By Clare Marie Merkowsky
The Conservative Party is pledging to ban male criminals who identify as female from being housed in women’s prisons, reversing the current Trudeau-era policy.
The Conservative Party platform is promising to repeal a Trudeau-era policy that allows gender-confused men to be housed in women’s prisons.
According to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party platform released on April 18, male criminals who claim to be gender-confused and identify as female will not be sent to female prisons.
Under Poilievre’s pledge to restore public safety, his platform promises to “defend women’s safety by repealing Commissioner’s Directive 100, which allows male offenders to be housed in women’s prisons and ensure that women’s spaces and services remain protected in federal institutions and policy.”
Currently under the Liberal Party, the policy is to place prisoners according to their “self-identified” gender, not according to biology. As a result, male rapists and murderers can be sent to female prisons.
However, in December, the case of a brutal murderer caused an uproar on social media as many pointed out that putting the man in a women’s prison would pose a danger to female inmates.
At the time, Mohamad Al Ballouz, who brutally murdered his wife and two children, requested that he be sent to a female prison as he began identifying as a woman after committing the murder.
Crown prosecutor Éric Nadeau revealed that the murder took place in September 2022 when Al Ballouz slaughtered his family at their Brossard apartment. He stabbed his wife 23 times before suffocated his children and trying to set the apartment on fire. He then ingested windshield washer fluid, which is believed to have been a suicide attempt.
During the trial, Quebec Superior Justice Eric Downs described Al Ballouz, as having a “sadistic character” and being “deeply narcissistic.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Throughout the trial, Al Ballouz, a biological male, claimed to be a woman and demanded that he be referred to as “Levana,” a change which was made after he was charged for his crimes. Notably, the Canadian Broadcasting Report’s (CBC’s) report of the case refers to the convicted murder as “she” and uses his fake name.
However, Canadians, including Poilievre, quickly pointed out that placing Al Ballouz in a female prison would prove dangerous for female inmates.
As a result, Correctional Services Canada recently announced that he will be “will be incarcerated in a men’s institution.”
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