Pressure continues to mount on Mendicino over Bernardo transfer briefings – National | 24CA News
Pressure continued to mount on Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino Thursday over what he knew about Paul Bernardo’s jail switch final month.
Mendicino confronted resignation calls from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre Wednesday after the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) revealed it alerted the minister’s workplace months earlier than the infamous rapist and serial killer was moved to a medium-security jail in May.
“It is very clear that I should have been briefed at the time, and that is something that I made abundantly clear to my staff,” Mendicino advised reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.
“As I said yesterday in the House of Commons, I have taken the corrective steps to ensure that that does not happen again.”
24CA News was the primary to report that Mendicino’s workplace knew about Bernardo’s switch months earlier than the minister did on Wednesday. The minister’s workplace advised the outlet it didn’t inform Mendicino about Bernardo’s switch till May 30 – the day after the transfer occurred.
The CSC advised Global News Wednesday it contacted Mendicino’s workplace by e-mail on March 2 to tell them that Bernardo can be transferred from Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security penitentiary close to Kingston, Ont. A switch date hadn’t been decided at the moment.
CSC then adopted up with the minister’s workplace on May 25, telling them Bernardo can be transferred on May 29. News of the switch made headlines on June 2.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s workplace mentioned employees have been additionally alerted in March to the “possibility” that Bernardo can be transferred, and referred that info to Mendicino’s workplace when it was acquired.
Trudeau himself was briefed concerning the switch on May 29, the day it happened, in keeping with PMO spokesperson Alison Murphy.
“Instead of acting, the Prime Minister did nothing and left it in the hands of his most useless minister,” Poilievre mentioned a tweet in response to the PMO’s assertion Wednesday.
“This is a failure of leadership at the very top.”
Mendicino repeated Thursday that he has issued new directives to the CSC, which embody factoring in victims’ rights and sensitivities into jail transfers, informing the minister straight of high-profile transfers and notifying households of inmate transfers to medium-security establishments.
“The current lay of the land is that there are protocols in place that do allow the Correctional Service of Canada to navigate around what are legitimate security concerns, what are legitimate privacy concerns where inmates are transferred to minimum security institutions, but not medium security institutions,” he mentioned.
“We have taken the concrete steps to rectify that with this direction, and I will be working very closely with the CSC.”
Bernardo, 58, has been serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, torture and homicide of youngsters Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy within the early Nineteen Nineties. He and his then-wife Karla Homolka additionally killed her youthful sister, Tammy Homolka.
News of the switch induced an uproar.
Tim Danson, a lawyer for the victims’ households, mentioned it was unacceptable that the jail service refused to reply questions concerning the cause for Bernardo’s transfer or particulars of his custody situations, citing his privateness rights.
Mendicino mentioned on June 5 the CSC would assessment the switch. That assessment needs to be accomplished “within a few weeks,” the CSC advised Global News on Tuesday.
A authorities official beforehand advised Global News the CSC supplied Mendicino with a heads-up of the switch, however the resolution was unbiased and since transfers usually are not usually public info, they weren’t able to remark earlier than June 2.
Poilievre requires Mendicino’s resignation
Poilievre claimed Wednesday that Mendicino has “lied” to Canadians too many occasions.
“These are too many lies,” he mentioned. “It’s one lie too many. It is time for Marco Mendicino to resign.”
Poilievre additionally referred to as for Trudeau to fireside Mendicino if the general public security minister didn’t step down himself.
Mendicino advised MPs sitting on the process and House affairs committee Thursday, the place he was testifying on overseas interference, he’s targeted on “one thing only, and that is doing my job to protect the safety and security of Canadians.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh advised reporters Wednesday that firing or demoting the minister is just not the reply, saying he believes this was an instance of the Liberal authorities being awful on the subject of information-sharing.
He as an alternative laid the blame on the ft of Trudeau and mentioned there are legit considerations about how Mendicino has dealt with his portfolio, which incorporates the Liberals’ controversial gun laws.
“It doesn’t look like he’s got his house in order,” Singh mentioned. “I just don’t want to let the prime minister off the hook. I want to make it very clear the prime minister sets the tone.”
Bloc-Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet quipped Wednesday: “This government has a real bad habit of saying, ‘I didn’t know.’ If they know so little, what the hell are they doing there?”
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May advised Global News Thursday that she doesn’t consider Mendicino ought to resign, however news of Bernardo’s switch “should have rung alarm bells.”
“I don’t think it’s a hanging offense or a firing offense because they’re (politicians) not the decision makers … It does raise a red flag that our system should be much more sensitive to the rights of victims when a killer has committed unspeakable crimes that no Canadian will ever forget,” she mentioned.
“It should not have been a quiet warning. Ministers should have been notified, but they’re not asked for their permission to do it. That’s the key point I want to make.”
— with information from Global News’ Sean Boynton
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
