We’re on the cusp of real change.
Help us deliver historic justice reform now.
Canada’s soft-on-crime policies and our country’s revolving-door justice system are failing victims, survivors and their families — even long after violent offenders and murderers are incarcerated.
In early summer 2023, the transfer of serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo from a maxiumum to a medium security prison stunned Canadians and heaped fresh trauma upon victims, families and communities.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, murderers and serial killers must remain in a maximum security prison until the end of their sentence — where they belong.
In response to this injustice — and others like it — I’ve tabled Bill C-320, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (disclosure of information to victims). Just a few weeks ago, my made-in-Oshawa legislation received rare cross-party support in the House of Commons.
If passed into law, my package of commons sense justice reforms will ensure that victims, survivors and their families are provided with timely and transparent disclosure regarding an incarcerated individual’s movement within the corrections system and their parole hearings. It'll also crack down on 'hush-hush' prisoner transfers from maximum to minimum security facilities.
This legislation is a homegrown, Oshawa-based effort supported by Lisa Freeman, Oshawa's well-regarded victims rights advocate. Lisa's late father, Roland Slingerland, an Oshawa caretaker and Royal Canadian Navy veteran, was bludgeoned to death at a downtown Oshawa rooming house in 1991. Though handed a life sentence, his axe-murderer, Terrence Porter (already on parole at the time of his 1991 crime) was paroled during the COVID-19 pandemic and now enjoys a restful life at a low-security facility in western Canada with chef-catered meals — just a few miles away from Lisa's sister. It's a stunning blow to Lisa's families and survivors like hers.
Please add your voice to this made-in-Oshawa bill now.