750 sex offenders in Mississauga and Brampton to be monitored more closely by police

A move by the provincial government to strengthen Ontario’s Sex Offender Registry will help police keep better tabs on the 750 offenders — 185 of them deemed “high risk” — in Mississauga and Brampton, Peel police brass say.

“Our numbers represent the second-highest per capita numbers in Ontario. This is why the proposed changes and the current legislation are so important to our ability to protect our community,” Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich said Friday at a press conference in Mississauga.

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner headlined the media event, held to announce that his government will soon introduce amendments to Christopher’s Law in an effort to give police “more tools to better monitor and supervise” the more than 14,000 registered sex offenders across the province.

Christopher’s Law, under which the Ontario Sex Offender Registry was created in 2001, is named for Christopher Stephenson, an 11-year-old Brampton boy abducted and killed in June 1988 by a known sex offender. Ontario remains the lone province in Canada with such a criminal registry.

Ontario government officials said proposed changes to the law also include a call to prevent sex offenders from legally changing their names in Ontario so they can’t hide their identities.

“Decades ago, Ontario led the way with Canada’s first sex offender registry, and today we’re making it stronger,” Kerzner said at the press conference. “By introducing changes to make Christopher’s Law more effective, we’re giving police new tools to prevent, investigate and solve egregious sex crimes to protect those most vulnerable, especially our children.”

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner speaks at a press conference on Friday in Mississauga.

According to the province, the proposed changes would help “maintain Ontario’s high reporting compliance rate” for registered sex offenders and high-risk child sex offenders by:

• requiring sex offenders to report to a police service within a prescribed period after being ordered to serve a conditional sentence
• mandating sex offenders to report to a police service within a prescribed period after receiving a passport or driver’s licence
• requiring offenders to report when they are starting to use or make changes to email addresses, social media usernames and other digital identifiers
• adding new strict travel notification requirements, including requiring registered sex offenders to provide 14 days’ advance notice if they intend to travel for seven days or more and requiring that registered child sex offenders provide advance notice if they’ll be out of Canada for any length of time

Milinovich said the additional reporting requirements being proposed would help police better monitor sex offenders’ activities and establish further accountability for those offenders.

The bottom line, he added, is the changes being called for will “make it more difficult for them to reoffend and avoid detection.”

Project Christopher created in 2021

The deputy chief further noted that proposed changes targeting offenders’ online activities “are essential as we know sexual predators are more and more often using online platforms to target our communities.”

Milinovich also pointed to a Peel police initiative launched in 2021 known as Project Christopher, through which police proactively monitor registered sex offenders to ensure their compliance.

So far in 2024, he said, police in Peel have conducted 500 compliance investigations that have led to 36 arrests and 82 criminal charges.

Peel police Chief Nishan Duraiappah also offered his full support to the Ontario government’s proposed amendments to the law.

“In 1988, the Stephenson family endured a devastating and unimaginable loss when their child was fatally abducted by a known sex offender,” the chief said in a news release. “The proposed amendments to Christopher’s Law aim to strengthen protections for children and families by implementing stricter conditions for sex offenders in our community and enhances police enforcement abilities. Peel Regional Police commends the Stephenson family for their tireless advocacy in helping to ensure other families are protected.”

Milinovich described the man who abducted and killed Christopher Stephenson as “a 45-year-old man with an extensive criminal record who had previously sexually assaulted eight children and had been released from prison two months earlier.”

Known sex offender Joseph Fredericks later confessed to killing Christopher.

A coroner’s inquest that followed Christopher’s slaying revealed how inadequately sex offenders were managed in Ontario. A number of recommendations came of the inquest.

Following tireless advocacy from the Stephenson family, Christopher’s Law was enacted in 2001, creating the first sex offender registry in Canada.