Full Comment - Canada’s justice system is bringing itself into disrepute

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00:01:03.140 There's been no end of stories of ridiculous judgments coming out of our court system over

00:01:07.320 the past few weeks, and we wanted to talk about that today on the Full Comment Podcast. Hello,

00:01:11.860 welcome to the podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host. But before we got to getting to this

00:01:17.420 podcast about the ridiculousness of our court system, of course, we had the big verdict in the

00:01:22.120 trial in London, Ontario, of five former Hockey Canada players and a young woman accusing them 0.52

00:01:27.240 of sexual assault. So, to help us unpack all of this, to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly

00:01:33.280 of our judicial system, two National Post columnists, Chris Selle and Jamie Sarkanak, join me now.

00:01:39.340 Welcome. I wasn't planning on talking about the Hockey Canada verdict, but I'm not sure if people

00:01:47.000 should have been shocked. It appears many were that it was a not guilty verdict. Jamie, I know you're

00:01:51.420 writing on this, so let me start with you. Yeah, I mean, it seems like justice was done. That was my

00:01:58.860 first impression. Closely reading the facts, it seems like a regretful night for everyone who was in the

00:02:09.180 room, to be honest. And I can see why the complainant felt shame afterwards. The guys didn't emerge

00:02:21.140 unscathed either from their side of the story. It was awkward. It was something they especially

00:02:29.720 regretted after when they started considering the consequences. Even though they felt, they appeared

00:02:36.140 based on the facts and the evidence submitted that they were confident they had had consent. But

00:02:42.880 still, it was not a fun event looking back for them. But ultimately, what happened was the judge

00:02:50.680 found that the complainant, the girl, had consented. So, it's not that she just couldn't prove that

00:02:58.300 sexual assault happened. She actually found that consent had occurred. So, good.

00:03:03.240 Well, this is Superior Court Justice Maria Caroccia. So, it was a woman hearing the case, a woman

00:03:09.260 rendering the verdict. And reading from my son colleague Michelle Mandel's piece, she talks about

00:03:17.080 how Justice Caroccia said that she just didn't buy the testimony of EM. And she points to testimony that

00:03:26.560 the woman was acting in a sexually forward manner when she was masturbating in this room full of men and 1.00

00:03:32.360 asking them to have sex with her. Like you say, this is a regretful night for everyone. But it 0.99

00:03:37.800 doesn't necessarily mean that a law was broken. Morally, it's all repugnant. But was there a criminal

00:03:44.120 code violation? That's something different. And I am hearing a lot of voices saying women were let

00:03:49.380 down in this verdict again.

00:03:53.700 Yeah, that's not my take. My take is that this is good for women. Because when you have decisions 1.00

00:03:58.900 like this, when consent is so clear, and the judge finds that, you know, I truly think justice was done

00:04:07.760 here. This helps maintain integrity in the cases of sexual assault that are serious, that are just

00:04:13.620 horrific. I mean, there's plenty of sexual assault that goes on that is just terrible. And, you know,

00:04:20.060 either doesn't get prosecuted, or, or the guy gets prosecuted, and gets something like conditional

00:04:27.060 just discharge, which I've, I've written on a case like that before, you know, that's terrible. So

00:04:33.860 yeah, when when judges correctly draw lines, like this, it's, it's good for women. 1.00

00:04:40.500 Chris, it appears that the London Police Service who investigated this case years ago, this goes back

00:04:46.640 to 2018. It looks like they got it right when they closed the case and said, we don't see

00:04:53.680 enough evidence to warrant charges. And of course, it had to be opened back up after reporting that

00:05:01.760 Hockey Canada had paid the woman to, you know, settle a dispute. Apparently, the players were 0.90

00:05:08.120 not informed of that. Hockey Canada did it themselves. There was a lot of outcry and police

00:05:14.240 had dropped the ball and prosecutors weren't being strong enough. Well, looks like the public outcry

00:05:20.020 may have been incorrect. Yeah, I mean, it certainly looks to me and it looked all along that the fact

00:05:26.580 that they were prosecuting this so many years down the line, um, after initially deciding there,

00:05:33.540 there wasn't sufficient, uh, cause to go to court was the right decision. I mean, I, I don't think

00:05:42.020 anything really changed. Um, you know, the, the, the, the, the judge's ruling was so emphatic,

00:05:50.140 as Jamie said, not, it wasn't just reasonable doubt. I mean, I, I always expected that there would at

00:05:55.540 least be reasonable doubt, uh, but an, an affirmative finding that she consented. I mean,

00:06:02.860 that's, that's as close to innocent as you can really get, um, with a, not, with a not guilty plea.

00:06:10.540 Um, you know, I hope that they learned some lessons. I mean, they're older now. Um, but you

00:06:18.520 would hope that the younger hockey players would learn a lesson from this, uh, which is that that

00:06:24.340 kind of stuff, um, is why I think you use the word repugnant and it is, uh, it was repugnant

00:06:32.520 behavior. And, uh, if you're acting worse than a character in white Lotus, rethink your actions.

