Our parole system makes Canadians ‘literal sitting ducks’
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Summary
Canadians were shocked, saddened, and outraged upon learning that the now-deceased suspect, Miles Sanderson, was out on parole when it happened. Out on parole after the parole board said he would not present an undue risk and that his release would contribute to the protection of society. Likewise, people were saddened to learn of the recent shooting death of Toronto Police Constable Andrew Hong, and again we learned the killer had been in jail before and had been labeled as a high risk to re-invent. What is happening out there? Are these two examples just rare aberrations, or do we have a big problem with this system? To tackle this issue, to look at the parole system and the whole Canadian legal system, we are joined by Toronto criminal defence lawyer and legal analyst Ari Goldkind.
Transcript
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Hello, I'm Anthony Fury. Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comment.
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Please consider subscribing if you haven't already.
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Canadians were shocked, saddened, and outraged upon learning of the James Smith Cree Nation
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stabbing rampage that left 10 people dead and 19 others injured. But their outrage only grew
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when they learned that the now-deceased suspect, Miles Sanderson, was out on parole when it
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happened. Out on parole after the board said he would not present an undue risk and that his
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release would, quote, contribute to the protection of society. Likewise, people were saddened to learn
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of the recent shooting death of Toronto Police Constable Andrew Hong, and again we learned the
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killer had been in jail before and had been labeled as a high risk to reinvent. What is happening out
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there? Are these two examples just rare aberrations? Or do we have a big problem with this system?
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To tackle this issue, to look at the parole system and the whole Canadian legal system,
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we're joined now by Toronto criminal defense lawyer and legal analyst Ari Goldkind. Ari,
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welcome to the program. Always great to talk to you, Anthony.
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Great to have you on, and yeah, people are asking a lot of questions, and I can't help but think that
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some people probably had some questions beforehand about how parole works in Canada, but we seem to
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be experiencing something of a moment right now with these two cases. I mean, wow. Is this a
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conversation that's overdue to have right now? It's been overdue, Anthony, to be had for at least a
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decade or two, probably since right from May 2020. It should have been had given the fallout of the
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events then. Not only is it a conversation that should be had, Anthony, it's a conversation that
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won't be had. I can assure you that this is a conversation once we get a week or two past
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Sanderson in the latest news, a week or two past Petrie, the monstrous shooter of Constable Andrew
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Hong. You know, there'll be another news cycle that comes along in a week or two, and this will be
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forgotten. The problem is, and this will not be a problem to many people listening who are in control
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of the law, Anthony, in control of Parliament, is because they haven't had crime happen to them
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personally and directly. These are stories that happen to other people, to people on a reserve,
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to Andrew Hong. But I invite anybody listening to us, go. I don't have Instagram, Anthony. You know I'm
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not a big fan of anti-social media. That's what I call it. Never social media. Go read the post that
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Andrew Hong's daughter put up last night about the loss of her father. Heartbreaking. And just what
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kind of man he was. And then you explain to me why this isn't a national conversation where we get
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past the woke nonsense of 2022, the virtue signaling, the demographic, the identity politics, because these
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crimes affect real people. The problem is they don't affect the people in charge. That to me, before we
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even get into the parole board or the legal system, which I can explain obviously, that is the number
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one area I would point my finger at is the people who are making these decisions do not feel the effects
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of their decision one iota. And I want to get into all those details. You know, one thing that's
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interesting. And I take your point that they're not feeling it. But I also feel like the general public
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who previously don't feel it, it kind of, it kind of bleeds out. I, to give an example, my household,
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middle-class Canadian family living in a neighborhood where typically there hasn't been much crime.
