The federal public safety minister is calling reports of murderer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo being transferred to a medium-security prison “shocking and incomprehensible.”

Citing prison union officials and the lawyer for the victims’ families, several media outlets say Bernardo was quietly transferred earlier this week to the medium-security La Macaza Institution, almost 200 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

Initially incarcerated at the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, Bernardo later spent about a decade at the Millhaven Institution, a maximum security prison just outside Kingston.

Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15, were abducted, tortured, and killed by Bernardo in the early 1990’s near St. Catharines, Ontario.

Bernardo is currently serving a life sentence.

Minister Mendicino says he is expecting the Correctional Service of Canada to take a victim-centred and trauma-informed approach in such cases, noting that he plans to address the decision process for the reported transfer with the agency’s commissioner.

The Correctional Service of Canada has yet to explain the reason for the transfer.