WATCH ABOVE: Justice Minister Peter MacKay announced on Wednesday that he has tabled the Life Means Life act
TORONTO – Justice Minister Peter MacKay formally introduced legislation Wednesday that he says will keep most heinous criminals behind bars for life without the possibility of parole.
The proposed legislation is being touted by the government as necessary for those who commit crimes involving the killing of police officers or correctional officers; terrorism; kidnapping or sexual assault and crimes “of a particularly brutal nature.”
“Offenders need to be subject to penalties that fit the severity of the crimes they have committed,” MacKay told reporters in Ottawa. “For too long the welfare of victims was held as the highest priority for our criminal justice system and that has changed with the election of a Conservative government.”
WATCH: Peter MacKay says Life Means Life act is not capital punishment
Currently in Canada the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder is life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
“That means that even the worst and most violent offenders do have the opportunity to roam our streets, walk among our innocent and unsuspecting population and potentially kill again,” said MacKay. “This would end with the passage of this bill.”
Opposition parties are denouncing the new legislation from the Harper government as political posturing ahead of a looming federal election.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau agreed that notorious killers, like Paul Bernardo or Robert Pickton, should be held in prison until they die, but said Canada already has a strong judicial process that allows judges to determine if repeat or violent criminals should be given dangerous offender status, effectively ensuring that they never see life outside of a prison.
Life without parole: 4 questions and answers
Others have questioned the claim that violent offenders who serve a 25 year prison sentence are really at a risk to reoffend.
Isabel Grant, a professor at the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, said the numbers simply aren’t out there and more research needs to be done.
“We don’t have any recent data on the number of paroled murderers who kill again,” she told Global News last week when the new legislation was announced. “We do know that violent recidivism is lower for murderers than for other violent offenders.”
*With a file from Amy Minsky
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