Ex-elementary teacher barred from B.C. school system after child porn conviction

VANCOUVER – A former Vancouver Island elementary school teacher convicted for possession of child pornography has been banned from teaching in British Columbia.

Timothy Ouellette has voluntarily agreed not to apply for any B.C. teaching certification and also acknowledged certification will not be granted in a document issued on July 10.

Ouellette, who was a information-technology teacher, was sentenced to four months in jailand five years’ probation in September 2013.

The conviction concluded an RCMP investigation based on information gathered by B.C.’s Integrated Child Exploitation Unit.

Mounties raided Ouellette’s home in the northern Vancouver Island community of Port McNeill in March 2012, prompting the local school district to suspend him from teaching duties.

At the time he was charged, RCMP told officials with School District No. 85 that police had no evidence to suggest that any children were victimized locally.

An agreement stripping Ouellette of his right to teach in the province was recently posted to the teacher regulation branch of the Education Ministry’s website.

“Ouellette admits that the conduct described … constitutes professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming…,” reads the document, signed by Ouellette on July 3 in Vernon, B.C.

The document states that Ouellette held a valid professional certificate of qualification issued by the B.C. College of Teachers in June 2010.

Police said at the time of his arrest that Ouellette, then 45, had moved away from the Port McNeill area.