Canadian Justice > Same sentence for serial killer as if he just killed one - thanks to Supreme Court of Canada

The Sublime Supreme Court of Canada 

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL, YOU SAY

On Aug. 28, a Winnipeg King’s Bench judge sentenced 37-year-old serial killer Jeremy Skibicki to the only punishment he was empowered by current Canadian law to impose: a life sentence with parole eligibility in 25 years. The next day, Chris Kitching of the Winnipeg Free Press wrote an article observing that nobody in the courtroom was fully satisfied with this outcome, and that Justice Glenn Joyal’s hands were tied by the Supreme Court’s May 2022 Bissonnette ruling, which forbids life sentences for multiple murderers from being “stacked” to advance the date of initial parole hearings.    The mandatory penalty for first-degree murder is life, but genuine and unconditional life imprisonment, the court had ruled unanimously, would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. As a result, Skibicki got the same sentence he would have received for only the first of his killings.    Skibicki’s murders, let it be said, were deliberate and quite carefully, even intelligently, planned. He had an overwhelming sexual paraphilia he called “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome,” which led him to enjoy the violation of unconscious and defenceless women. In pursuit of this pleasure, he targeted homeless shelters in the very early morning, and succeeded over a two-month period in enticing four impoverished Aboriginal women to his apartment, where he drowned or strangled them, defiled the corpses in his bathtub, and dismembered them, disposing of the wrapped remains in the building’s garbage dumpster. He also admitted a racial motivation for his choice of victims, insisting in a confession to police that “extreme desperate measures” were necessary to save the white race and that he was acting on behalf of “Holy Europe.”   Skibicki now becomes eligible for parole in 2047, at which time the families and other loved ones of his victims will have to make the case for continuing to keep him in prison, as if that last paragraph just wasn’t quite enough. As Kitching explains, they find the prospect morally ridiculous and abhorrent, and they’re not looking forward to exercising their painful obligation any more than you would in their shoes.   But they weren’t, of course, alone: reporter Kitching covered his ground very well. The head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs objected to the sentence. The federal Conservative justice critic objected to it. The interim leader of the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives objected to it. Manitoba’s premier, Wab Kinew, declined to advocate for a change in the Criminal Code — which would almost certainly require use of the notwithstanding clause — but added that Skibicki “can never be free.”    Kinew invoked the “need to respect the judicial branch,” perhaps failing to notice that Justice Joyal himself told Skibicki to his face that the sentence he was required to give “will not adequately reflect the gravity of these offences and your moral culpability.” Meanwhile, a spokesman for the federal justice minister, who might have been expected to take the phone off the metaphorical hook, chipped in with a statement reminding everyone that the government had fought heroically against the defence arguments in Bissonnette in the first place.   Hey, what can you do? It’s not like we’re governed by the government. Just to complete this monument of revolving absurdity, it might be observed that the murderer himself remarked in his confession that “what happens to me (now), it’s like it’s never going to be enough. Even capital punishment.”    He also admitted to having experienced concern after the first three killings that he might face “three life sentences,” which, under Bissonnette, carry no penalty any different from one. Or four. I can’t count the number of clever people who have told me over the years that it’s fine for deterrence to gradually and mysteriously vanish as a principle of murder sentencing, because weirdos like Skibicki always act completely impulsively and never think ahead that far. I’d like to assign those people some homework in the form of Justice Joyal’s verdict, but be warned: it’s not easy reading.    — Colby Cosh

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Freedom of Religion in Canada is Now Officially Dead

A Major Loss in the War on Christianity in Canada

It was just a matter of time before Christian rights, recognized since the country began, were surrendered to the LGBTQ lobby in Canada. It's a little surprising that that time is now!

B.C. Christian university loses Supreme Court battle over LGBTQ case

The Canadian Press

Societies governing the legal profession have the right to deny accreditation to a proposed law school at a Christian university in British Columbia, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

In a pair of keenly anticipated decisions Friday, the high court said law societies in Ontario and British Columbia were entitled to ensure equal access to the bar, support diversity and prevent harm to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students.

The cases pitted two significant societal values – freedom of religion and promotion of equality – against one another.

Trinity Western University, a private post-secondary institution in Langley, B.C., was founded on evangelical Christian principles and requires students to adhere to a covenant allowing sexual intimacy only between a married man and woman.

Law societies overseeing the profession in Ontario and British Columbia say they would not license graduates from Trinity Western because the covenant amounts to discrimination against LGBTQ people.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario had upheld the rejection, while B.C.’s top court sided with the university.

In each case, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favour of the respective law society.

A majority found that the decisions to deny accreditation were reasonable because they appropriately balanced the interference to freedom of religion with the public-interest objectives of the law societies.

In the decision concerning Ontario, five Supreme Court justices said the province’s law society interfered only with the university’s ability to operate a law school governed by the mandatory covenant.

“This limitation is of minor significance because a mandatory covenant is not absolutely required to study law in a Christian environment in which people follow certain religious rules of conduct, and attending a Christian law school is preferred, not necessary, for prospective TWU law students.”

Trinity Western proposed the law school in 2012 and received approval to open from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the province’s Ministry of Advanced Education.

The university wanted to ensure its graduates would be eligible to be called to the bar throughout Canada, and therefore applied to the provincial law societies for accreditation of the planned law school.

Six law societies – Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador – have granted accreditation.

In Ontario, the benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada – since renamed the Law Society of Ontario – denied accreditation to the school in a 28-21 vote.

In reviewing the decision, an Ontario court found the society had undertaken a reasonable balancing of the charter protections at issue. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

British Columbia’s law society denied recognition to the school on the basis of a binding referendum of its members. The reviewing court ruled that the process ignored an obligation to consider the competing charter rights at play, and set aside the law society’s decision. An appeal court affirmed the ruling.

This decision, as one man put it, means that you are free to practice your faith in your church, but not to take it out into your profession life or anywhere else in the world.

The decision could only be arrived at by people who don't actually believe that there is a real God. They assume those of us who believe in Him are deceived fools who have no right to bring our foolishness into 'real' society, where men can look down at their genitals and decide they are women. Such 'real' people have to be protected from God-fearing people like me.

The good news is, it won't be long before The Lord returns and 'resets' the world's moral clock. Until then, it will continue to keep clicking backward.

Law Society of B.C. to Appeal Trinity Western Decision to Supreme Court of Canada

Last week court ruled decision not to recognize Trinity law school grads "unreasonable"

The Canadian Press

    The B.C. Law Society intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future 
    lawyers from Trinity Western University.

The Law Society of British Columbia intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future lawyers from a Christian law school.

Trinity Western University Law School wins legal battle in B.C. court

The B.C. Appeal Court ruled last week the society's decision not to recognize graduates from Trinity Western University's proposed law school is "unreasonable."

Now, the law society is seeking leave to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the decision is a matter of national significance.

The dispute stems from the university's controversial community covenant that bans sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, which the law society has argued discriminates against LGBTQ people. 

Part of the argument presented in last week's hearing is that there are no LGBTQ students at Trinity Western. Few if any LGBTQ people who attend university would choose to attend an overtly Christian campus. So the covenant doesn't affect any LGBTQ students, because there aren't any.

The worrisome thing here is that if the Supreme Court rules against Trinity, it will mean the end of the covenant and will soon mean the end of any Christian Universities in Canada. There simply won't be any significant way to distinguish a Christian college from a secular college.

It's a pity the Law Society is so fixed on the rights of students who don't exist while working so valiantly against the rights of thousands of Christian students who actually do exist. It is so obviously anti-Christian bigotry. Let's hope and pray that the Supreme Court will see through this.