Government of Canada Welcomes a New Search Tool for Missing Children

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 24, 2012) - The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and Lianna McDonald, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, today announced the launch of a new search tool for missing children, the MissingKidsAlert.

"Our government takes the safety of our citizens very seriously, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society - our children," said Minister Nicholson. "We commend the work done by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to find missing children, support their families and contribute to research on missing and sexually exploited children."

MissingKidsAlert is a public notification service developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. It will enhance the ability of law enforcement agencies to locate missing children by allowing Canadians to receive missing child alerts quickly through electronic platforms, including Twitter, Facebook e-mail and fax.

"We are grateful for the Government of Canada's ongoing support, which has allowed us to create innovative tools such as MissingKidsAlert to assist in the safe recovery of missing children in Canada," said Ms. McDonald.

Since 2006, the Government has brought forward a number of measures to better protect children, including:

• Strengthening the sex offender registry to better protect children from Internet luring;
• Increasing the maximum penalties for luring a child;
• Increasing the age of protection from 14 to 16 years of age;
• Eliminating house arrest for criminals who commit sexual assault against a child;
• Passing legislation to make the reporting of child pornography by Internet service providers mandatory;
• Strengthening the sentencing and monitoring of dangerous offenders;
• Passing the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which increases penalties for sexual offences against children and creates two new offences aimed at conduct that could facilitate or enable a sexual offence against a child;
• Renewing the Federal Victims Strategy at a funding level of $13 million per year in Budget 2011; and
• Recently announcing an additional $7 million over five years to the Victims Fund, $5 million of which will be directed to the creation and enhancement of Child Advocacy Centres across Canada.

Internet: www.canada.justice.gc.ca

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