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My kids have been at those ages where they first start to hear about these kind of things. And they
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had, oh, bad guys and robbers. And is a robber coming to our house while we sleep? And dad, what's,
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and I say, no, you know, don't worry about it. And I say, you know, it's, I know you're not
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describing me and your tee up, but I'm kind of like, well, that happens in like other areas or,
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you know, people who are already involved in all this stuff. Don't worry. Doesn't happen here kind
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of thing. And there was a shooting in the parking lot, uh, across the street from my house, two guys
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blazing it out there with their weapons in broad daylight. And more and more, we're seeing this
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in neighborhoods and what is going on? There's really the feeling among just regular folks that
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it's not like a gangland thing anymore. Or even if they are gangsters involved in it,
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they're bringing it to your backyard. There's this feeling that things are becoming unhinged.
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And that's one of the worst reasons that may lead to change. So if change arises or occurs as a result
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of that, that's a hideous indictment of the way our system works. And here's why, Anthony, about eight
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years ago, I dabbled into politics. I won't get into it, but it was a very educational year,
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changed my life and made my life much more interesting and better. But here's the point.
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When I would go to low-income communities, I'm a criminal defense lawyer. Let nobody forget that
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I am a criminal defense lawyer. But I went to the communities where the grifters, the grifters who
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steal money by telling you that the police are racist, the grifters who make their living in
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universities and colleges telling you the world is racist and police are racist and that the police
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should be defunded. When I pounded the pavement, Anthony, this is going back to 2013 and 14. And
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I would go to Jane and Finch and Thorncliffe Park and low-income communities. Every door I knocked on,
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because I am and was a criminal defense lawyer and had a different police platform than I do now,
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they'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't trust the headlines. We want to be as safe as people
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walking through Forest Hill, Rosedale. We want more police so we don't have to step over drug
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dealers in the parking lot. If only we would get rid of the grifters. That's the key. If only we
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stopped listening to the grifters and that silent majority, Anthony, and I do believe this sincerely,
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the silent majority has been silenced about crime. Who does it? Why it's being done? And the silent
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majority will only, only see positive change in this area if they stop being silent and they start
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being courageous. I need your legal expertise. So, Miles Sanderson, 59 convictions he chalked up
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between the age of 18 and 32. When this information became clear to you, you saw the headlines, you read
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the news. Did you say, based on your experience with the legal system, that this is a tragic
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aberration? Let's just hope it doesn't happen again. Or did you say, yeah, yeah, I can totally see how he
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got out? Totally see how it happened, par for the course. And here, no matter what anybody tells you,
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Anthony, no matter what side they're on, if a Miles Sanderson happens and 10 people are butchered on or off a
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reserve, and remember, we're talking stabbings here, Anthony. This isn't a quick death. These are people
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butchered. Butchered. I use that word specifically. God forbid anybody looks at the crime scene photos
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that I see from butchering, butchery, stabbings. Here's the point. We have a situation where everybody
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points their finger at the parole board. You may not agree with this, Anthony, and you know that when
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you and I talk, I never care who agrees with me. It makes no difference to me. This isn't the parole
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board's fault. The parole board is the easy target here. We have a failure of the criminal justice
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system. If anybody says our system works well, and Andrew Hong happens because Petrie gets to be out
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to shoot him, Sanderson gets a 60th chance, a 60th, 6-0, so people don't think I'm exaggerating, 6-0
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after terrorizing women, terrorizing children. The parole board says the community needs him. I'm being
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serious. The parole board comes out and says the community needs him. He's a credit to the
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community. We miss him. We need him. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what they say. How did it
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happen? What's the nuts and bolts, though? So here's the nuts and bolts of how it happens. How did he get
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up there, and who did he have a representative who was advocating for him? How did it unfold?
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So let me explain. Yeah. So let me explain, because I would say, Anthony, if we took a poll on your show,
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95% of people would not know the following. I'm going to make the example very, very easy.
