Ontario announces plans to make guardians and parents aware of educators involved in sexual abuse or other criminal proceedings

The province says it is becoming the first Canadian jurisdiction to publicly disclose and make parents and guardians aware of educators that have been involved in sexual abuse and other serious criminal proceedings.

The announcement was made Tuesday by Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, joined by Jane McKenna, Associate Minister of Children and Women’s Issues.

The government also announced that all certified educators must now complete a comprehensive mandatory sexual abuse prevention program. Ontario is the only province in Canada to do so.

It says all certified Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) applicants are required to complete the program by September 15, 2022.
New and returning OCT applicants from Jan. 1, 2022 are required to complete the program to receive their certifications.
The province says more must be done to inform parents of criminal proceedings before a verdict is imposed.

Lecce announced a series of actions including:

• Lifetime bans on any educator who has engaged in physical sexual relations with a student or is involved in any way with child pornography.
• The lifetime ban imposed on educators for engaging in physical sexual abuse of students and children also applies retroactively for previous similar acts by teachers and early childhood educators whose memberships were reinstated or were not revoked in the first place.
• A requirement that both the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) and the College of Early Childhood Educators (CECE) provide funding for therapy and counselling to students and children who are victims of sexual abuse, a prohibited act involving pornography or prescribed sexual acts prohibited under the Criminal Code (Canada).
• A requirement to make publicly available information about disciplinary decisions made by the Colleges’ Discipline Committees, including for less serious acts leading to reprimands and admonishments, on the OCT and CECE registers and websites on a permanent basis.

The province says it is also giving authority to the OCT and CECE to make information public about criminal proceedings involving their members on the public registers.

“Our government takes a zero-tolerance approach for anyone who would abuse or threaten children,” said Lecce. “I ensured that any educator involved in this heinous criminality faces a life ban from working in any school or licensed child care program again, along with a permanent record on a public registry. We are going further by making information about criminal proceedings related to teachers and early childhood educators public with one aim: to protect the safety of Ontario’s children.”