Niagara Falls MP’s motion to keep Paul Bernardo in maximum security prison defeated

A unanimous consent motion put forward by Conservative Niagara Falls MP Tony Baldinelli to keep convicted killer Paul Bernardo in a maximum security prison was rejected by the House of Commons yesterday (June 12). 

“Today, I was disappointed that the Liberal Government–specifically, the Liberal MP from Kingston, Mark Gerretsen–rejected my unanimous consent motion in the House of Commons to immediately return the vile serial killer and rapist, Paul Bernardo, to maximum-security prison at the Millhaven Institution,” Baldinelli said in a statement posted to his website and social media pages.

Baldinelli’s motion called for Bernado, whose transfer to a medium-security facility was recently announced, to be kept in a maximum-security prison and for all other “court-ordered dangerous offenders and mass murderers be permanently assigned maximum security classification.”

Baldinelli also plans to put forward a private member’s bill this week that will “ban Justin Trudeau from allowing Bernardo to ever leave maximum-security prison and make sure it never happens again.” 

The MP’s motion comes days after Canadians learned of Bernardo’s transfer.

While the news ignited outrage, a Quebec criminology professor who studies sexual murderers told the Canadian Press (CP) that Bernardo’s transfer to a prison that specializes in treating violent rapists almost two decades after his conviction is not unusual, 

Bernardo, who has been serving a life sentence for kidnapping, torturing and killing 15-year-old Kristen French and 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s near St. Catharines, was quietly transferred to La Macaza Institution, a medium-security prison about 190 kilometres northwest of Montreal, earlier this month.

Bernardo was initially incarcerated at the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario and later spent about a decade at the Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison just outside Kingston.

Family members of Bernardo’s victims and Canadian politicians were furious about the transfer, with Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino calling it “incomprehensible.”

In a recent statement, the Correctional Service of Canada said its commissioner Anne Kelly was reviewing Bernardo’s security classification to ensure it was “appropriate, evidence-based, and more importantly, adequately considered victims.” 

“We are restricted by law in what we can divulge about an offenders case,” it added. 

Correctional Service of Canada also said that Bernardo “continues to serve an indeterminate and life sentence — the most serious possible in Canada.”

It also stressed that he “continues to be incarcerated in a secure and controlled institution – with every precaution in place to maintain safety.” 

Jean Proulx of the Université de Montréal told CP that although the public fury was understandable, Bernardo’s transfer is not shocking.

“I know the emotional reaction of the population is always very intense,” Proulx told the news organization.

“There is anger, anxiety, but at the same time, a person who commits those types of crimes, 25 years later, they may be a different person or they may be not a different person and we have to assess the level of risk.”

In a statement, Baldinelli said the justice system should not “benefit violent criminals who commit unspeakable crimes.”

“In Niagara and across the country and beyond, the name ‘Paul Bernardo’ is synonymous with the word ‘evil.’ Evil criminal monsters like him should never benefit from a prison transfer,” he said in a statement. 

While the Trudeau government did not order or arrange the transfer, Conservatives argue the transfer is the result of less punitive criminal legislation and that the government could step in to reverse the decision. 

“Paul Bernardo is a vile monster,” a news release posted on Baldinelli’s website reads.

“Common sense Conservatives will put him, and criminals like him, back where they belong. We will bring home a justice system where victims, not criminals, come first.”

Last week, Mendicino says he expects the Correctional Service of Canada to take a victim-centred and trauma-informed approach in such cases, and that he plans to address the decision process for the reported transfer with the agency’s commissioner.

Tim Danson, the lawyer for the families of two of Bernardo’s victims, said the move and the controversy surrounding it has brought up decades of anguish and grief.

With files from The Canadian Press