MPs hear emotional plea to toughen up justice system for mentally ill offenders

OTTAWA – A woman whose cousin’s children were brutally murdered by their father says changes to the way Canada deals with those deemed not criminally responsible for their actions might give her family some room to heal.

Stacy Galt gave a parliamentary committee an emotional blow-by-blow account of the murderous rampage by Allan Schoenborn that took the lives of his 10-year-old daughter and his sons, aged eight and five.

The testimony, which left Galt sobbing and convulsing, came more than five years after her cousin Darcie Clarke’s children were killed in Merritt, B.C., in April 2008.

The Conservative government has proposed legislation that will toughen up the system for handling people who are found to be not criminally responsible for violent offences.

One of those changes would reduce annual hearings for offenders to once ever three years, rather than annually, for those considered at “high risk” of re-offending.

Galt says she attends Schoenborn’s annual assessment hearing for her sister, and must look into what she calls the “eyes of a devil” — a trauma she hopes to spare other victims.