Death Penalty Debate

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Topic spans: 1962 - 1987

"You shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead." A judge has uttered these words to 1,300 Canadians. More than 700 of them actually went to the gallows before Canada abolished capital punishment in 1976. But opinions on the noose have tended to shift over time. Protests in the 1960s were met with questions about preventing the murder of police officers and prison guards. Today, the debate is ongoing, especially for multiple murderers like Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo.

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8 television clips

9 radio clips

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I believe the CBC and Paul Soles in particular were the victim(s) of a hoax. The man in this video is obviously not Canada's hangman. Anyone who has studied the history of capital punishment and in particular judicial hangings would know that this man doesn't know what he's talking about. I would like to know how the CBC learned Canada's hangman's identity as it certainly wasn't learned through the federal government. Although interesting, it is not factual and can be proved.

Dave M.

Submitted by: Dave Marskell

Canada's hangman

Broadcast Date: Feb. 24, 1976

The noose breaks the neck and the spinal cord, says Canada's hangman in a 1976 interview. This is why hanging is the most humane method of execution, John Ellis tells the CBC's Paul Soles. Twenty seconds after the knot closes, the victim's heart stops.

In the death procession, Ellis is the last in line. Guards lead the prisoner to the trap where he is strapped below the knees. This is so he can't jump, in case "he is an energetic type."

Canada's hangman

• CBC also interviewed a doctor who said hanging was an inhumane method of execution. Dr. Guy Richmond X-rayed the bodies of hanging victims and said he couldn't find the fractured vertebrae Ellis spoke of. The heart does not stop beating until 10 to 12 minutes after death, he also explained.
• Hanging executions are now widely recognized as cruel. Of the 84 nations that still employ the death penalty, lethal injection is the most commonly used method.

• Since the 1970s, methods employed in the United States have been electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and firing squads.
• By 1867, Canada no longer allowed inhumane punishment such as flogging and branding. A change in attitude toward criminals took place in the 1850s. Reformers believed if criminals repented in a penitentiary (as the name suggests) they could be rehabilitated.
• In 1865, capital offences were limited to murder, rape and treason. Rape was removed from the list of capital offences in 1954.

• Until 1859, some 230 petty offences were punishable by death, including turnip theft, being disguised in a forest, casting away a ship, exhibiting a false signal, buggery and arson.
• Many accounts claim Canada's last public execution took place in 1868. Before thousands of onlookers, Patrick James Whalen was hanged for the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the fathers of Confederation. Whalen maintained innocence until the end.

• It is disputed that Whalen's was the last public hanging. A militia officer's memoirs tell of the 1885 public execution of eight natives in Battleford, Sask. They were hanged for their role in the Frog Lake Massacre, in which nine white people were murdered.

Canada's hangman

Medium: Television

Program: Take 30

Broadcast Date: Feb. 24, 1976

Guest(s): John Ellis

Host: Paul Soles

Duration: 6:20

Last updated:
May 25, 2004

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