Boosting the National DNA Data Bank (BNDG) to give the authorities the means to take advantage of technological advances in order to elucidate unsolved crimes: this is the idea of Senator Claude Carignan, who wishes to make the registration of the profile automatic DNA from almost any new offender.
Canada is “late” in the field of genetic analysis, says the senator, in an interview with The Press. “Many situations might have been resolved now and several current situations might be resolved,” he insists on the phone.
This is why Claude Carignan introduced Bill S-231 in the Senate. The objective of the latter: to make automatic the taking of a DNA sample from almost all persons convicted of a crime in Canada.
PHOTO SEAN KILPATRICK, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Conservative Senator Claude Carignan
Because if a DNA sample can currently be taken from people convicted of certain crimes, the current list of these is “long and complex” and does not include all criminal offenses.
More data might thus be collected in order to populate the NDDB, a huge directory managed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and accessible to police forces across the country to support them in their investigations. By comparing the DNA found at a crime scene to the samples it contains, police can easily determine the identity of a suspect, provided they are registered there.
However, the NDDB contains relatively little data compared to other similar banks in other countries, argues Claude Carignan.
In England, there are 10 times more DNA profiles per capita than in Canada.
Conservative Senator Claude Carignan
If passed, his bill would also make it possible, “in certain circumstances”, to use the NDDB to perform a family relationship search, which would allow the authorities to benefit from recent technological advances in the field of analysis. genetic1.
More or lessthe police forces would thus be able to identify a suspect thanks to the DNA that he would have left behind at a crime scene by comparing it to that of a biological relative who would have provided his DNA to the Bank within the framework of a conviction.
Turn the page earlier
The senator obtained significant support in his approach, that of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP). “This is an essential change,” she argues in a brief presented in early February to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
The CACP cites the case of Christine Jessop, whose kidnapping and death in 1984 shocked Canada and resulted in the conviction of an innocent. The real culprit, Calvin Hoover, was identified by Toronto police 36 years later, in 2020, thanks to technological advances in genetic analysis2.
However, if Senator Claude Carignan’s bill had been in effect in 2007, when Hoover was convicted of impaired driving, his DNA profile would have been added to the NDDB.
Christine’s murder might have been solved 13 years earlier. Mr Hoover, who died in 2015, might have been tried for Christine’s murder. The Jessop family might have found justice and Mr. Morin might have turned the page a little more.
Excerpt from the brief of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP)
“We have no right not to use all the means that science offers us,” concludes Mr. Carignan.
Ethical issues
The amendments proposed by his bill, however, raise several ethical questions, says bioethics professor Bryn Williams-Jones, director of the department of social and preventive medicine at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal.
Unlike fingerprints, already taken more widely, but which are “individual”, DNA is “family”, he points out. “If my father or my grandfather was registered, but I was not involved in anything, this data is still there? “, he asks by way of example.
According to Claude Carignan, his bill provides for several mechanisms to protect the personal information of contributors to the NDDB.
Moreover, the Supreme Court has already considered the constitutionality of DNA sampling from offenders and ruled that the quality of the information offered prevailed over the invasion of the privacy of offenders, he recalls.
The senator is hopeful that his bill will make its way through the Senate by the time work breaks next summer. After this step, an MP will then have to sponsor it so that it is officially adopted in the House of Commons.
If the bills emanating from the Senate are few to be adopted in the House of Commons, this was the case of another project piloted by Claude Carignan, on the protection of journalistic sources.
Presented in the wake of revelations regarding the surveillance by the Montreal Police Service and the Sûreté du Québec of several journalists in Quebec, including columnist Patrick Lagacé of The Pressthe latter piece of legislation was passed unanimously by the House of Commons in October 2017.
Learn more
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- 484 445
- Number of samples received from convicts registered in the National DNA Data Bank (NDDB) since its creation in 2000. Of this number, 82,629 come from Quebec.
Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
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- 75 437
- Number of matches made through the NDDB since its inception in 2000 between a convicted person whose DNA profile was found there and DNA found at a crime scene in Canada.
Source: 2020-2021 NDDB Annual Report
