Consider reintroducing capital punishment for dangerous offenders, new poll suggests | Daily Brew - Yahoo!

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12-03-13 8:25 PM

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Consider reintroducing capital punishment for dangerous offenders, new poll suggests
By Steve Mertl | Daily Brew Mon, 12 Mar, 2012

Canada hasn't had an execution in almost 50 years but a new poll commissioned by QMI Agency suggests roughly half of Canadians want to bring back the noose, at least for dangerous offenders. The news agency reported its Leger Marketing survey done for Sun Media found only 37 per cent of respondents opposed executing violent offenders. Another 14 per cent had no opinion. Leger pollster Christian Bourque said he's not surprised by the results but doubted it would trigger an official reappraisal of Canada's almost four-decade ban on the death penalty. "No one wants to open that can of worms," Bourque, executive vice president of Leger Marketing, told QMI. He noted other polls over the last few years have reflected strong support for a return of capital punishment. Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu - whose daughter was murdered - recently suggested some serial killers should be given a rope to hang themselves, though he opposed the death penalty per se. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had no plans to reintroduce capital punishment but that there are times when it's appropriate. Toronto lawyer James Lockyer, famed for battling to overturn wrongful convictions in Canada and the United States, was dismayed by the poll results. "I think it is sad that 50 years after the last hanging in Canada there are still so many people who would like to have executions back," Lockyer, a founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, told QMI. "What is particularly depressing is that for the first time in more than 50 years, we have a prime minister who supports the death penalty. "Those of us who oppose the death penalty in any form still have a lot to do." The last executions in Canada took place Dec. 10, 1962. Ronald Turpin, convicted of killing a Toronto police officer, and Arthur Lucas, found guilty of murdering an FBI agent in Canada, were hanged in Toronto's Don Jail. Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty in 1976.

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