(I MAILED THIS LETTER VIA CANADA POST TO THE PRIME MINISTER ON JULY 21, 2023, I.E. TODAY)
Rosthern, SK.
July 21, 2023
Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau;
If “let the punishment fit the crime,” or “an eye for an
eye” were the foundational standard of criminal and civic justice in Canada,
then Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka would have been stripped naked in the
public square, raped by strangers in the presence of the families of Leslie
Mahaffy and Kristen French, and strangled. Such a result, most fortunately, can’t
happen in Canada … at least not under sanction of the justice system. The death
penalty was abolished long ago and currently, even criminals with a life
sentence are beneficiaries of a policy that rewards progress in good behaviour
with increments of increased freedom of movement. But our grasp of our justice
underpinnings easily slide back to Judeo/Christian Old Testament principles and
the “eye for eye” sensibility of Sharia law.
Prime Minister Trudeau, yesterday you emphasized a point
that the sensitivities of the families of victims of crime are foremost
considerations when justice is meted out. That may be emotionally true, but not
a good academic description of how Canadian justice is administered. Criminal
cases are not between the offender and the offended; they’re between The
People and the offender (Queen vs. John Doe, People vs. Jane Doe). The absolutely-necessary
support of the families of victims and the role of these families in the
justice process must remain separate, or else we risk opening the door to a
return to “eye for an eye” sensibility. The impulse for redressing violence with
counter violence is a strong impulse among us humans.
Our justice system is by no means fail-proof. It takes
public vigilance and informed dialogue to ensure that it remains a system that
fits the people’s consensus of what justice is. As this consensus now stands, our
justice systems is guided by three signposts: Retribution (punishment enough to
convince the offender of the seriousness of his/her/their acts, and to serve as
a deterrent to others), Restoration (returning conditions for all involved to a
state as close as possible to what it was before the crime) and Rehabilitation
(training and educating the offender to be a contributing, cooperating member
of society). Implicit in the bars and razor wire of prisons, of course, is the assumption
that the public must be protected from offenders lest they reoffend.
We could easily be drawn into debate about the degree of
importance of any one of these goals. In the wake of the most horrendous
crimes—those of Paul Bernardo in this case—retribution quickly rises to be
the top priority, especially since there is no possible satisfactory restoration
in the case of murder or other unlawful death, and Bernardo, having been
diagnosed as psychopathic, seems far from being a candidate for rehabilitation.
But whether he is housed in a maximum or medium security facility is not a
judgment for the prime minister, the justice minister, the minister of public
safety, the victims nor public opinion to make. We train police, lawyers,
judges, prison wardens, etc., strenuously to make such decisions studiously,
based on legislated principles and their training and dedication to the job. If
their judgment is to be over-ridden by political or social opinion gathering,
why train people to make them in the first place? Why not simply make Twitter
or Facebook posts the sentencing, incarceration agents? Or why not just load
all convicts onto ships to disgorge them in some island far away? (Please
excuse the hyperbole; been listening to the Leader of the Opposition too much,
I fear.)
For opposition parties who have found in the transfer of
Bernardo a juicy propaganda windfall, I would suggest proceeding carefully. Although
mistakes are made and legislation has had to be revisited and revised
accordingly, the Canadian justice system is one of the best and fairest
humanity in its long history has been able to devise. The transfer of Bernardo
is not a sign of system failure, it’s evidence that it’s working. At least,
it’s working if restoration and rehabilitation are still
objectives of the pursuit of justice.
And to the governing Liberals, the legislation that rewards convicts
with increasing liberty as their rehabilitation progresses is vital to the
entire justice program. Even if Paul Bernardo should after this transfer prove
that he is irredeemable in any socially acceptable way, the transfer back to
maximum security is there to be exercised, isn’t it? If the restoration
of the victims’ families is as important as you say it is, then help Canadians
understand that the restoration effort is not helped by granting victims
a determinant role in the justice plan for the perpetrator, but in the social
supports to which all citizens are entitled.
I add just two personal anecdotes:
First: In 1981, my fifteen-year-old daughter accepted an
ill-advised ride with a young man, a ride that ended in tragedy when the car
rolled and both died. The driver was unlicensed to drive, the car unregistered.
Had the driver lived, my daughter’s death might have resulted in criminal
charges and a prison sentence. Saskatchewan Government Insurance sent us a
cheque for $2,500, a restorative and well-meant but bureaucratic gesture. We were told that this
was common practice in such cases.
Had the driver lived and been pilloried, or had the
government sent me a cheque for two million dollars, that would have only added
to the grief I still bear some forty years later.
(My daughter had very loosely-jointed fingers; I can still
feel her hand in mine.)
I mourn both deaths.
Second: I spent the better part of a day at the Healing
Lodge on the Beardy’s Okemasis First Nation a few years ago. It’s a pre-release,
minimum security facility that forms part of an offender rehabilitation
process. There are no fences, but few “escapes,” and residents must shop and
cook for their “house” and are able to spend some days in a guest house with
family at intervals. If we abandon the principle of incremental loosening of
restraint as rewards for progress, aren’t we then abandoning the principle of rehabilitation
with it?
I wish you and your governing colleagues a good and restful
summer hiatus,
Sincerely,
George G. Epp,
citizen, voter, happy-to-be Canadian.
Box 148,
Rosthern, SK; S0K 3R0
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