00:06:41.620 Yeah. And, and, and some guys walked out, right. Some guys went in and were like, Whoa,

00:06:46.220 I don't want anything to do with this. So it wasn't like everyone was, um, you know, party to this, um,

00:06:57.400 crazy scene, but, uh, you know, I, I think, you know, the, the, the interesting theory or the

00:07:05.980 interesting issue going forward now, I suppose is, is what does hockey learn from this? I mean,

00:07:12.200 the, the players were still, uh, suspended by the NHL. They're still ineligible for playing

00:07:18.140 for them had their contracts. Um, I guess they just weren't renewed after they were charged

00:07:23.220 and, and they're all banned from playing. Yeah. Um, I think, I think officially they're banned

00:07:28.360 from playing pending the appeal period. So if the crown decides, um, not to appeal, then they

00:07:35.480 might be, uh, allowed back, but I mean, you know, I, I, um, I don't have a lot of sympathy,

00:07:44.000 uh, for them on that. I mean, you're allowed to not sign players who you think are morally

00:07:51.340 repugnant, not just who are criminals. Yeah, no, the, the NHL is well within their rights to do that.

00:07:59.740 Um, I, I'm not sure that I would, uh, want my daughters around any young men acting like this,

00:08:06.740 but I also know that I wouldn't want my daughters acting in the way that EM did in this. As Jamie

00:08:12.880 said at, at the beginning, uh, a regretful night for all, uh, what does this do for the, the reputation

00:08:20.800 of the justice system though? Uh, Jamie, you said that they got it right, but there's still going to

00:08:25.540 be an outcry and we are hearing it that women just aren't believed, uh, justice. Actually, 1.00

00:08:32.720 let me read this. Um, because justice Croce did, um, address that issue of you've got to believe

00:08:40.280 women, you've got to believe the victim. And she wrote in approaching this task, I am mindful of 0.97

00:08:44.900 the words of Molly J in RV Nitsnick at paragraph 17 quote, although the slogan believe the victim has

00:08:52.360 become popularized of late. It has no place in criminal, in a criminal trial to approach a trial

00:08:57.460 with the assumption that the complainant is telling the truth is the equivalent of imposing

00:09:01.600 a presumption of guilt on the person accused of sexual assault, and then placing a burden on him

00:09:06.740 to prove his innocence. That is antithetical to the fundamental principles of justice enshrined in

00:09:11.860 our constitution and the values underlying our free and democratic society. Your thoughts, Jamie?

00:09:16.700 Um, I agree. It's, she states the, she states how it is very clearly. I think when you have this

00:09:26.760 movement of like, there's a movement of EM supporters and that's, that's fine. I think

00:09:33.680 solidarity with, with a complainant is okay, but they were, they were yelling at the players as they

00:09:39.880 were leaving the court was the report. And also there was one of them while one of the defense lawyers

00:09:44.940 was giving a statement. She was kind of standing behind her with a sign that said, uh, it was some

00:09:50.300 message of support to EM. She was event, this woman was eventually moved out by security, but

00:09:55.980 there was, I understand feeling sympathy for EM.

00:10:00.680 I do too. It's the conduct of, of this group. And I think it reflects poorly on them. I'm not sure

00:10:08.020 that they fully understand how justice works in Canada. And I think their expectations

00:10:13.160 for how a justice system is supposed to work in one, with one particular crime, because they don't

00:10:20.620 want these, they, they don't want these kinds of standards that they, that they want for sexual 0.98

00:10:25.580 assault to apply to any other crime. It's just purely sexual assault. Um, and it's a total corruption

00:10:31.160 of, of the Canadian justice system. This, this, this idea that we need to sort of put our thumbs on the

00:10:40.880 scale to make it much harder for a sexual assault accused person to defend themself.

00:10:48.560 You know, there was, there was some talk when I was watching the CBC feed, I believe it was one of

00:10:53.340 the advocates on the so-called EM side talking about how she was, she was never not believed like this

00:11:02.600 before. And it shouldn't, there was some sort of injustice in that she had to go up and testify to

00:11:08.860 her side of the story. And that's, that's absurd to me. It's an, if it's an assault case, the, the,

00:11:15.060 the victim should have to go up and make her case. And yeah, yeah, you, it doesn't, it doesn't feel

00:11:21.120 good to be cross-examined, but that's kind of what you have to go through if you're going to throw a man

00:11:25.000 in jail for, for your story. I understand that there's been, have been years of, uh, you know,

00:11:32.900 women not being treated fairly in the court system, but you know, you, you need to testify. 1.00

00:11:38.400 Someone has the right to face their accuser in court and to, to do away with that would be a

00:11:45.060 miscarriage of justice. It appears that we're all in, in, uh, agreement on this case. So let me turn

00:11:51.360 to one of the cases that I wanted to bring this together to talk about. And I think we've all

00:11:56.100 taken a stab at this in various columns and that's the Supreme court decision of just over a week ago

00:12:01.840 where they have made it virtually impossible to convict a young offender of an adult crime.

00:12:09.220 So I'm going to read to you the details from the case that I had in my column. Um, the case revolves

00:12:15.760 around a young man identified in the judgment only as I am in January of 2011. I am, and at least

00:12:23.200 three other men approached a 17 year old identified as ST while he was shoveling snow outside his family

00:12:28.880 home. They attacked ST strike a stabbing and striking him repeatedly and leaving him to bleed

00:12:34.400 out with 12 stab wounds and 10 blunt force injuries. They, uh, then burst into the home where according

00:12:40.340 to the Ontario appeals court, they attacked the victim's mother. Here's the quote from the Ontario

00:12:44.980 Appeals Court decision that upheld his, uh, adult sentence. The first man to enter ST's, uh, enter hit

00:12:52.660 ST's mother in the head twice with a gun. The second man, uh, to enter punched her and forced her to sit

00:12:58.980 on a chair in the interior porch with her head between her knees. The men left the home when the victim's

00:13:05.220 father and brother arrived. They, they, they had planned this attack on ST to try and get a gun.

