OTTAWA – “Recently, the Province of Alberta and the RCMP announced that Albertans living in smaller communities can now expect faster processing times for Criminal and Vulnerable Sector Checks,” stated Leon Benoit, Member of Parliament for Vegreville-Wainwright. “I know that slow processing times have been a real problem for many constituents who volunteer at jobs which involve children. I am therefore very glad to hear the RCMP has installed 20 LiveScan Real Time Identification Devices (RTID) at strategically located detachments throughout the Province.”

"My colleague, Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews, has been working with the RCMP to address the lengthy wait times,” explained Benoit. “Our government is very proud to have partnered with the Government of Alberta to support the purchase and installation of these devices across Alberta.  Ultimately, this will help more volunteers in the community do good work, while providing more stringent identification of those who we don't want near our kids."

Benoit clarified that problems arose as a result of the service delivery challenges imposed by the 2010 enhancements to screening processes that made fingerprints mandatory for Vulnerable Sector Checks (VSC) if an applicant's gender and date of birth matched that of a pardoned sex offender. This new requirement saw paper-based fingerprint submissions related to VSCs climb from 130 to 8000 per month, and resulted in longer processing times for many applicants who work or volunteer with the vulnerable sector.

“Keeping in mind that the ultimate purpose of the checks is to protect our children from predators, the old system was too slow to complete the necessary extra level of verification in a timely manner,” said Benoit.  “These checks will help speed things up. Now all Albertans - even those living in smaller communities - are now only a drive away from access to faster service."

With this technology, applicants can submit their fingerprints for verification and in a matter of minutes receive a response, as opposed to the weeks or months of waiting that were required under the previous system. Fingerprints related to vulnerable sector checks are destroyed after the fingerprint process is completed. This technology is already in use in 36 police jurisdictions across Canada.

Additional information, on Criminal Record Checks and Vulnerable Sector Checks, including estimated processing times and fees, is available at www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cr-cj/index-eng.htm.”