A violent sex offender is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for breaching a release order in Surrey, B.C.
Marcel Parent, 46, has a history of sexual and violent offending, using weapons and threatening his victims.
He was convicted of several assaults, and has a lengthy criminal history including brutally raping a Calgary woman at a tanning salon in 2002.
He was sentenced to two and half years in prison, but following his release in 2008 with conditions, he again assaulted a woman in another tanning salon.
Parent is under a long-term supervision order (LTSO), which includes strict monitoring in the community for 10 years.
A survivor of his attack, whose identity is protected by a court-imposed publication ban, is speaking out about a system that clearly isn’t working.
Global News calls her Lisa to protect her identity — she has spoken in the past about the risk Parent poses.
Parent was sentenced to only two and a half years in that case and after his release in 2008 he attacked another woman.
She said the latest incident started over the past weekend with a knock on the door from Calgary police.
“They said, ‘I’m here to check on you, are (you) OK? This is about Marcel Parent, he’s AWOL, he has a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest,” Lisa explained. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m OK. Thank you.’”
Calgary police said just after midnight on Sunday, Parent failed to check into the halfway house where he lives in Surrey, B.C. — and it wasn’t the first time.
The Parole Board of Canada deemed him a high risk to reoffend, after violating his conditions numerous times.
In January 2015, he walked away from his Vancouver halfway house, where he was ordered to live under the LTSO.
Then in August 2016—two months after being released into the community—he again went missing.
The following day he was arrested in a woman’s apartment. That woman didn’t know Parent’s real name and was not aware of his criminal past.
“You know he goes AWOL, this happens, he commits another crime, it never ends. So you’re almost re-traumatized, re-triggered every single time,” Lisa said.
“We’re wasting money and resources on someone who’s not going to be rehabilitated. He is sick, he cannot control his impulses.”
Lisa says that despite progress made with the healing process, it’s this revolving door of in and out that brings the fear right back.
In 2025 Parent’s long-term supervision order will end.
“He can up and move and be my neighbour, he can up and move and do whatever he wants. He’s asked a lot of times to come back to Calgary, he’s asked to be in a the halfway house this year, he asked to be prisoned here,” Lisa said.
Marcel Joseph Parent.
Vancouver Police handout.
Parent is five-feet-10-inches tall and weighs about 230 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes.
Calgary police say he has connections to the Calgary area, and are asking anyone that sees him not to approach him and to call police immediately.
TORONTO – Ontario is pushing through several bills with little or no debate, which the government house leader says is due to a short legislative sitting.
The government has significantly reduced debate and committee time on the proposed law that would force municipalities to seek permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a car lane.
It also passed the fall economic statement that contains legislation to send out $200 cheques to taxpayers with reduced debating time.
The province tabled a bill Wednesday afternoon that would extend the per-vote subsidy program, which funnels money to political parties, until 2027.
That bill passed third reading Thursday morning with no debate and is awaiting royal assent.
Government House Leader Steve Clark did not answer a question about whether the province is speeding up passage of the bills in order to have an election in the spring, which Premier Doug Ford has not ruled out.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
