Lambton-Kent Middlesex MP Bev Shipley is appalled by the recent news of a killer receiving an absolute discharge in Manitoba.
“In 2008 Vincent Li viciously beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus,” Shipley wrote in a newsletter.
“News this week reported that Vincent Li has been granted an absolute discharge. Li is now free to walk the streets, to change his name (and he has) and has moved to a home just minutes away from his victim’s mother. This is absurd.”
Li, who now goes by the name of Will Baker, was found not criminally responsible back in March of 2009 for the horrific death of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus seven months earlier.
Reports say Li heard the voice of God telling him to decapitate and cannibalize his fellow passenger, who Li believed was an alien.
Li suffers from schizophrenia and it was undiagnosed at the time of the killing, reports say.
After receiving treatment at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre in Manitoba Li gained back many small freedoms over the years, including day trips and unescorted outings.
Li was eventually given the absolute discharge by the Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board.
Shipley, along with the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Rona Ambrose, does not agree with the decision.
“Our party believes the rights of victims are more important than the rights of criminals,” Shipley wrote.
“We introduced many anti-crime bills and mandatory minimum sentence bills for vicious and violent crimes. These were consistently opposed by the Liberals and New Democrats, who believe that the rights of criminals are more important than the rights of victims.”
Justin Trudeau must put the rights of victims ahead of criminals. I asked him about Vincent Li earlier this week: https://t.co/Af7PK8Bz03 https://t.co/nimpi9Gjuu
— Rona Ambrose (@RonaAmbrose) 10 February 2017
Shipley said the Conservative Party brought forward the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights back in 2015 in order to place the rights of victims ahead of those of the offender.
