--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How we failed Valerie Gignac

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Locking up Francois Pepin now will not, tragically, help Constable Valerie Gignac. Yet over the years, Mr. Pepin has given judges and parole officers dozens of opportunities to keep him off the streets -- the latest just this past Monday, when he was convicted of harassment but released with a slap on the wrist. There will undoubtedly be calls now for more restrictions on civilian gun ownership or more counselling for mentally troubled persons. But all the laws necessary to prevent such tragedies -- if they can be prevented at all -- already exist. All that is needed to make our communities safer is the political and judicial will to enforce them.

That Mr. Pepin was still at large when Constable Gignac visited his Montreal-area apartment Thursday -- the final, fatal call for the 25-year-old officer -- demonstrates how blatantly our courts and corrections departments fail in their duty to safeguard the public. Mr. Pepin's possession of a rifle was further evidence. A man with a history of violence, uttering threats and unbalanced behaviour, Mr. Pepin should have had no gun, much less a rifle high-powered enough to blast through the wall of his bachelor suite and into Const. Gignac's back.

He was under a 1999 court order that prohibited him from possessing firearms. Yet still a judge had amended that order to permit him to keep and use a hunting rifle. It is ridiculous, and it is an outrage. If Mr. Pepin was too dangerous to the public to possess a handgun or shotgun, then he was too dangerous to keep any gun in his apartment.

The unemployed 40-year-old parolee has frequently been reported to police for threatening violence against authority figures. Union bosses and police officers have sought court orders to keep him away from them. His probation officer apparently lost touch with him. His landlord, himself a retired police officer, dismissed as boasts claims Mr. Pepin allegedly made in the days leading up to Constable Gignac's shooting about acquiring a gun and doing harm to someone - he didn't say who. On Monday, he plead guilty to, in effect, stalking a female police officer for whom he harboured sexual fantasies. No one could say for sure whether the suspected murder weapon was his legally or had been picked up on the black market.

All along the way, Mr. Pepin exhibited signs that he was a time bomb waiting to go off. Several people in a position to do something to stop him seem to have seen this, but decided to do nothing more than give him a pat on the head and remonstrate him never to be bad again.

While not nearly as violent or overtly criminal over the years as James Roszko -- the killer of four Mounties last spring in Alberta -- Mr. Pepin clearly did pose a similar danger. Yet because judge after judge refused to incarcerate him until he ceased his violent ways, Pepin remained at large until Constable Gignac came calling.

The problem is countrywide. On Friday, Statistics Canada reported that just 32,000 Canadians were in federal or provincial custody in 2004 -- a rate of just 130 per 100,000 population, a 3% decline from 2003 and the lowest level since 1982. This decline is not driven by falling crime rates; it is the result of a policy decision taken by Ottawa and most provinces in the mid-1990s to do away with imprisonment for all but the most violent offenders. Probation, house arrest and conditional sentencing was to replace traditional prison detention.

If Canadians want to avoid tragedies like the killing of Constable Gignac, they should not be pushing the candidates in this election for more money for halfway houses or for a ban on private ownership of guns. Rather, they should be demanding the end of lenient sentencing that allows alleged cop killers like Francois Pepin to be at large.