A debate heavy on outrage, light on facts

Few people want to really think about prison, or at least think very hard, and this is where we come to Frank Caputo.

- BRUCE ARTHUR

Conservative MP Frank Caputo was recently given a tour of Paul Bernardo’s empty cell in a Quebec prison and proceeded to manufacture social media outrage over what he saw without fact-checking some very simple things, Bruce Arthur writes.

He’s a Conservative MP, one of the party’s critics of justice and the attorney general, and a former Crown prosecutor and parole officer. He also recently toured the Quebec prison that houses Paul Bernardo, one of Canada’s true monsters. And Caputo said he was shocked, shocked, at what he saw.

Caputo was given a tour of Bernardo’s empty cell at La Macaza prison, northwest of Montreal, and was horrified to find … empty margarine containers drying on a top bunk, mint chocolate bars and an electric razor. Caputo said in a seven-plus-minute video, “You could see all these things, and it looks like somebody very ordinary lived in that jail cell. And yet he’s a monster.” He told a story about seeing Bernardo, and coming eye to eye with the devil.

But what really outraged him was that the prison had an outdoor hockey rink, and tennis court. Were you a sitting MP who was familiar with the justice system, what would you do? Would you ask for more information? Or would you commission what looks like an AI graphic that reads “Canadian Taxpayer Funded Serial Killer Pick-Up Hockey” and tweet it out, claim that Bernardo was living better than most Canadians, and, once your claims were contested, offer to debate the head of Correctional Service Canada?