Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s campaign management is in damage control following comments he made about supporting a return to capital punishment.
During a speech at the London Police Service’s gala dinner and award night last month, the premier said he would like to see stiffer penalties for murderers, joking that he would empower judges to “send ‘em to sparky” in reference to the electric chair.
Ford later shrugged off the remark to the crowd, saying that those kinds of off-the-cuff comments are what get him into trouble, but that it’s just who he is.
His office did not respond to True North’s request for comment.
However, a spokesperson with his campaign issued a statement that referred to his comments as a “poor-taste joke” born out of Ford’s frustration with the Trudeau government’s catch-and-release style bail system.
“The premier does not support capital punishment but rather firmly believes more needs to be done to keep violent and repeat offenders behind bars where they belong,” a campaign spokesperson told CityNews.
Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie called Ford’s comments “beyond disturbing” in a social media post.
“We’re halfway through this self-serving election, and instead of talking about health care, Doug Ford is pushing for the death penalty, just like Trump. Once again he’s showing us who he really is,” wrote Crombie.
Canada replaced capital punishment with mandatory 25-year life sentences without parole for those convicted of first-degree murder in 1976.
Ford has been calling for stricter penalties for violent offenders for some time and has pledged to build as many jails as necessary to keep them “behind bars for a long time.”
He’s also accused the Trudeau government of not wanting to fix Canada’s bail system in the past.
“If you want to do something, you’ve been in office for 10 years, you would have had it done,” Ford told reporters last summer. “You see crime going up.”
“People don’t feel comfortable going down to the subways, walking the streets late at night. We all know that doors are being kicked in, guns are being put at people’s heads and their cars are being stolen,” he added. “They don’t feel safe any longer but we’re going to put an end to it.”