Mon May 30, 2022 – 9:09 pm EDT
OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided Friday that “sentences of imprisonment without a realistic possibility of parole” are no longer permissible in Canada.
“[These types of sentences] are intrinsically incompatible with human dignity because of their degrading nature, as they deny offenders any moral autonomy by depriving them, in advance and definitively, of any possibility of reintegration into society,” the court decided in its ruling.
“Sentences of imprisonment for life without a realistic possibility of parole may also have devastating effects on offenders, who are left with no incentive to rehabilitate themselves and whose incarceration will end only upon their death,” the court added.
With this decision, the maximum length of time a prisoner can be sentenced in Canada without being eligible for parole is 25 years, ending the 2011 amendment former Prime Minister Stephen Harper made to the Criminal Code that allowed judges to impose consecutive 25- year sentences for the most heinous offenders.
Friday’s decision comes specifically from the case of Alexandre Bisonette, who was convicted of six counts of first-degree murder when he opened fire on a group of Muslims in
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