Conservative, Bloc MPs prompt 'emergency' probe of Paul Bernardo's prison conditions

After a Conservative MP toured the Quebec prison where notorious murderer Paul Bernardo is serving his sentence, some Tory MPs and a Bloc Quebecois colleague are staging a committee meeting to review what they say are inappropriate living conditions for an infamous killer.

Four Conservative MPs and one Bloc member have written the public safety committee's Liberal chair to say they are triggering an "emergency meeting" for next Monday — a day when the Commons is not sitting — to study why "sadistic murderers are being left to enjoy freedoms and luxuries of lower security prisons."

Conservative MP Frank Caputo visited La Macaza Institution last month and relayed what he said he saw there in a slickly produced seven-minute video posted to his social media channels.

Caputo said he personally visited Bernardo's cell at the federal medium-security institution and later saw the prisoner in his cell block.

He described Bernardo as a "well-fed" prisoner living in a correctional facility that he said looked more like a university campus than a prison.

While at the site, Caputo said he also learned that another convicted first-degree murderer, Luka Magnotta, is serving time at La Macaza.

Caputo said he was there to see how Bernardo — an offender who is serving an indeterminate life sentence — is living out his days after being transferred from a maximum-security site in Ontario to a Quebec prison last year.

Bernardo's move to a facility with fewer restrictions has been an ongoing source of controversy.

Caputo said he saw the prison's dormant hockey rink, which can also double as a tennis court in the warmer months.

That feature and a supposedly well-stocked weight room have drawn the ire of Caputo and his party.

"This person did unspeakable things," Caputo said of Bernardo in his video.

"If I wasn't pissed off enough seeing the hockey rink and tennis court, the cherry on top was seeing this beautiful gymnasium and next to that is a weight room. Much nicer than 95 per cent of Canadians have access to.

"I'm not saying we treat people inhumanely. We're a country of human rights. We're a country where the rule of law prevails. But you don't have a human right to a tennis court, you don't have a human right to a pool table."

The MPs that forced the meeting said they want to probe "how Justin Trudeau's criminal justice system allows monsters like Magnotta and Bernardo to be freed from the maximum-security prisons that they belong in," according to the letter shared with CBC News.