Like so many others, I was deeply saddened to learn the details of Tori Stafford’s tragic demise ten years ago when news coverage of her disappearance, murder, and the subsequent trial of Terri-Lynne McClintic and her accomplice shook Canadians to their foundation.\u00a0 This autumn, we learned that McClintic had been re-designated as a medium security threat and transferred to a healing lodge in Saskatchewan. The raw emotion that Canadians felt over this was easily tapped by Conservative politicians who advocated for the government to break its arms \u2013length relationship with Correctional Service Canada and have her sent back to prison.\u00a0 It sounded like an easy solution, but it wasn\u2019t ever a legal option for the government which is \u2013 in the end \u2013 a good thing.<\/p>\n
What the Conservatives aren\u2019t telling people is that Terri Lynne McClintic was re-designated as a medium security threat while they were in Government and at the time, they said the government had to trust Correctional Service Canada, but their story changed in a few short years. Recently, it was also revealed that there were several other child murderers transferred to healing lodges under their watch as well.<\/p>\n
The Conservatives clearly attempted to politicize our justice system in a way that, as indicated by an Assistant Deputy Attorney General, runs contrary to “a number of constitutional, statutory and common law practices”.\u00a0 Despite this, it is obvious that for many, accepting our system’s limitations and safeguards in this case was less than easy.\u00a0 MPs were put in a bind because in order to defend our system which built in real, defined, and important limits as to what parliament can do for outcomes that involve any person held in custody, they had to vote against a Conservative motion that appeared to offer an easy solution for this case, but wasn\u2019t really a viable option.<\/p>\n
The truth is that no elected official has the ability to instruct Correctional Services Canada in a way that will determine the treatment of an individual prisoner.\u00a0 Countries where members of a government are able to act in that way are less than democratic.\u00a0 The government\u2019s ability in instances like this is limited to reviews which have brought about desirable outcomes in the past and did in this instance as well. There is a process that has to be followed and a review had to take place before any move occurs.\u00a0 New Democrats supported this with a request that the review be expedited.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happened, which resulted in a change of policy that applies to all prisoners. McClintic was then transferred to the Edmonton Institution for Women, a multi-level facility, while maintaining her medium security designation.<\/p>\n
The whole political battle could have been avoided and should be seen as a cautionary tale about the court of public opinion.\u00a0 If you will recall, there was public speculation about Tory Stafford\u2019s parents when she went missing for over a hundred days back in 2009, showing how this was always an emotionally driven case.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we have to rely on our established processes that can be fine-tuned to match identified needs.\u00a0 If not, we could descend into wild-west justice that can be demanded by elected officials because it suits their political desires.\u00a0 In short, we can\u2019t allow ourselves to diminish our justice system so that it makes us feel good in one instance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like so many others, I was deeply saddened to learn the details of Tori Stafford’s tragic demise ten years ago when news coverage of her disappearance, murder, and the subsequent trial of Terri-Lynne McClintic and her accomplice shook Canadians to their foundation.\u00a0 This autumn, we learned that McClintic had been re-designated as a medium security …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[349],"class_list":["post-17629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-district","tag-carol-hughes"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 12:05:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17630,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17629\/revisions\/17630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}