Ontario Police Will Stop Identifying Genders of Criminals To 'Be More Progressive"

Ferlon Webster Jr. | September 26, 2019
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The push to get rid of gender continues in Canada as the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) put a stop to disclosing the gender identity of those accused of crimes (as well as their victims). 

The department chose to adopt this new practice to “be more progressive,” according to the CBC. In other words, they want to be more “woke.” 

"When we were reviewing our standard operating procedures, we realized we were including information that was not permissible for us to release," Sgt. Carolle Dionne, the spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police, told the CBC. "It doesn't matter if it was a male or a female who was an impaired driver or speeding down the highway, what matters is that we pulled them over and laid a charge."

As the CBC reports:

The OPP says a regular review of the Police Services Act, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as well as the Ontario Human Rights Code forced the change. Those pieces of legislation have not recently been updated.

"We have a lot of individuals who identify as male but actually are female, or vice versa,” Dionne said. “That's one of the reasons. Also, we want to respect the wishes of individuals.”  

"We will now say 'the individual' or 'the accused,' and not use gender-specific pronouns," the sergeant continued. "In the case of a suspect where we need to be more specific, we will say 'appears to be a female' or 'appears to be a male.'" 

But what happens if a dangerous person is on the loose and citizens need to be aware of who (and what) to look out for? 

More from the CBC:

Police will still release other information such as the name, age, or hometown of an individual.

It's one of the reasons the move by the OPP seems "overly cautious" and possibly a result of preemptively trying to avoid legal liability, said Ottawa Human Rights Lawyer Elie Labaky, who specializes in human rights and policing law. 

"If the person is charged, their name and other information will form part of the record. I understand the need to be considerate of everybody's feelings, however this appears overly cautious," Labaky said. "If there is an error in the gender that is released, it could be easily mitigated." 

"Are you trying to protect the person's identity, or are you trying to protect yourself from liability? Instead of training your officers to understand the human rights code and how to deal with people, you're being overly administrative."

This sensitivity to a very small minority of people’s feelings is going to screw up (if it already hasn’t) a whole system of law. Be on the look out because this “woke” culture is alive — and unfortunately well — here in the states, too. 

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