REGINA — It wasn't until the end of last year that Robert Latimer started keeping a close tab on the time he has left before his first shot at day parole.

That's when the Saskatchewan farmer, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his severely disabled daughter, got a two-year calendar from the Salvation Army.

He tore off the cover and has since been watching week after week fly by.

"I guess I've got about 450 days left,'' he says with a laugh in a telephone interview from the William Head Institution near Victoria, where he is currently being held.

While he seems eager to get out, Latimer remains bitter that he went to jail in the first place and knows he will live the rest of his life under conditions.

"It would just be another level of freedom,'' he says of the prospect of day parole Dec. 8, 2007.

"But with a life sentence ... you are rarely free.''

Few cases in Canada have polarized public opinion the way Latimer's has. In the 13 years since he made the choice to end his daughter Tracy's life to free her from pain, he's been both praised as a merciful loving father and pilloried as a selfish child-killer.

Five-and-a-half years behind bars have done nothing to change his feelings. Now 53, he still maintains he did the right thing and has no regrets.

"If it's the right thing, it shouldn't be illegal. That's my argument,'' he says.

"The law is a very stupid thing when it comes to trying to sort these things out. They don't have any realistic appreciation of what is going on.''

Prior to being thrust into the spotlight, Latimer lived on the family farm near Wilkie, northwest of Saskatoon, with his wife and their four children.

Their eldest daughter, Tracy, was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that caused a range of muscle control problems. She never progressed beyond the mental level of a three-month-old and, over the years, was subjected to several painful medical procedures.

The breaking point for the Latimers came when Tracy was 12 and needed surgery to correct a permanently dislocated hip. The operation would have involved removing part of her upper leg to create a "flail limb'' that would no longer be connected by bone. The pain would be incredible.

"We were in a position where, by law, we were forced to cut her leg off and put a feeding tube into her,'' Latimer says. "We were never going to do any of those things.''

On Oct. 24, 1993, with his wife and kids at church, Latimer put Tracy in the cab of his pickup and ran a hose from the tailpipe through the back window. With the engine running, Latimer told police that he watched as he daughter's life ebbed away. She coughed a few times and then quietly went to sleep.

A seven-year legal battle ensued as prosecutors pursued a murder conviction.

A jury in 1994 found him guilty of second-degree murder, but that was wiped out by the Supreme Court when it was discovered that the RCMP, acting under direction from the Crown, interviewed prospective jurors about their religious beliefs prior to the trial. The Crown lawyer was later acquitted on a charge of attempting to obstruct justice.

A second guilty verdict in 1997 was upheld on appeal and so was the mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole for 10 years.

The trial jury had asked that Latimer be eligible for parole after one year. The judge granted Latimer an unprecedented constitutional exemption from the minimum sentence, giving him one year in jail and one year house arrest.

But that was overturned by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and rejected by the Supreme Court.

Latimer began serving his sentence in January 2001 and has since settled into the routine of prison life.

"It's easier than farming,'' he says with a laugh. "It just seems to go quite quickly.''

He now lives in a minimum-security unit with five other inmates, including a cop killer, a man who killed his parents and another who murdered a cabbie.

He's completed the first year of his electrician and carpentry apprenticeships and has done a bit of leather work in the hobby shop.

He still runs the farm from behind bars with the help of a manager, and stays in touch with his family over the phone, calling almost daily.

Reviewing his case has become a bitter obsession of sorts. He still refers to the prosecutors as predators, criminals and sadists.

Latimer is troubled by a reference the Supreme Court made to an unidentified, more effective, medication Tracy could have been given to ease her pain. The Latimers were of the belief that Tylenol was all her fragile system could handle. Several letters to the high court over the last few years have provided no clarification for him.

Latimer says he doesn't think about Tracy much anymore, nor does he think about the morning she died.

"She was a pretty disadvantaged child. Her peak physical condition was probably when she was about four years old and it basically coincided with when the operations began.''

Supporters have rallied to causes on both sides of his case.

Thousands signed petitions and held rallies urging leniency for Latimer. Some even came forward volunteering to serve portions of his sentence and donated money to a defence fund.

"Nobody's ever considered him as a criminal,'' says neighbour Audrey Woodrow. "We know he maybe didn't do right, but he definitely shouldn't be thrown in jail.''

Former Saskatchewan premier Allan Blakeney says Latimer's case is proof that mandatory minimum sentences don't work.

Blakeney has argued that point in Ottawa as a former head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, despite not knowing Latimer personally.

"In a case like this, there ought to be a way to show compassion,'' he says. "There's no doubt that a lot of people feel that the law has worked badly in this case.''

But advocates for the disabled say that if Latimer were given special treatment by the system, it would devalue the lives of the disabled.

They argue that Latimer, not Tracy, made the fatal decision. They point to a journal kept by Latimer's wife, chronicling how Tracy would have good days when she appeared happy and enjoyed listening to music. The journal was used by the Crown at trial.

"The notion that this is somehow a mercy killing is very disconcerting to people with disabilities because what it says to us is our lives are not worth the same as another non-disabled Canadian,'' says Hugh Scher, a Toronto constitutional lawyer, who led the human rights committee of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities while Latimer's case was before the Supreme Court in 2001.

Such groups anger Latimer.

"I really don't understand the disabled people, why they are so eager to see our daughter hacked up and fed with a feeding tube,'' he says. "There should be a lot more understanding there.''

In the meantime, Latimer is looking forward to his chance at day parole. If he's successful, he says he would likely choose a halfway house in Victoria.

He is eligible for full parole on Dec. 8, 2010, and wants to get back to the farm.

If he had his way, he would like someday to get away from it all, at least for a while.

"I would be nice to get out of the country. I'd like to be sitting on a beach in Mexico.''