00:13:12.020 And I am, who was eventually convicted after returning to the country after two years away,

00:13:19.620 because he fled the country. Um, he was 17 years, five months old when he did this. He bragged about

00:13:27.060 his role in this to his friends. He disposed of evidence. And the Supreme Court said that the, the

00:13:35.380 current legislation, which says a just must be a judge must be satisfied. That is the language

00:13:40.300 satisfied that the crown has shown them, uh, the young offender to have the moral culpability of an

00:13:46.580 adult. They said, no, you you've got to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, even though it's just as

00:13:53.460 Cote put in her dissenting decision. Uh, parliament had considered this idea at least twice in the past

00:13:59.620 bunch of years and rejected it. Um, this is the Supreme court at its worst, Chris, in my view,

00:14:06.660 this is liberal judges putting liberal interpretations of the law into place. And there's

00:14:13.020 no recourse unless we use the notwithstanding clause. Well, yeah, I mean, I would agree with 0.96

00:14:17.720 you that it's, it's just a terrible decision and that the dissent, um, just tears it to shreds

00:14:24.220 politely, but nevertheless tears it to shreds. And I can't imagine being one of the other

00:14:30.120 seven judges and reading that dissent and thinking, nah, you know, you would have to basically reject

00:14:37.040 the whole idea of parliamentary supremacy. Now, I suppose maybe that, maybe that ship has sailed,

00:14:42.700 but you know, this was a particularly glaring example of the Supreme court, just not caring

00:14:49.980 what parliament's intent was. And the intent was, uh, you know, this is, this is sometimes not true

00:14:57.720 in some cases where it's not that easy to find out, to figure out what parliament's intent was.

00:15:03.420 But in this case, it was debated over and over and over again. There were committee transcripts,

00:15:07.060 you know, all of the points had been discussed and debated back and forth. And they came up with this,

00:15:15.760 uh, standard of being satisfied. And, and the Supreme court just said, nah, no, it's not good

00:15:23.880 enough. Now I'll point out, uh, Jamie, that it was justice Nicholas, uh, Casarer who wrote for the

00:15:29.120 majority and he's a Trudeau appointee, but there were Harper appointees that agreed with this as well.

00:15:34.360 Um, so, but you know, I, I had a different post that just criticized Stephen Harper's horrible,

00:15:39.440 uh, record on judicial appointments, but that's another story. But they, um, you know,

00:15:45.180 we clearly have an issue with the court just deciding that parliament doesn't matter.

00:15:52.120 Yeah. I mean, I, and, and I don't know what we do, but as you say, um, I'm not sure

00:15:58.740 was this, I guess it must've been a charter case. Um, so yeah, I mean, you can't use this,

00:16:06.800 this, this, the notwithstanding clause on everything, but, uh, you know, I, I think it's long past time

00:16:13.360 that we remove the taboo about it. Um, because they're just, they're completely off the rails

00:16:21.940 and it, and, you know, I, I, it's really disturbing. Um, what do you, what do you do when your Supreme

00:16:34.140 court has just completely usurped, um, authority? And, and, and suddenly the chief justice is,

00:16:43.260 has, has a giant bust of himself in the lobby where, and he says, he doesn't know who paid

00:16:48.260 for it. I mean, it's just, they're, they're behaving so oddly. Like they're always going

00:16:54.960 out on these junkets, you know, they're, they're, they're traveling all around the world. They're,

00:16:59.960 they're hearing fewer and fewer and fewer cases every year. Meanwhile, um, I mean, they, they just

00:17:07.740 seem to be drunk on their own splendor. Well, look, I don't know about you, Chris, but I know that

00:17:17.620 I've got a giant bust of myself in my front hall done up to make me look like Caesar. And I don't

00:17:23.880 know who paid for it. It just showed up one day. So I don't know why you wouldn't believe

00:17:29.060 chief justice, Richard Wagner. Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the, the funny thing about that

00:17:36.620 is, well, the whole thing's funny, but I mean, he's, he wasn't interested. He'd want to know

00:17:44.840 someone sending me a, a bust or a statue of myself. I'm asking who? Yeah. Is there a return

00:17:53.780 address on that? Like, can we get a, get some info here? I mean, it's just, I mean,

00:17:59.960 Wagner was obviously a terrible, terrible appointment by Harper.

00:18:04.940 So one of the first cases that was heard after he was appointed, not as chief justice, but to the court

00:18:11.320 was a case called Loyola where Loyola college in Montreal, a Catholic, uh, school, which had been

00:18:18.920 told by the, uh, the Quebec government that it could only teach Catholicism as if it weren't true.

