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Capital Punishment Laws of the World
©) Abolished for all crimes

__ Abolished for crimes not committed in

@ Abolished in practice

WW Legal form of punishment for certain offenses

 

By Clare Raspopow
The Link (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — It’s not the
circumstances of Ronald Allen Smith’s
crimes or trial that make his case
noteworthy. Born in Red Deer, Alberta,
Smith killed two men who stopped to
pick him up while he was hitchhiking
through Montana in 1982. For his
crimes he was tried, convicted, and
sentenced to death.

Nor does his sentence make him
unique. Since 1980, 1,136 people have
been executed in the United States. The
death row population today is more
than triple what it was in 1982.

Smith’s case stands out from
others because it represents the first
time the Canadian government did not
seek clemency for one of its citizens
condemned to death on foreign soil
since the practice was instated in 1976.

In late October 2007, the
Conservative government’s Department
of Foreign Affairs changed its policy
to automatically advocate on behalf
of Canadians sentenced to die abroad,
stating it would no longer seek
clemency for Canadians on death row
in democratic countries where they
could expect a fair trial — neglecting to
specify what qualified as a “democratic
country” beyond the U.S. The decision
to request clemency is now decided on

12

 

exceptional circumstances (such as in war time)

a case-by-case basis.

Prime Minister Stephen
Harper stated that on the basis of
his government’s strong initiatives
on tackling violent crime, seeking
clemency on behalf of acknowledged

Double standard::Canadalfaces the death penalty

er

government’s tougher stance on crime.
Amnesty International has argued
that decisions such as these represent a
backslide in Canada’s ongoing struggle
in favour of human rights. They fear the
introduction of grey areas in Canada’s

The Conservatives announced they would not be co-sponsoring a United
Nations resolution calling for an international moratorium on the
death penalty, even though Canada has consistently sponsored similar
resolutions every year between 1998 and 2005

murders would “send the wrong
message to the Canadian population.”

The following month, the
Conservatives announced they would
not be co-sponsoring a United Nations
resolution calling for an international
moratorium on the death penalty,
even though Canada has consistently
sponsored similar resolutions every
year between 1998 and 2005.

Conservative spokesperson
Catherine Gagnaire explained to the
Associated Press that her government
believed the resolution had adequate
support already, and Canada would not
vote against it when it came before the
General Assembly.

Harper has said that his
government is not interested in
resurrecting the debate to reinstate the
death penalty in Canada, that these
decisions are just a reflection of his

stance on capital punishment could
endanger the lives of Canadians.

Canada’s long road to abolition

The struggle for the abolition of
the death penalty in Canada spanned
over 60 years.

Robert Bickerdike introduced
the first abolitionist bill in Canada in
1914, arguing that capital punishment
was essentially state murder, a
blot on Christianity, an ineffective
deterrent, and a brutal and unnecessary
punishment.

Bickerdike’s argument failed
to compel his contemporaries and
a motion for adjournment quickly
defeated the bill.

But, Bickerdike remained a
lone voice of dissent in Parliament,
stubbornly refusing to accept defeat as
he tried for three more years to get his

 

bill passed, and never succeeded.

Despite rejecting an all-out ban
on capital punishment, the Canadian
government did slowly remove
offences for which the death penalty
could be used, removing rape from the
list of capital offences in 1954.

After 1954, pressure against the
death penalty increased in government.
For almost a decade, every session of
Parliament included an abolition bill.
This resulted in the first major debate
about the death penalty in 1966.

The debate was lengthy, emotional,
and resulted in capital punishment
being limited to capital murder, the
killing of officers of the peace, and
certain stipulations under the National
Defence Act.

On July 14, 1976, after a 98-
hour debate, and despite death threats
against abolitionist members of
Parliament, Parliament voted to abolish
capital punishment from the Canadian
Criminal Code, retaining it only for
the extreme cases of mutiny or treason,
with which no Canadian was ever
charged.

The last vestiges of capital
punishment were erased from Canadian
legislation on Dec. 10, 1998, when the
remaining passages making reference to
capital punishment were removed from
the National Defence Act. It marked the
end of capital punishment in Canada.