Clifford Olson’s parole ‘eligibility’ is a disgrace

By Scott Newark

The last time I saw Clifford Olson was in July 2006 at the maximum security prison at Ste-Anne-des-Plaines. Olson was in his traditional full rant at the members of the National Parole Board, who were awkwardly assembled to afford him his right under our “justice” system to seek release from prison on parole.
I’ll never forget the absurdity of the circumstances because corrections officials actually built a special cell that he was behind, securely away from case workers and parole board members who knew he was too dangerous to sit beside while he demanded to be let out of jail.
It was Canadian justice at its finest.
Back in 2006, Olson had a new angle. While waving a handful of scrawled notes, he told the panel that he was going to be released anyway and that Governor (George) Pataki of New York would be sending a plane up to get him because he had “inside details” of how the 9/11 attacks had occurred and who was really behind them. Frankly, it was at least as realistic as the notion that this mass murderer should ever get out of prison other than in a pine box.
Not surprisingly, he was denied parole, but as the victims’ families pointed out, the law that permitted him to seek parole, 11 first degree murder convictions notwithstanding, and which had allowed him to seek early parole after only 15 years, permitted him to do so every two years thereafter. Make no mistake, Olson knows he’s not going anywhere, but he enjoys the torment he causes the victims and the way he exposes the justice system for being powerless to prevent him. It’s called psychopathy.
At the time, the story received huge coverage, and was met with much harrumphing from then Justice Minister Vic Toews about the need to reform our laws, protect victims and prevent such abuses. No doubt, there was also something about the Liberals being ‘soft on crime…..’
Despite this, and with said Minister Toews now being the Public Safety Minister — singularly responsible for the laws involving corrections and parole — the laws remain the same and Clifford Olson is back up again today, once again seeking parole.
And once again his victims’ families will steel themselves and gather in memory of their lost loved ones to oppose Olson’s release … to ensure the victims are not forgotten and to make sure the Parole Board of Canada knows they are watching. Like so many victims of crime in Canada, they don’t trust the justice system. Would you?
Putting aside my personal view that Olson’s sentencing choices should have been between a rope and the electric chair, his case defines the Canadian justice system’s reluctance to legally differentiate between the relatively few worst offenders and the bulk of criminals at whom our laws are legitimately aimed.
Let’s start with the original sentence: Olson was convicted of 11 counts of first-degree murder, each of which carries an obligatory “life” sentence with no parole eligibility for at least 25 years. What that means in our say-one-thing-do-another Canadian justice system, however, is that because “life” theoretically means forever, the parole ineligibility is concurrent rather than consecutive. That’s right … in Canada, it makes no difference if you are convicted of a single first-degree murder or five … or 11 … the real sentence is the first count and the rest are just lumped in.
After years of public battle from victims and police groups, the law was finally changed in the late 90’s to eliminate multiple murderers from getting the chance at early early parole through sec. 745 of the Criminal Code after only 15 years (Olson was still eligible and applied, but was refused). We also sensibly changed the s.745 procedure to create a judicial pre-screening process to prevent abuse of victims in unrealistic cases.
What hasn’t changed is the law that denies judges at least the discretion to impose consecutive parole ineligibility periods for multiple murders. Several attempts to accomplish this have been before Parliament over the years, including in a Bill introduced by Liberal MP Albina Guarnieri, but have always been defeated by a majority of Liberal, Bloc and NDP MPs, who seem to feel that judicial discretion is a one way street and only to be invoked for the offender’s benefit.
Fortunately, Bill C-48, which is now before Parliament, would permit exactly that judicial discretion to order consecutive parole ineligibility periods for multiple murderers. If in place, we might not be hearing from Russell Williams again for 50 years, which I’ll bet most of us would find appropriate. We can hope, this time, it won’t be defeated by MPs with the wrong priorities or get sacrificed in the procedural interests of prorogation or election.
What hasn’t happened however are the concurrent amendments to stop the Clifford Olsons of the world from revictimizing their victims every two years by seeking parole as the law now permits. We could do this by using the same s. 745 ‘screening’ model and require murderers who have been denied parole at 25 years to seek advance judicial approval to even apply for parole, failing which the judge could order that no further applications could be made for say … 10 years.
Imagine … actual consequences for making the request. It isn’t perfect and it’s too late to prevent this hearing. But, it could potentially end this national disgrace of tolerating the pointless revictimization of people who’ve already suffered enough.
Scott Newark is a former crown prosecutor, executive officer of the Canadian Police Association, and victims’ advocate who attended the Olson parole hearings in 1996 and 2006. He is a regular columnist for iPolitics.ca on justice and security matters.