Condemning the federal government’s “serious departure” from Canada’s long-standing clemency policy, Canada’s top Anglican cleric has urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to scrap the Conservatives’ new hands-off policy toward Canadians facing execution in some countries.
In a Jan. 29 letter to Harper, made public by the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz expresses “grave concern” over the government’s recent decision “to accept the imposition of the death penalty” in certain cases, such as the pending lethal injection of Alberta-born killer Ronald Smith in Montana.