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Montreal Gazette
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Opinion: Automatic release must be reformed for cases involving organized crime
Op Eds Montreal is in the middle of a quiet war. On one side, law enforcement scores rare wins like the June 12 arrests of alleged Mafia leaders including Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito in a sweeping police operation across Quebec. On the other, violence keeps erupting in incidents such as the fatal shooting of a man in a Brossard park on July 2, which Longueuil police said may have been gang-related. The problem isn't that police aren't doing their job. It's that the law keeps handing criminal networks a second life. Take Nicola Spagnolo. An alleged associate of the Rizzuto clan, he was serving time for a 2020 stabbing. He had been turned down for parole due in part to affiliations with organized crime denied by Spagnolo but noted by Correctional Service Canada (CSC). And yet, under Section 127 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), he automatically qualified for release after serving two-thirds of his sentence — until he was arrested in June as a murder suspect in the same case as Rizzuto and Sollecito, while he was still behind bars. If no new charges had been filed, he would have walked free. This is not a flaw. It is a design failure. The CCRA's statutory release mechanism was built on ideals of rehabilitation and reintegration. But in cases involving links to organized crime, those ideals are being exploited. CSC's assessments flagged Spagnolo as 'an active member of a security threat group or organized crime.' Yet legally, that status wasn't enough to deny his release — because in Canada, an assessment of affiliation with organized crime alone does not qualify as a sufficient reason to override statutory release. This must change. Parliament should amend Section 127 to create an exception to automatic release for individuals with links to organized crime. This exception should not be based on subjective suspicion, but on clear CSC assessments, intelligence, and behavioural records while in custody. This is about protecting the public, not punishing indefinitely. In addition, Canada should implement a national threat profile registry, which would classify inmates based on their operational risk rather than just their criminal record. This registry would allow authorities to consider gang membership, leadership roles and persistent criminal associations in evaluating release eligibility. Similar models are already used in certain situations in jurisdictions like Germany and the Netherlands. Moreover, release should not mean freedom without oversight. Canada's statutory-release system does permit curfews, halfway-house residency and other conditions, yet safeguards are limited when release itself is mandatory. For individuals flagged under the proposed registry, electronic monitoring, communication bans and mandatory reintegration plans would be imposed for at least the duration of the original sentence. Reintegration isn't passive — it requires structured conditions and accountability. Provincial prosecutors should also be empowered to contest statutory releases when public safety is at stake. Currently, their involvement in release procedures is minimal, yet they are the most familiar with the real-life consequences of letting violent gang members return to the same neighbourhoods they helped destabilize. Beyond legal reform, there's a societal dimension. Communities affected by violence are not just crime scenes — they are often left to pay the price for legal leniency. Residents lose faith in public institutions when the same names cycle through headlines and courtrooms year after year. Fighting organized crime must include breaking the cycle of predictable impunity. Montreal cannot afford to wage war on organized crime with laws that seem designed for first-time offenders. This is not about being tough on crime — it's about being smart on structural threats. Organized criminal networks exploit every loophole available. It is time the law stopped helping them. We need sentencing legislation that reflects the complexity of modern criminal networks, prioritizes sustained community protection and restores trust in the justice system. For that to happen, automatic release for documented members of organized crime must end. Anything less is an invitation to repeat the same cycle, with more victims next time.
