Killers trusted to tell the truth in return for welfare

[StoneMtn]

Killers trusted to tell the truth in return for welfare

Posted: October 20, 2009, 2:00 PM by NP Editor

Kelly McParland

In Canada we don't trust government to tell us the truth, we don't trust police officers to abide by citizens' charter rights and we don't trust adults enough to let them make their own health decisions.

But we do trust rapists and murderers to voluntarily disclose outstanding warrants when applying for welfare:

People with outstanding warrants will be denied income assistance in British Columbia as soon as next year if legislation introduced yesterday is passed into law, said Rich Coleman, Minister of Housing and Social Development. "People who have outstanding warrants shouldn't be getting welfare until they clean up the problem," said Mr. Coleman, adding that to qualify, warrants must be for indictable offences such as murder, sexual assault and drug trafficking. But Mr. Coleman said the government will not run criminal background checks on welfare applicants to enforce the policy. Instead, it will rely on criminals to disclose their outstanding legal issues when they make an application.

Link

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Umm... I'm no lawyer, but... if suspended drivers' licenses and so on come up in routine roadside checks, shouldn't outstanding warrants have some kind of similar flag that pops up when people try to run something through a gov't agency? Or is this a matter of federal/provincial lines being blurry?