A Kamloops man who lost his grandmother in the Toronto van attack in April 2018 wants to see harsher punishments for mass murderers.

Elwood Delaney’s 80-year-old grandmother, Dorothy Sewell, was one of ten people killed on April 23, 2018, when a 25-year-old man deliberately drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk.

Another woman died more than three years later from injuries she suffered that day.

While Delaney was able to deliver his victim impact statement in court today, he tells NL News he feels the statements no longer have an impact on the outcome of the sentence.

That is after the Supreme Court struck down a law last month that allowed judges to impose parole ineligibility periods of 25 years to be served consecutively for each murder, rather than concurrently.

“That frustrates me. That is another anger level. The impact statements are supposed to be for the sentencing process,” he said.

“For us as individuals, for me personally, it worked out to, I was able to get it off my chest, what I wanted to say to him, but because of the Supreme Court ruling, it didn’t affect the sentencing, and I feel like they took that away from me.”

The perpetrator of the Toronto van attack, Alek Minassian, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was also sentenced to 20-years for 15 counts of attempted murder, which will be served concurrently.

A first-degree murder conviction comes with an automatic life sentence without the ability to apply for parole for 25 years.

“It is not a 25-year-sentence,” Justice Anne Molloy said, noting while Minassian can apply for parole in 25 years, there is no guarantee he will get it owing to the “number and enormity” of his crimes, which she says will be taken into account in any parole hearing.

The sentencing hearing for Minassian – who was found guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder last year – got underway Monday with several dozen people affected by the attack scheduled to speak in court.

“You can definitely tell by the way [the judge] said it, and even by her actions and body language, her hands were tied,” Delaney added. “I feel like she wanted to do more, she wanted to say more, but being a judge, you are bound to what you are allowed to do.”

Delaney says while he is still angry because of what Minassian did to his family, he is hoping to be able to put that behind him and “start fighting for proper justice on sentencing for this case and every other case in Canada where there should be no chance of parole for mass murderers.”

“I will be talking to other victim families. Lobbying and bringing awareness is obviously step one because the more people that are aware of it, I feel like, would side more with me than the nine judges,” he told NL News.

“As much as they say, its inhumane to not give the chance for somebody to have freedom, its pretty inhumane to murder ten people with a van.”

– With files from The Canadian Press