This is an edited version of a Hamilton Spectator editor on the Ken Peters case. It was carried in Saturday's Toronto Star:

Here's an excerpt:

When a judge ordered Hamilton Spectator reporter Ken Peters to pay nearly $32,000 for his efforts to protect a confidential source in a story he wrote 10 years ago, it erased any doubts that this country needs better shield laws to protect journalists and give some priority to the rights of all Canadians.

Throughout the past three weeks — as Peters was cited for contempt, then convicted, then sentenced — media organizations, journalists and various others voiced outrage and effectively called the ruling a direct attack on the media's ability to let "whistle-blowers" reveal information whose disclosure is in the greater public interest.

It's easy to dismiss such responses as the chest-thumping of a media culture looking for special treatment under the law. But that would be a shallow reading of what is at stake here.

Peters published information from public health documents about a local retirement home. In obtaining the report, Peters promised not to reveal the identity of the person who leaked it to him. And now, as the home attempts to sue local government for millions of dollars because the report got out, Peters kept his promise.

In court he declined to answer any questions which could directly or indirectly indicate who had given him the report.

Even though the source's identity was soon confirmed through other means, and even though the information at the heart of this controversy is in the public interest, the court would not remove the civil contempt citation. Instead it handed out the harshest contempt-of-court penalty ever given to a journalist in Canada. The Specator has said it will pay all of Peters' costs. ...

The Peters case demonstrates that the need for better legislation is the crucible here and that trail leads straight to our politicians.

Elected officials in Canada seldom make a priority of the public's access to information, or the media's right to safely obtain and publish contentious information that can be argued as being in the greater public good.

Punishing the media for informing the public will only lead to a climate of less and less investigative journalism.

Sadly, less and less investigative journalism -- especially about themselves -- is what politicians want.

And that makes any braying they do about democracy seem more than a little bit hollow.

People can't properly direct their elected representatives if they aren't properly informed.

And given the penchant of powerful institutions to not only be selectively open, but to punish those who reveal information that benefits the public but embarrasses the institution, confidential sources remain an indispensable part of the media's toolbox. Not only that, there is real public benefit to be gained from it.

I can't see the Ontario Court of Appeal endorsing the misinformed views of Mr. Justice David Crane of the Ontario Superior Court.

But as j-prof Christopher Waddell has said, why must journalists go through this every time?

It's time for legislation to set out the conditions under which journalists can offer sources confidentiality.