A temporary resident named Karandeep Singh was convicted of sexual assault in Prince George, B.C., last month, but — after the judge heard that Singh faced potential deportation — he was exempt from the national sex offender registry.
There was a time when this would have been impossible, as the written law requires all sexual assault convicts to be placed on the registry. In 2022, however, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled this to be unconstitutional and downgraded the registration of sex offenders from mandatory to optional. Whether to put someone on the list was left up to individual judges, who were much more merciful than Parliament.
