Provision for automatic registration wins praise, but proposals fall short of recommendations

OTTAWA – The federal Conservatives used a showy news conference and a dozen ministers across the country to announce proposed changes to the national sex-offender registry that do not go as far as police or victims' advocates have called for.

If adopted, the changes would make the registration of sex offenders automatic upon conviction rather than leaving it up to prosecutors to request the registration, or up to judges to order it.

Flanked by victim advocates in the Commons foyer, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said the changes would aid investigations, make Canadian streets safer and "prevent sex crimes."

However, Jim Stephenson, whose son became the inspiration for Ontario's "Christopher's law," which brought in a tough provincial registry, said there should be no illusions. "Please don't confuse preventing crime with managing offenders," he said.

"The sex-offender registries at both the provincial level and at the federal level are not going to prevent sex offences," Stephenson told reporters. "They will control and help authorities to better manage convicted sex offenders."

Stephenson's son was murdered in 1988 by a convicted sex offender who was on statutory release.

Stephenson welcomed the change to automatically register offenders, since prosecutors forget, do not seek, or plea-bargain away registration in 42 per cent of cases. But he said the plan doesn't require an offender's vehicle to be listed, as police have urged. Nor is it clear how information will be kept current.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has called for a law that requires correctional services agencies to notify sex-offender registry centres of offenders' release dates, and for an electronic link between all provincial and federal corrections agencies.

Included in the Conservative government's package are changes to require convicted sex offenders to give a DNA sample to the national databank; to allow police to "proactively" search the registry, say after a child has been reported missing, as opposed to current rules that permit police to search records only after a crime has been committed; and to require people jailed for sex crimes in other countries, who are transferred back to Canada to serve their terms, to register with the databank in Canada.