B.C.'s attorney general says he might appeal a decision that would grant escorted leave from a psychiatric facility to Allan Schoenborn, who was convicted of killing his three children in 2008.
Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible for the killings in Merritt due to a psychiatric condition.
Earlier this month, the B.C. Review Board said Schoenborn would be eligible for day trips if the director of the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam deems it appropriate.
Attorney General Barry Penner said Tuesday he would decide if his ministry will appeal the review board's decision after his officials have read and considered the written ruling, a process that could take four weeks.
Nonetheless, said Penner, he plans to push for changes.
"One thing I'm going to be doing is working with my federal counterparts to see if we can bolster the Criminal Code," he said.
Penner said he wants to ensure "courts and review boards give paramount consideration to public safety."
The review board decision has also been raised in the campaign for the May 2 federal election.
"[Schoenborn] has forfeited his right to participate in a civilized society," Conservative Party candidate James Moore said Tuesday. "He should be in an institution for the rest of his life and nobody should ever see him."
The Forensic Psychiatric Hospital is in Moore's riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.
"The B.C. Review Board should be ashamed of themselves," he said during a campaign stop in support of another Conservative candidate in downtown Vancouver. "Their decision is a disgrace and an insult to law-abiding citizens and the memory of those kids."
Schoenborn, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, killed his children in the family home in April 2008. He explained at his trial that he was saving them from sexual abuse, although he didn't say why he believed they were threatened.
With files from the CBC's Ben Hadaway and Kirk Williams
Commentary by the OttawaMensCentre.com
IF Schoenborn had been a female rather than a male, and if he was in Nova
Scotia or Ontario, or dam near anywhere else in Canada, he could have claimed he
was the victim of an abusive husband, the latest in vogue "justification" while
defying logic and and common sense has suddenly become a legal defense for WOMEN
only.
The problems of mental health are a taboo subject, it is the underlying cause of
a 100 billion dollar waste of money called Family Court and the hundreds of
billions of flow on spending in the Criminal Justice System by reason of
societies failure to address the root cause, family dysfunction.
Children are most prone to be abused by a mother, schizophrenia has a strong
relationship with dysfunctional childhood, childhood sexual abuse etc.
That problem can be addressed by a Legal Presumption of Equal Parenting to end
the outragious Canadian problem of more than 50% of children who grow up in
fatherless homes.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
Canadians increasingly, adopt the brainless American Right wing approach of
forming opinions and conclusions without having the ability or the
qualifications to utter an opinion.
I doubt that any of the posters so critical of the leave issue have any
qualifications in mental health.
Fact is, Schoenberg, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and a court found him
insane. That does not mean that he cannot be treated or that professionals
should have to live their professional lives in terror of "law and order" lynch
mobs who don't have a clue on how to treat the insane.
Fact is, Canada has a terrible taboo towards mental health issues that affect
women far more than men. Family court generally assumes its a man who has the
mental health problem when in fact its 10:1 more likely that she has a mental
health problem rather than he.
Schizophrenia is extremely common, often associated with extremely high
intelligence that enables schizophrenics to be gifted entertainers and even
members of the judiciary where they leave trails of destruction.
When society ignores Schizoprenia, all too often it ends up in dead, suicides,
and endless destruction not to mention endless litigation.
If Canada addressed these taboos, it would assist in reducing the mega billion
dollar repercussions that clog and swamp our family, civil and criminal courts
not to mention result in half the number of those presently incarcerated in
Canada primarily due to societies failure to deal with the issues of mental
illness and its causes.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com