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Victims of violent crime have a right to know when their attackers get out of prison in Canada — unless that attacker is in Canada illegally. The story tonight of a woman in the Niagara region who can’t find out where her assailant is, now that he’s out of jail, because he’s protected by federal privacy laws.
Dawn Colson spends her days looking over her shoulder — wondering if her assailant will come back to kill her: “He told me he would kill me. He told me he would finish me. He said it may not be one week. It may not be one month. It may be a year. I will never forget and I will come for you.”
That threat is from Dawn’s ex-husband Jacinto Garcia. A man she met in 2008, he was here on a visitor’s visa from Cuba. A week after he moved in, she says he was abusing her, hitting her over the head, throwing scissors at her, sexually assaulting her: “There were several times I thought my life was in real danger. And I ended up marrying him like I said, out of fear. Afraid to leave him. Afraid to do anything.”
Garcia was convicted of assault and sexual assault against Dawn in 2010. He served 18 months. He was deported to the U.S. where he held a green card. Because he was a convicted criminal, the U.S. sent him back to Canada. Cuba wouldn’t take him. So Garcia was sent back to jail.
Welland MP Malcolm Allen says if immigration had sent Garcia directly to Cuba instead of the U.S. he would still be in Cuba. But Cuba’s excuse for not taking him is that Garcia was coming from a third country.”
Garcia was released from the Niagara Detention Centre two weeks ago. He couldn’t be detained indefinitely: “I found out Tuesday morning. The only reason I got notified was because it was manually put in the system.”
Federal privacy laws don’t allow victims to be notified when assailants here illegally get out of jail or to be told where they are living. Dawn helped MP Malcolm Allen craft a private members bill designed to change that: “Because victims do have a right to know where their assailants are. This is not an isolated incident.”
There is no guarantee this private members bill will become law. But in the mean time MP Malcolm Allen says he’s pressing both the immigration and public safety ministers to lean on Cuba to take this Garcia guy back.
