STOCKWELL DAY ACCUSED OF PERSONAL AGENDA IN DENYING PRISONER TRANSFERS

Most Requests Turned Down Under Tories

OTTAWA - The Conservative government has become the first in a decade
to deny Canadian citizens imprisoned in the United States the chance
to serve out their sentences in Canada.

Critics say this new trend reflects the personal political agenda of
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

Documents from the Correctional Service of Canada, the agency that
deals with international prisoner transfers, show that from 1997 to
2005, Ottawa did not once deny an application to transfer a convict
from the U.S. to a Canadian prison.

In 2006, the year the federal Conservatives took power and Day was
appointed the minister in charge of correctional services, five
transfer requests were denied, even though U.S. authorities had
approved the transfers.

This year, as of June, 12 transfer requests approved by the U.S. had
been turned down by Canada, while only two were approved.

In the five years before Day took charge of the agency, the government
approved an average of 38 transfers from U.S. prisons each year.

In a column published last November in the Penticton Western News, a
newspaper in his British Columbia riding, Day wrote of his disgust
with prison transfers for convicted drug dealers.

"B.C. dope dealers busted in the U.S. are demanding to be transferred
back to cozier Canadian jails and reduced prison times," he wrote.
"Memo to drug dealer: I'm no dope. ... Enjoy the U.S." John Conroy, a
B.C. defence lawyer who represents several Canadian convicts whose
transfers have been turned down, blames Day directly for the policy.
"Is Mr. Day acting in the public interest or because of a peculiar
attitude he has toward various offences?" Conroy asks.

Day declined a request for an interview, but his spokeswoman said the
new government policy is part of the Conservatives' hard line on
crime, something the party campaigned on in the last election.

"(The annual transfer numbers) show that the previous Liberal
government put criminals' rights first," Melisa Leclerc said. "We do
not. Canada's new government will always put the security of Canadians
and their communities first." However, federal documents show the
corrections agency believes transfer programs actually contribute to
public security. A 2005 internal report on the agency's international
transfer of offenders program said convicts who are transferred home
fall under the watch of Canadian authorities, who can monitor their
behaviour in prison and assess their risk to society.

"The alternative is that the offender is deported to Canada (at the
completion of his or her U.S. sentence) without correctional
supervision/jurisdiction and without the benefit of programming and a
gradual structured release into the community," the report says.

Transfer programs and their related international treaties, the report
says, "have proven to be successful and continue to be a permanent
feature of international relations between our country and many
others." Canada's International Transfer of Offenders Act says the
minister has discretion to refuse transfers if the applicants are a
threat to the "security of Canada," if they have abandoned Canada as
their place of permanent residence or if they lack family or social
ties in this country.

The minister must also consider whether the foreign prison system is a
threat to the offenders' human rights.

Since 2006, Day has denied transfers to at least two Canadians on
security grounds, including Arend Getkate, a 24-year-old Ontario man
serving a 30-year sentence in Georgia for child molestation. Both U.S.
and Canadian corrections officials had approved the request, but Day
overrode it.

Canadian Sacha Bond, 22, is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida for
attempted murder. He has been denied a transfer on national security
grounds, a provision of the transfer laws that is intended to keep
terrorists or organized crime figures out of the country.

"Many of these people are convicted of bad offences. Nobody's going to
say we should ignore their offences," said Conroy. "But citizens are
still citizens, even after they're convicted of a crime, and the
government can't just render its citizens stateless."