Ont. holds vote on Truscott compensation before seeing recommendations

The government tasked former Appeal Court Justice Sydney Robins with reviewing the issue of compensation and while Attorney General Chris Bentley now has his recommendations in hand, he said he's not yet prepared to discuss them publicly, even though many in the house are expected to endorse the idea in a free vote.

"I think we would all like to be in a position where we can bring some closure to this case," Bentley said. "I have (Robins') advice and I am looking forward to speaking to it in the not too distant future."

While Robins was unwilling to discuss his findings this week, he told The Canadian Press last August that the compensation issue "turned" on the fact the Guelph, Ont., man wasn't declared factually innocent of schoolmate Lynne Harper's 1959 rape and murder.

Ontario's top court declared Truscott a victim of a miscarriage of justice and acquitted him of the crime, but stopped short of declaring him innocent due to a lack of physical evidence.

Robins said then that it was too early to speculate on whether Truscott could be denied compensation on that basis. Bentley refused to confirm this week whether the issue has come up in his final recommendations.

Bentley also refused to say whether he'd be supporting Thursday's motion put forward by Guelph Liberal Liz Sandals.

"I certainly will be very interested in what the house does," he said. "I think it's important in my role to take the advice from Justice Robins, of course, and listen carefully to what the house says."

Sandals said her motion is not meant to supersede Robins' advice, but is rather meant to publicly recognize the tremendous injustice that's occurred.

"Obviously, Mr. Robins is giving legal and technical advice to the attorney general on the matter of compensation but it seemed to me, because of the fact this case has such high public interest, it was also appropriate for the members, on behalf of the public, to give advice to the attorney general," she said.

"The reason I'm doing this is that this is a case where Mr. Truscott has gone for almost 50 years labelled as a murderer by Canadian courts... He's been absolutely consistent all these years saying, 'I am innocent. I did not do this,' and wanting to have his name cleared."

While individual members are allowed to vote with their hearts and aren't required to follow party lines on this matter, New Democrat Peter Kormos suggested the resolution will likely receive "all party support."

And although the vote is not binding, he expects it will carry more weight than the average resolution given its nature.

"Mr. Truscott has suffered just a tremendous and cruel injustice," Kormos said. "Money can't begin to compensate but it's all that we have in our society. He's lost a life. His own."

Still, Progressive Conservative justice critic Christine Elliott suggested it's "premature" for members to be taking a side on the compensation issue.

Noting Truscott's case is different than that of David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin, who were fortunate enough to be exonerated by DNA evidence, Elliott said current federal and provincial guidelines require proof of innocence before compensation could be granted.

Milgaard spent 23 years in prison for the murder of Saskatoon nursing aide Gail Miller and received $10 million after DNA evidence helped catch the real killer. Morin was tried twice for the 1984 killing of Christine Jessop, 9, just north of Toronto. Exonerated in 1995 on the strength of DNA evidence, he was awarded $1.2 million in compensation.

It's a matter Elliott suspects Robins dealt with in his review and suggests politicians ought to wait and see what he said on the matter before weighing in.

"It's not that we're not sympathetic to the difficulties that he's had, and it's really extraordinary circumstances that he's faced, but I think we also have to remember that the Harper family has also made representations to Justice Robins," she said.

"We should await Justice Robins' report because he's had the benefit of hearing from a number of witnesses on the subject and we shouldn't jump in front of his report or draw conclusions without the benefit of all the information."

A group of 48 high school law students from Bolton, Ont., who've been studying the high profile case, are expected to present a petition bearing more than 1,000 signatures calling on members to support the motion.

Given the age of both Truscott and Harper at the time of the murder and the changing nature of young people's rights over the last 50 years, Humberview Secondary School law teacher George Allain said it's a case that hits close to home for youth.

Truscott, the youngest Canadian ever handed the death penalty, spent months on death row until his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He was paroled in 1969 after spending a decade behind bars and later married and raised a family in Guelph, Ont., under an assumed name.