Marco Mendicino recently said the decision to transfer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison was 'shocking and incomprehensible.' But CBC News has learned his office knew about the transfer three months ahead of time.
The Correctional Service of Canada 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.
"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. 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.
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." Danson also said the commissioner should have called Mendicino ahead of the transfer to let him know.
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