A father says the man who murdered his teenage daughter should be denied an aboriginal parole hearing because it makes a "mockery" of Canada's First Nations people.

Michael Manning's 15-year-old daughter, Tara, was raped, smothered and stabbed dozens of times in the family's suburban Montreal home nearly 18 years ago.

The Parole Board of Canada has granted the girl's killer an elder-assisted hearing, which is usually reserved for aboriginal offenders and is conducted in a setting sensitive to their traditional cultures.

But Manning argues the Haitian-born man -- who was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder -- should not be allowed such a hearing because, to his knowledge, he doesn't have a First Nations background.

"It's like sticking another knife into our family -- he stabbed Tara 51 times, what kind of crap is this?" Manning asked Tuesday in an interview from his Montreal-area home.

"Aboriginals fought for a long time to try and get special rights and privileges ... It's disrespectful and it's a mockery to our First Nations, Inuit and Metis people."

Manning found his daughter's body in her bed on May 5, 1994, when he went into her room to turn off her alarm clock.

While the Parole Board of Canada says elder-assisted hearings do not improve an inmate's chances for release, Manning believes the killer requested one for exactly that reason.

"For me, it's a joke," said Manning, who plans to attend Wednesday's parole hearing at the Stony Mountain Institution in Winnipeg.

"This isn't just supposed to be (for) some clown that decides to better (his) chances, or to look better to the parole department."

After the slaying, Manning successfully campaigned for new federal DNA legislation by conducting a cross-Canada speaking tour.

The 1995 law gave police new powers to collect genetic samples -- like blood, hair and saliva -- to develop DNA profiles of suspects and compare them with crime-scene evidence.

The killer cannot be named because a court ruled he was a minor at the time of the slaying.

A spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada said Tuesday that non-aboriginal offenders can request an elder-assisted parole hearing, as long as they can prove they've been "engaged in aboriginal cultural or spiritual activity and programming, and that they have addressed their needs through that particular understanding."

Gary Sears said the main differences during an aboriginal hearing is that a parole-board-appointed elder is present, participants sit in a circle rather than at a table and offenders can ask that a prayer be held.

Sears said the aboriginal hearings are conducted by the same board members who preside over standard parole hearings.

He insisted they offer no advantages to an offender.

"As with any other decision by the Parole Board of Canada, public safety is the paramount concern," said Sears.

"The risk-assessment framework used by the board members in reaching their decision is exactly the same."

The Parole Board of Canada granted elder-assisted hearings to 492 inmates during the 2010-2011 fiscal year -- with 56 of them being non-aboriginal. In each of the previous four years, between 11 and 15 per cent of these hearings were given to non-aboriginal inmates.