Global Courant
Public Security Secretary Marco Mendicino declined to say on Thursday why he was not told earlier about plans to transfer notorious serial rapist and convicted murderer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison after his office and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office had known for months. without informing any of the politicians.
Speaking to reporters amid the fallout, the minister said he was “handling” the “breakdown in the flow of information” within his office, but would not say whether any of his team will be reprimanded as a result, or what the His staff’s explanation was why he was kept in the dark in the first place.
“It is very clear that I should have been informed at the time and I made that abundantly clear to my staff,” Mendicino said on Thursday. “I’ve taken the corrective action to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
As has come to light over the past two days, Mendicino’s office was first notified on March 2 of Bernardo’s possible transfer from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security prison through what his office described as “general communication products.”
This came after the Office of the Minister was informed by the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) about the possible move and asked for more information.
Subsequently, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) said it sent a follow-up email to the minister’s office on May 25, four days before Bernardo’s May 29 transfer from Ontario to Quebec. Trudeau was notified that day, but Mendicino was not monitored until May 30, when he said he was “deeply concerned and shocked.”
“What’s important is that these problems are identified and corrected and that’s what I did with my team,” said Mendicino. “It’s important that I get those briefings in a timely manner.”
After calling for Mendicino to resign, Conservative leader Pierre Poilièvre said the latest revelations show “a failure of leadership at the top”.
“We now know why the Prime Minister refuses to fire his incompetent and misleading public security minister, and it is that the Prime Minister himself was the one who accepted the transfer,” Poilièvre told Trudeau, who was not in the room, during question time, to ” stand up and explain to Paul Bernardo’s victims why he wanted to give this monster more freedom and comfort?”
NDP MP Peter Julian called the Liberals’ “level of disorganization and negligence” “appalling”.
“After the Minister of Public Security was not notified of the transfer of one of the most vicious criminals in Canadian history, we now know that the Prime Minister’s Office was notified three months ago. They had that time could use to ensure that the victims’ families were warned. How does this always happen with such serious files? Why do they show such obvious incompetence? When are they going to fix this?” asked Julian during question time.
In an effort to prevent this situation from happening again, Mendicino has said he will issue a “ministerial directive” requiring CSC to reform the way it handles high-profile prison transfers, including requiring victims to be notified whenever a prisoner is transferred from maximum security to lower security facilities, and “formally and immediately” notifying the minister in advance.
Mendicino’s latest comments came during a hefty and heated scrum on the way out of a committee hearing on Parliament Hill.
He was there to testify to a separate information-sharing failure on the federal government that resulted in intelligence that China had targeted Conservative MP Michael Chong and failed to get past the bureaucratic and ministerial staff levels, before the politicians in power.
Also in that case Mendicino issued a ministerial directive in an effort to change the flow of information, he directed the federal spy agency CSIS to ensure that threats against lawmakers receive “the highest attention”.
During the foreign interference-focused hearing, Bloc Quebecois and Conservative MPs tried to question Mendicino about the Bernardo issue, but after Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull raised concerns with the Speaker that the inquiries were off-topic, the line of questioning didn’t get far .
“I have no doubt… that the minister had the information on this transfer and had the information on all other matters pertaining to Mr. Chong… So given that… I am going to ask the minister if he can do the only thing that I think he knows he should do … and step down from here,” said Conservative MP Blaine Calkins.
Commenting on Calkins, the minister said he remains focused “on one thing and one thing only, and that is doing my job to protect the safety and security of Canadians.”
“All this reflects the lack of transparency and the contradictions, and this is part of the problem with our fellow member for Wellington-Halton Hills,” said Bloc Quebecois MP Kristina Michaud.
Bernardo, 58, was convicted in 1995 of kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering two teenagers, 15-year-old Kristen French and 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy, in the early 1990s near St. Catharines, Ont. He was also convicted of manslaughter in the death of Tammy Homolka.
Sentenced to life in prison, he is listed as a dangerous offender and is currently serving an indefinite sentence with no end date. While the resurgence of this case has sparked a new wave of outrage and outrage across Canada, the minister was unable to say on Thursday whether there are any plans to overturn Bernardo’s move, who is currently being assessed by CSC.
