
Winnipegger's teaching certificate suspended just weeks after sexual assault charges laid — unlike past cases
The teaching certificate of a Catholic school employee has been suspended within weeks of charges of sexually assaulting a teenage student being laid against him — a change from the months it previously could take to suspend teachers.
Changes to Manitoba's Education Administration Act, which came into effect in January, created an independent teacher commissioner. The commissioner can freeze teacher credentials during an investigation — instead of waiting for a disciplinary hearing or a court process to be complete — if it is deemed necessary to protect students from harm.
It ensure a "timely responsiveness and a process … to keep schools safe," said Bobbi Taillefer, Manitoba's first independent education commissioner. She oversees investigations and discipline of teachers, and posts discipline records on a public registry.
Ketan Badiani's case may be an early indication of how the new legislation will work.
The 58-year-old was escorted off the St. Maurice School campus in Fort Garry on March 17, after school administrators received a complaint from a high school student regarding unprofessional behaviour by the high school math teacher.
His contract was terminated three days later, after further investigation, St. Maurice executive director Bryan Doiron previously told CBC News.
Winnipeg police also investigated, and Badiani was arrested on April 11.
Investigators believe the teacher gained the trust of a student in her mid-teens and forged an inappropriate relationship with her using private messaging on social media between October 2024 and March.
He has since been charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and luring a person under 18 by telecommunication.
Records from the Manitoba teacher's registry, containing the certification status of kindergarten to Grade 12 education professionals, show Badiani's certificate was still in good standing on April 17, the day Winnipeg police publicly released information on Badiani's charges.
It is unclear when exactly Badiani's certificate was suspended. The information is neither disclosed in the province's registry nor provided by the commissioner.
However, when CBC News reviewed the registry on May 2, Badiani's teaching certificate showed as suspended.
Taillefer can't comment directly on Badiani's case, but she said a teacher's certificate can now be suspended while her office investigates a complaint or report of professional misconduct and before a disciplinary hearing is held to determine whether the teacher is guilty.
The sole key concern for a certificate suspension lies in whether it is needed to protect students, Taillefer said.
That authority to suspend certificates, which has only been in place since January, was first introduced in amendments to how Manitoba manages the teaching profession that were brought forward under the former Progressive Conservative government and later followed through on by the NDP, after they took office in 2023.
"It's important for the province, frankly, to know that there are checks and balances in place to make sure that schools continue to be safe," Taillefer said.
"We have legislation that we will follow that will allow for the protection of students."
Before the creation of the commissioner, Manitoba's Education Department was responsible for suspending or cancelling a teacher's certificate.
A spokesperson for the province said in "many cases," a final decision on a teacher's certificate was only made after court proceedings finished.
In one case, a teacher's certificate wasn't cancelled until years after he was convicted of sexually touching a minor.
Taillefer's investigations are independent of Manitoba's court system, which determines whether a teacher is criminally responsible.
The independent commissioner's investigation and a subsequent licence suspension can happen before charges are tested in court, as in Badiani's case.
'Huge step forward'
A spokesperson for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection said putting a teacher on leave or suspending a certificate during an investigation, particularly in serious cases, "helps ensure student safety during the investigative process."
"The priority must always be to first safeguard students if there is an identified risk," the statement said.
Peter Hamer, a survivor of sexual abuse by a teacher and co-founder of the advocacy group Stop Educator Child Exploitation, says the process of investigating a complaint of misconduct can stretch over months, and it is important to prevent an accused teacher from moving to another school and regaining access to students.
"The suspension … is a key component," Hamer said.
But so is having a mechanism in place, like the online registry, to make that information publicly available, he said.
While some might worry vindictive students could make false accusations against a teacher, Hamer said it is rare for such allegations to turn out to be a lie.
"We're talking about a very serious accusation," he said.
Before the new protocol came into effect, Manitoba was "one of the worst provinces" in addressing teacher misconduct, Hamer said, having no independent investigative body.
But with the amendments to the legislation, the province is on track to having one of the best systems in the country, he said.
"It is a huge step forward," he said. "I was really impressed with how it worked."
There are still opportunities for improvement, he said.
For instance, the registry falls short of being entirely transparent, as it doesn't show the reason for a certificate's suspension or cancellation, unlike in other provinces — important information for parents and employers outside schools.
Hamer would also like to see more training involving staff and students.
Staff at Manitoba schools are required to complete a mandatory training course on sexual abuse prevention that needs to be renewed every four years.
"A lot of times, people don't know what to look for," Hamer said.
"It's so challenging these days with social media," where grooming or abuse can happen out of the public eye, and "often the student isn't aware that what's happening is going to lead to something bad."
The student who said she was sexually assaulted by Badiani reported the teacher quicker than most survivors and victims, Hamer said. With more information provided at schools, reports could come in when a teacher's conduct starts crossing the line and ideally before students are assaulted, he said.
"We don't want victims. We want people to understand the process that a lot of sexual predators use in order to gain trust, in order to push the boundaries," Hamer said. "We owe it to the students."
