Mass Murder and Capital Punishment

Document Type

Editorial

Publication Date

7-16-2018

Abstract

Recent mass shootings in the United States have tended to confirm Canadians’ sense that such events can’t happen here. Similar events in Canada are not numerous, but those that have occurred are not well known. In particular, the biggest mass murder in Canada before Air India is almost unknown outside Quebec, where it occurred in 1949. It also involved an attack involving an airplane, but the murderer was motivated by misguided love rather than politics.

Three people hanged as a result of the 23 deaths that ensued, and one might have thought that their crime would have legitimated the death penalty for a long time. Yet, less than a decade after the last of these three went to the gallows in 1953, Canada saw its last state executions. Why?

Publication Title

Law Times

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