Lauren Laithwaite outside Prince Albert Court of Queen's Bench on Thursday. (Nigel Maxwell/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Seeking justice

Mother of son murdered at Sask. Pen demands answers from attorney general

Mar 6, 2020 | 7:00 AM

Lauren Laithwaite, whose son was murdered in a maximum security unit at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, says she wants answers from two of Canada’s top officials on why legislation that could have prevented his return to jail was not applied.

Chris Van Camp, 37, was murdered by his cellmate in June 2017. The man responsible, 31-year-old Tyler Vandewater, now awaits sentencing.

While awaiting Van Camp’s trial, Laithwaite filed a lawsuit against Canada’s attorney general and minister of public safety demanding answers why her son, who was arrested on May 29, 2017 for breaching parole conditions, did not qualify under Canada’s Good Samaritan Act.

“He never should have been arrested in the first place,” she told reporters outside Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench on Thursday.

Van Camp was released on parole a month before he took illegal drugs on May 24, 2017 and was hospitalized. Five days later, after waking up from a coma, he was transported from Bowden Institution, to the Edmonton Institution, and then to the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, where he arrived June 6, 2017.

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The Act, which was made official in 2017, provides an exemption from charges of simple possession of a controlled substance. It applies to anyone seeking emergency support and can protect offenders from charges concerning a pre-trial release, probation order, conditional sentence or parole violations related to simple possession.

The Act also can exempt those from possession charges if they call 911 for themselves or another person suffering an overdose, as well as anyone who is at the scene when emergency help arrives.

The May 2018 statement of defence from the Attorney General of Canada stated “it was determined given the time frames and extent of his overdose that in the short term he would be returned to custody.” The claim stated Laithwaite was consulted throughout that process and advised her son could later be released to a drug treatment centre.

The statement of defence also denied Laithwaite’s allegations of prison staff negligence which she claimed contributed to her son’s death.

“Prisons are inherently dangerous places,” the statement of defence stated. “Van Camp led a high-risk lifestyle that put him into contact with other criminals, including criminal gangs.”

“The assault…. was a direct result of his high-risk lifestyle.”

A second statement of defence filed December 2019 to respond to an amendment to the original statement of claim, outlined Van Camp’s history with drugs, including alleged trafficking, and said his previous statutory releases from prison were cancelled due to drug relapses.

In its statement, the defence argued the Good Samaritan Act didn’t apply to the claim.

“Further, the execution of the warrant was not the proximate cause of Van Camp’s death,” the defence document stated.

Laithwaite’s lawyer Tavengwa Runyowa issued a statement, questioning what type of person the Good Samaritan Act applies to if it didn’t apply to Van Camp.

“If the Act does not apply to people who use drugs and overdose while on probation, to those involved in any form of criminality (which illicit drug use necessarily involves), or those who live “high-risk lifestyles”, to whom does it apply?” he wrote. “If [Van Camp] was deemed to not have committed an offence by seeking medical assistance after overdosing, we can only conclude that the Minister of Public Safety and the Attorney General of Canada’s defence must be relying on some characteristic that disentitled Chris from the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act’s protections.”

Chris Van Camp was found unresponsive in his cell at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary on June 7, 2017. (Facebook)

Runyowa’s statement was released Thursday, the same day Van Camp’s killer was convicted.

Laithwaite’s lawsuit with the Correctional Service of Canada is also ongoing and she told paNOW she expects to have a hearing on that matter in June.

Neither the Public Safety Minister nor the Attorney General responded to requests for comment by press time.

None of the above allegations have been tested in court.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

+++On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell