Sask. ICE unit welcomes Supreme Court ruling

The Saskatchewan police officers who patrol the Internet in the hunt for online child predators got a bit of a boost from a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The top court ruled on Thursday that police don’t need a warrant to engage in online chats with suspected pedophiles.

The decision stemmed from a Newfoundland case in which police posed as a 14-year-old girl in an online chat with Sean Patrick Mills, who was subsequently arrested when he arranged a meeting.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Scott Lambie, the provincial co-ordinator of Saskatchewan’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, said the top court’s decision allows officers to keep an important weapon in their efforts to protect children.

“We still have to follow certain rules and procedures in how we conduct ourselves online,” Lambie said. “This (ruling) is just justifying some of the actions that we’re undertaking.”

With the issue of online exploitation and targeting of children still growing, he said vigilant parents remain the most important line of defence and urged parents to keep an eye on their kids online.

“Especially on the social media that’s out there right now, all their internet activity, their gaming activity — because these are all avenues for pedophiles to actually target the children,” Lambie said.

Nationally, the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre has seen the annual number of reports of online child exploitation rise from just over 9,000 in 2013 to 55,000 in 2018.