Liberals Defeat Bill That Would Keep Paul Bernardo Inside Maximum-Security Prison
Ottawa, ON – Tony Baldinelli, Conservative Member of Parliament for Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, released the following statement after the Liberal government voted down his Private Member’s Bill C-232, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (Maximum Security Offenders).
“Bill C-232 would have required inmates who had been found to be dangerous offenders or those convicted of more than one first-degree murder to be assigned a security classification of maximum and confined in a maximum-security penitentiary or area in a penitentiary. Instead, the Liberal government voted against the bill.
“This legislative effort was about doing what was right, by ensuring criminal monsters such as Paul Bernardo, Mark Smich, Dellen Millard, and Luka Magnotta were returned to serve their sentences in maximum security, where they rightly belonged. Sadly, these Mark Carney Liberals voted against this common-sense change.”
“These criminals should never have been allowed to be transferred from maximum-security confinement. Yet, because of bad Liberal policies in Bill C-83, that is exactly what happened in all of these cases.”
“The bill should have been considered a non-partisan and common-sense solution to an issue too often plaguing our criminal justice system. A system which seems to favour the rights of the offender over those of victims and their families.
“Bill C-232 would have helped restore Canadians’ confidence in our federal corrections system, and it would have demonstrated the deserved compassion to victims of crime and their loved ones, who are forced to live with the lifetime of pain and suffering caused by those who committed these unspeakable crimes.
“I made a promise to my constituents to fight to correct a bad policy decision made by the Liberal government. Despite this setback, I remain committed to ensuring changes will be made so that the rights of victims and their families are made the priority over those of the offenders.”