It’s my pleasure tonight to rise in support of Bill 138, and I want to congratulate my colleagues the MPP from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock and the MPP from Thornhill for bringing this important private member’s bill forward. It’s also my pleasure as the parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of the Attorney General to speak to this matter.

This is a government that is committed to putting the safety and well-being of our citizens and our communities first and foremost. Earlier in this session, we spoke to the need to address bail reform to make sure that a small percentage of our most violent re-offenders are kept off the streets pending trial. This debate tonight is a little bit different, because what we’re discussing is not pre-sentencing issues; what we’re talking about is post-conviction issues. That type of sentencing and carrying through on those types of sentences to make sure that we safeguard our community and specifically those that are most vulnerable in youth and women is a critical, critical issue for us.

We look at the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it states in section 1 that the charter “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” We in Canada are somewhat unique in this. We do not prioritize rights. We don’t stack rights. They live in a continuum, in the balance that we try to strike in making sure that we have a respect for the rights of the individual, and we understand how those rights turn into obligations when we live in a community. So with a right comes an obligation. For example, in our freedom of speech: That freedom of speech is balanced by our obligation to prevent hate crimes, to not speak prejudicially about others and to make sure that the conversations we’re having are productive and discursive.

That same balancing act, Madam Speaker, exists in our Criminal Code as well. While we want to make sure that the rights of the individual charged are respected—that they get a free and impartial trial, that they have the right to a lawyer—that is balanced with the need for us to protect our citizenry and to make sure that, when we’re sentencing, we’re looking at the determinants of a sentence, from rehabilitation to retribution to deterrence. All of these foundational aspects of the sentencing process are grounded in the idea that, if you break the law, you will pay the price, and there’s a balancing to make sure that our citizens and our most vulnerable are protected from criminal conduct or the acts of others that transgress the Criminal Code.

The situation that we’re talking about tonight is really about protecting our most vulnerable. We’re looking at a convict who has been convicted of crimes, of sexual crimes against youth, against women and against other men, to make sure that they must serve the penalty that’s been meted out to them, but also that we balance that so in their post-sentencing world they will be monitored and so that we can most protect those in our society that need that protection.

Christopher’s Law, enacted in 2011, is a strong example of that. An 11-year-old boy was murdered by a convicted sex offender who had a past record and took the life of an 11-year-old, so we created a registry so that we would have a continuous record of those who had committed these most heinous crimes. What we’re doing tonight is trying to close a loophole that would allow a convicted sex offender to walk around Christopher’s Law and to subvert the protections that the government of Canada has put in place to protect the most vulnerable from a sex offender.

We have heard from the earlier speakers tonight of the prevalence of recidivism in this type of offence: as high as 35%, or one in three. If we allow name changes to take place—and we have seen that happen. We have seen it in the example of Karla Homolka. We have seen it in the case of David Donald Shumey from Saskatchewan and also in the case of Adam Budgell, who was convicted on three separate occasions of domestic abuse and rape of his former partners. One of those partners is Jenny Smith from Welland, Ontario. After the conviction of her assailant, she said, “I could sleep at night knowing that once he was released, all any person—a woman, a family member, a friend ... could” do was to “google ‘Adam Budgell’ and he could not escape what he had done.” But Adam did; he changed his name. By changing his name, he sidestepped the important tracking that could be done through Christopher’s Law to prevent, and protect our citizens.

Madam Speaker, this motion, this private members’ bill, will plug that loophole, will make sure that the intent of Christopher’s Law is abided by and will balance the rights of the individual against the collective rights of our citizenry and our communities. On this topic and in this situation, there can be no mistake that the protection and the favour must fall on the side of our citizens and our communities. For that, I will be supporting this very important private members’ bill. Again, I thank the members for their hard work on this.

And I will be sharing my time with MPP Leardi.