Abolition Coalitions: Campaigning against the Death Penalty in Early Twentieth-Century Canada

Accounts of the death penalty’s abolition in Canada in 1976 invariably trace its origin to the man who presented five private members’ abolition bills in the 1910s: Member of Parliament Robert Bickerdike (1843–1928). Characterized as a lone campaigner, his failure inspired later abolitionists, including John Diefenbaker. Death penalty scholars have thus far treated Bickerdike similarly, without exploring his motivations, arguments, tactics, and allies. This article examines the religious and secular rationales of Bickerdike’s opposition to the death penalty and demonstrates how he attracted and joined supporters of his cause, including trade unionists, suffragists, and prisoner welfare advocates, who lobbied for clemency, particularly in cases of women and youths sentenced to death. Their unsuccessful campaign to save Filumena Lassandro from execution in 1923 inspired a eugenically tinged abolition bill, tabled in 1924, which also failed. Despite the civilizationist, chivalric, ethnocentric, and ableist biases in Bickerdike’s and his allies’ abolitionism, their emphasis on the rights of the accused and their criticism of unequal access to justice laid the groundwork for the social justice movements and rights lobbying of the 1950s and 1960s, not just the campaign to the abolish the death penalty.