EDMONTON - It’s not often that a crime is so fearsome it puts an entire city on edge, but the armoured car multiple murders at the University of Alberta last week did just that.
The crime had the feel of a bizarre and vile act out of a lawless foreign country, not something that would ever happen here. It was imperative that the police quickly get to the bottom of it. Now that there’s been an arrest, the issue of what penalty our society should enact for such a crime is top of mind for many of us.
Unfortunately, there will be no death penalty for the culprit in this case. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 and even the tough-on-crime Harper government never talked seriously about bringing it back.
But the Harper government has enacted a new law that could bring more severe punishments for anyone convicted of multiple murders. A judge can now decide that parole eligibility should be 25 years for each murder committed. For example, someone convicted of three murders could have no chance of parole for 75 years.
In Canada, as it now stands, anyone convicted of a murder automatically gets a life sentence, but that doesn’t mean they spend the rest of their life in jail. Far from it.
For second-degree murder, a killer can be eligible for parole in as little as 10 years.
For first-degree murder, a killer is eligible for parole after 25 years. At that point, the only reason the parole board will keep a killer in jail is if he or she still represents a threat to the public, says University of Alberta professor Steven Penney.
But the new law gives judges more leeway in sentencing.
“If judges actually start using this provision to impose consecutive periods of parole ineligibility, that’s a pretty dramatic change from what we had before,” Penney says. “In theory, a life sentence is a life sentence is a life sentence. But there’s a huge difference for the offender, and potentially for the families of the victims, for someone who is eligible to apply for parole after 10 or 15 or 25 years and someone who is eligible to apply for parole after 50 or 75 years.
“In effect, what a judge can do now, especially for someone who is convicted at a fairly young age, is to ensure that you’re never released.”
When the Harper government brought forward this legislation in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Daniel Petit said the new measures would be applied to “the most incorrigible offenders — those whose crimes are such that they would be unlikely to ever obtain parole.”
The changes, Petit said, “will better reflect the tragedy of multiple murders by enabling a judge to acknowledge each and every life lost.”
It is “based on the proposition that killing more than one person reflects a higher degree of moral blameworthiness and ought to allow the imposition of additional periods of parole ineligibility.”
The new law will also “ensure that our communities are safe and that offenders convicted of multiple murders, who should never be released, will never be released.”
Edmonton defence lawyer Kirk MacDonald has concerns about the new law. “There are some persons who do make remarkable changes to themselves in the course of their time in the penitentiary,” he says. “Do we want that person locked up for 50 years if after 20 they have rehabilitated themselves and they are safe to release into the community? Are we well-served by that? I would say no, but that’s something for the parole board to decide.”
If a killer gets a 50- or 75-year sentence, it also takes away his incentive to reform and makes him more dangerous in prison, MacDonald says.
There’s also the fact that society is already protected from the most heinous killers by the life sentences they now get, MacDonald says. “We get wound up about (Paul) Bernardo and (Clifford) Olson and (Russell) Williams, but, my God, none of those guys are ever going to see the light of day again.”
MacDonald makes some good points, but Petit’s arguments are more compelling. We need to properly denounce and punish our most depraved killers.
I’m not against the death penalty, but accept opposition to the measure is too strong to reinstate it. But this new law will suffice.
When warranted, judges are now able to impose life sentences that really mean life. It’s a fitting response to multiple murders.
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