Editor:
Male and born the same day as a pardoned sex offender?
Are you thinking about volunteering to coach soccer, drive a cab part-time or go back to university to teach school in the near future? If you are, you will eventually need a vulnerable sector criminal check done to prove you are not a pardoned sex offender.
And if by chance you have the same birthday as a pardoned sex offender, you’ll be informed that you’re a match and it might then take up to six months to prove you are not that person.
In the meantime, you’ll just have to wait and put your plans on hold and deal with the stigma of maybe being a criminal that runs around abusing young children. And then when your innocence has finally been proven, you’ll need to go through the whole process again in another three months to a year.
Does anyone else see a problem with this? What does it say about our government and police force if it takes them up to six months to figure out if someone is a convicted sex offender? Can’t we expect criminal checks to be done in a more timely fashion?
Of course, none of us want sex offenders to be teaching school or coaching soccer. We also don’t want teenage girls that have had too much to drink getting a ride home in a cab driven by a pardoned sex offender. Unfortunately, if you complain about this poorly thought out change to criminal checks, you are then going to be accused of not caring about protecting young children from sexual predators.
I mean, how could anyone possibly complain about a law that has been put in place to protect our children?
Well, I’m complaining.
Why is it so difficult for people whose salaries are paid for by our tax dollars to think things through? Couldn’t some number crunching on their part have made them aware that they needed adequate staff in place or the technology they’re using updated before implementing changes to vulnerable sector criminal checks?
What a nightmare for men who are unlucky to have been born the same day as a sex offender. So much for being innocent until proven guilty.
Cathy Rutherford,
Canmore
