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Many columnist and writers across Canada including Prime Minister Stephen Harper have indicated and suggested that Senator Boisvenu comments can be understood and somewhat justified considering his prior experience with the criminal justice system. After all he is the founder of “Murdered or Missing Persons Families Association” (MMPFA), and a man who has greatly been personally affected by a thoughtless and heart wrenching crime.
However we live in Canada and as a Canadians we are fortunate to have rules of law that govern us. No mans personal “feelings”, “emotions” or “thoughts” are above the law or our countries constitution. It is for that reason it is not hard to believe why Senator Boisvenu statements insulted millions of Canadians and provoked a re-opening of the capital punishment penalty in Canada. In my opinion his comments were indecent and surprising especially when considering how pro-life (fiscal conservatives) tend to be. His statement is selective, extremely bias, and more concerning lacks basic human empathy and compassion that I always thought separated Canadians from other nations throughout the world.
We need to remember the purpose of our criminal justice prison system. It is to re-habilitate criminals not to be place to send them to rot, die and be forgotten about. So what if our prison system is overcrowded and it cost millions of dollars. I didn’t realize our “integrity, and ethical values” could be equated into a dollar value. We need to invest in alternative measures of deterrence of criminal activities, education, after school programs, parks, family support programs these are all programs that are worthy of our tax dollars. I mean I just read in the January 16th, 2012 edition of Maclean’s Magazine that the Canadian Federal Government through ACOA gave a Halifax promoter $140K + to bring Snoop Dogg to Nova Scotia in 2010. I am sure that concert was a very positive uplifting event, encouraging thousands of youth in attendance to read stay in school and not to do drugs.
It is important to note that this is not just about my ideas over another’s it is much deeper than that. This is about the fabric of our nation’s integrity and values concerning crime and punishment. Jogging my mind and political science background for reference and justification of my statements I look back to one of the world’s most renewed scholars Michel Foucault, in his work Discipline & Punish he accounts and suggest the reason why we don’t allow prisoners to kill themselves is because in the modern society it is actually an exercise of the power of the state over the imprisoned person. It is the state and the law which is to decide who will live and who will die.
Disciplinary punishment gives “professionals” (psychologists, programme facilitators, parole officers, etc.) power over the prisoner, most notably in that the prisoner’s length of stay depends on the professionals’ judgment. Foucault goes on to argue that Disciplinary punishment leads to self-policing by the populace as opposed to brutal displays of authority from the Monarchical period. – Discipline and Punish, (1977)
Fortunately in Canada we don’t have a capital punishment system so that decision doesn’t have to be made within our judicial system. However if we were to back-door and allow this power and control that we have given the state, and hand it over to prisoners it would actually be a weakening of our state power and control, which would actually be the complete opposite reason as to why Canadians in 2011 voted for a “strong majority conservative government”, therefore it would be truly unwise for any legislative body, politician, senator or person who believes in our representative democracy, and constitution to ever seriously take this idea into consideration let alone overtly suggest that it would be a good idea.
I agree there is plenty of room for improvement on how we deal with matters of social justice, I have no problem with being tough on crime, or bringing these issues to debate in the House of Commons. If we as a country want to allow prisoners the option to start hanging themselves so be it. However I am afraid it would say a lot more about us as a society and how barbaric, out of touch and backwards we could become.
I think Senator Pierr-Hugues Boisvenu is a great Canadian. He has helped make many communities, families and individuals safer by bringing awareness and support to those affected by terrible crimes through MMPFA. The fact is his personal opinions and hurt cannot overshadow our Canadian values, his statements only brings further credibility concerns as to why the Conservative lead Omnibus Crime Bill is not a good idea for the nation, it is littered with emotional ideology that does not represent the majority of the nation. We should not make decisions based on irrational negative emotions instead I suggest that we make decisions using our better judgment, intellect and wisdom. We have a choice, and I choose love and compassion over hatred and fear.
I applaud you for bringing out an interesting point many people have failed to take into consideration while debating Mr. Boisvenu’s statement. Your example, with Mr. Foucault’s statement was dead on: “Michel Foucault, in his work Discipline & Punish, accounts and suggest the reason why we don’t allow prisoners to kill themselves is because in the modern society it actually an exercise of the power of the state over the imprisoned person. It is the state and the law which is to decide who will live and who will die.”
Mr. Boisvenu’s comments were about letting the worst possible offenders, the ones deemed not able to rehabilitate, have an opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to end their lives. Like you pointed out, this goes against our current system’s policy.
So, the real debate should be about weather, in an attempt to lower the overall cost to operate our prison system (and turning the page on some of the most notorious individuals in Canadian history), we, the people, would agree to make changes to our penitentiaries suicide prevention program. It could be perceived that way, but this change would not be a move towards inciting the prisoners to commit suicide. They would be free to commit suicide, if they chose to do so, just like the rest of the population.
Going forward, this is the idea worth debating, in my opinion.