You Don't Get a Second Chance

I you make the decision to sexually assault and murder a little girl, I believe that's it.

You don't get a second chance at living freely among the rest of us.

You can spend the rest of your life atoning. You can take counselling. You can beg for forgiveness. You can take medication, participate in treatment and spend decades trying to understand and control whatever was happening inside your head.

I hope you do.

But none of that means society owes you another chance to walk freely among our children.

Which brings me to Shane Ertmoed.

I turned on the news this week and learned that Ertmoed—the man convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering 10-year-old Heather Thomas—has been granted a 60-day unescorted temporary absence so that he can participate in a cooking program.

A fucking cooking program.

I don't use that language lightly.

But holy shit, Parole Board of Canada. Give your proverbial heads a shake.

Because there is a detail here that should stop every Canadian in their tracks:

The people responsible for managing Ertmoed's case reportedly did not support the release.

His case-management team told the Board that, in their view, his risk “cannot be managed safely on the proposed UTA.”

Read that again.

The professionals managing this offender said they did not believe his risk could safely be managed under the proposed unescorted temporary absence.

The Board approved it anyway.

And there is more.

According to reporting on the Parole Board decision, a June 2024 psychological risk assessment identified a continuing “deviant pattern of arousal to young females.” It identified other risk factors, including inappropriate sexual themes, emotional identification with children, social isolation, poor coping and difficulty managing strong emotions.

The assessment reportedly concluded that if Ertmoed sexually reoffended, the likely victim would be a prepubescent or pubescent female, and that serious harm could result if the victim resisted.

Yet somehow we have arrived at the cooking-class stage of his rehabilitation.

Perhaps most disturbing to me is what reportedly happened immediately before the hearing.

Ertmoed told the Board that he had needed to use his management strategies the night before the hearing, after becoming uncomfortable with his thoughts while watching a television program featuring a 14-year-old female contortionist.

The night before.

And the response is an unescorted temporary absence?

What the hell are we doing?

Let me acknowledge something important because the research matters.

Treatment for people who have committed sexual offences can work. Canadian research has found that properly designed treatment can significantly reduce sexual reoffending. One large Public Safety Canada analysis found sexual recidivism rates of roughly 11 percent among treated offenders compared with 19 percent among comparison offenders.

That's important.

But notice the word I used:

Reduce.

Not eliminate.

Treatment is important. Rehabilitation is important. Risk management is important.

But rehabilitation does not require pretending that every risk eventually becomes acceptable.

There are human beings whose behaviour may require lifelong management. Recognizing that isn't vengeance. It isn't demanding that someone suffer. It is recognizing that society has obligations to innocent people too.

And Heather Thomas was innocent.

She was 10 years old.

On October 1, 2000, Heather was outside her father's townhouse complex in Cloverdale.

She was riding her bike.

Think about that.

She wasn't involved in crime. She wasn't making dangerous choices. She wasn't somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.

She was a little girl riding her bike.

Ertmoed sexually assaulted and killed her.

Her body was eventually transported to Golden Ears Provincial Park and dumped in Alouette Lake, minutes from where I live with my own family!

I was a police officer at the time. Not long afterward, I transferred to Surrey RCMP.

This isn't an abstract discussion to me about corrections theory, actuarial assessments and reintegration strategies.

Heather was a real little girl.

And there is something about discussions like this that bothers me deeply: eventually the offender becomes the center of the story.

His progress.

His treatment.

His rehabilitation.

His employment.

His reintegration.

His cooking class.

What about Heather?

Heather never got to graduate from high school.

She never got to learn to drive.

She never got to choose a career.

She never got to fall in love, get married, have children, or decide she wanted none of those things.

She never got to become an adult and discover who Heather Thomas was going to be.

And she sure as hell never got the opportunity to take a fucking cooking class.

Her future ended at 10 years old.

His apparently continues to expand.

That is the part I cannot reconcile.

Canada doesn't have the death penalty. Nor am I asking for suffering, abuse or mistreatment of prisoners.

Give offenders decent food.

Give them medical care.

Give them mental-health care.

Give them treatment.

Give them counselling.

Give them opportunities to confront what they did and, where possible, become better human beings.

But none of that automatically creates a right to come back into the community.

Sometimes incarceration isn't simply about punishment.

Sometimes it is about incapacitation.

Sometimes society locks someone away because the consequence of being wrong about that person's risk is simply too great.

And when the potential victim is another little girl, I want someone to explain something to me:

How much risk is acceptable?

One percent?

Five percent?

Ten?

Because percentages sound wonderfully clinical until the percentage has a name.

Heather Thomas had a name.

She had a mother.

She had a family.

And her mother has now spent nearly 26 years living with something no parent should ever have to experience.

The Parole Board imposed numerous restrictions on Ertmoed. He reportedly cannot have unsupervised contact with girls under 18. His internet access is restricted. His movements are geographically restricted. He must continue counselling. He is taking medication intended to reduce sexual arousal.

But those conditions raise an uncomfortable question of their own.

If we need that many safeguards to protect children from someone, why are we so determined to create opportunities for him to be outside prison without an escort?

And why, when the case-management team itself reportedly says his risk cannot safely be managed under the proposed absence, does the Board believe otherwise?

Those aren't rhetorical insults.

I genuinely want the answers.

Explain the decision.

Explain why the Board believes the risk is acceptable.

Explain why this particular rehabilitative opportunity requires an unescorted absence.

Explain why the opinion of the case-management team was overridden.

And explain it to Heather's mother.

Because somewhere along the way our corrections system seems to have developed an almost reflexive belief that rehabilitation must ultimately mean increased freedom.

I don't accept that.

A person can change and still face permanent consequences for what they did.

Two things can be true.

An offender can genuinely make progress in treatment.

And society can still decide that the crime he committed, combined with the risk he continues to present, means he does not get another chance to live freely among us.

That isn't contradictory.

That's consequence.

I sometimes wonder whether decision-makers would view these risks differently if they had to personally live with them.

Would you want this person living in your neighbourhood?

Would you want your daughter walking past him on her way to school?

Would you be comfortable putting your own child in the environment you're telling the rest of society is sufficiently safe?

If your answer changes when it becomes your child, then maybe the risk was never as acceptable as it looked on paper.

Yes, I'm angry.

I'm angry because Heather Thomas should be the person at the centre of this story.

I'm angry because her mother has already been sentenced to a lifetime of grief.

I'm angry because a little girl lost every tomorrow she was supposed to have.

And I'm angry because 26 years later, her family is once again being asked to watch the system devote its energy to creating new opportunities for the man who took all of hers away.

At some point, enough has to mean enough.

Some consequences should last a lifetime.

And sexually assaulting and murdering a 10-year-old child should be one of them.