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Let's say Miles Sanderson gets a nine-year sentence for whatever crimes he's done in the past. Nine
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years. Let's use that because the math is easy. Miles Sanderson will be guaranteed to be out of
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jail in six years. What that's called is that after three years, he can apply for full parole. Most
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people, many people get full parole. They get out after a third, three years. Most Canadians don't know
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that. If, for example, you're like Sanderson, you're a higher risk, you're a higher threat level,
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you may have to wait until the two-thirds mark. That's statutory release. The parole board almost
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never, even with the highest risk offenders where they can insist that the person stay till nine
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years, the person will be released at what's called statutory release. Now, there is a theoretically
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good reason for that, Anthony, because the thinking is, and we can talk about this in a moment,
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the thinking is, is that if you make somebody stay in their whole sentence until the nine years is up
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to open the doors of jail, sort of like the Shawshank redemption at the end, and you let somebody out at
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the nine-year mark, which is called warrant expiry, they're going to come out in the community with no
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supervision, no help, no supports in the community, an island done to themselves. That's the thinking.
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But when you look at Sanderson, I think many of your listeners and Canadians across the country would say,
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well, hold on. He's flagged a high risk. He's done this before. Not exactly like this, but he's a
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ticking time bomb. How in the world does the parole board let him out? This is not a parole board issue,
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Anthony. I know it's an easier talking point. But you just quoted them. You quoted that crazy line.
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Correct. And it is crazy. And we haven't even gotten into aboriginal sentencing discounts that are
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codified in our criminal code, section 718 for anybody who wants to look. But when a judge gives a
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sentence that is anything other than life, that person is going to be released. There's nothing
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the parole board could have done, even if they kept them until the nine-year mark. At the nine-year
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mark, again, that's a number I make up because a third, a third, a third is just easy to do.
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At the nine-year mark, he's going to come out with no supervision. So that begs the question,
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Anthony, that you and many of your listeners may have was, well, what do you do with a guy who's got a
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three- or four-year sentence? But every psychological profile, every bit of data suggests
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this person is literally a walking, ticking time bomb. What do we do? That raises a much
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more interesting question that is not part of a national discussion, but I think it should be.
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Okay. To go back to the current national discussion, how did they let him out? And here's
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the headlines. I'm reading from a news story. Canada's parole board will review its decision
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to release one of the men now suspected of, that was a bit prior to things wrapping up,
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but basically parole board will review. Now what's going to come of it? Because you're saying,
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well, that's not really the issue here, but what can come of that parole board review?
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Absolutely. Just like Hockey Canada and their stupid review, which is a different talking point
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for it. This is called covering your tracks. Okay. Or in my business, it's called CYA,
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cover your posterior. I don't want to use the A-S-S word, but I just spelled it out.
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That's all this is. It deflects the heat for a bit. The parole board did what the parole board does.
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It does what it's commanded to do for Aboriginal and Indigenous people. Again, we haven't even gotten
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into that. That's a real hot talking point, which I think has left swaths of the Canadian population
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open to violence and clearly on the James Cree Reserve suffered from it. But the parole board,
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here's the point. He didn't get early parole. He got statutory release. Okay. So at the two third
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mark, everybody gets released. There are extraordinarily few, like Paul Bernardo, like
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Anthony, if I could use an extreme example, where the parole board will say, hey, he's just too dangerous
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to come out until the end of the nine years. You add the Indigenous factor here, you add in the
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criminal code, you add in a case called the Queen and Gladue, you get called into the parole board
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that's going to be called. You know all the names that get tossed in this world, Anthony,
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if you don't cater or assuage the concerns of certain groups that call themselves minorities
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or victims of crime or all these other... And do they feel this, the people who sit on parole boards?
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They are not immune to these pressures. Not only do they feel it, Anthony, you put them on a lie
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detector tomorrow and give one of Canada's most skilled cross-examiners full leeway. I'm telling
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you, not only are they not immune to it, it governs many of their decisions. And if you look at the
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wording of the parole board decision, Wee Sanderson, you can see it permeate because remember, this man
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was flagged as an extraordinarily high risk. But the parole board, and I know this is not a juicy
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talking point, Anthony, I'm well aware of it's not. The parole board is handcuffed, unintended,
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with what they can do with him because he had so little time left in his sentence. And it's just
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like the RCMP the other day. You might have seen this, Anthony, because it's interesting too.
