Chiefs of police are expressing support for a private Senate bill that will see the expansion of DNA sampling in scope to include people convicted of non-violent crimes such as drunk driving.
In a
written submission to the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee on Feb. 3, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) said it “welcomes the opportunity” to endorse
Bill S-231, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the National Defence Act and the DNA Identification Act.
The bill,
sponsored by Sen. Claude Carignan, seeks to “promote the DNA collection system and increase the number of DNA profiles stored in the national DNA data bank [NDDB].”
The CACP said while other countries and American states have expanded their DNA database regimes over time to include all offences be they of “indictable or hybrid” nature, Canada’s list continues to be “restrictive.”
The
DNA Identification Act which came into force in 2000, permits DNA sampling of criminals convicted of the most serious offences including murder, aggravated assault, hijacking, terrorism and sex crimes.
In June 2019, the Liberal government’s
Bill C-75 received royal assent and started the reclassification of over 110 offences previously prosecuted as indictable offences to hybrid offences. This means they can be prosecuted as a “
more serious” offence or as a “
less serious” summary conviction decided by the prosecution.
The reclassified offences include impaired driving, causing bodily harm by criminal negligence, possession of forged passports, and corrupting children.
‘More Offenders Are Now Exempt’
The police chiefs said the reclassification has enabled more offenders to go off the hook from having their DNA samples collected.“As our CACP colleagues noted in their 2019 submission to this committee on Bill C-75, the reclassification of indictable offences that are punishable by a maximum period of imprisonment of ten years or less from straight indictable to hybrid offences has meant that more offenders are now exempt from having to provide their DNA samples to the NDDB,” said the submission, as first reported by
Blacklock’s Reporter.
The association argued how DNA testing plays a critical role in solving crimes. It cited the case of Guy Paul Morin who was convicted in 1992 of murdering nine-year-old schoolgirl Christine Jessop in 1984. Morin was later freed after a DNA testing identified Jessop’s likely killer, Calvin Hoover, a family friend who subsequently
committed suicide.
“If Bill S-231’s expanded list of designated offences had been in effect in 2007, Mr. Hoover’s DNA would have been added to the National DNA Databank when he was convicted of Impaired Driving,” the police chiefs wrote.
“Christine’s murder could have been solved 13 years earlier. Mr. Hoover, who died in 2015, could have stood trial for her murder. The Jessop family may have found justice, and Mr. Morin may have experienced a little more closure.”
Carignan said an expanded DNA sampling could solve numerous cold cases.
“You should know that there are hundreds of unsolved murders in Canada,” he
said during the second reading debate on his bill in the Senate last March.
“The logic is that when someone is required to provide a DNA sample for a criminal offence, even a lesser offence, that sample may help resolve investigations for more serious offences, whether past or future, that this person has committed,” he said.