00:18:25.760 And from a secular point of view, they challenged that. And Wagner actually wrote the decision that

00:18:33.280 said, no, the Quebec government's right. Well, the Supreme court hears the case and he obviously had to

00:18:38.820 recuse himself from it, but every single one of his colleagues signed on in a unanimous decision

00:18:45.680 denouncing him. And that happened shortly after he was appointed. I, I was furious when Harper

00:18:52.760 appointed him, but I mean, beyond Wagner, there, there is a disturbing trend that the Supreme court

00:18:58.440 has taken on where they're knocking down laws, not based on the case in front of them, but on a

00:19:04.560 hypothetical. And it's a disturbing trend for me because, you know, one of them was a guy who stoned out

00:19:12.600 of his gourd is in Alberta stoned out of his gourd and starts firing a gun into a home where, uh, a

00:19:19.360 husband and wife and their two young children are sleeping. And I believe he also shot at a car

00:19:23.220 driving by. And, and so he was facing all these charges. He was facing a mandatory minimum for,

00:19:29.860 you know, shooting into a dwelling. And the Supreme court looked at it and said, yes, but if this had

00:19:35.760 been, I believe the hypothetical they used was, uh, someone with an airsoft gun or like it was an 0.72

00:19:41.860 absolutely ridiculous, hypothetical. And they used it to strike down the law.

00:19:46.840 I think it was a young person too. They painted a picture of a, just a kid with a BB gun.

00:19:51.680 Yeah. I mean, Jamie, I mean, this brings the system of justice into disrepute. I also think that

00:19:59.180 the decision last week did, but I mean, they are literally changing the law based on a made up case

00:20:05.540 rather than the one in front of them.

00:20:07.000 Yes. And it also, I mean, just, just to go back to that, you know, kid with a BB gun situation,

00:20:13.520 imagining that he actually gets charged, which that's questionable. Um, there's, there's a lot

00:20:20.920 of filtering that goes on the crown side before it makes it into a courtroom. There's a lot of

00:20:27.080 diversion. There's a lot of like crowns are a lot more likely for that kind of first time just kid

00:20:32.660 doing something stupid situation to divert it, to not take it all the way. And considering that's a

00:20:40.920 hypothetical and it never made it all the way. We're in Canada. I'm sure a kid has hit a house

00:20:45.580 with a BB gun before. Seems that the system was working as intended, you know, crowns with common

00:20:51.280 sense, applying their duty to their, to their job correctly, aren't going to put that little kid

00:20:58.360 in or that, that child probably through, I mean, not child, young adult, but you know, that kind of 0.95

00:21:05.440 dumb 20 year old situation probably isn't going to find its way up. Um, so yeah, we're going to have 0.77

00:21:10.900 the court then imagine the scenario and then recreate Canadian law to suit their morals. Meanwhile,

00:21:17.420 the rest of the population is like, are you kidding me? This is absolutely absurd.

00:21:23.760 It's like the bail situation. Um, uh, we've been reporting on it for years and I remember,

00:21:29.080 uh, being told, Oh no, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. We'd show them the stories from

00:21:33.300 the sun based on, you know, the local Toronto courts. Oh yeah, I guess that's a problem. Uh,

00:21:39.020 we'll take a quick break. When we come back, I want to get reaction from both of you

00:21:42.420 on Ottawa crown attorney, Dallas Mack. Let's make that name famous. Uh, he's the guy who's behind

00:21:49.340 the office that decided seven years and eight years for convictions of mischief was appropriate

00:21:56.400 back in moments. This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada did what, where we unpack the biggest,

00:22:02.400 weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history. You thought you knew

00:22:06.360 and tell you what really happened. Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one

00:22:11.680 of our favorite episodes. If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada

00:22:16.740 did what everywhere you get podcasts. Dallas Mack is a name most people outside of Ottawa's courthouse

00:22:22.960 haven't heard, but everyone should know it. He is the crown attorney that decided that

00:22:27.380 a sentencing recommendation for freedom convoy organizers, Tamara Litch and Chris Barber of

00:22:33.540 seven and eight years was wholly appropriate. Now, uh, I get that this is a highly charged

00:22:40.800 political case. Um, a lot of emotions at play and I've watched the online reaction to me calling

00:22:46.680 this ridiculous, but to me, this isn't just incredibly political, but first off Mack, who is

00:22:55.600 the lead crown attorney for the city of Ottawa is not the lead prosecutor on this case, but there's 0.69

00:23:01.280 no way that his prosecutors would be asking for a seven and eight year sentence without his

00:23:05.640 direction and or approval. And to me, Jamie, this just shows that this is a completely political

00:23:12.920 prosecution. You don't have to like the convoy. You can hate the convoy, but you can also look at

00:23:19.220 this and say, that is beyond ridiculous. Even Paul Champ, the lawyer for people trying to soothe

00:23:25.140 Leach and Barber has called this ridiculous.

00:23:30.060 Of course. I mean, the fact that I could, uh, kill someone at a LRT stop in Edmonton and get fewer 0.97

00:23:36.060 years in prison is just compared to, to a mischief charge.

00:23:41.480 And that happened if you want to fill people in.

