Since april 1999, when a 14-year-old youth entered his school in Taber alberta and shot and killed 17-year-old Jason Lang, his name has been protected by a publication ban under both the old Young Offenders act and the current Youth Criminal Justice act. That is, it was not allowed to be published until last Monday when the now 20-year-old walked out of his open custody facility in a residential neighbourhood in Toronto’s west end. Considered to be dangerous, the authorities obtained an order from a judge to allow that his name and description to be published and broadcast to assist the police in apprehending the fugitive. after he was spotted by members of the public who had seen his picture and re-arrested a couple of days later, the order terminated and it is now once again to broadcast or otherwise publish the name of this "young: offender.
Besides the issue of why the names of youths cannot be made public even after they become of age, there is a matter that makes this law unworkable. The medium of the Internet as a source of news for many Canadians has increased dramatically in recent years and is expected to continue on an upward spiral. as is said of Las Vegas, what happens in cyberspace stays in cyberspace.
Prior to the Internet coming into its own, complying with the terms of the acts that govern youthful offenders was relatively straightforward. Once the court order expired, newspapers and radio and television stations merely had to go back to referring to the young person as "the youth" or some such other appellation. But what is the duty of those who put the person’s name out in cyberspace when it not only legal but desirable to name and describe him?
Do those who have posted the man’s name and description on Internet sites when it was legal to do so have any responsibility for the fact that his name and picture is cached somewhere? Do Internet Service Providers have any responsibility for the now banned name and picture that is still floating around in cyberspace?
as people turn more and more to the net and as Internet sites rise, these issues will have to be addressed.
The whole idea of a labour dispute is to inconvenience the consumers of the company’s products or services in order to affect a settlement. Usually when there is a strike or a lockout, members of the public are quite happy if they suffer little or no effect from strike or lockout of the company’s employees.
These general rules to not seem to apply to the CBC whose broadcasts during the lockout can be considered by some to be an improvement. Coronation Street fans will be pleased to learn that starting next week the network intends to double the number of episodes of the popular British soap that are shown each week. as well, the CBC will air a series of Coronation Street specials, presumably because of the lockout. With much of its original programming off the air, Coronation Street now draws the highest ratings for the labour-plagued network.
and lovers of classical music were undoubtedly pleased with the current operation of CBC’s Radio 2. Except for a very brief news broadcast at the top of the hour and short occasional messages that inform listeners of the fact of the lockout, the music is non stop. No longer are classical pieces interrupted by talking.
What other organization could see improvements when they lock out their employees?