A Nova Scotia woman serving a life sentence for strangling her own daughter to death has been granted a 60-day unescorted temporary absence from prison, but was denied day parole.

Penny Patricia Boudreau

will be living at a halfway house in an undisclosed location for the duration of the two-month release.

“Your criminal history is limited, however that has very little mitigating impact in terms of the overall history because of the nature, the severity and the circumstances of your crime,” Francois Levert, a member of the parole board, said Wednesday.

“The impact of your crime cannot be overstated as this impact remains very much alive.”

Boudreau murdered her 12-year-old daughter Karissa Boudreau on Jan. 27, 2008, later claiming it was to save her relationship with her then boyfriend, Vernon Macumber. The Crown later said he had no role in the crime.

“Holding a position of trust, you strangled the young victim and disposed of the body in the snow (beside the LaHave River) with hopes it would not be discovered,” according to a written decision earlier this year from the parole board regarding Boudreau.

“Moreover, you concocted a story that she might have been abducted and made public pleas for her return. An exhaustive police investigation involving undercover agents led to your arrest. It was your position that your decisions were taken to save your intimate relationship with your partner.”

The “paramount consideration” guiding Wednesday’s decision is the protection of society, Levert said.

Boudreau, now 51, has completed numerous escorted temporary absences from prison since they were first approved for her in 2018.

“There’s quite a bit of difference between a six-hour or seven-hour outing and a 60-day period,” Levert said.

“The board believes that, at the current time, it is difficult to foresee … within two months … you’ll be able to transition immediately” to day parole, he said.

The parole board can’t “assume things will go well,” Levert said.

While the board authorized the 60-day unescorted temporary absence for Boudreau, it wants to see how she does with that before giving her six months of day parole. On day parole, Boudreau would sleep at a halfway house, but she would be able to spend time in the community for work, education or treatment.

During her 60-day release, Boudreau is to have no contact with several members of her victim’s family that were identified only by initials at Wednesday’s hearing. She must immediately report all relationships with men and disclose whether they have parental responsibility for children under 16. Boudreau must also follow a mental health treatment program.

While the board denied Boudreau day parole following the 60-day prison leave, it will order a review of her case in six months.

“This will allow time for your case management team … to give an assessment of how things are going and link it to risk,” Levert said.

Boudreau teared up several times during Wednesday’s hearing.

“It makes no difference and it doesn’t undo anything, but I want to acknowledge that I am aware that people are hurting because of what I have done,” Boudreau told the parole board.

“I realize that I can sit here, or I can be out, and I can’t undo it. I just want them to know that I don’t take this lightly at all. The amount of hurt I’ve caused I can’t undo but I just want (them) to know that I recognize it, and I just appreciate you guys at least listening to me.”

Karissa’s body was found in the snow along a riverbank in Bridgewater, N.S., about two weeks after she was last seen in her mother’s car on Jan. 27, 2008.

The year after Karissa was killed, Boudreau pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. A judge sentenced her to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years.

That would have meant a release date of June 13, 2028. However, under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, she is now eligible to apply for unescorted passes, including day parole, three years prior to completing that sentence.

Boudreau is serving her time at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro.

The parole board heard Wednesday from Paul Boudreau, Karissa’s father.

“My whole world changed the day Karissa was taken away from me,” he told the board.

“Now, she’s only memories, pictures and a name etched on a stone.”

He told the board he’s questioned himself many times over his daughter’s murder. “Am I a failure as a father? Should I have seen this coming?” said the grieving dad.

Karissa’s murder had “long effects on her family, friends (and) schoolmates that knew and loved her,” he said.

“Hearing the horrific tale has changed them in many ways forever. Life will never be the same for any of us.”

Since she was sentenced in January 2009, Boudreau “has been fully engaged in recommended correctional programming and interventions,” her parole officer told the hearing.

In 2018, Boudreau “began the process of gradual reintegration,” which included escorted temporary absences to attend local church services, said her parole officer, noting Boudreau had worked as the chaplain’s assistant at Nova Institution for several years.

Her most recent risk assessment “suggests that Ms. Boudreau’s global risk for future recidivism of any kind, violent or general, is estimated to be in the very low range,” her parole officer told the board.

Correctional Service Canada recommended Boudreau was ready for the move to a halfway house for the 60-day unescorted temporary absence, as well six months of day parole.

“The fact that Ms. Boudreau’s risk to reoffend is currently considered very low combined with her consistent positive institutional behaviour (and) motivation to be involved in interventions suggest that the risk is manageable,” said her parole officer.

