Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is questioning the Parole Board of Canada’s rationale for preventing the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy — who were tortured and killed by Paul Bernardo — from addressing their daughters’ murderer in person next week.
Tim Danson, longtime lawyer for the French and Mahaffy families, said the reason the parole board gave was that it couldn’t ensure safety.
“They are in emotional turmoil. This brings back everything,” Danson told CBC Thursday morning.
He noted the families were able to deliver their statements in person back in 2018, when Bernardo was being held at a maximum security facility.
Bernardo was moved last year to La Macaza Institute, a medium security facility in Quebec.
“It’s very, very disturbing,” said Danson.
The families of two teenage girls murdered by Paul Bernardo are being denied the opportunity to read their victim impact statements in person at the killer’s parole hearing. Metro Morning host David Common spoke with the lawyer for the families.
On social media Thursday morning, Poilievre suggested the federal government doesn’t want the families to see Bernardo’s new living conditions.
“The families of Paul Bernardo’s victims are being told they cannot attend his parole hearings in person, despite having done so in the past,” he posted to X.
“Is this because the government doesn’t want his victims’ families to see what this monster’s life is like after he was moved out of a maximum security facility?”
The Parole Board of Canada has not yet responded to CBC’s request for comment.
A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, whose portfolio includes the parole board, said the board is an arms-length body that makes decisions independently.
Bernardo is ‘loving this,’ lawyer says
Bernardo is serving a life sentence for kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering southern Ontario teenagers French, 15, and Mahaffy, 14 — crimes he committed with help from his then-wife Karla Homolka.
Designated a dangerous offender — a label reserved for Canada’s most brutal criminals — Bernardo is not likely to ever be released from prison.
Danson said the families have the right to confront their daughters’ killer in person.
The Corrections and Conditional Release Act says the board “shall make every effort to fully understand the need of the victim and of the members of his or her family to attend the hearing and witness its proceedings.”
The act does allow the parole board to restrict attendance if “the security and good order of the institution in which the hearing is to be held is likely to be adversely affected by the person’s presence.”
“[The families] don’t want this to be sanitized through a computer screen,” Danson said. “It’s important that they’re there.
“Paul Bernardo is loving this. This is all entertainment for him and he benefits by the families not being able to deliver their victim impact statements as effectively as they have a right to do.”
B.C. Conservative MP Frank Caputo says he wants answers on why the Parole Board of Canada barred victims’ families from attending an upcoming hearing for Paul Bernardo in person.
Conservative MP Frank Caputo called the parole board’s decision “absolutely and positively awful” and called for more information.
“It’s just so wrong on so many levels,” said the Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo MP Wednesday.
“This has to change.”