HUNTER: Pig farm killer Robert Pickton won’t get out. Canadians aren’t so sure
Pickton #Pickton
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Published Feb 22, 2024 • Last updated 8 hours ago • 3 minute read
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Some names are seared into the dark consciousness of Canadians that simply will not vacate the premises.
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Bernardo. Homolka. Olson. Williams. Millard.
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And Port Coquitlam pig farmer-turned-serial killer Robert Pickton.
The now 74-year-old monster who preyed on vulnerable women in the Lower Mainland of B.C., raping, torturing, murdering and dismembering possibly 49 of them before feeding them to his hogs, is now eligible to apply for day parole.
A group of forensic experts searches through dirt on conveyer belts in Port Coquitlam at the pig farm owned by William Pickton where some of the missing women from Vancouver have been found. Photo: Jeff Vinnick Photo by Jeff Vinnick /National Post
He is unlikely to get it. Nor will he ever get full parole when he’s eligible to apply for it in three short years.
No, he will leave prison in a box.
But Canadians could be forgiven for fearing that, yeah, maybe this demented monster will get sprung. That’s how little faith there is in the so-called justice system.
After all, they moved schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo from maximum to medium security. His victims’ families only found out on the day of the big move.
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Paul Bernardo CPL
In story after story after story, corrections and parole warble the same sad song: Hey mister, Paul is the victim here. He has rights you know. As the Correctional Service of Canada played CYA in November, I spoke with a friend of mine, a prominent defence lawyer in the city.
He laid it out in stark terms.
“The system is obsessed with rehabilitation, no matter how monstrous the criminal,” the lawyer said. “It trumps everything. Punishment, public safety and the public’s mood mean nothing.
“All of these guys are like little lost lambs to them. I represent these guys in court and can tell you I wouldn’t want them anywhere near my family.”
Indeed.
About 15 minutes on Google and you’ll pull up a greatest hits package from most of the men and women charged with crimes. Bail, fail to comply, back out on bail, fail to comply.
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And then there are the special touches that trigger rage among right-thinking people.
Remember child killer Terri-Lynne McClintic? She helped her sick boyfriend murder eight-year-old Victoria Stafford in Woodstock on April 8, 2009. Tori would be 23 now but, tragically, her life was stolen on that spring day.
Tori Stafford was just eight when she was murdered in Woodstock. Photo by HANDOUT /FACEBOOK
Not so McClintic. Someone in the system thought it would be a nifty idea in October 2018 to send the killer to the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in Saskatchewan. This came after she used the “Indigenous ancestry” gambit to get a softer ride.
Her own family said nope, she is not Indigenous. Of course, our friends at CSC didn’t bother with the facts our plucky heroine was offering up with an aperitif of BS.
Local residents — Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike — were enraged that a psychopath was being dumped on their doorstep. The controversial move was rescinded.
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But these are the rock stars. Killers and rapists who are not quite so famous, well, they quietly get their parole and, in fairness, many slip into the ether. Others do not.
Robert Pickton committed unspeakable crimes, so heinous, so revolting that the stomach weakens at the mere mention of his name.
Will he ever see the light of day? Probably not.
But Canadians — particularly victims of crime — have come to the grim realization that the words “maybe” and “possibly” are in the mix no matter how vile the killer.
An activist judiciary that torpedoes every single initiative on the grounds of some legal abstraction blocks nearly every anti-crime, pro-victim initiative.
And the politicians who sit on their hands? They are stone-deaf to reality.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun
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