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The RCMP came out and said, well, truth be told, we weren't even looking for him,
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even though he was on the run and AWOL, we've just got too many people like him on the run.
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Red flags. Red flags. That's right. And the point is, because I'm inside baseball, Anthony,
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this is my life and my living. What does this say to the broader Canadian community that we've got
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millions and billions to send off to wars and countries that we have no interest in and nothing
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to do with? But people in Saskatchewan, people in Ontario, people in British Columbia are literally
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sitting ducks for people like this. And I'm telling you again, Anthony, the reason they're left
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sitting like ducks is because Justin Trudeau, certain people in the criminal justice system
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do not feel this intimately. It happens to other people, not them. I can assure you,
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if tragedies like this happened to certain judges, God forbid, to certain defense lawyers,
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God forbid, this would not be an ideological, esoteric, oh, let's just look at the numbers
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and it's only two in ten people that do it. God forbid you're one of the two in ten people
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whose child is hurt, whose wife is home invaded, whose best friend is shot. Trust me, Anthony,
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your views change in literally a nanosecond. There was an awful incident in Toronto a number
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of years ago and a teenage girl died, a blonde girl, a blonde Caucasian girl. And there was a
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lot of, and it was a tragedy. It was awful. And obviously she deserved to be memorialized and
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remembered publicly the way she was. And then there was a commentary where people said, well,
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she's only getting the attention. You only really care because this is a white blonde girl.
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And people, you know, I don't care for that toxic stuff. And it was race-based debates,
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but then at the same time, overlap with what you're saying. And depending on what was really
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motivating the frustrations of people making these complaints, like they sort of kind of had a point.
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And that point, and it's interesting that you say they have a point. They actually did because just
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for people who aren't intimately familiar with the name across the country, that's because a man who
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didn't look like Jane Kreeba and didn't share her skin color, shot up the Eaton Centre.
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The Eaton Centre, just for people to understand, is sort of the West Edmonton Mall Central Park
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of Toronto. It used to be high-end. I mean, I don't think it is anymore.
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It was one of the biggest malls in Canada back then.
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Yes. And one of the most high-end and expensive. And that sort of woke the city up.
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And we were having a sort of race-based discussion one way. The problem is you're not allowed to have
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it the other way. You're not allowed to have it about who commits crime. What do the statistics
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tell us? Who's overrepresented? Who's unrepresented? It was almost a condemnation
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that you really shouldn't care so much about Jane Kreeba being shot because she's white,
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Judeo-Christian, etc. That goes back to my point earlier, Anthony, which is why the silent majority
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of all races and religions, Anthony, that's why we've been gaslit. Okay? And I'll get to the
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criminal defense lawyer part of this in just a moment. But we've all been gaslit to be told that
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only people like you or me, and people don't believe I'm like it because I'm a criminal defense
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lawyer, but only people that sort of look like Anthony Fury or other people like that care about
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that is absolutely, completely false. And the worst part about this discussion is that the more money
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that you have, the more you can tend to live in one of these areas or communities that theoretically,
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Anthony, going to your point, theoretically, you're immune from it. It's almost like in the U.S.
