Courage in Canada

Americans have much to learn from our neighbors in Canada, whom we often forget. But the action of the Canadian Parliament this week in refusing to restore the death penalty should be not only noticed but copied.

Parliament’s action, after three months of debate on the subject, is all the more notable because it occurred despite public-opinion polls showing that 60% of the Canadian people favored restoring the death penalty, which was abolished in Canada--except for treason--in 1976. Though a close vote in Ottawa was expected, an impassioned appeal against capital punishment by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney carried the day, and the final tally was 148 to 127 against.

Mulroney made one of his strongest arguments by pointing to the United States and noting that capital punishment had not reduced the murder rate here. Rising crime in Canada has been cited as a key factor in the Canadian public’s support of the death penalty, but the political leaders--to their credit--know that the causes of crime are too complicated for an executioner to snuff out.

Because the national debate had been so intense, Mulroney allowed the members of his Progressive Conservative party a free vote on the issue. They could vote their own interests and did not have to follow the party’s. He won nonetheless, winning the Parliamentarians over by the force and moral suasion of his argument.

Canadians can justly claim today to be more civilized than their neighbors in the United States, where more than 1,900 people are held on Death Rows and where legislatures are fearful of bucking the public’s taste for blood. Someday our country will come to its senses and consign the death penalty to the dustbin of history.

Until then, three cheers for Canada.