Even notorious murderers will often find themselves in university-like medium security prisons with sports and BBQ facilities
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A coalition of MPs from the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois have announced they will be staging an “emergency meeting” to probe why two of Canada’s most notorious killers now live at an open-campus prison equipped with a hockey rink, a wood shop and a billiards table.
In just the last year, cannibal murderer Luka Magnotta and serial killer Paul Bernardo were both quietly transferred to La Macaza Institution, a medium security prison in rural Quebec.
This prompted Conservative MP Frank Caputo to pay an official visit to La Macaza, where he reported encountering a “university campus” complete with an outdoor rink that transforms into a tennis court in the summer.
“Canada’s most horrific murderers are living better than most Canadians,” said Caputo in a widely circulated video.
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Canada’s most horrific murderers are living better than most Canadians.
This is a disgrace. Canadians need to know about it. 👇🚨 pic.twitter.com/NX2HUyj3gj
And the treatment given to Bernardo and Magnotta isn’t entirely beyond the pale. While there remain bleak and even decrepit corners of the Canadian prison system, it is possible if not common for heinous offenders to spend their days at low-security campuses replete with recreational amenities.
According to Statistics Canada, the majority of inmates classified as “dangerous offenders” live in medium-security institutions like La Macaza.
While not all dangerous offenders are murderers, the designation is only assigned in cases where a judge finds that the criminal “constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons.”
In the 2022/2023 fiscal year, the prison system had 580 dangerous offenders living in medium-security lodgings, against just 99 in maximum security.
And in 2018, an investigation by CTV News found that one in four incarcerated murderers lived in minimum-security facilities.
It’s so rare for Canada to put offenders in maximum security, in fact, that Correctional Service Canada’s official website writes that the institution’s primary aim is to “prepare inmates for a medium-security environment.”
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While Bernardo’s transfer to La Macaza last summer was called “incomprehensible” by then Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, criminologists at the time told reporters that it was actually to be expected.
University of Montréal criminology professor Jean Proulx told The Canadian Press in June that La Macaza was a common destination for violent sexual offenders who were approaching their parole eligibility, as it had programs to “reduce the interest for rape or sadistic behaviour.”
Since 2018, La Macaza has also been the home of Michael Rafferty, the murderer of eight-year-old Woodstock, Ont., girl Tori Stafford. In 2009, Rafferty and his girlfriend Terri-Lynne McClintic lured Stafford into a car with a promise of seeing a puppy, and proceeded to torture, rape and finally murder the child with a hammer.
McClintic, notably, would spark a similar wave of national outrage over prisoner treatment when in 2018 she was transferred to a minimum-security Indigenous healing lodge – despite not being Indigenous herself.
La Macaza is just one of a network of “open campus” medium-security facilities across Canada. While the perimeter is still surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, inmates are given more freedom of movement, expanded privileges about owning private property (including video game systems) and access to common areas, such as kitchenettes in which to prepare meals.
“Every night I would cook, play video games, work out at the gym, and play cards with other guys, and all the while my CD player never left my side,” reads a 2016 account by former inmate Karim Martin of living at Ontario’s Fenbrook Institution. “The prison reminded me of a college campus, except all of the residents were male and had criminal records.”
During the summer, Martin added that “inmates would get together and cook on the grills outside while watching another group of inmates play sports, mainly soccer or softball.”
For the one quarter of incarcerated murders who end up in minimum security, meanwhile, accommodations can become as comfortable as a cottage or a shared duplex.
William Head Institution, located just outside Victoria, boasts a picturesque waterfront location, tennis courts, a theatre program and security so light that escaping is a simple matter of walking around a perimeter fence at low tide. That’s what two inmates did in 2019 before immediately proceeding to murder a random homeowner who lived nearby.
In 2016, Conservative MP Erin O’Toole – who was then serving as the party’s public safety critic – decried William Head’s “summer camp-like conditions.”
At the time, the facility was hosting 86 murderers; 29 convicted of first-degree murder and 57 for second-degree. Prison officials also defended William Head’s amenities at the time as “not being out of the ordinary” for similar prisons.
Virtually every pollable demographic of Canadian now agrees with the statement that “everything is broken,” according to a new Postmedia-commissioned Leger poll. Even Liberal voters thought the country was a mess; 43 per cent of them agreed with the “everything is broken” sentiment. As to why, the poll found respondents expressing all the usual complaints: “everything is expensive,” “my standard of living is declining” and health care is inaccessible. What’s more telling is that respondents were least interested by the very issues that remain at the top of the Trudeau government priority list. Namely, climate change and Canada’s “standing on the international stage.”
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