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All the people who want to empty the jails, who want to defund the police, do you think it's just
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a coincidence they all live in gated communities? I don't think it's a coincidence, but it's a
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complete insult to law-abiding, ordinary, average, tax-paying people. I'm going to use a name,
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The man who Petrie, the shooter of Andrew Hong, also shot was a man named Mr. Ashras. He's a Muslim
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man in Mississauga, beloved by his community, hardworking, I guarantee you tax-paying, employed
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a number of people, the model citizen. He was mowed down by this monster. Now, you tell me, do you think
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just because he's a Muslim man or because somebody else might be a recent immigrant from wherever
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or the black community at Jane and Finch doesn't think they have as much right to be safe as you
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and I? Anybody who tells you that is either a professor at York University or is a professional,
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professional, professional grifter. Funny because it's true. It's tragic. It's not funny. I laughed
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through the tragic. That's right, but I'm only interested in what's true. I'm only interested
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in what's true, and here's the criminal defense lawyer point, Anthony. We have had a pendulum
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where in the United States, we all read about somebody who possessed a little bit of marijuana,
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spends the rest of their life, life in jail at Rikers Island or at San Quentin. They have a pendulum
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that swings, many people would say, far, far too much to locking people up and throwing away the
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key forever. But when it comes to serious, serious crimes of violence, they tend to think that it's
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not worth risking other people. As much as Canada seems to think everybody can be rehabilitated,
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you just walk into court, you say, look, the guy in the jail is getting his GED. The guy is going to
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go to a healing circle. This guy is rehabilitated. We err on the side of everybody sings kumbaya.
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The problem again, Anthony, is if you stretch too far to each side of the pendulum, you tend to miss
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a lot of logic and common sense in the middle where, yes, many people deserve a second chance.
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Many people who don't have 59 convictions and show that they're incorrigible make a god-awful mistake,
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and we should err on the side of giving them a second chance. The problem in this country,
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Anthony, this country, is there are a small subset of people, people who, again, the professors at
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York University and the grifters will tell you everybody else failed them. They have no personal
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responsibility. They can all be fixed if we throw money at the problem. That doesn't change anything.
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It doesn't achieve anything. There are a very small number of people that if we kept our eye
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on the ball and said, look, we're just not going to risk any more people at the hands of these people.
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There are provisions in the criminal code, just so people understand how the sausage is made,
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that any Crown Attorney in Canada can look at an offender if there's a track record of incorrigible
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violence and say, you know what? Just like the movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise, for anybody
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who's a movie buff, there are people whose risk is so foreseeable that are so dangerous, we're going
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to try and label them a dangerous offender so they never breathe the light of day. That conversation is
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one that needs to be had nationally, and we need to let race, religion, creed, and the racial grifting
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get out of the way because eight to nine times out of ten, who are the victims of this kind of
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violence? Anthony, God willing, it's not you and me, but that doesn't make it better. It's just as
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terrible if it's somebody in a low-income community shot by somebody who looks like one of their own
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as it is if it's Jane Creeba in the Eaton Centre. The problem is we are forbidden and verboten from
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having any discussion about these issues because you're going to get called a bunch of names and
00:21:17.500
quite frankly, Anthony, that's illiberal, it's undemocratic, and it's insane. We'll be back with
00:21:23.300
more full comment in just a moment. Well, let's have those conversations that get people called a
00:21:29.600
bunch of names, including about the Gladue Principle. We'll talk about that in a moment. I do want to
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circle back on something you were saying that the news reported. RCMP says, well, we can't, you know,
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we didn't really track the Sanderson guy because there's just so many other cases like this. You
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know, we can't keep tabs on all of them. Whoa, what on earth is going on here? Ari, we see the
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Sanderson story in the news. Obviously, it makes it to be the front page story, but I get from what
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you're saying that there's dozens, others, hundreds, I don't know, thousands of other, not Miles
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Sanderson, but similar situations of people on parole are out there. You're like, why are they even out
00:22:04.760
there? How prevalent is this? Can you give me some examples? Can you give me some indication?
00:22:11.460
You know, am I, am I walking down the street and people in this situation are passing me?
00:22:16.760
Yes, they are passing you depending on what street you're on. It is not an aberration. What he did is
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an aberration, right? The numbers, 10 people, you know, a wild spree, sort of like the guy in Nova
00:22:30.360
Scotia, Wartman, right? You tend to hear about these kinds of sprees because they're newsworthy.
