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 it is currently mandatory for murderers who have finished their mandatory sentences to receive a parole hearing regardless of whether they applied for it or not.
“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.”
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.
“We have seen as a result of this decision that 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.
The bill had its first reading in the Senate on Nov. 8.
