Clarence Woodhouse holds up court papers showing his acquittal outside the Winnipeg Law Courts building on Oct. 3.Steve Lambert/The Canadian Press
More than 50 years after being sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit – and just weeks after a court in Manitoba exonerated him – Clarence Woodhouse faced members of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to support a bill that would see the formation of an independent commission to review cases of potential wrongful conviction in Canada.
The Senate heard that Mr. Woodhouse speaks limited English, and with no Saulteaux translator available, he was offered a chance to submit a taped statement later. He chose to do that, speaking only very briefly to introduce himself, and tell the senators the most important thing about his case.
“I was in prison for nothing,” he said.
Mr. Woodhouse had travelled to Ottawa to appear before the Senate committee in person in support of Bill C-40, the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act. The bill would see the creation of an independent body outside the police and justice system to examine cases of potential cases of wrongful conviction in Canada.
At the table with him sat Brian Anderson, one of three men wrongly convicted with him in the 1973 stabbing death of Ting Fong Chan in downtown Winnipeg, and Guy Paul Morin, wrongly convicted in the murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop in Queensville, Ont, in 1984.
“I know that, from my own experience, racism and corruption led to my wrongful conviction,” said Mr. Anderson, who was acquitted in the summer of 2023, having maintained his innocence for 50 years. “Bill C-40 can help be the voice for other innocent people like me, who need to be heard when no one’s listening. Governments like to speak about reconciliation, let’s show it. I have been fighting my whole life for this. I don’t want this to happen to any more people like me.”
Almost 40 years after his arrest, Mr. Morin remains one of the most high-profile cases of wrongful conviction in Canada – one of “the three M’s,” as he called them, along with David Milgaard and Donald Marshall.
Mr. Marshall was exonerated after serving 11 years for the stabbing death of Sandy Seale in Nova Scotia in 1971. Mr. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of the 1969 murder of Gail Miller in Saskatoon.
Bill C-40 is also known as David and Joyce Milgaard’s Law, after the late Mr. Milgaard and his mother, who petitioned at length for an independent body to review wrongful convictions.
“What this bill can offer to others in my situation in the future is hope,” Mr. Morin said. “We would not have to rely on the minister of justice to review cases when, to begin with, they are part of the system that failed me.”
Also appearing to speak in support of the bill were Kim Campbell, former prime minister and minister of justice and attorney-general, and David Lametti, who was minister of justice and attorney-general until a cabinet shuffle last year.
Mr. Lametti said every review of wrongful conviction cases in Canada has recommended the creation of an independent commission. He said the current process to overturn convictions is too slow and too costly, and that very few cases actually reach the point of being reviewed by the minister of justice.
He noted that the Criminal Cases Review Commission in Britain – the model being proposed for Canada – has reviewed 500 cases since it began in 1997. In Canada, there have been 30 cases of potential wrongful conviction reviewed in that period.
He said there are “certainly” other cases of wrongful convictions in Canada that have not been corrected.
Mr. Lametti said he had personally promised David Milgaard that he would try to get the bill through, and said it’s owed to Mr. Milgaard and other wrongfully convicted people – including Mr. Morin, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Woodhouse. “We owe it to them to do this as quickly as we possibly we can,” he said.
Bill C-40 has currently passed second reading in the Senate.
Mr. Milgaard’s conviction was set aside in 1992, after Ms. Campbell, who was then the justice minister, asked the Supreme Court to review his case. He was later exonerated with DNA evidence.
“We will never get it right 100 per cent. I don’t think we can achieve perfection, but we can do the very best possible to make sure that wrongful convictions don’t stand,” Ms. Campbell said, “and that we learn more and more about how such things can happen, and try to prevent them before the processes unfold.”
Mr. Anderson and Mr. Woodhouse were teenagers when they were arrested, and are now in their 70s.
It took a decade before Mr. Morin was exonerated with DNA, but he says his wrongful conviction has affected his entire life. He pointed out the name of Christine Jessop’s real killer, Calvin Hoover, is barely known, while Mr. Morin’s name is recognized constantly, inextricably linked to a crime he did not commit.
“Though legally my case lasted in the courts for 10 years, the reality is that it’s never ended,” he said. “This looms over my life and haunts me to this day.”