00:22:35.280
They're, they make for good TV. But nine out of 10 of these kinds of things, Anthony, and I want to
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be very specific here. Nine out of 10 of these things won't be newsworthy. They'll be taking up
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three courtrooms today at Finch Court, if you're in Toronto, or at College Park Court, or in Berry Court,
00:22:53.760
because the person only went out and terrorized his baby's mother, terrorized his children,
00:23:00.440
terrorized his former lover, did something that just doesn't rise to newsworthiness when Queen
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Elizabeth and Sanderson and Petrie are in the news. The point that I'm making, Anthony, is just because
00:23:13.760
it doesn't get to that level doesn't suggest this is an aberration. It simply suggests that in an hour
00:23:21.020
newscast, you know, you've got to give 50 minutes to this, you've got to give 10 minutes to traffic,
00:23:26.860
10 minutes to weather. But anybody who shadows me for a day, and I've always invited people, look,
00:23:32.020
courtrooms are open, the open court principle. Don't take me at my word. Go look at a court docket.
00:23:37.460
Go look at somebody's antecedents. That's a fancy legalistic word, Anthony, for go look at somebody
00:23:44.720
who's having a trial or a guilty plea today. Go look at their track record for these kinds of
00:23:50.820
crimes of very serious violence, especially gun crime. These things don't happen out of the blue.
00:23:57.940
Very often you'll have somebody who's on a gun prohibition. That's why when Trudeau goes after
00:24:02.660
lawful gun owners in Canada, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I'm like, this guy knows it's not
00:24:08.220
going to make a difference. You can't be this stupid to think that criminals in Toronto or in British
00:24:13.820
Columbia or organized gangs give two flying you fill in the blanks when Trudeau says, or, you know,
00:24:20.520
or this person, we're going to have a ban on handguns. Well, they're already illegal. So this
00:24:25.020
is why there is a concerted effort to not have these conversations. One, because nobody wants to
00:24:31.880
be called offensive, which I actually think is offensive, Anthony. To me, that's the fill in the
00:24:37.600
blank of low expectations. But hold on. So some of those examples you gave. So we have someone who's
00:24:43.320
assaulted his child's mother, which we all acknowledge is a heinous thing. Well, okay. Okay.
00:24:48.420
Well, that's the follow up many times. That's the question I'm getting at here. Because you gave some
00:24:51.740
examples where, and I take the point that you don't need to do the Miles Sanderson mass stabbing
00:24:57.180
to necessarily be designated someone who shouldn't be let out. But where is, where does it happen?
00:25:04.040
It's the old, you know, they call it the problem of the heap in Greek philosophy. Three rocks isn't a
00:25:09.360
heap, but 20 rocks is a heap. Well, which one is it? What's the middle number? Eight or nine?
00:25:12.820
It's 20. It's 20. So what, you know, what's the, what's the situation here? Because, well,
00:25:18.040
this guy was, you know, beating the child's mother and then they let him out in parole and you go,
00:25:21.620
okay, maybe it made sense in that situation. And terrorizing the children, if you want to use
00:25:27.480
Sanderson, which I think when you terrorize children, Anthony, that's a whole different level of depravity.
00:25:32.320
I, yeah. And I don't dispute any of that. The question is, is it that we're making bad
00:25:39.840
individual decisions, but you're also pointing out a system-wide problem?
00:25:44.440
Oh, yes. I do believe for, well, okay. That's a good question. So let's, let, let me dial that back
00:25:50.060
for a second. Because you said the parole board isn't really all that singularly responsible for
00:25:54.840
the Sanders system. Let me answer that because it's a great question. You're asking if it's an
00:25:57.800
individual problem or systemic? Let me, that's a very good question. So let's start with the
00:26:02.620
premise that every judge goes to work every day, never wants to be the person that gives somebody
00:26:09.600
a five-year sentence. And then at year three, when they're out on full parole, they pull a Sanders.
00:26:15.620
Yeah. Let's believe that every judge goes to court, deals with the best that they can,
00:26:20.320
uses precedent. Now what's precedent, Anthony? You know what it is, where what previous people get
00:26:25.160
is what you're going to get now? I think when it comes to sentencing, precedent is ridiculous.
