Not every Canadian who heads south this winter will be looking for sun, sand and surf. Some are child sex predators who will be trolling for children in places like Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, India, Cambodia and Indonesia. Around the world, a million kids may be at risk.

As a Star investigation found earlier this year, Cuba is a case in point. It’s a favourite destination for Canadian predators. While the Cuban government denies a problem exists, sex with young girls there costs as little as $30 and Ottawa hasn’t done much to stop this ugly traffic. Happily, that is now about to change.

In a welcome move, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just signaled that his government plans to bring in new laws that will require high-risk child sex offenders — there are 30,000 people on the broader National Sex Offender Registry — to notify police before they travel abroad. The police will then pass on the information to Border Services officials who will “where appropriate” alert destination countries that potential trouble is heading their way. Until now, privacy laws have prevented police from sharing registry data with border services, letting predators come and go unmonitored.

As Harper says, “Just as we must protect Canadian children, we should do what we can to protect innocent kids beyond our borders.” How effective a deterrent this will prove remains to be seen. But being watched may cause some predators to think twice.

While this closer monitoring by the authorities makes sense, Harper’s proposal to create a “publicly accessible” national registry of high-risk child sex offenders who are subject to public notification by the provinces will be more controversial. As things stand the police can alert communities to offenders who pose significant risks, but the need for a nation-wide public registry has yet to be shown.

In the United States, public registries commonly provide convicted sex offenders’ names, photos, addresses, even weight and shoe size. While popular, this encourages harassment and shunning that runs them out of communities and into the shadows where they are the most dangerous. It also enables vigilantism; people on registries have been tracked and killed.

Before we import anything like this approach, Parliament needs to give it close and critical scrutiny.

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