WINNIPEG - A Montreal man convicted of raping and fatally stabbing a 15-year-old girl has been denied day parole after having an aboriginal elder-assisted hearing in Winnipeg.
The girl's father, Michael Manning, says the killer should not have been allowed to have an aboriginal hearing because although he is a Canadian citizen he was born in Haiti and is not aboriginal.
Manning says it makes a mockery of First Nation, Inuit and Metis people.
Manning says he and the killer sat in a circle with about 10 other people at Stony Mountain Institution and an empty chair representing his dead daughter, Tara.
The killer cannot be named because he was a minor at the time of the 1994 slaying.
Manning says the killer was told he needed escorted passes before he would be allowed day parole.
"The parole people said, `You're a high-risk offender, you're going for day parole, you're in medium-security prison, you are no farther ahead now than you were 17 years ago,'' Manning said.
Such hearings were first introduced in Western Canada in the 1990s to ensure parole hearings were sensitive to the values and customs of aboriginal inmates.
However, a spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada said "a non-aboriginal offender who has demonstrated a commitment to aboriginal spirituality or way of life'' is eligible to apply for an elder-assisted hearing.
The requests are reviewed on the basis of the inmate's participation in aboriginal cultural activities inside the prisons, said Gary Sears, the parole board's deputy regional director for the Prairie region.
While the parole board says elder-assisted hearings do not improve an inmate's chances for release, Manning believes the killer requested one for exactly that reason.
"I think it's very disrespectful to the aboriginal community that has fought for and finally got aboriginal hearings...that's for aboriginals who are natives, Metis or Inuit. And he doesn't fit the bill anywhere.''
He says the killer apologized to him, but he didn't accept the apology.
"I'm sorry, you want to feel better because all these years later you're trying to cope with it? Well, I am still trying to cope with it, and he can apologize until he's blue in the face but what he says really means nothing to me.''
After his daughter's death, 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.
