of family members that are responsible for sexual offences. I have studies from Europe that tell me it's quite high, over 50%. We're not even counting teachers and other people the children know. My question is, what happens to them? If the issue is protecting the child, how do you protect a child who has to live day after day in a home in which the person in the position of trust and authority over them continues to dominate them? They cannot speak out. What are you doing about that? We're going after what in some of the European studies--and I don't think this is an ethnic and racial thing, so we should take European studies and figure it's the same in North America--is 7% of the population, when there is a whole other group of people that we're not protecting our children from. What are we going to do about that? How does a registry address that problem? Those are the things that concern me.

    I want to be very clear on the record. When you question things like that, there is a tendency in today's society to believe that you don't care about children. I care very much about the safety and protection of children. I am extremely offended by adults who would exploit and damage children so heinously as sexual offences do. I want to make sure that we deal with it, that we have the right responses for it, and that is why I'm concerned. So I don't want anyone to think that because I'm asking these questions, I do not care about children. I want it on the record, because there's a tendency to figure that if you ask a question, then you're against everything.

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    The Chair: Mr. Sullivan, and then to Ms. Jennings.

    Mr. Steve Sullivan: I think you make a valid point. The registry--the Ontario one and the national one--isn't a panacea for all sexual abuse against children. It can be useful in certain kinds of crimes more so than others. When the offender is not known, that's when the registry is much more valuable. When it's a matter of a father molesting the child, the issue isn't one of identifying who the bad guy is. You know who it is. The registry is one more tool for police to address sexual assault. It's not going to solve everything, in the same way that the firearms registry, which we support, isn't going to stop all firearms crimes. It's not going to stop the man from beating up his wife. But the firearms registry is useful even if it doesn't solve all firearms crimes. Our position is that this is one more tool for law enforcement.

    Ms. Hedy Fry: You say that you don't know who it is. For the majority of children who are sexually abused by their parent, you don't know about them because they are terrified of saying this to anyone. So it's not that you--

    The Chair: We're running out of time, and I want to recognize Ms. Jennings.

    Ms. Jennings.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Thank you.

    I have to echo the statement of my colleague that asking a question does not mean in any way that we do not want our children protected.

    My question again goes to you, Mr. Young. My understanding of the Ontario legislation that created the Sex Offender Registry there is that for anyone who was convicted of a criteria sex offence on or after the day it was proclaimed, it's mandatory, they're part of the registry, and that the way the legislation actually reads is that anyone who was serving a sentence for a criteria sex offence was also mandatorily included. Tell me if I misheard, but I understood you to say that it was those who were incarcerated and serving their sentences who were actually included. If I did not mishear, why is there a discrepancy between how the legislation is written and how it has actually been applied?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: I believe my comments, Mr. Chair, were that Ontario's legislation included offenders who had been convicted of a criteria offence and were serving a sentence at the time of proclamation, and “sentence” was defined as meaning those offenders who were incarcerated and anyone on probation and parole. That's the definition of serving a sentence at the time of proclamation on April 23, 2001, and anybody on or after that date.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Has it actually been applied in that sense, that people who were on parole were in fact included, and if they haven't followed the legislation, they've been pursued legally and criminally?

    S/Sgt Charles Young: It has been enacted in its entirety.

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    I want to thank the panel very much for helping us in our deliberations.

    To the committee, we'll be back together on Tuesday.

    The meeting is adjourned.