Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, working with Member of Parliament for St. Albert – Edmonton Michael Cooper, has introduced a bill in the Senate that would reduce the frequency of parole hearings for murderers.
Currently, prisoners convicted of second or first-degree murder who have finished their mandatory sentence are eligible to apply for parole after a one-year period has passed since their last parole hearing.
Bill S-282 proposes to change the Corrections and Conditional Release Act so that murderers would have to wait five years for a parole hearing. Five years is the length of time at which the Parole Board of Canada conducts an automatic review of the parole eligibility of a convicted murderer.
“It is unjust and unfair to the families of murder victims to go through parole hearings approximately every 18 months,” Cooper said. “[Parole hearings] are stressful and traumatic experiences in many cases, that force victims to come face to face with the offender who took the life of their loved one.”
Victims of a crime do not have to attend parole hearings; however, they may join as observers, submit information to the Parole Board of Canada and present victim statements for the board to take into consideration.
Cooper said he was motivated to work on the bill after hearing from constituents Mike and Dianne Ilesic, whose son Brian Ilesic was murdered in a 2012 armed robbery at the University of Alberta. The Ilesic family were concerned after the Supreme Court overturned a Stephen Harper-era law that increased the period of parole ineligibility for murderers who killed more than one person.
The Bissonnette decision, rendered May 2022, found that Quebec City mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette would be eligible for parole after 25 years and would not have to face a period of parole ineligibility for each of his six murder victims.
"This appeal is not about the value of each human life, but rather about the limits on the state's power to punish offenders, which, in a society founded on the rule of law, must be exercised in a manner consistent with the Constitution," the Supreme Court’s decision said.
However, because of the decision “the sentences of [Alexandre] Bissonnette, Douglas Garland, Derek Saretzky … among other of the worst murderers in Canada, have had their sentences slashed significantly,” Cooper said.
“If an offender has not demonstrated in 25 years that they have rehabilitated themselves, and that they no longer pose a threat to public safety, what are the chances they’re going to be able to do so a year following a parole hearing application?”
Conservative senator Boisvenu has made the rights of victims a pillar of his tenure as a senator since he was appointed in 2010. In 2002, his 27-year-old daughter was raped and murdered near a bar in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
The bill had its first reading in the Senate on Nov. 8.