00:26:30.060
Okay. I just have a real problem with it. I've always had a real problem with it, especially if
00:26:35.400
sentencing is an art, not a science. You look at the individual human. But if you take the view that
00:26:42.360
the judge did the best he or she could, and the person got four years and the judge had all the
00:26:48.240
evidence at their hand, the crown asked for seven, the defense asked for none. By the way,
00:26:53.400
whenever you talk to most defense lawyers, Anthony, they'll say, well, the person shouldn't
00:26:56.520
get jailed. They should, okay. Well, the crown would say they should get, they should get seven
00:27:00.460
years jail. Well, why is the defense lawyer point of view better than the crown point of view? That's
00:27:06.220
the pendulum that I'm talking about between the U S and Canada. But if you take the view that the judge
00:27:11.760
did the best they could on an individual case, but that person came out and like a ticking time bomb
00:27:18.280
shot or killed or raped somebody, Anthony, how can you say that that sentencing was successful?
00:27:23.980
How can you say that there isn't a problem in that individual sentencing? Even if somebody says,
00:27:30.660
well, we couldn't have predicted it. Well, with all due respect to people who would say that,
00:27:35.840
yeah, you can kind of predict who you're never going to see in a criminal court again.
00:27:41.660
And you can kind of predict who, if you were a betting man, you may see again. That's the
00:27:47.820
individual answer to your question on a systemic level, Anthony, this is deeply systemic. And by the
00:27:54.660
way, it's codified by the Supreme court. You can start with different treatment for different
00:27:59.720
demographics. I have a huge issue with that. Anybody again can Google seven, 18 of the criminal
00:28:06.560
code or what are called Gladue principles. We've now moved that into different races.
00:28:11.260
Well, let's get into that Gladue principle. Let's unpack that. My layman's understanding is that it
00:28:16.180
means that first nations persons should ideally get lesser sentences and in sort of more conditions
00:28:23.000
like healing lodges to basically represent some of the more historic socioeconomic challenges that
00:28:30.720
those persons have faced. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, Anthony. Nothing. I emphasize
00:28:37.260
this. This is where people will say, oh, he sounds like a typical defense lawyer. I don't care.
00:28:41.260
There's nothing wrong with that in certain circumstances where a crime is an aberration.
00:28:47.140
A crime is connected to something literally in their background where something can be attended
00:28:53.000
to. There could be restorative justice. There could be all these other ideas that may be better than a
00:28:58.480
prison or a penitentiary sentence. There's a time and a place for that, Anthony. There's no doubt.
00:29:03.140
Doesn't make you a bleeding heart. And I can assure you, I'm not a bleeding heart.
00:29:06.660
But then you have the abuse of that. And here's where the abuses start.
00:29:12.240
Well, the code will tell you and judges will quote law up and down twice on Sunday and up the yin yang
00:29:17.760
that they don't give inappropriate sentences just because somebody's indigenous or they don't give a
00:29:24.380
sentence that's so low that it's ridiculous because they're indigenous. They know what they have to do.
00:29:30.340
They know that the second that somebody invokes that, it is going to change the sentencing
00:29:36.300
extraordinarily, seriously, in many, many ways or shapes and forms.
00:29:46.400
No, but here's the other. Here's no. Well, the judge will make inquiries.
00:29:50.540
But here's the point, Anthony. Here's the point. And again, I will be happily on my own on this.
00:29:56.840
I speak what I believe is my truth. You may be aware and many of your listeners may be aware
00:30:02.900
that you can get what's called the Gladue Report, which goes into historic trauma, systemic abuse,
00:30:09.840
all of this. There's a time and a place for that. The problem is in our criminal justice system,
00:30:14.160
all you have to do is self-identify as indigenous. You don't have to be status. You don't have to
00:30:20.820
have any connection to a reserve. You can simply invoke that. There's been notorious stories covered
00:30:26.540
in media about this. I won't get into them, where all you have to do is say that. And once you say
00:30:32.440
that, you're going to go to a special court or a special kind of sentencing. And to me, a good
00:30:39.340
intention of recognizing that certain things on a reserve or child abuse or residential schools
00:30:44.900
may have led somebody to a path that perhaps the criminal justice system doesn't need to make
00:30:50.260
worse, that door opened the floodgates. But you can't have that conversation, Anthony. It's verboten.
