Timing's lethal for private bill
By MARK BONOKOSKI
Sun Media
OTTAWA -- If it's true in both life and comedy that timing is everything,
then it would be safe to say Reform MP John Reynolds hasn't a chance.
If the private member's bill he recently tabled for first reading had to
do
with peace and goodwill among men, then his timing at the advent of the
Christmas season would have been impeccable.
A maestro's stroke, no less.
The same timing would apply if his bill were to do with solving the plight
of the homeless,
always a provocative theme at this time of year when hearths are warm and
generosity has
been known to prevail over sensibility.
Charity, virtually any charity, is bound to tug at the heartstrings when
sleighbells are
ringing, as every Salvation Army Santa worth his street-corner kettle will
attest.
But John Reynolds' private member's bill has to do with none of these things.
It has to do,
instead, with bringing back the death penalty for those special killers
in our lives.
Insert needle, open valve. Yes, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
While private member's bills calling for the return of capital punishment
have been a dime a
dozen over the last 30 years, but worth no more than a plugged nickel,
John Reynolds has
to be given credit for putting in the hard slog for the return of something
which has a
snowball's odds in hell of being reinstated into the Constitution.
Banished since 1976, when Rene Vaillancourt became the first killer sentenced
to die to
escape the noose, it will stay banished until Canadians stop electing bleeding-heart
Liberals
and warm and fuzzy New Democrats.
It could be argued, and argued beyond a reasonable doubt, that modern technology
-
primarily the advancement of DNA gene printing - would now negate the possibility
of a
wrongful conviction and, therefore, a wrongful execution.
If the test comes back stating, hypothetically, that there is only one
chance in six billion that
Clifford Olson was not the killer of all those children, meaning the other
5,999,999,999
people making up the world were absolutely innocent, then society should
have no trouble
setting a date for Olson to pay a visit to the hangman.
The odds of being wrong are infinitely infinite. There would be no more
cock-ups as
occurred in the cases of Donald Marshall and David Milgaard.
And Olson, for one, would be gone.
FIRST-DEGREE MURDER
To increase his odds, Reynolds is seeking the death penalty only for those
involved in
"aggravated" first-degree murder - meaning murders committed with a great
deal of
forethought and "in a heinous manner that defies human dignity."
A killer like Clifford Olson would therefore apply, as would St. Catharines
sex-killer Paul
Bernardo. Both stalked their victims, coldly and calculatedly, both tortured
their prey and
both decided to take their victims' lives rather than cut them loose.
Why should those two murderers still be alive?
For those who consider hanging to be cruel and unusual punishment, despite
the fact a
well-placed knot brings about a quick, almost painless death (I interviewed
Canada's last
hangman many moons ago), Reynolds would prefer executions to be carried
out by lethal
injection.
And he spells it out in Section 746.11 of Bill C-335, which reads: "A sentence
of death
shall be executed by the intravenous injection of sodium thiopental in
a quantity and in a
manner calculated to cause death."
Reynolds has thought of everything. There are even provisions for convicted
killers who
are pregnant at the time their execution is scheduled.
Their deaths would simply be postponed until the baby was born - and then,
goodbye
mama.
Not very Christmassy, is it?
Well, not to worry. It will never fly.
Back in 1987, for example, Don Mazankowski tried to get capital punishment
reinstated,
but his motion was defeated by a vote of 148-127.
Unlike John Reynolds, who is a mere opposition backbencher from the West
Coast,
Mazankowski was then deputy prime minister of the ruling Tories.
If Maz couldn't do it with the clout he then carried in the House of Commons,
Reynolds
has no chance at all - regardless of his timing, and regardless of all
the future Clifford
Olsons of this world.
This is unfortunate.
For many Canadians, it wouldn't have been such a bad present.
Bonokoski is Sun Media's national affairs columnist and appears Tuesdays,
Thursdays, Sundays. He can be emailed at bonokosk@sunpub.com
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