Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the decision by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) to transfer serial killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security institution is “shocking and incomprehensible.”
“Our thoughts are with the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, and all those affected by these horrific crimes,” he said in a statement on June 2.
Dubbed the “Scarborough Rapist,” Bernardo was convicted in 1995 of kidnapping, sexually assaulting, murdering, and dismembering 15-year-old French and 14-year-old Mahaffy in the early 1990s near St. Catharines, Ontario.
Bernardo was initially incarcerated at the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario and later spent about a decade at the Millhaven Institution, a maximum security prison just outside Kingston.
Citing prison union officials and the lawyer for the victims’ families, multiple media outlets say Bernardo was quietly transferred earlier this week to the medium-security La Macaza Institution, about 190 kilometres northwest of Montreal.
Mendicino said he expects CSC to take a “victim-centered” and “trauma-informed” approach in these cases.
“Canadians expect the most serious crimes to have the most serious consequences, that the Victims Bill of Rights be followed and that the safety of our communities is placed above all,” he said.
“I will be addressing the transfer decision process with CSC Commissioner [Anne] Kelly.”
Responding to the statement, Conservative MP Frank Caputo questioned Mendicino’s claim that the government has taken a “victim-centered” approach.
“They have done nothing but reduce or maintain sentence ranges for sex and gun offenders,” he said on Twitter.
Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment and declared a dangerous offender. Before killing the teens, he and his then-wife Karla Homolka committed a series of rapes and murders in the Greater Toronto Area between the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Homolka pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served a 12-year prison sentence before her release in 2005.
Bernardo was denied parole attempts in 2018 and 2021.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.