However, he refused to explain this communication problem.
Questions abounded on Parliament Hill on Thursday that Federal Penitentiary Minister and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the latest to be warned, after their respective political aides had been briefed months earlier.
Journalists intercepted the Public Security Secretary Thursday morning after he appeared before a House of Commons committee on foreign interference. Mr Mendicino called it problematic that he and Mr Trudeau were among the last to know.
The Liberal government has already faced the fallout from the Correctional Service of Canada’s decision to transfer the serial killer and rapist from a maximum-security prison in Ontario to a medium-security facility in Quebec.
However, new controversy erupted this week when the Correctional Service confirmed that it had indeed informed Minister Mendicino’s office in early March and then again in late May, after a date for the transfer was announced.
The Prime Minister’s office claims that Mr Trudeau was only informed on the day of the actual transfer, while Minister Mendicino assures he only found out about it the next day.
A spokeswoman for Mr Trudeau said the Privy Council office alerted one of its employees to the possible transfer in March and that employee had contacted Minister Mendicino’s office for more information.
Audrey Champoux, a spokeswoman for Mr Mendicino, says the prime minister’s office was notified first. When those close to the Secretary of Public Safety learned about it through the Prime Minister’s Office, she said Mr Mendicino’s office contacted the Correctional Service.
It was then that the independent agency made available to policy personnel the first details that Ms. Champoux described as general communication material on transfers of prisoners in the prison system.
An unacceptable mistake
Questioned by journalists on Thursday, Mr Mendicino called the fact that he was not informed earlier by his team unacceptable.
He said he intends to formulate a ministerial policy to ensure that the federal minister of public safety is personally notified when a detainee of some notoriety is about to be transferred.
The minister also wants the prison service to inform victims in advance of such decisions.
As for internal affairs, I took care of it, the minister said about his team in his cabinet. “The short answer is that it is unacceptable and my job is to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” said Mr Mendicino, who declined to say whether any of his employees have been subject to disciplinary action.
Later, during Thursday afternoon’s Question Time in the House of Commons, opposition MPs continued to call for Mr Mendicino’s resignation.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also called on the Liberal government to support a Conservative Ontario MP’s bill proposing a change in the law so that inmates convicted of more than one first-degree murder could have their entire sentences served in one go Year have to serve high-security institution.
House Speaker Mark Holland responded that Bernardo’s transfer was still under review by the Correctional Service. He said that despite Canadians’ understandable outrage at his transfer to a medium-security prison, there was no reason to politicize the country’s prison system, which operates independently of the government.
screw up
Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 15-year-old Kristen French and 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s.
Paul Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the 1991 murders of two teenage girls. (File Photo)
Photo: Radio Canada/Pam Davies
He also admitted to sexually abusing 14 other women and was convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of 15-year-old Tammy Homolka, who died after being drugged and sexually assaulted.
Tammy Homolka was the younger sister of Bernardo’s wife, Karla Homolka, who was released in 2005 after serving a 12-year sentence for her involvement in the crimes against Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
Mary Campbell, a longtime former senior official who resigned from her post at the Department of Public Safety in 2013, called it nonsense that Minister Mendicino was not informed by his staff.
She even claims that there was a mechanism within the Corrections Service to alert its cabinet to any situation involving a notorious criminal so as not to catch a minister off guard. This mechanism should have worked well in this case, says Ms Campbell.
She said on Thursday that, having worked for 14 ministers, she had never seen any of them have to issue a directive that read: “Please notify me of important matters.”
“I can’t believe it,” said the former senior official.