This past March, the parole board handed Boudreau 18 more escorted temporary absences “to participate in church services and/or church related activities, including but not limited to special community events, bible study, meetings with the pastor and/or congregation, for up to six hours each including travel time.”

It also granted her four escorted absences of up to seven hours each to see family, though the same decision noted Boudreau was no longer in contact with one of her parents.

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As an Ottawa man who helped the Canadian Armed Forces during its NATO mission in Afghanistan waited for a decision from the Federal Court in a bid to bring his family to safety in Canada from the Taliban’s revenge, he heard distressing news from his sister.

She had fled Afghanistan when her husband was shot dead after receiving threatening phone calls from Taliban fighters and was living abroad waiting for a family reunification in Canada, but she had just heard she might be ordered deported to Afghanistan at the end of this week, he said.

“She called me crying,” the man told National Post from his home in Ottawa.

Then his hope that she could soon join him in Canada collapsed when he heard the decision Monday from Canada’s Federal Court on a case launched in 2023 by him and two other Canadians who all are trying to bring their family to join them in Canada after helping Canada’s military in Afghanistan.

“The situation is very serious. After she has been running for years, we heard this very devastating and unfortunate decision by the court,” he said. With a deportation threat looming from her temporary home and Canada’s court closing their escape path to Canada, the family is devastated.

“She said, ‘Tell me where should I go? What should I do?’ I said, to be honest with you, I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know what to tell you. And it’s all because of the government’s decision to put such rigid criteria on that public policy that denied her application.”

The three men sued the federal government, saying an immigration policy that gives easy entry to Canada to Ukrainian families fleeing Russia’s invasion should also apply to them.

All three were born in Afghanistan but had moved to Canada. They returned to Afghanistan to serve as Language and Cultural Advisors (LCA) for the Canadian military in Afghanistan, where they had top-secret security clearance while variously assisting troops from 2007 and 2011.

The three men complained to the court that Canada’s fast-track Ukraine policy didn’t have the same limitations that kept their families out, which violates their Charter rights by giving preferential immigration benefits based on race. They asked the court to strike out the words Ukraine and Ukrainian from the government’s fast-track policy so they could benefit from the same rules.

Section 15 of the Charter says: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

The three men had their identifies protected by the court because of danger to them and their relatives for working with the International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, the NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan. The one who was interviewed by the Post asked that his name not be published for fear it could be used to target his family.

After Afghanistan was retaken by the Taliban, Canada announced a special policy to help LCAs bring family here. It included rigid conditions that limited who was eligible. All three men had family denied. In the case of the man interviewed, his sister had fled the country with her children before the fall of Kabul, which made her ineligible.

“I was a Canadian citizen. I went there and people found out that I work with Canadian forces, so they targeted my family members there,” he said. “She fled Afghanistan before the Taliban took over because her husband got killed by the Taliban. Her kids were threatened to be assassinated by Taliban, so she had no other choice but to flee Afghanistan because of my job with the Canadian forces.”

Canada’s Ukraine special policy was introduced in March 2022. The Afghan LCA special policy was introduced on Jan. 30, 2023.

The lawsuits claimed differences in the policies rekindle racist immigration policies in Canada’s past that gave preference to some migrants, primarily white or from European countries, and limited or discouraged immigration from others, primarily brown or black or from Asian, African and Caribbean countries.

The government told court that immigration exemptions have long been a part of Canada’s response to various crises in different countries. Several, over the years, gave immigration exemptions for foreign nationals fleeing conflicts other than those in Ukraine or Afghanistan, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hong Kong and Sudan.

The former LCAs got their answer Monday; because the Ukraine policy expired on July 15, 2023, the three men’s lawsuit was dismissed.

“In my view the application is moot, and in the exercise of its discretion, the Court will not hear the application. Therefore, the application will be dismissed,” wrote Justice Henry S. Brown in his decision.

Mootness means that a decision of a court can no longer resolve the issue being argued; that no matter what a judge ruled it would have no practical impact on the problem.

Nicholas Pope, lawyer for the three men, said the decision that it is too late for the men to benefit from the Ukraine policy because it has expired was upsetting because the delay came from the government and the courts.

“Essentially, the federal government has immunized itself from Charter scrutiny of temporary immigration policies by failing to properly fund the Federal Court,” Pope told the Post. “The executive branch should never be allowed to avoid accountability by inhibiting a court’s ability to do its job.”

“The applicants’ family members are still at serious risk of death, torture, and targeted assassination by the Taliban because of the applicants’ service to the Canadian military,” he said.

