By Rachel Corbett. I have just finished reading Theo Fleury’s book, Playing With Fire. I have owned this book for two years, but never took it off my shelf. However, in the wake of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, and the revelation that Scouts Canada has been quietly keeping it’s own registry of pedophiles, [...]
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The Most Recent Buzz About Police Records Checks
In many service sectors, some form of police record check is now common. Obtaining police record checks for volunteers is part of an organization’s due diligence and part of their standard of care to ensure that risks within the organization are reasonably managed. We have written on the subject before but there are some new [...]
Police Records Checks
Some years ago in this column we wrote about volunteer screening and police records checks, shortly on the heels of Sheldon Kennedy’s 1997 disclosure about sexual abuse by his minor hockey coach. The topic was fairly new at that time: now that screening of volunteers through police checks has become truly mainstream, we think it’s [...]
Provincial Laws and Screening
Screening in Canada is subject to a complex set of criminal, civil, constitutional and administrative statutes, combined with a substantial body of common law. Taken together, these laws form a regulatory regime that applies to those organizations and individuals, both paid and volunteer, who work with children, youth and other vulnerable persons. This document provides [...]
Federal Law and Social Policy
There is no single source of law in Canada that governs screening. Criminal, civil, constitutional and administrative statutes are all relevant to those organizations and individuals who carry out screening. As well, the common law has clearly established that organizations providing programs and services to people in the community have a legal duty to ensure [...]
About Criminal Records
What can you ask, or be asked, about criminal records? Questions about criminal records are increasingly common in volunteer and employment application forms with sport organizations — and rightly so. But the way these questions are phrased can mean the difference between revealing important information and a wasted effort. Such questions can also run afoul [...]
Screening – It’s a Fact of Sporting Life
Screening of coaches, whether paid or volunteer, is now an everyday occurrence. In fact, the sport organization that does not implement some form of screening probably runs a risk of failing to meet the standard of care now required by law. Increasingly, the courts are holding organizations responsible for the wrongful actions of employees and [...]
