Death Penalty: Report From Canada

[Sam Pawlett]

Here in Canada, the death penalty was outlawed in 1976. Support for it
has been decreasing ever since. The latest poll suggests that around 40%
of Canadians support a return to the death penalty. A return to the
death penalty is not an issue on the agenda despite the best efforts of
the press and Reform Party. Support for the death penalty is highest in
the redneck provinces of Alberta and Ontario. In B.C. polls suggest that
support is around 20-25%. There was a celebrated case of David Milgard
wrongfully convicted of 1st degree murder. He spent 22 years in prison
before DNA evidence proved his innocence. He would have been executed
under the death penalty. Same with Guy-Paul Moran another convicted of
murder who was innocent. Arguments for the death penalty take a form of
retributive justice that _assumes_ free will and  that human behavior is
not causally determined. What gives the capitalist state the right to
take someone's life? The human race is the only species that has
bloodlust.

Sam Pawlett