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In Canada, capital punishment is a controversial topic and has had many debates on whether it should be used as a punishment for crimes in the Canadian Criminal Code. Capital punishment used to be a commonly used punishment for higher level crimes such as murder, treason, and rape in Canada. It was first used in 1865 and continued on until 1972 when it was finally removed from the criminal code, but was still used in the National Defence Act for only military offences. Between 1865 and 1972 there were debates and changes of the punishment such as; in 1961 murders were classified into capital and non-capital offences depending on the nature of the murder, and in 1966 it was only to be used when there was a murder of on-duty police officer or prisoner guard. Even after capital punishment was removed in 1972, there was still debates on whether it should be used again or not. For example, in 1987 the idea of capital punishment was reintroduced to the House of Commons, but was defeated on a free vote. The Canadian National Defence Act was also changed in 1988 to remove all capital punishment, and instead replaced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years. In 2001 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there should be no use of capital punishment in Canada from then on.

 

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Canada did not have capital punishment for an outstanding amount of time, but there was a solid period of time that not much changed in the history of the punishments. This is a good indicator of when the short story ‘Two Fishermen” by Morley Callaghan would have taken place if it was based in Canada. In the story Thomas Delaney, who was found guilty for murder was sentenced to be hung by a hangman in public, “Hello Mr. Steadman, the Examiner would like to know if the hangman arrived yet.” This shows that the story must have taken place in the early 1900s, also due to the fact that there didn’t seem to be any controversy or objection to the action of the hanging that it must have happened before the idea of taking away capital punishment was discussed because it seemed like such a casual event to happen.

 

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Capital punishment is controversial for many reasons, but in the case of Thomas Delaney in “Two Fishermen” by Morley Callaghan, where the nature of the crime is debatable. In this case, Thomas killed the man who raped and assaulted his wife. Although there are reasons the murder can be justified, Thomas was still rightly convicted of his crime. No matter who you kill and no matter what the situation is, there was still a life that was ended and just because the other person did wrong doesn’t mean that you can justify killing them. Another reason Thomas should have been convicted is because no matter if he caught the act happening, or he knew about it and was trying to be a vigilante, he could have just gone to the police and helped his wife explain what happened so that the man who convicted the original crime could be rightly punished. Thomas Delaney also deserved the punishment he got because by him thinking he is doing right by killing the man, he is actually being a hypocrite. Even though the crime was terrible, Thomas knew how it felt to have something tragic to happen to him and he did the same to the family of the man who did that to his wife. Overall, there are many reasons that it is very difficult to decide whether Thomas should have been hung or not, but keeping in mind the bigger picture and the law, it points more towards him being punished for his crime.