Capital punishment in Canada dates back to 1759 in its days as a British colony. Before Canada eliminated the death penalty for murder on July 14, 1976, 1,481 people were sentenced to death, with 710 executed. Of those executed, 697 were men and 13 were women. The only method used in Canada for capital punishment in nonmilitary contexts was hanging. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto's Don Jail.
On June 30, 1987, a bill to restore the death penalty was defeated by the House of Commons in a close 148-127 vote, in which Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Minister of External Affairs Joe Clark opposed the bill, whereas Deputy Prime Minister Donald Mazankowski and a majority of Progressive Conservative MPs supported it.
Read more about Capital Punishment In Canada: History, Military Executions, Last People Executed in Canada, Method, Executions and The Public, Canadian Policy and Capital Punishment in Foreign Countries
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“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
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“In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least several gentlemen or “squires,” there is but one to a seigniory.”
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