OTTAWA—Federal officials have advised Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to put the brakes on setting up a publicly accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders. The previous Conservative government ushered in legislation that opened the door to allowing the RCMP to create such a database as part of measures to crack down on child predators. An internal memo to Goodale from Public Safety officials says “a number of concerns have been raised” — from resource pressures to fears of vigilante-style attacks — that would support dropping the database idea. The Canadian Press used the Access to Information Act to recently obtain the March 2016 memo and other internal notes on the legislative measures. The proposed database would provide the public with a national inventory of high-risk child sex offenders in their communities and allow them to take appropriate precautions, the notes say.

Source: thestar June 02, 2017 21:45 UTC