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	Canada Doesn't Do Enough to Protect Children from Abuse The Gazette December 19, 2008 http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=d3cb08ba-b3ad-478d-a201-550b60257cdd John Wrenshall might come to symbolize everything that is wrong with how Canada's criminal-justice system handles cases of sexual abuse of children. When we are casual about law enforcement in these horrible crimes, we endanger not only Canadian children, but sometimes those in other countries as well. These crimes demand psychological treatment in some cases, long jail sentences in others, sometimes both, and often post-jail supervision. We can't continue to treat them as almost trivial. Wrenshall, 62, formerly of Calgary, was arrested this week at Heathrow airport in connection with charges handed down by a New Jersey grand jury, including running a Thai brothel of boys as young as 4 for "sex tourists," over at least eight years. Where Canadian authorities appear to have failed here is that Wrenshall has a long history of sexual abuse of children in Canada, yet he was a free man whose activities were not monitored by law enforcement. In 1997, the former Scout leader and church-choir member was sentenced to a year in jail and two years' probation for sexually assaulting eight Calgary choir boys over a period of decades. At his trial, Wrenshall admitted to having molested a dozen more boys under 13, but he faced no charges in those cases. The judge deemed his punishment, based on a joint defence-prosecution recommendation, a "satisfactory deterrent." Deterrent? Twenty-seven years earlier, Wrenshall had been given a suspended sentence for child-molesting, and ordered into counselling - which seems to have done him remarkably little good. How did a man with such a history escape official notice apart from one year in jail? Experts in child abuse say Canada enforces its 1996 law criminalizing the practice of sex tourism poorly. The U.S., in contrast, maintains law-enforcement officials in countries known for sex tourism. "As Canadian law enforcement, we need to take more responsibility for Canadian citizens," wherever they are, Staff Sergeant Janis Gray of the Internet Child Exploitation Unit in British Columbia told the Globe and Mail. Countries like Thailand are known hot spots for sex tourism. Local authorities have often turned a blind eye, which makes it all the more imperative for countries like Canada to follow up on known sex offenders when they head abroad. For our law against molesting children at home or abroad to have any meaning, Canadian authorities need to do two things: Punish such crimes seriously at home, and enforce our law against sex tourism as well.
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