SECU Committee Report

RECOMMENDATION 1:

The Committee recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and related legislation be amended to allow accredited law enforcement agencies in each province and territory to access the information contained in the national sex offender registry in order to investigate and prevent crimes and apply the Act.

RECOMMENDATION 2:

The Committee recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registry Act and related legislation be amended to provide for the automatic registration of offenders found guilty of offences listed in paragraph 490.011(1)(a), (c), (c.1), (d) or (e) of the Criminal Code, except in rare circumstances that warrant a departure from this rule when the judge is convinced that the impact of inclusion in the registry on the offender’s privacy and liberty would be grossly disproportionate to the public interest. SOIRA must clearly provide that, in these rare circumstances, the court must justify its decision.

Offenders found guilty of an offence listed in paragraph 490.011(1)(b) of the Criminal Code for whom the Crown has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the offender intended to commit a sexual offence listed in paragraphs 490.011(1)(a),(c),(c.1),(d) or (e) shall be subject to an order for inclusion in the sex offender registry, if the court deems such an order to be warranted.

RECOMMENDATION 3:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada examine the possibility of expanding the application of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act so that Canadian citizens found guilty abroad of a sex offence equivalent to one of the offences set out in subsection 490.011(1) of the Criminal Code are subject to review for an order to be issued for inclusion in the national sex offender registry.

RECOMMENDATION 4:

The Committee recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registry Act be amended to include new administrative fields in the national sex offender registry, to allow persons recording the information in the registry to indicate whether the offender is incarcerated or deceased.

RECOMMENDATION 5:

The Committee recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registry Act be amended so that the licence plate number, make, model, year, colour and description of any motor vehicle owned, leased or regularly used by the offender be recorded in the national sex offender registry. Offenders should be required to update this information.

RECOMMANDATION 6:

The Committee also recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registry Act be amended so that the offender’s modus operandi may be recorded in the national sex offender registry.

RECOMMANDATION 7:

The Committee recommends that the Sex Offender Information Registry Act and related legislation be amended so that the federal, provincial and territorial correctional services are required to inform release registration centre employees in a timely manner of the release of offenders subject to SOIRA.

To this end, the Government of Canada should examine the possibility of establishing electronic links between the federal, provincial and territorial correctional services and the national sex offender registry so that information about the release of registered offenders is automatically conveyed to the national registry.

RECOMMENDATION 8:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada invest in the software for the national sex offender registry so that it offers search functions including the geographic representation of a sex offender’s address and data filtering by the victim’s age and gender, relationship to the offender, location of past offences and modus operandi comparable or more effective than the system in place in Ontario.