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OTTAWA — Shortly after cutting immigration levels, the federal immigration department heard through government-funded polling that a slight majority of Canadians still found this year’s number too high.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada commissioned the survey as part of its annual tracking of public sentiment towards immigration and reported it publicly as part of the government’s disclosures on its public opinion research.

The survey, which was done last November, followed the

federal government’s announcement

that it would reduce the number of permanent residents by nearly 100,000 in 2025. The target was set at 395,000, down from 485,000 in 2024.

The survey found that 54 per cent of Canadians said they “felt there are too many immigrants coming to Canada.” Another 34 per cent said they felt the number was fine, according to the report.

“When informed that Canada plans to admit 395,000 immigrants as permanent residents in 2025, 52 per cent said that it is too many, 37 per cent that this is about the right number and five per cent that this is too few,” it read.

“When informed that 395,000 immigrants is roughly 20 per cent fewer than Canada planned to admit in 2024, 44 per cent feel this is too many, 39 per cent that this number is about right and 13 per cent that it is too few.”

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said in a statement that work has begun on setting immigration levels for the next two years, with that plan scheduled to be tabled in the fall, as it has in years past.

“(Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada) will continue work together with partners to establish the best paths forward to ensure that Canada is in position to attract the best talent in the world, while ensuring that overall immigration levels are more sustainable, and that the integrity of the system’s programs remain in tact,” wrote

Ren
ée LeBlanc Proctor, the minister’s press secretary. 

“We won’t speculate about specific future policy decisions at this time, but note that work on the 2026-2028 levels plan is already underway.”

Determining how many more permanent and temporary residents Canada will allow into the country has been challenged by changing public sentiments around immigration, connected to concerns regarding housing affordability, the availability of doctors and other social supports.

While federal officials say immigration accounted for nearly 98 per cent of Canada’s population growth in 2023, helping to offset an aging population and bringing the country’s population to 41 people million last year, housing experts, economists, and the Bank of Canada all warned that it has contributed to the country’s housing shortage.

Keith Neuman, senior associate at the Environics Institute, a non-profit that has been conducting public opinion research on attitudes around immigration for the past four decades, says Canadians’ perspectives have changed in terms of people thinking about how many immigrants the country could handle.

He says that represents a shift from what research has shown in the past, where Canadians previously focused on who immigrants were and where they were coming from.

“The capacity issue has never really been something that Canadians have thought about, up to this point. And so that’s where the real shift has happened,” he said in an interview.

“It is now become a public issue and a political issue.”

In cutting this year’s numbers, former prime minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the government “didn’t get the balance quite right” as it sought to address the country’s labour shortages emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting previous plans that set the country on track to accept 500,000 permanent residents by 2025.

Instead, the current immigration plan seeks to further cut the number of permanent residents from 395,000 this year to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027. It also noted that more than 40 per cent of the permanent resident intakes for this year would come from temporary residents already in Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney named addressing housing affordability as one of the top priorities he has outlined for his new government.

Another one is immigration, with Carney saying in his mandate letter to ministers that they would focus on “attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy, while returning our overall immigration rates to sustainable levels.”

Neither the Conservative Opposition office nor Michelle Rempel Garner, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s immigration critic, responded to a request for comment about the party’s position on the current immigration levels plan.

Last week, Poilievre told reporters that Conservatives want “severe limits” on Canada’s population growth, which he said “has been growing out of control” as a result of the Liberals’ immigration policy.

Around that time Rempel Garner also told reporters she does not “fault” those looking to come to Canada, but blames the Liberals for not ensuring it was matching immigration to the capacity for housing and health-care, adding the immigration minister has failed to outline the government’s plan to carry out removals for those no longer allowed in the country.

In Parliament, Rempel Garner discussed the government’s levels plan in terms of saying it showed that “immigration is going up,” as did other Conservative MPs.

Neuman says while immigration has become a more politically polarized issue, with those favouring less of it siding with the Conservatives and Canadians supportive of increases identifying with left-wing parties, it is not an issue that sits top of many Canadians’ minds, unlike in the United States.

In fact, he suggests Canadians have been responding to immigration as more of a national issue than one that has impacted them directly.

The survey the immigration department commissioned last fall reported that nearly half of the respondents said they felt that immigration had a positive impact on their community.

Neuman says it is unlikely Canadians’ feelings towards immigration will change drastically, considering issues like housing remain a problem. However, given Canadians’ attention to U.S. President Donald Trump and the country’s relationship with the U.S., “the issue has kind of receded in the background.”

staylor@postmedia.com

National Post

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