Quebec mother Diane Levesque is in a lonely, desperate battle, trying to convince the Harper government to allow her mentally-ill son to come closer to home. Twenty-two-year-old Sacha Bond has bipolar disorder -- and is doing hard time in a Florida jail. He's serving a 20-year sentence, with no chance of parole, for his first crime.

"He has no business being here," Levesque told CTV News, from outside the gates of Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City. "He should be back in Canada where he has the support of his family. He is going to rot inside of here doing nothing. What kind of a person is he going to come out looking like?"

In January, 2004, Sacha Bond was in Florida visiting his mother, who was living there temporarily. He wasn't taking the prescribed medication which controls his mental illness and behavior. Late one night, he took his mother's car out to a strip bar in the Florida Keys. He was 19 and underage, but still, the bar served him approximately 10 drinks. While intoxicated, Bond got into an argument with a bouncer, who threw him out.

"I don't remember very much," Bond told CTV News, in an interview inside the prison.

Police records show Bond came back to the bar with his stepfather's gun, and pointed it at several people. He tried to fire it, but there were no bullets in the chambers. Bar staff tackled him, roughed him up and called the police.

"All I remember is when I dropped on the ground and they were beating me up," said Bond.

Miami forensic psychologist Dr. Merry Haber assessed Bond after he was charged. She concluded the combination of drinking and being off medication had likely put him in a blackout state. In Dr. Haber's opinion, Bond should not have been held criminally responsible, because of his mental illness.

"You have a young person who has a future," Dr. Haber told CTV News, in Miami. "And who, really, without drugs and alcohol and on the proper medication is not dangerous at all."

The State of Florida did not consider Bond's illness during his trial, because, under the law there, the fact he got drunk voluntarily makes him responsible for his behavior, no matter what the other circumstances are. He was convicted on four counts of attempted murder. The maximum security jail he's now in is a harsh place, without educational or treatment programs -- full of murderers and rapists and career criminals.

"Just taking a shower for Sacha means almost getting killed," said his brother Eric Bond. "It happened two months ago. Somebody tried to stab him with a knife in the shower."

"My son is not a threat to anybody," said Levesque. "My son, his whole life, has been a threat only to himself."

The prison is not providing Bond with the medication he was prescribed in Canada. He told us he spends his days alone, trying to avoid the other inmates.

"It's just so lonely here," he said, choking back tears. "I don't want to become a hardened criminal."

Until two months ago, the only thing that kept Bond going was the hope that Ottawa would approve his request to be transferred to a federal jail in Quebec, under the prisoner transfer treaty between the U.S. and Canada.

"I'm ready to go through treatment. I realize now that I have problems," he said.

Some 200 Canadians serving time in prisons abroad apply for transfer under the program each year. The program was set up for humanitarian reasons. It's also intended to bring offenders home to be monitored in the Canadian system -- instead of getting them deported abruptly from other countries at the end of their sentences and released on the streets in Canada.

Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day is the man responsible for approving or denying such transfers. In March, Bond got a letter from Ottawa, telling him Day was denying his application because, "You were involved in the commission of violent offences involving the use of a firearm. These offences could have resulted in death or serious harm to any of your four victims. Your transfer to Canada would threaten the safety and security of Canada and its citizens."

When CTV News asked Bond how it felt to read that letter, it took him a long time to gain his composure. He sat wiping away tears and then told us that letter took away his only hope of getting better.

"Worst moment of my life," Bond said. "I felt horrible. I went into a depression. I was crying. I couldn't believe that. My own country..."

Bond was shocked, too, because he told us the Canadian consulate in Miami had advised him not to appeal his Florida sentence, but apply for the transfer instead. He said they told him, because he is young and has no other criminal history, he would likely be approved.

"I feel like I have been kicked when I am on the ground," he said through tears.

"Rubber Stamp Stockwell Day," said Levesque angrily. "Why did he decide this? What brought them to make this decision? What's wrong with this picture?"

The fact is, Bond will still be deported back to Canada at the end of his sentence. But that will be after spending two decades with no treatment or proper medication, living among hardened criminals. He will be 39 years old then, with no education and no real ties to Canada.

Levesque told CTV News that Correctional Service Canada assessed Bond's case, and then told her if he committed the same crime in Canada, his maximum sentence would have been 10 years in prison, with access to treatment. Under the treaty, if he were transferred back here, that Canadian sentence would apply.

• Levesque's online petition

When asked what a place like the U.S. prison he is in does to someone like him, Bond replied, "Puts a lot of anger in them. Makes them worse. Prison doesn't fix somebody it destroys them."

CTV News asked Day's office several times for an interview about the case. He commented on it briefly, by saying essentially that he could not discuss the details of any case or his decisions.

"I can tell you that our job is to make sure that our borders are safe and that, not related to any particular person here, but that people of concern are also noted and that we are protected from them," said Day.

Levesque told us she will never stop fighting to get Ottawa to reverse that decision. "I won't let go," she said in tears. "It's a part of me that's in there (the prison)."

Levesque stressed she doesn't want Bond simply released in Canada, instead she's asking for him to be placed in a federal institution in Quebec, that will give him the treatment and the medication he needs, where he is not a foreigner and is near his family.

"May luck be on our side that justice may bring him back home," said brother Eric, holding up crossed fingers.

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