Categories
Background Checks

Canadian Bill to Address Sex Offender Background Checks

The way the new Royal Canadian Mounted Police Director reads, it is conceivable that a pardoned sex offender could be working with children.   According to an article int he Toronto Sun a Minister of Provincial Parliament or MPP, introduced a private bill that asks to amend the current federal policy the restricts access to complete criminal background checks from the  Canadian Police Information Consortium database, or CPIK as it is known by is acronym.

As it stands by the current policy, those conducting background checks have no real legal way of finding out if the job candidate is a pardoned sexual offender or not.  Liz Sandals, the MPP who introduced the new bill claims  there may be thousands of adults  in Ontario who come into contact with children but who are not properly screened through a thorough background check.  The Ontario Education Services Corporation alone conducts some50,000 background checks a year on behalf of school boards and post-secondary institutions.  The new directive, however, limits the organization from conducting background checks on college students who will potentially be working with children.

Frankly, the new directive makes little sense to me.  It does nothing to improve the efficacy of background checks.  The directive is skewed in favor of pardoned sex offenders while putting children at greater risk.  As just this week alone we turned up two sexual offenders in the United States, both having committed criminal sex offenses against youngsters, logic would have it that we would be moving toward greater scrutiny and not less.   I am sure this situation will be adjusted in Canada, and hopefully because there is the usual sensational incident that makes headlines and embarrasses both law enforcement and the related bodies.

Sexual predators are quite numerous.   The repeated offender or recidivist rate is pretty high.  Some question whether there is ever such a thing as a reformed sexual predator, especially one who prays on children.   Those employers not conducting background searches on the sex offender registry can make a very tragic mistake.

In terms of this situation in Canada and the new directive by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we shall see how this resolves.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.