Supreme Court allows appeal in spat over Ontario sex-offender data
By The Canadian Press - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 0 Comments
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will allow the appeal of a ruling…
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will allow the appeal of a ruling that would compel the Ontario government to reveal the number of sex offenders in the province by partial postal code.
The province’s Community Safety Ministry and its Information and Privacy Commissioner have been locked in a lengthy battle over the data, which the government says could identify individual offenders.
Earlier this year, Ontario’s top court ruled the information should be released. Continue…
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Will we be safer?
By Michael Friscolanti - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 9 Comments
Strict new legislation will ensure every sex offender is put on a federal registry
Tillman’s name would have been registered under the new rules despite the fact that the prosecutor didn’t ask for a registration order | Troy Fleece/CP
Eighteen months ago, the federal government promised to finally fix Canada’s dysfunctional sex-offender registry. At the heart of the proposed legislation was a “mandatory inclusion” rule, ensuring that every person guilty of a sex crime actually ends up on the database. No exceptions. No excuses.
But eighteen months later, as Bill S-2 slowly works its way through Parliament, the status quo stands in the courts: a prosecutor must still ask a judge to add a rapist or pedophile to the registry—and some judges are still refusing. Like in the case of J.W., a Nova Scotia man sentenced to 15 months probation for pinning his girlfriend against a wall and tearing off her clothes. The Crown wanted him registered, but J.W. told the court he was planning to enlist in the military after serving his sentence, and that checking in with police on a regular basis would be tricky.
