Staff in Mendicino's office knew about Bernardo transfer months before minister did, his office says
CBC
Staff in Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino's office knew for three months that serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo would be transferred from a maximum to a medium-security prison — but didn't inform the minister until after it had happened — CBC News has learned.
The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) said it first emailed Mendicino's office on March 2 to inform it that Bernardo would be moved to a medium-security institution. A final date for the transfer hadn't been determined at that time.
CSC said it sent a second email on May 25 to Mendicino's office saying Bernardo would be transferred four days later.
The minister's office now confirms it did not tell Mendicino about Bernardo's transfer until May 30, the day after the transfer happened.
A lawyer representing the families of two teenage girls murdered by Bernardo said it's alarming that the minister and the victims' families were kept in the dark for nearly 90 days.
"If that is true, that staff truly kept this a secret from their boss, then that is an egregious abdication of responsibility and is profoundly unfair to the minister," said Timothy Danson, counsel for the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
"This is precisely the kind of information that must be communicated to the minister because the buck stops with the minister."
Bernardo was convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 for the killings of Mahaffy and French. He was also convicted of manslaughter for his role in the death of 15-year-old Tammy Homolka and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for the first 25 years.
Bernardo was quietly transferred on May 29 from the maximum-security Millhaven Institution in Kingston, Ont., to a medium-security prison in La Macaza, Que. Danson said the victims' families only learned of the transfer the morning it happened.
A three-person review committee at CSC is now reviewing the decision to transfer Bernardo. CSC said it expects that review will be completed in the next few weeks.
CBC News asked Mendicino's office if his staff was trying to protect the minister by not telling him about Bernardo's upcoming transfer. The office said staff weren't protecting him and that they were examining the minister's options.
Mendicino's office said that it "looked into the authorities available to the minister and came to learn" that it "has no powers over transfer decisions." The CSC also confirms decisions about transferring offenders and notifying victims fall under its purview, not that of the minister.
Mendicino publicly acknowledged Bernardo's transfer on June 2 — three days after his office says he was told about the transfer for the first time. After news of the transfer leaked that day, Mendicino tweeted that CSC's "independent decision" to transfer Bernardo "is shocking and incomprehensible."
On June 5, Mendicino told reporters he spoke to CSC commissioner Anne Kelly that morning to state "that I was profoundly concerned and again shocked by this decision."
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