Question Of The Day - If Luka Rocco Magnotta Is Caught And Found Guilty, Should Canada Reinstate The Death Penalty?

To get you up to date: Luka Rocco Magnotta (born Eric Newman) recently killed a 33 year old Concordia student named Lin Jun, chopped off his limbs and his head, had sex with the torso, masturbated with a severed limb and fed bits of the body to a dog. Then he mailed a foot to the Conservative headquarters and a hand to the Liberal headquarters and left the torso in a suitcase behind his apartment building. AND he videotaped the killing and posted it online. I tried to watch the video but every link I found was flooded and failed, thank god. I don’t recommend you watch it. It’s called 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick. Don’t watch it. Don’t Google it and don’t watch it. In fact, forget I said anything.

This morning my editor asked me to walk around the streets of Toronto asking people if we should put alleged psychotic killer Luka Rocco Magnotta to death. Having stared at internet screens for 2 days reading as much of the blood and sexual violence contained in this case as I could, being Canadian and so intrinsically feeling everyone deserves a second chance, I was hesitant to do this assignment. Luckily it was raining. But then it stopped raining. So I was fucked and went into the streets of Toronto and asked people: If Luka Rocco Magnotta is caught and found guilty, should Canada reinstate the death penalty?

Brendan, research and retail: No, I don’t think so.

Why not?

I think that would be a contradiction on the democratic nature of our country. I think that while what he has done is totally contradicts civil nature there are still people who have gone more extreme and done more and we’ve not changed our stance on the death penalty so why would we change that now?

What if he did those things to your Mother?

Personally, yes, it would touch me differently. But I think when all of us reflect on it, as painful as it is in the beginning, when we think about it in the big picture, if somebody has to live with what they did they would suffer more in the long run.

If you could go back in time and put anybody in the electric chair who would it be? Not Hitler.

Hitler would be one. There’s another one, I can’t remember his name, he’s from Africa, he did something to children…

Kony?

Yeah, he would be another. And Hussein as well.

Carlee and Noah, a doggy daycare worker and a sidewalk vacuum operator:

Carlee: No, why would they put him out of his misery? He needs to sit in jail.

Noah: Ahh, I’m from Texas, man, we kill people in Texas all the time.

Would you be able to pull the switch on him?

Noah: I don’t know, he’s pretty messed up. I could yeah.

Carlee: He’s into shit like that, he could.

How should he go out?

Noah: Good old fashioned hanging. But you guys would never do that here.

If you could go back in time and put anybody in the electric chair who would it be? Not Hitler!

Carlee: Nicki Minaj (laughs).

Noah: That’s a good question…One of the presidents. The first Bush president. Not the second Bush but the first Bush.

Carlee: Wait, I want to change my answer to that guy they’re trying to go after in Africa right now. What’s his name?

Kony?

Carlee: Yeah, Kony.

Dave, clown: Nope.

Why not?

Because no one has the right to say whether someone else lives or dies. It makes the state no better than him.

What if he did that to your mother?

Still, the state has no right to kill someone.

What do you think should be done with him?

I think he definitely needs to be segregated from the population. So whether that’s prison or a mental hospital, something like that.

If you could go back in time and put anybody in the electric chair who would it be? Not Hitler.

I don’t think I’d put anyone in the electric chair.

Not even Hitler?

Nope.

Dominique and Bruno, an urban planner and an economic developer.

Bruno: Revenge is never the answer, he should pay the Canadian way. It’s hard in those very graphic cases to see the good in people but we have to take a different perspective and see the good in people.

Doninique: Well…That doesn’t mean he’s good, he just has to be judged in Canada and Canada doesn’t have the death penalty. I don’t think we should go back to those barbarian ways, even though it’s not that barbarian they still put people to death in the States for example. But we shouldn’t regress.

What if he had done that to your mother?

Bruno: Well I’d probably want to kill him but I wouldn’t want the whole country to go bananas and make him a special case.

You said something about the Canadian way. What’s the Canadian way?

Bruno: To have confidence in people, to go through rehabilitation rather than harsh punishment. There is hope in certain kinds of criminals.

Dominique: But he’s a psycho!

Bruno: Well, he needs help anyway.

If you could go back in time and put anyone in the electric chair, who would it be. And don’t say Hitler or Kony.

Dominique: I couldn’t.

Bruno: Yeah, I couldn’t either.

I see you’re wearing red squares, what about Jean Charest?

Dominique: (laughs) Oh boy, he should be replaced but no electric chair.

Bruno: I’m sure he’s a nice guy.