Harper vows to ban parole for worst offenders; expert expects it would lead to Charter challenge

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Stephen Harper says if re-elected, he’ll try to pass a law that would ban parole eligibility for the worst offenders — something he was in the process of doing before the election was called.

“Such convicts will spend the rest of their lives behind bars where they belong because quite frankly, any chance of freedom for such a perpetrator betrays Canadians’ sense of justice and our faith in the justice system,” says the Conservative leader.

But a UBC professor believes this legislation will end up facing a constitutional challenge if it is ever passed.

“Section 12 of the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] protects us against cruel and unusual punishment, and the court has said that could apply to the length of a sentence, — or the quality of sentence — the type of sentence that it is,” says professor Isabel Grant. “The second aspect of it is the Section 7 Charter analysis, which is the right not to have your liberty deprived expect in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

The Harper government has spent millions of dollars defending often controversial legislation in the courts — battles which have often resulted in those laws being ruled unconstitutional.

In any event, Grant says notorious killers don’t see parole in this country anyway.

“The people that we think of the notorious killers in this country, they don’t get out. They don’t get parole,” says Grant. “The existing system is working in that respect. I’m not quite sure what the government’s trying to fix here.”

“This is again, the government legislating, I think, to appeal to their base, not to deal with a pressing social problem.”

She adds banning parole altogether could expose those who work in prisons or those behind bars to more violence, as there would be no incentive to rehabilitate.