The death penalty debate in Canada resurfaced last week, when Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu suggested that murderers be given a rope in their cells "to make a decision about his or her life."
It turns out, the majority of Canadians have the same sentiments as Boisvenu.
According to a new Angus Reid/Toronto Star poll released Wednesday, Canadians are warming to the idea of a return to capital punishment.
The survey found that 63 per cent of the 1,002 Canadians surveyed across the country believe the death penalty is sometimes appropriate.
In particular, sixty-one per cent said capital punishment, which was abolished in Canada in 1976, is warranted for murder.
But Jaideep Mukerji of Angus Reid says the poll reveals that the death penalty is "not a black and white" issue.
"We ask[ed] the question in two ways — do you support or oppose the death penalty — and in that context people really do support it," he told the Toronto Star.
"But when the option of life imprisonment is introduced as an option for those convicted of murder, "50 per cent actually say they would prefer life in prison.""
On his website, Liberal insider and attorney Warren Kinsella admits that he too, at one time, was a proponent of the death penalty but three years in law school changed his mind:
"In my first year of law school in Calgary, in Criminal Law, our wonderful prof, Chris Levy, asked us who favoured the death penalty. Most of the hands in the classroom went up. Being a Democrat of long-standing, I — like Bill Clinton, like Barack Obama — put my hand up for that one, too.
Here's what Prof. Levy said next: "I will ask you again in your final year."
And he did. In 1987, after three years of trying to learn the law — and, in my case, I had spent a lot of time on the study of criminal law — Prof. Levy asked again for a show of hands. "Who favours the death penalty, now?"
And not a single hand went up.
What you learn in law school, more than anything else, is how completely flawed our system is. You learn that it is in need of continual improvement, and that it fundamentally flawed, much like the human beings who created it.
Reason over passion, Trudeau said."
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