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Paper Petition Still Has Power

by Jennifer

What started as nothing more than a paper petition has turned into the driving force behind a potential change in Canadian parole hearing legislation. As the law currently stands, convicted felons are granted automatic parole hearing every two years. While this may encourage good behavior among the criminals, it forces the victims of their crimes to relive their experiences on a regular basis.

Armed with the signatures of more than 5000 supporters, Carolyn Gardner, director of customer experience at Sitebrand, met with legislator Stockwell Day last week to talk about making these changes. The petition is working – Day, along with other legislators, completely supports her case.

Carolyn started the petition in response to the automatic parole hearings of Ralph Power, the man who murdered her sister back in 1981. Click here to read more about the case. While he has declined both of his hearings since becoming eligible in 2006, Carolyn doesn’t want to take any chances. After all, he was on parole when he killed her sister.

“We don’t think they should be given parole hearings, period, we don’t think they should ever have the opportunity of release…we doubt if the government would right away go for no parole hearings ever, so, as a start, we’re advocating them every five years instead of two,” said Carolyn, in reference to violent, beyond redemption, murderers such as Power.

With the Internet becoming such a driving force behind many campaigns, it’s interesting to see that a paper petition can still have such an impact on legislation. If passing a sheet of paper around on hand can gather 5000 signatures and potentially change a law, I’d love to see what the power of the Internet could do.

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