Nunavut man who killed RCMP officer gets ‘faint hope’ chance at parole

A man convicted of killing a Nunavut RCMP officer in 2007 will get the chance to ask a jury in Kimmirut to allow him to seek early parole.

Pingoatuk Kolola was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Const. Douglas Scott.

During sentencing, Justice Robert Kilpatrick described the Nov. 7, 2007, killing of the 20-year-old officer who had been on the job for six months as “senseless” and “tragic.”

He was handed a life sentence on March 12, 2010, with no chance of parole for 25 years — the mandatory minimum for first-degree murder.

Kolola — who was 37 years old at the time of the shooting — has applied for early parole using the now-repealed “faint hope” clause in the Criminal Code, said Nathalie Houle, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

Using the clause, people sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility greater than 15 years could apply for early parole after serving 15 years.

Parliament abolished the faint hope clause in 2011 but Kolola is still eligible because his date of conviction was prior to Dec. 2, 2011, when the change in law came into force.

In order to use the clause, a convicted person must apply to the chief justice of the court where they were convicted. If the application is approved, a jury will consider the application.

A Kimmirut jury was initially scheduled to hear Kolola’s case this month.

But during an April 23 court appearance in Iqaluit, which Kolola attended virtually from a penitentiary in the south, the case was pushed back.

“We were anxious to have this hearing proceed on May 13,” said Eva Tache-Green, Kolola’s lawyer, speaking to Justice Susan Charlesworth in court.

Security arrangements to house Kolola in Kimmirut during the hearing were in the works; however, Trisha McCarthy, the Crown prosecutor in this case, had a family emergency she needed to attend to.

“The RCMP were actually working on arrangements to ensure that Mr. Kolola was appropriately transported and guarded, but before those arrangements were confirmed with counsel my family emergency came up,” McCarthy said in a statement provided to Nunatsiaq News.

“[A facility] to house and guard Mr. Kolola in Kimmirut required some additional resources [to] be deployed to Kimmirut, but I was working with the RCMP to make things happen.”

Kolola’s jury hearing has now been rescheduled for Aug. 19 in Kimmirut.

If the jury decides Kolola should be eligible for early parole, his case goes back to the Parole Board of Canada for a final decision.