Canada abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes...

Canada abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1976 and for military offenses on December 10, 1998. The last execution was in 1962. On November 23 1999, at the House of Commons there was the first reading of Bill C-335, presented by Reform MP John Reynolds, seeking the death penalty only for those involved in "aggravated" first-degree murder meaning murders committed with a great deal of forethought and "in a heinous manner that defies human dignity" by persons of 18 years of age and over. Canada is one of the only Western countries to routinely return murder suspects to the United States without seeking a guarantee against execution. On April 30 1999, Canada extradited Jeffrey McGee, a New York man accused of killing a Villa Rica police officer, to Georgia, and on 24 August, District Attorney Pete Skandalakis said he would seek the death penalty for him. McGee, 33, was arrested on February 4 in a Toronto doughnut shop. Homicide statistics released for 1998 by Statistics Canada in October 1999 show the lowest murder rate in 30 years. The rate is 1.83 homicides per 100,000 people compared with 3.02 homicides per 100,000 in 1975, the year prior to abolition of the death penalty in Canada.