2 weeks Ago By Postmedia News
Article content Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has offered some sensible changes to our criminal justice system that would, among other things, put away serial killers for life without the possibility of parole. Poilievre said this week he would invoke the notwithstanding clause to overrule a Supreme Court ruling that prohibits judges from handing down multiple consecutive sentences to people who have committed multiple murders. Alexandre Bissonnette was convicted of murdering six worshippers and injuring five others in the 2017 attack on a Quebec mosque.
At the time, courts were allowed to sentence mass murderers to consecutive jail terms. He was sentenced to 40 years without the possibility of parole. Bissonnette appealed and, in 2022, that sentence was deemed to be a violation of his Charter rights protecting him against “cruel and unusual” punishment.
So the longest sentence a killer can receive in this country is 25 years behind bars. In 1995, Paul Bernardo was convicted in connection to the rape and murder of three women in Ontario. He was also declared a dangerous offender, which makes it unlikely he will ever be freed.
That means the families of his victims are subjected to the indignity of having to go through emotional parole board hearings every few years, as Bernardo continues to seek his freedom. There’s the usual bleating from the left that invoking the notwithstanding clause under such circumstances is an abuse of political power. Liberal Leader Mark Carney called Poilievre’s policy “dangerous.
” On the contrary. Poilievre is restoring balance to our courts to protect society from the worst kind of offenders — those who have so little respect for human life that they kill multiple times. What’s “cruel and unusual” is a justice system that subjects the victims of such heinous crimes, and the families who are left to mourn, to an uncaring system.
Time and again, they must relive the horror of the crimes against their loved ones at parole hearings. It’s time to consider the pain and suffering of the victims of crime rather than that of the criminals. That’s exactly what the notwithstanding clause was designed to do.
It’s a mechanism by which politicians who answer to the people can reset a decision by a judge, who has no such accountability..