00:23:43.180 Oh yeah. Yeah. That happened. And, um, what I would say is a more sketchy individual who has the

00:23:49.560 benefit of a court system that hears out his so-called background circumstances and then

00:23:54.780 decides on a incredibly soft sentence. Um, and then of course there's things like statutory

00:24:01.240 release, which ensure that you don't spend that whole time period in jail. Um, yeah. Versus a

00:24:09.460 mischief charge where, first of all, no one was killed. That's a very low bar, but I think that's

00:24:15.080 a significant one. And, and it was more of a protest. So it's, it just, it seems on its face

00:24:23.380 utterly unfair. And it's, you kind of wonder what are the priorities of these people in

00:24:30.460 prosecutors' offices, at least some of them?

00:24:34.280 I don't think that, uh, justice, uh, uh, what I believe her full name is Heather, uh, 0.71

00:24:40.760 Pickford McVeigh. Um, I may have gotten the middle name wrong. I don't think that she's going

00:24:47.080 to go for this, but we won't know until October 7th, Chris. And, you know, I can't think of a

00:24:52.860 more ridiculous prosecution that has cost so much money. And I know that, you know, opponents will 0.65

00:24:59.040 say yes, but they cost the city of Ottawa a lot of money. Okay. Well, we're spending tens of

00:25:04.240 millions of dollars to prosecute them on, uh, mischief and, and we're justifying that by how

00:25:12.020 much money it costs. Well, there's also a civil case trying to get that money out of them.

00:25:18.060 Yeah. I mean, it's, it is at the very least baffling. I mean, in isolation, I mean, even if you

00:25:26.180 wanted to look at it as sort of fomenting treason or something, that's not the charge. It's, it's

00:25:33.320 mischief. Um, and, but a lot of people don't get that and still think they tried to overthrow the

00:25:40.920 government. Well, that's yeah, I guess that's right. But the, if that was the charge, that would

00:25:48.820 be the charge. You don't get charged with mischief for trying to plan an insurrection. Um, well,

00:25:56.400 maybe you do, maybe you do in Canada. I don't know. A memorandum of understanding saying the

00:26:00.480 government should be replaced, uh, is misguided as that document was and is illiterate of how our

00:26:06.720 society and democracy works as it was. It is not an insurrection to say, I think we should change the

00:26:12.700 government and here's how. Yeah. No. And, and I think that, um, it's impossible. I agree to, to think

00:26:21.080 of an explanation other than that it's political because what, like, and then, and then if the

00:26:29.260 judge doesn't go for it, I mean, that's going to be really interesting because you see, um, you

00:26:36.820 constantly see the crown and defense agreeing on sentencing recommendations, some of them absurdly

00:26:43.540 lenient, including that one day in jail for the terrorist who just came back from, um,

00:26:50.040 Syria. Um, and, and, and you, you know, usually, and, and I've never understood that, right? Like,

00:26:59.880 I don't understand, like, isn't this supposed to be an adversarial system? Shouldn't you, like,

00:27:03.580 when there's a plea bargain, obviously they'll, they'll agree on, uh, agree on terms, but even when

00:27:08.360 there's not a plea bargain, sometimes they'll have joint sentencing recommendations. And it's like,

00:27:12.880 I don't know, maybe I've been watching too much law and order, but aren't they supposed to be,

00:27:16.720 you know, going at each other, trying to get the longest sentence and, and, and the defense trying

00:27:23.980 to get the shortest sentence. I mean, I think all of these things really

00:27:28.400 bring into question exactly how this all works. And I don't think Canadians understand it. And I'm

00:27:38.620 not sure that we'd like the answer if we got it. The, you know, I, I believe it was you, Jamie,

00:27:46.300 posting on X, a whole bunch of different examples of people getting lighter sentences or, or in

00:27:53.180 several cases that we've seen recently of people getting their sentences suspended or downgraded

00:28:00.840 to ensure that their immigration status is not affected. I, that's an outrageous situation.

00:28:10.360 Yeah. And we can, I think, thank, uh, chief justice Wagner for that because he authored

00:28:16.980 the leading decision at the Supreme court on using immigration status as a, as a discount factor.

00:28:26.600 Okay. I didn't know that. Can you, can you tell us a little bit more there?

00:28:31.000 Uh, Oh, the case is called RV fam, P H a M. Um, I believe it's from 2016. And in that case,

00:28:40.460 they were interpreting the criminal code because the criminal code says, you know, you can take the,

00:28:44.960 or you must take the accused background factors into, into, um, consideration when you're coming up

00:28:52.980 with a fair sentence. And in this case, immigration, his, his immigration status was going to

00:29:00.000 eventually, or it was going to be in jeopardy. I suppose if he, if he was sentenced a certain way,

00:29:06.400 uh, over a certain amount where there's all these ways that the immigration system works and there's

00:29:12.840 thresholds for your sentence. And he was going to be over threshold, which was going to make his

00:29:16.580 prospect for staying in Canada a lot worse. And the judge didn't consider that as part of those

00:29:22.320 background factors. And the court, the Supreme court said that was an error and that it must be

00:29:29.900 considered. I mean, it did say that if, if it's outraged, if, if the discount you would have to

00:29:36.020 give is outrageous to keep this person in Canada, then don't go that far. Um, but, but for it, but

00:29:43.300 it's like, you know, if they're more borderline, it says, you know, if they're closer to that, um,

00:29:47.200 where it'd be reasonable to not do that, then, then you should take that into consideration,

00:29:53.620 meaning you should give them that discount. So you have a situation, it was in, it was in Calgary,