Vancouver Sun
17-06-2025
- Vancouver Sun
Penny Boudreau, who strangled her 12-year-old daughter, tries for 'early' release
HALIFAX, N.S. — A parole board hearing scheduled for June 18, will give a Nova Scotia convicted killer a chance to persuade members and the public that she is not the same person who admitted to packing twine in the trunk of her car in 2008 before murdering her 12-year-old daughter. Now 51, Penny Boudreau is serving a life sentence at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, Nova Scotia, where she works as a cleaner and orders groceries for her unit. Seventeen years ago, Judge Margaret Stewart sentenced Boudreau to 20 years without eligibility for full parole for confessing to killing her only child, Karissa. That would have meant a release date of June 13, 2028. However, under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, she is now eligible to apply for unescorted passes, including day parole, three years prior to completing that sentence. Because this is Boudreau's first application for unescorted time away from jail, it automatically prompts a review by way of a hearing. Under the Act, she is now eligible for day parole for rehabilitative purposes that allows an offender to participate in community-based activities in preparation for full parole or statutory release. Offenders must return nightly to a halfway house unless otherwise authorized by the Parole Board of Canada. In addition to standard conditions of day parole, the Parole Board may also impose special conditions that an offender must abide by during release. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Boudreau's decision to apply for unescorted release — viewed by the public as 'early' release — has provoked a backlash in a case that has gripped Atlantic Canada for almost two decades. Etched in many people's memory is the mother's televised pleas for the public's help finding her daughter as she concocted a story to make people believe her child was alive and may have been abducted from a grocery store parking lot. Emotions are already running high in Nova Scotia where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are still searching for two other local children, Lilly and Jack Sullivan, who have been missing since May 2, after their mother and stepfather reported the kids wandered off from home. The disappearance of those children without a trace stirred up memories of Boudreau who committed what many think of as an unthinkable rare crime: filicide. On Jan. 27, 2008, Penny Boudreau was a 33-year-old cashier living with her boyfriend who worked at the same grocery store in Bridgewater, a small town of less than 9,000 people on Nova Scotia's South Shore. Karissa had recently moved in with the couple in their small two-bedroom apartment after living with her father. But the new arrangement caused friction for all of them. Karissa's diaries revealed how she resented living with the boyfriend. That Sunday afternoon, the mother and daughter went for a drive to have a heart-to-heart chat about the house rules and conflict the pre-teen and her mom were having, said Penny at the time. A winter storm set in and shortly before 6 p.m., Penny Boudreau ducked into the grocery store to pick up a few things while Karissa stayed in the car. As she exited the store, she claimed Karissa had disappeared and, two hours later, called 911 to report her daughter missing. The grade six child could be out in a snowstorm in a hoodie, vest, jeans and pink Crocs on her feet. For 13 days, there was a frantic search involving helicopters, police dogs and worried people across southern Nova Scotia. People in Bridgewater raised money to help the family as they watched the young mother plead on TV for help finding Karissa. 'Karissa, we love you. We are all looking for you, just come home or call or something,' Boudreau urged. Police contacted Karissa's friends, including Courtney Sarty, to check their backyards to see if the child may be hiding. 'I thought she ran off,' Sarty recalled 17 years later. 'I was so afraid. I kept sending her messages on MSN back then urging her to let somebody know where you are and that you are OK.' Two weeks later, Karissa's frozen body was discovered on the LaHave riverbank less than five minutes from Boudreau's apartment. RCMP launched an undercover operation as they focused on Penny's boyfriend after receiving reports of yelling and fighting at their small apartment. In an elaborate plan that targeted Boudreau's boyfriend for months, investigators tried to determine whether the couple played a role in Karissa's death. By June 2008, they had cleared the boyfriend and set up a Mr. Big fake crime organization scenario to elicit a confession from Boudreau. Not realizing she was speaking to police, Boudreau re-enacted how she strangled her daughter on a deserted road. Initially, Boudreau was charged with first-degree murder but later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, giving up her right to a trial that spared family members who had already been through agony. During the sentencing, Judge Stewart told her: 'You can never call yourself 'mother' in conjunction with Karissa's name again, and the words 'Mommy don't' from a trusting and loving Karissa are there to haunt you the rest of your natural life.' At the June 18 hearing, parole board members will consider whether Boudreau is a risk to society. They will review her psychological risk assessments that have consistently found Boudreau was in a dysfunctional relationship at the time of the murder and feared being abandoned by her boyfriend. She's no longer in touch with him according to previous parole board decisions. Because of her model behaviour in jail for the past seven years, Boudreau has regularly been granted escorted temporary absences to leave jail for several hours under supervision to attend church services, Bible study meetings and, more recently, to visit a friend she met in the congregation. Personal development is part of her rehabilitation, according to the decisions. After a file review in March, two parole board members concluded Boudreau's risk to society is low and the board does not consider Boudreau as 'presenting an undue risk to society,' wrote the members in their March decision to let Boudreau attend church travelling in a Correctional Service Canada vehicle. However, they did comment on police opposition to any further 'liberal release.' 