Queen Elizabeth II and Prisoner Amnesty
In the 1950s and 1960s, federal inmates kept tabs on the comings and goings of the Queen with an unexpected devotion. The Queen's coronation in 1953, and her subsequent visit to open Parliament in 1957, were a matter of much fanfare in the penitentiaries, for one very specific reason: amnesty. Historically, anytime the reigning monarch visited Canada, prisoners were given a 1/12 reduction of their sentence as an act of executive clemency.
In 1953, all inmates received such amnesty, but it was not welcome news to all, due to a clause in the proclamation that any inmate who had lost time due to bad behaviour would have days added instead of getting a reduction under the “double forfeiture clause.” The editorial in the June 1953 of Mountain Echoes which had a silhouette of the Queen and Prince Philip on its cover queried, “why punch a man twice for some petty mistake he may have made two or three years ago?”
Even French-Canadian publications were not remiss from the fervour of the Queen's visit in 1957. For the Queen's first official visit to Canada, Horizons, the French-language publication of the Centre Federal de Formation in Laval, Quebec, the Queen graced the cover of the issue, which included an editorial on the significance of amnesty to the average prisoner. Translated it reads, "[it] revives hope - so natural in the hearts of men forced to contemplate a long and difficult journey on a bumpy road, the same road that will one day lead us to the legendary land of FREEDOM."
In July 1964, as the Queen prepared to visit Canada once again, the inmates were abuzz with the possibility of amnesty, which came under fire in the press and in parliament. At the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, an editorial in Pathfinder, wrote, "Amnesty is being opposed in Canada" and "[we] cannot understand why a tradition as old as the British Commonwealth should suddenly come under the closed fist battering of correctional criticism." In a subsequent article, the publication cited the Canadian Correction's Association, that "granting amnesty was not a proper way to show respect for the Queen. The practice should stop beginning with the Royal Visit here." The reason, according to the Canadian Corrections Association is a change in approach to corrections and parole, "a prisoner should be released prior to the expiry of his sentence only when the parole board believes his attitudes have changed sufficiently to warrant such an action." But the inmates at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary had a different view, "No matter how hard a convict's anti-social shell may be, the granting of amnesty has got to soften it a little and that is good. And for the convict who is not certain of his values, who could go either way, the granting of amnesty must and will put him on the road to right living. And that is tremendous!"
In 1967, Canada celebrated its centenary. Prisoners at Dorchester Penitentiary commemorated the event by creating a centennial project book, but as the editor noted in The Beacon, the celebrating of this milestone was not a concern "of most inmates in this and other penitentiaries across Canada." Because the main concern of most is the question of amnesty and whether we will get it as our 'piece of birthday cake.'"
Even though amnesty had been denied in 1964, inmates hoped that the momentous and one-time occasion of the country turning one hundred might lead to amnesty being "granted in 1967 for the last time."
Amnesty was not given in 1967, nor was it for any of the subsequent Queen's visits, and by 1982, the memory, knowledge and hope of amnesty had all but faded. But that did not stop Claire Culhane, a founding member of the Prisoners Rights Group - and an often cited name in many penal press publications, who wrote to the Prime Minister requesting amnesty for the upcoming Queen’s visit. The subsequent correspondence between Culhane and Art Wakabayashi, of the policy planning branch, was published in Tocsin (Collins Bay). “Although in the past, occasional grants of amnesty have been made on historic occasions, this has not been the pattern in recent years.” Wakabayashi provides the “comprehensive range of release programs that currently exist” as the reasoning for denying amnesty as “in today’s society, therefore, as my first responsibility is the protection of society, I am unable to support your request.”
Culhane’s response is scathing, “by ignoring the fact that apart from an infinitesimal number, incarceration is no longer recognized as the solution for the ‘protection of society’ - that you are thereby maintaining an enormously expensive, incompetent and barbaric prison system, which diverts millions of taxpayers' dollars from providing adequate housing, medical care, education and the desperately needed relevant employment."
Click through the images below to read articles regarding executive clemency and amnesty