00:29:58.420 uh, I think a couple of years ago, there was a girl at a club and a, um, guy from India kind of 0.74

00:30:05.880 came up to her and he just put his hand on her skirt and he groped her in her genital area. 1.00

00:30:11.260 And that is a sexual assault is literally a sexual assault. But in Calgary, the judge gave this guy 0.86

00:30:17.160 a conditional discharge because, you know, he's like, well, you're temporarily here and you could

00:30:22.460 be deported automatically. So we want to give you, yeah, we want to give you a chance. And to that,

00:30:30.020 I think, well, you know, talking about, um, how women, uh, the, the impact of the hockey Canada

00:30:35.420 decision on women, you know, I think ultimately that was fine, but a case like this, where the guy

00:30:40.160 actually walked up, it was just, it was, it was plain as day. It wasn't in question that she wanted

00:30:45.000 her genitals to be groped in the club by a random guy who just walked up to her. Um, we're giving him 0.97

00:30:51.500 a second chance to stay in Canada to do it again now. So great.

00:30:55.600 This takes us back to Wagner is Stephen Harper's worst appointment ever and a horrible Supreme Court

00:31:01.920 judge. Uh, but you know, on, on the, the, the issue of deportation or not, I say deport them.

00:31:09.480 Um, I say this as the child of immigrants. Um, you know, I'm, I'm sorry. If you aren't willing 0.98

00:31:16.440 to live by our societal rules, why are we letting you stay?

00:31:21.620 Well, exactly. Um, and it's good for the immigration system too, to be able to say that

00:31:26.160 we can with swiftness reject your stay in Canada. If you violate these important moral

00:31:33.120 standards that we have, you know, these are important to us. Don't walk up and sexual assault,

00:31:37.940 sexually assault a woman in public. I think that's a very low bar. And if you cross it,

00:31:44.320 okay, uh, you're out of here.

00:31:46.320 Sorry, you haven't been approved to stay yet. You're gone.

00:31:50.060 Exactly. I don't think that this is, this is even controversial remotely, but

00:31:54.600 well, except in judicial circles. Exactly. Yeah. They, I don't know if it's the bubble effect,

00:32:00.600 you know, you're in a certain milieu and everyone thinks a certain way. And, you know, maybe it's

00:32:09.020 just this self radicalizing effect, but it seems to be normal to them to give, to pull out all the

00:32:16.060 stops to keep these people in Canada.

00:32:17.880 Chris, should we be deporting people that break the law when they're not citizens yet?

00:32:24.120 There's two things that, that stand out to me about these cases. The first is that the judges

00:32:32.140 completely ignore why we have the rule. I mean, we made this rule. We presumably had some reason for

00:32:41.580 making the rule, but they just, you know, that, that if your sentence is over, I think it's three

00:32:46.300 years. Um, or if it's long enough to go to a federal, whatever it is, if, if you're, if, uh, you

00:32:56.800 get a, get a sentence over a certain threshold and your subject's deportation. Well, we made that rule.

00:33:03.140 So it's not up to judges or shouldn't be up to judges to just pretend it doesn't exist, but they do

00:33:07.980 pretend it doesn't exist. The second thing that strikes me is that what you're going to find is

00:33:13.640 that Canadian citizens get harsher sentences for the same crime than non-citizens, which is, 0.70

00:33:23.540 you know, a ludicrous prospect. Um, in the same, it's, it's sort of a little of, of the same

00:33:31.100 genre, I guess, as, you know, the Gladue reports where, you know, I don't have a problem with,

00:33:37.980 taking it into account. If someone was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and, and, you know,

00:33:44.500 had a horrible upbringing and had no chance really to, um, make it to, to, to make good,

00:33:52.980 then at least for the first few, first two offenses say, I can, I can see taking that into account,

00:33:59.680 but not, but, but everyone, like lots of people, it's not just indigenous Canadians who, who grew

00:34:08.560 up in those circumstances. There's no reason to make it race specific. And, but our, our, our

00:34:14.400 justice system is just larded with these weird things that I can't remember who said it earlier,

00:34:21.360 but, but like, it's not controversial. Any, like they're only the people in the Supreme

00:34:29.000 Court's bubble think these are good ideas. I mean, my favorite decision, I can't, I'm not

00:34:34.140 going to be remember, remember which one it is, but the Supreme Court wrote one. Oh, it was

00:34:39.720 the, um, it was the, uh, Alexander Bissonnette, the guy who shot, uh, up the mosque in, um,

00:34:49.120 Quebec City. Yeah. A few years ago. And the Supreme Court, um, quashed, uh, the consecutive

00:34:57.540 sentences that he had. They said, um, I can't remember how many years it was without parole,

00:35:05.140 40 maybe. And they said that to, to maintain this rule, um, would, uh, it would, uh, bring

00:35:12.880 the system of justice into disrepute. It's like, well, no, that's, that's completely the

00:35:18.660 opposite of the truth. Like what planet are you living on? Uh, and, and so, you know, you

00:35:27.320 have the Supreme Court making decisions based on pure fantasy and they're writing it down.

00:35:32.260 Well, pure fantasy and their own political viewpoint.

00:35:38.120 I suppose. Yeah. Although, I mean, you know, one of the problems with the Canadian 1.00

00:35:43.760 legal profession is that it's just not as diverse politically and ideologically as, as it is in

00:35:50.860 the, in the U S not even close.

