Canada’s second attempt at expanding the collection of DNA evidence for non-violent offences is currently in consideration in committee in the Senate after its second reading in November 2022. The bill has gained the support of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), who say its implementation could have spared a wrongful conviction and brought justice sooner in the cold case murder of a 9-year-old girl.
Bill S-231: Increasing the Identification of Criminals Through the Use of DNA Act seeks to expand DNA collection to anyone convicted of a crime punishable by five years or more jailtime, including impaired driving, drug trafficking, breaking and entering, or theft over $5,000.
Canada has a national DNA databank containing the profiles of convicted violent offenders, but some senators, like bill author Claude Carignan, do not think it is enough.
“Canada has, on a per capita basis, far fewer DNA profiles in the convicted offenders index of its national DNA data bank than the national DNA data banks of other free and democratic countries, resulting in fewer chances of identifying the perpetrators of serious and violent crimes,” reads the bill’s preamble. “The use of familial searching has been instrumental in solving horrific crimes in other free and democratic countries, [but] the effectiveness of the national DNA data bank depends on the number of DNA profiles in the convicted offenders index to be compared to the DNA profiles in the crime scene index.”
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) recently endorsed the bill, citing the now-solved cold case of 9-year-old Christine Jessop as evidence of why the bill is needed.
In October 1984, Jessop was abducted, raped and fatally stabbed before her body was found off a rural road months later. The family’s neighbor, Guy Paul Morin, was wrongfully arrested, convicted and jailed before he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1995. In 2020, Toronto Police Investigators and Othram used forensic genetic genealogy to identify and confirm a new suspect—family friend Calvin Hoover. Hoover, however, could not be brought to justice as he committed suicide in 2015.
As it turns out, Hoover was convicted of impaired driving in 2007, eight years before his death.
“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 convicted of impaired driving,” wrote the CACP in a statement to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. “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.”
Morin ultimately received $1.25 million in compensation from the Ontario government after a report uncovered evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct, as well as misrepresentation of forensic evidence by the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences.
A similar bill, S-236 An Act to Amend the Criminal Code, was introduced in 2021 but lapsed in the last Parliament. S-231 would amend Canada’s Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the National Defence Act and the DNA Identification Act. Currently, the bill completed its second reading and is in consideration in committee in the senate. If the bill is ultimately passed, the collection of non-violent offender DNA would start 90 days after the bill becomes law.