'It is their opinion that you were issued a life sentence with no parole before 20 years served which needs to be followed,' they wrote of the unnamed police agency. The Parole Board of Canada has received victim impact statements and a host of letters (a signed petition at one point) opposed to any type of release. For those opposed to Boudreau being granted further freedoms, there is still a 'deep sense of loss and grief, be it family members, friends or the community at large. The grief and opposition to your release continues to this day,' the parole board members wrote. Whether jail is intended to punish someone convicted of a crime or a place to protect society until the inmate is rehabilitated is the thorny issue that divides not only the people of Nova Scotia, but politicians and Canadians. I think she should serve what she was sentenced to During the recent federal election, the Conservative party vowed to re-emphasize the rights of victims and safety of communities over the rights of criminals. 'The residents of the South Shore, Halifax and communities across Canada deserve to feel safe in their own neighbourhoods,' read a press release issued by Rick Perkins, the former Conservative MP for South-Shore-St. Margarets, who lost his seat. 'Like many Nova Scotians, I am appalled to learn that Penny Boudreau…has been on day passes from prison and could soon be granted unescorted leave from prison,' he said in the statement released April 25. There will be submissions at the June 18 hearing from those impacted by Karissa's murder. Courtney Sarty, who has the date Karissa died tattooed on her right arm, Until We Meet Again, above a yellow rose for friendship and a pink one, Karissa's favourite colour, is unequivocal: 'I think she should serve what she was sentenced to. I read that her assessment to reoffend is really low and that she's not probable to commit the same crime,' said Sarty. But she's not convinced that the counselling Boudreau received during her prison stay is a guarantee she would not react again in a similar situation. 'Killing Karissa was unprovoked, so who is to say it wouldn't take the right situation for her to do something again.' She urged the parole board to be fair. 'If she is given parole, I don't think she should have access to children whatsoever,' said Sarty, now a 29-year-old mother studying to become a licensed practical nurse. Boudreau is estranged from her family since the murder but has befriended a pastor at a church she attends in an undisclosed community. The pastor has confirmed Boudreau will receive continued support as she works her way towards proving she can successfully integrate back into society. The Corrections Conditional Release Act allows for an inmate to apply for day parole and unescorted passes as part of assisting the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens through the provision of programs in penitentiaries and in the community. The Conservatives focused on toughening up the chance for early parole for criminals convicted of multiple murders. Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to use Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, known as the Notwithstanding Clause, to reintroduce the Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act, which the Supreme Court of Canada struck down in 2022 because, in their opinion, it violates an offender's Charter rights. The Supreme Court's decision has impacted the sentences of some of Canada's most notorious killers like Alexandre Bissonnette, who was serving a life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years for shooting and killing six people in a Quebec Mosque in 2017. After the Supreme Court's decision, Bissonnette will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years. The decision doesn't affect Boudreau, who was convicted of one murder (not multiple murders). She is required to provide her DNA and is prohibited from owning weapons for her lifetime. She has no previous offences that offer insight into her mindset at the time of the murder. She has referenced experiencing low self-esteem, a sense of inadequacy and fears of abandonment, according to her psychological risk assessments in her prison file. Her assessments described her overall risk for unescorted absences and/or day parole was 'generally low.' These ratings, it said, have withstood the test of many years of incarceration and would not be expected to change unless 'you were in an unhealthy relationship which is currently not a concern.' It also noted Boudreau has recently spoken of 'how you work through the many emotions that come with accepting the offence you committed, daily feelings of guilt and shame.' Boudreau toured a community residential facility — halfway house — last December and met with the director. The location remains confidential. In March, the Parole Board of Canada acknowledged recent threats made to Boudreau's personal safety increase the need for security and suggested any measures necessary will be taken when Boudreau appears before the hearing. Today, there is still a memorial for Karissa on the LaHave riverbank where her body was found. Sarty goes there when she is struggling to make sense of how her friend's mother, a woman she knew, could forsake her unconditional love for her daughter. 'I have my own son and my love is deep. He could curse me and put me down to the lowest, and I'm still going to look at him and say, 'I love you.' Sherri Aikenhead is a Nova Scotia author of Mommy Don't: From Mother to Murderer, The true story of Penny and Karissa Boudreau. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our newsletters here .