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When an alleged hacker known as 'Waifu' violently threatened her online, cybersecurity researcher Allison Nixon set out to unmask them. Now Connor Riley Moucka, a 25 year old from Kitchener, Ont., is being held in Canada as he awaits extradition to the U.S. to face multiple criminal charges. U.S. authorities accuse Moucka and his accomplices of hacking into at least 10 organizations and stealing troves of sensitive records like payroll and banking information. By holding stolen data for ransom, they allegedly extorted US$2.5 million in Bitcoin from three of their victims. 'I was not working on him until he started posting threats about me,' Nixon told from New York City. Nixon is the chief research officer and co-owner of Unit 221B, a U.S. cybersecurity firm named after Sherlock Holmes' apartment. Like the fictional detective, Nixon and her colleagues investigate cybercrimes and expose culprits. 'I've seen cybercriminals cause their own downfall,' Nixon, a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen, said. 'But this is probably the most ridiculous instance of it.' 'He couldn't stop threatening people' In 2024, hiding behind pseudonyms like 'Waifu,' Moucka purportedly used Telegram group chats to boast of his alleged crimes and threaten Nixon and her company. Nixon believes Moucka was trying to get her attention to find out what Unit221B knew about him – which she admits wasn't much at the time. Those threats, however, quickly made him a target for Unit221B and would be a crucial misstep in his undoing. 'He was drawing attention to himself and causing more people to work on his case and causing his case to become the higher priority,' Nixon said. 'He couldn't stop threatening people that weren't initially working on his case.' Nixon adds that threatening investigators 'is a really great way to get prioritized.' Working with Unit221B colleagues and partners like Mandiant, a cybersecurity company and subsidiary for Google, it took several months of labour-intensive digital sleuthing to reveal Moucka's identity, which was passed on to law enforcement. Nixon would not disclose exactly how Moucka was identified. 'I know that these threat actors try to learn intel collection methods so that they can try to protect their anonymity, so they can continue doing crimes,' she said. 'So I don't want to publicly discuss the details, because I want to continue using the same techniques again against these guys.' 'One of the biggest cybersecurity breaches' Moucka was arrested at his grandfather's house in Kitchener in October 2024 following a request from U.S. authorities. In March, he agreed to be extradited to the U.S., where he faces 20 federal charges, including several counts of conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, extortion and aggravated identity theft. According to a U.S. indictment, Moucka and accomplices accessed personal records belonging to millions of people, including financial information, passport details and social security numbers. The indictment alleged their goal was 'to enrich themselves by: (a) accessing computers without authorization; (b) stealing sensitive personal identifying, financial, and other valuable information from those computers; (c) threatening to leak the stolen data unless the victims paid ransoms; and (d) offering to sell the stolen data online to other criminals.' While specific companies are not mentioned in court documents, the details largely match the massive 'Snowflake' hack from 2024, which targeted users of a cloud-based storage platform. Companies that used Snowflake and were affected by the breach include AT&T, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Advance Auto Parts and Pure Storage, many of which had Canadian customers. 'It is certainly one of the biggest cybersecurity breaches that we've had in history,' David Jao, a mathematics professor and member of the University of Waterloo's Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, told CTV News Kitchener last November. 'The case is not over, there are still other criminals that are out there that have not been caught yet.' Court documents also link Moucka to the case against Cameron John Wagenius, a U.S. Army soldier accused of selling hacked AT&T data, including call records allegedly belonging to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Wagenius reportedly plead guilty earlier this year. Nixon says Moucka knew he would eventually be arrested, so he prepared what she refers to as 'insurance policies.' 'He gave packages of money and files to various contacts of his,' she said. 'One of these involved a package of sensitive call details belonging to the former vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the current president, Donald Trump, and multiple members of the Trump family.' 'Money-making schemes and violence' Moucka, Wagenius and other alleged accomplices are reportedly members of 'The Com' hacking community, which is predominantly comprised of young men from English-speaking countries like the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. According to cyberthreat intelligence firm Intel471, individuals and groups within 'The Com' have engaged 'in cybercriminal activities such as subscriber identity module (SIM) swapping, cryptocurrency theft, commissioning real-life violence, swatting and corporate intrusions.' Nixon says 'The Com' shares many traits with 'pre-internet teenage street gangs.' 'Teenagers with nothing better to do, rough home life, they meet each other, they congregate, they form a critical mass and they perpetrate money-making schemes and violence, and they're a negative impact on their local communities, right?' she said. ''The Com' is the same phenomenon, but playing out on the internet.' As he awaits extradition, Moucka was reportedly being held at the Maplehurst Correctional Centre in Milton, Ont. According to Canada's Department of Justice, 'the matter has now proceeded to the Ministerial phase of the process.' The case is expected to be heard at a federal court in Seattle. Moucka's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. The charges against Moucka have not been proven in court. 'All this terrible stuff that I'm telling you about, I actually really enjoy investigating it,' Nixon said. 'It's like a puzzle every single time – and I love puzzles.' With files from Reuters and CTV News Kitchener's Krista Simpson