00:35:53.260 If I can add a third factor, there's a problem too, with, with parliament just completely, um,

00:36:00.720 bending like a wet noodle when the Supreme Court makes rulings like this, like an IM or like

00:36:09.400 in, um, RV fam or the queen and fam, which is the immigration case. Um, we, we have a parliament

00:36:19.300 that, that could enact the notwithstanding clause. You know, the prime minister could have

00:36:25.060 said something about the IM case that just came out that pretty much through adult sentences 0.84

00:36:31.920 for youth in the garbage. Uh, but we have complete silence and a very, it seems to be like a, a lack

00:36:41.520 of interest in sticking up for the principles that parliament decides to govern the country

00:36:47.800 with, you know, so if they're just going to accept everything the Supreme Court says without pushing

00:36:53.380 back ever, of course, the Supreme Court's going to get a bit, maybe power hungry and walking out of

00:36:59.900 the, out of the boundaries it should have.

00:37:02.480 We've got a, a government that is, uh, you know, basically molded by the Laurentian elite,

00:37:09.380 uh, and that the Laurentian elite in this country believes that it is morally wrong to use the

00:37:15.460 notwithstanding clause, that it is unconstitutional despite being part of the constitution, unless of

00:37:21.300 course it is, uh, invoked by Quebec, in which case crickets. So that's the reality of the situation.

00:37:28.160 Um, since we're doing a hodgepodge of, um, criminal and justice insanity, uh, let me bring up this story

00:37:35.700 from, uh, Toronto, uh, just over, uh, a week or so ago, the murder of 71 year old grandmother,

00:37:44.020 Shanaz Pestangy, uh, Pestangy, uh, she's just loading her groceries into her car when a 14 year old

00:37:51.960 walks up, demands the car keys. She refuses to give them to her or to the, the, the young man.

00:38:00.380 And so as he puts it, he yoked her. Um, she died and we knew the name of the 14 year old and where his

00:38:11.060 face was plastered everywhere for several days. And now he has been arrested and we can't, uh,

00:38:17.340 mention his name or show us, uh, his image anymore. The guy was out on bail for carjackings

00:38:26.300 when this happened. And this is the reason that we need bail reform. It's one of it's example,

00:38:34.080 you know, 8,948, um, bail reform is needed. Now this guy should have been behind bars. We will get

00:38:44.380 to the full story one day of what the system did to let him back out. But your thoughts on that,

00:38:49.980 Chris, as a fellow Torontonian.

00:38:51.640 Clearly we need bail reform, but I, I often think that one of the things that would really help is

00:38:57.920 if we could light a fire under the justice system to make it work faster. Now, in the case of a young

00:39:04.200 offender, they're probably not going to go to jail for that long anyways. Um, unless we,

00:39:10.700 unless we do something about that, but there's so many cases where, you know, people are out on bail

00:39:17.160 for sort of eight months or nine months. Right. And it's one thing to keep someone locked up

00:39:23.660 for two months awaiting trial. To me, it's a totally other thing to have them locked up for a

00:39:31.980 year. Um, public safety should come first. And in extreme cases that that's going to have to happen.

00:39:37.500 And it does happen. Uh, although again, probably not with young offenders. Um, but this is a,

00:39:44.280 this is an example of, I mean, this, this kid is clearly, um, the kid who's been accused is,

00:39:51.360 is, was bragging about it online. I mean, posing with guns. I mean, he is clearly, um, if not a full

00:40:01.300 blown menace of society now, well, what am I talking about? He just killed a woman. He's,

00:40:06.920 he's a full blown menace of society and was even before that. So, and, and, and, and the,

00:40:14.360 and one of the things that always strikes me about these cases is that there can never be any

00:40:19.200 accountability because we'll never know if he reoffends.

00:40:23.160 If this is, we'll start with you, Chris, and then I want to hear Jamie's take. I'm shocked that

00:40:31.800 this story of a grandmother being killed loading groceries into her car hasn't received more

00:40:36.840 attention, more outrage, more outcry. I, I know there was the, um, the focus on him while he was

00:40:47.340 still at loose, but other than that, it feels like people are just shrugging this one off like

00:40:51.980 so many others. Well, I guess, I mean, I don't know what, what else, I mean, you shouldn't shrug it

00:40:59.340 off, but I, there's only so much that your average Torontoian can do about this, you know? Um, it's a

00:41:07.320 horrible thing. Um, she could have been murdered by an adult doing the same thing. It is certainly 0.68

00:41:16.780 disturbing. Um, you know, it fits into a pattern of, of terribly violent youth crime recently

00:41:23.200 in Toronto, um, which is genuinely disturbing and makes you wonder if, if there's something,

00:41:31.060 you know, I remember thinking this, this, this kid who's been accused would have been about nine

00:41:37.600 years old when the pandemic hit. And, you know, I'm not blaming the pandemic for anything, but I'm just

00:41:44.500 saying like, you know, you, you're denied social contact, you're denied, you know, a kid who's

00:41:50.100 going off the rails is only going to go quicker off the rails. It seems to me in a situation like

00:41:53.940 that, but I, you know, but again, we're never going to know because, um, well, we can cover the

00:42:01.520 trial. We just can't name him. But then as I say that there's, there's no, we can never know if

00:42:08.600 rehabilitation worked, however long or short the term was, we'll never know because we won't be able

00:42:17.760 to, you know, his, his name will be sealed. Um, now we will know of course, cause I mean,

00:42:25.380 it's interesting, right? More and more in these cases where, uh, you have a, uh, young offender

00:42:33.720 identified and then instantly unidentified, uh, once they're arrested, people on, on social media

00:42:40.880 are just not, you know, they're not playing ball, right? You're, you know, you know, Mario cart

00:42:46.480 six, nine, four, one, two is not adhering to a publication ban from an, from an Ontario court.

