Conservative, Bloc MPs prompt 'emergency' probe of Paul Bernardo's prison conditions

After a Conservative MP toured the Quebec prison where notorious murderer Paul Bernardo is serving his sentence, some Tory MPs and a Bloc Quebecois colleague are staging a committee meeting to review what they say are inappropriate living conditions for an infamous killer.

Four Conservative MPs and one Bloc member have written the public safety committee's Liberal chair to say they are triggering an "emergency meeting" for next Monday — a day when the Commons is not sitting — to study why "sadistic murderers are being left to enjoy freedoms and luxuries of lower security prisons."

Conservative MP Frank Caputo visited La Macaza Institution last month and relayed what he said he saw there in a slickly produced seven-minute video posted to his social media channels.

Caputo said he personally visited Bernardo's cell at the federal medium-security institution and later saw the prisoner in his cell block.

He described Bernardo as a "well-fed" prisoner living in a correctional facility that he said looked more like a university campus than a prison.

While at the site, Caputo said he also learned that another convicted first-degree murderer, Luka Magnotta, is serving time at La Macaza.

Caputo said he was there to see how Bernardo — an offender who is serving an indeterminate life sentence — is living out his days after being transferred from a maximum-security site in Ontario to a Quebec prison last year.

Bernardo's move to a facility with fewer restrictions has been an ongoing source of controversy.

Caputo said he saw the prison's dormant hockey rink, which can also double as a tennis court in the warmer months.

That feature and a supposedly well-stocked weight room have drawn the ire of Caputo and his party.

"This person did unspeakable things," Caputo said of Bernardo in his video.

"If I wasn't pissed off enough seeing the hockey rink and tennis court, the cherry on top was seeing this beautiful gymnasium and next to that is a weight room. Much nicer than 95 per cent of Canadians have access to.

"I'm not saying we treat people inhumanely. We're a country of human rights. We're a country where the rule of law prevails. But you don't have a human right to a tennis court, you don't have a human right to a pool table."

LISTEN: Kamloops MP tours the prison holding serial killer Paul Bernardo

The MPs that forced the meeting said they want to probe "how Justin Trudeau's criminal justice system allows monsters like Magnotta and Bernardo to be freed from the maximum-security prisons that they belong in," according to the letter shared with CBC News.

"These sadistic murderers are being left to enjoy the freedoms and luxuries of lower security prisons while the families of their victims and the communities that they terrorized remain irreparably scarred by their crimes," the MPs wrote in the letter to Liberal MP Heath MacDonald.

The MPs, who include Conservatives Doug Shipley, Dane Lloyd, Glen Motz and Damien Kurek, and Bloc member Kristina Michaud, want to bring Liberal cabinet ministers and Correctional Service of Canada officials before the committee to answer questions about Bernardo's transfer and the prison conditions.

CSC already has said the rink hasn't been operational for two winters and that it's not unusual for prisoners to have access to such facilities while locked up.

"Providing offenders with opportunities for recreational activities promotes safer institutions for those who live and work in our facilities, by having offenders' time occupied in a productive, controlled and healthy manner," a spokesperson for CSC said in an emailed media statement.

The CSC spokesperson also described these features as "basic in nature," like "most aspects of an institutional prison setting."

But Caputo said someone like Bernardo — described in his video as "the worst of the worst" and a man who "cannot be rehabilitated" because his "offences were so bad" — should not enjoy these sorts of amenities while serving his time.

Bernardo, who is designated as a dangerous offender, is in prison for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 15-year-old Kristen French and 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s near St. Catharines, Ont.

He was also convicted of manslaughter in the December 1990 death of his then-wife Karla Homolka's 15-year-old sister, Tammy.

WATCH: MPs grill correctional service head over Paul Bernardo transfer

Caputo's video of Bernardo's prison conditions has been widely disseminated by the party and held up as an example of what they claim is a lax approach to criminal justice under the Liberal government.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to introduce stiffer prison sentences if he's elected.

In a social media post of his own Wednesday, Poilievre said convicted killers should be kept in maximum-security prisons — a proposal that could face resistance in Canada's court system.

As for Bernardo's transfer, the Liberal government has maintained that the decision to transfer him was made by the independent prison authority and politicians could not interfere.

CSC officials have said Bernardo met the criteria to be reclassified as a medium-security prisoner and they are confident he can be safely managed in a prison like this one.