The justice system is selling you a fairy tale about "closure."
Last week, Janson Bryan Baker was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for the 2019 murders of Bernard and Rose-Marie Saulnier in Dieppe, New Brunswick. The headlines are dripping with the standard tropes: "nightmare," "justice served," and "closure for the family."
It is all a comforting performance.
If you believe a 25-year-to-life sentence "closes" a double homicide, you aren't paying attention to the mechanics of the law. You are falling for a social pacifier designed to keep you from realizing that our legal framework treats human lives like a ledger that never actually balances.
The Myth of the Life Sentence
Let’s burn the biggest misconception first: a "life sentence" in Canada is rarely about life.
It is a specific administrative designation. Baker was sentenced to life in prison—the mandatory minimum for first-degree murder—but the real number that matters is 25. That is the period of parole ineligibility. In the eyes of the state, a brutal, premeditated double execution is worth exactly a quarter-century of a man's time.
The media frames this as the ultimate hammer. It isn't. It is a cap on accountability.
In 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) struck down the ability for judges to impose consecutive parole ineligibility periods. Before R. v. Bissonnette, a judge could have looked at the deaths of two separate people—two distinct lives, two distinct legacies—and decided that the price was 50 years. The court decided that was "cruel and unusual."
Now, we operate on a "buy one, get one free" model for mass murder. Whether you kill two people or twenty, the legal ceiling for parole ineligibility is the same. By capping the sentence, the state essentially admits that the second victim is a statistical rounding error.
The "Closure" Grift
Victim impact statements are the emotional core of these proceedings. We watch families pour their souls out in a courtroom, hoping for a catharsis that the law is physically incapable of providing.
The term "closure" is a psychological trap. It suggests that once a man is led away in handcuffs, the trauma reaches a terminal point. This is objectively false. The legal process is not a healing mechanism; it is a cold, bureaucratic autopsy of a tragedy.
True justice would require a restoration of the status quo. Since we cannot resurrect the Saulniers, we settle for "retribution." But when the retribution is capped by legislative limits and judicial precedent, it isn't justice—it’s a compromise.
I have seen families spend years waiting for "their day in court," only to realize the day wasn't for them. It was for the defendant. The entire apparatus—from the Charter rights to the rules of evidence—is built to protect the accused from the state. The victims are merely the evidence. To tell a family they will find closure in a sentencing hearing is a lie told by lawyers who want to go home and feel like the "system works."
Rehabilitation vs. The Reality of the "Nightmare"
The public wants two things that are diametrically opposed: they want the monster punished, and they want the system to be "humane."
You cannot have both.
Baker’s defense will eventually lean on the prospect of rehabilitation. They will talk about his background, his drug use, and his potential for change over the next two decades. This is where the industry of "correctional services" thrives. They sell the idea that 25 years in a cage transforms a person who is capable of shooting a couple in their own home into a safe neighbor.
Here is the data point nobody likes: recidivism rates for violent offenders are not the primary issue. The issue is the opportunity cost of safety. Every dollar spent on the "rehabilitation" of a double-murderer is a dollar not spent on the systemic prevention of the next Janson Baker.
We are obsessed with the "nightmare" after it happens. We find "no words" to describe it. Yet, we refuse to use the words that matter: Incapacitation is the only honest function of the prison system.
The pretense that we are "correcting" these individuals is a facade that justifies the enormous cost of the carceral state. If we were honest, we would admit that we aren't trying to fix Baker; we are just paying to keep him away from us. When we dress it up as anything else, we dilute the gravity of the crime.
Why 25 Years is a Calculated Insult
Think about the math of a 25-year sentence for a double murder.
- Victim A: 12.5 years.
- Victim B: 12.5 years.
Is that the value of a life in New Brunswick? A decade and a bit?
When the competitor article talks about the "nightmare," they are appealing to your empathy. I am appealing to your logic. The reason the public feels a lingering sense of unease even after a "guilty" verdict is because the punishment does not fit the crime. It fits the policy.
The legal system prioritizes the "proportionality" of the offender's experience over the "proportionality" of the loss. The SCC argues that keeping a person in prison for 50 years without hope of parole "denies the very essence of human dignity."
Where was the dignity for the Saulniers?
By centering the "human dignity" of the killer, the law creates a moral vacuum. It suggests that there is a point where the state's obligation to the criminal outweighs its obligation to honor the victims.
Stop Asking for Justice; Start Demanding Security
The Dieppe case isn't a story about a "nightmare" ending. It’s a story about a system that reached its limit and stopped.
If you are looking for the legal system to provide emotional resolution, you are looking in a graveyard. The court is a place of cold facts, statutory requirements, and administrative finality.
We need to stop pretending that these sentences are a victory. They are a white flag. They are the state saying, "This is the most we are willing to do."
Until we stop hiding behind the "closure" narrative, we will continue to be shocked every time a "life sentence" results in a parole hearing while the victims' families are still grieving. The nightmare doesn't end with a gavel. It just goes behind a different set of walls.
The system didn't "work" for the Saulniers. It just finished its paperwork.
Go home. Lock your doors. The law is only there to count the bodies once you're gone.