00:42:54.360 So, I mean, that's a whole other kettle of fish is, is the youth justice in the modern era. But I think

00:43:01.360 it all just, like, I feel like we just need an inquiry into the entire justice system.

00:43:10.140 As we've been discussing for the last 45 minutes, it is a mess. Jamie, um, did this story resonate

00:43:17.460 in, in Western Canada? Was it, uh, you know, locally, of course, it's going to be on the news

00:43:22.480 here, but, you know, a shocking grandmother being stabbed by kid while, you know, at grocery

00:43:29.180 store seems like it's the type of thing that should grab national attention. Did it resonate

00:43:34.140 at all?

00:43:35.480 I, I think there's an impression that Toronto is chaotic, uh, over here in Edmonton. Not

00:43:40.520 that we don't have crime. We, there is crime out here too, but Toronto has, Chris says, there's,

00:43:47.420 has had a number of high profile cases of youth, or I guess Toronto in the area has had these

00:43:54.240 cases that are quite high profile of youth committing such a vile crime. It's, it's very

00:43:59.000 hard for, uh, a regular person to just picture a kid doing such a thing. You know, the thought

00:44:05.700 of a 14 year old acting that way is unrealistic. It's not even believable, I think, to normal

00:44:11.440 people because 14 year olds are playing video games and sports. They're not stabbing.

00:44:17.200 They should be.

00:44:18.720 Exactly. Yeah.

00:44:19.680 Although with this Supreme Court decision, maybe they'll all be recruited into gangs now.

00:44:24.440 Well, that's the thing is there's, there's certain lifestyles, uh, certain types of people

00:44:32.020 that get sucked into gang life early. And it's, it's so isolated from the average person

00:44:39.960 and also from the, the average judge, you know, the average judge isn't in circles where, where

00:44:44.860 children get sucked up into gang life. So in the case of IM, he saw his crime as a stepping

00:44:52.580 stone to a great criminal career that was discussed in the case. Um, this 14 year old,

00:44:58.200 we don't know yet. Um, but it, it doesn't look good based on those snippets of, of, uh, social

00:45:05.960 media video that were going around. It seemed that there was some glorification of violence

00:45:10.340 going on. Gangs are known to recruit young people because gangs know that Canada has very

00:45:19.220 few consequences for young people. So it's, it's, it's good to offload a bunch of dirty

00:45:25.860 work that can be done by minors to minors. And then, you know, by the time they turn 18,

00:45:32.140 they're a bit more fully fledged and, and you can upgrade them to, to worse criminal activity.

00:45:38.140 But this is a real thing that's happening. And, um, you know, when they, when they know

00:45:43.080 to exploit a system like that, it's, it's a sign that maybe you should look at the system

00:45:48.160 a second time.

00:45:49.300 The system's in trouble.

00:45:51.180 Yeah.

00:45:51.920 Jamie, Chris, we have not solved the problems of the world or of Canada and its rotten justice

00:45:57.160 system, but it has been cathartic to be able to talk and complain about it with you both

00:46:01.480 because we've all been writing about it. And I know the audience has been reading and hearing

00:46:05.980 about it and feeling frustrated as well. So thanks for the time today.

00:46:10.340 Thank you.

00:46:11.500 Thank you.

00:46:12.700 Full comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced

00:46:17.980 by Andre Pru, theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libman is the executive producer. Make sure

00:46:22.800 you hit subscribe wherever you're listening on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever, hit the

00:46:27.820 subscribe button, leave us a rating and give us a review. Thanks for listening. Until next

00:46:31.880 time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:46:35.980 Here's that clip from Canada Did What? I promised you.

00:46:43.840 Two years later, he was still opposition leader and he lost again to the Pearson Liberals.

00:46:50.500 Despite this, Diefenbaker doesn't resign as leader of the Progressive Conservatives, which

00:46:56.160 put the party in an awkward situation that hasn't really happened before. The typical rules

00:47:01.800 of a Canadian political party were that you stayed leader until you died or resigned. And

00:47:06.880 if you lost twice in a row, you were supposed to do the honorable thing and step aside. But

00:47:12.380 Diefenbaker just didn't, prompting the party to take the unprecedented step of forcing a party

00:47:18.720 convention in Toronto for the singular purpose of crowbarring Diefenbaker out of the leadership.

00:47:24.140 Diefenbaker shows up, pretends everything is fine, and gives a finger-wagging speech chastising his

00:47:31.820 fellow party members for their disloyalty. He's politely cheered by the assembled Conservatives,

00:47:51.680 and then abjectly humiliated in their subsequent leadership vote. On the first ballot, Diefenbaker

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Full Comment - July 28, 2025

Canada’s justice system is bringing itself into disrepute

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