00:30:58.160
Well, do people fake it and get called out on it? Like there's increasing skepticism about how-
00:31:02.160
Yes, they fake it. They fake it. They don't get called out on it because nobody wants to call it out.
00:31:05.620
Like how we have persons who are realizing they are transgender right at the time they are being
00:31:11.580
sent to prison. And some people are skeptical about some of that. Is that a similar thing?
00:31:15.720
Like suddenly someone's like, well, you know what? I think I'm, you know, I have a native relative.
00:31:23.120
Yeah, I found it out two weeks ago. Now, I'm not actually being humorous about this. I've
00:31:31.900
Of course it works. And the problem is, is you can't prove it doesn't work, right? Because
00:31:36.560
judges are very loathsome. You've got to remember who occupies the bench, right? These are not
00:31:42.480
people that want to be called names. I think very highly of most judges at the trial level
00:31:48.520
of courts that I deal with. But then you look at other levels of court and you have people
00:31:52.980
that, you know, I don't think the same way about, and I'm not going to get too far into
00:31:57.500
it, but you have people that have at many times and places an extraordinarily far left agenda
00:32:05.380
when it comes to sentencing. But that doesn't necessarily protect the public. And if people
00:32:11.380
come back and say, yes, it does. Yes, it does. It's good for them. So it's good for everybody.
00:32:16.440
I'm going to take you right back, Anthony, to what the parole board said about Miles Sanderson.
00:32:21.900
You have the quote available to you. You have the parole board drinking the Kool-Aid that many of us
00:32:29.120
are forced to drink. And while there, as I said, I'll be very clear, there are a number of cases and
00:32:35.700
individuals by whom Gladue principles and a different kind of sentencing, a less punitive,
00:32:41.200
more rehabilitative kind of sentencing works for and is absolutely just. When you paint that with too
00:32:48.560
broad a brush, you end up with 10 people butchered rather than people saying, doesn't matter if you're
00:32:55.940
Jewish, doesn't matter if you're Muslim, doesn't matter if you're Black, doesn't matter if you're
00:33:00.540
Fury, doesn't matter if you're Goldkind, doesn't matter if you're new here or if you've been here 50
00:33:06.160
years. If you're somebody that presents a sufficient risk to anybody in any community, why is it a God-given
00:33:14.660
right that once a jury of your peers or a judge finds you guilty? Because Anthony, full disclosure,
00:33:20.620
let me make this very clear to you. I'm obsessed with proof beyond a reasonable dent. I'm obsessed
00:33:25.900
with that an innocent person doesn't go down. That's what gets me up in the morning. Now, I know that
00:33:30.520
doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but it is. That's what floats my boat in the Me Too era,
00:33:36.280
where allegations on Twitter destroy careers. This destroys her. That's my obsession. But once a jury of
00:33:43.100
your peers has found you guilty of home invasion, rape, murder, you name it, manslaughter in certain
00:33:50.320
circumstances, child molestation, why is it such a God-given right that we have to bend over backwards
00:33:58.260
to not protect potential victims, which is exactly what they are, to not protect potential victims
00:34:06.160
from this kind of activity. I don't think that's civil, and I think that the pendulum in this country
00:34:12.860
has swung too far one way, while the argument is quite sound that in the United States, particularly with
00:34:19.320
drug and other types of minor non-violent offenses, they swing too much the other way. My point to you,
00:34:25.940
Anthony, is without an honest national discussion about this, we are never going to get anywhere,
00:34:32.940
and I'll apply this, Anthony. Changing the climate then, changing the tone, because you're saying
00:34:37.560
national discussion, but you're also acknowledging that the regular folks can scream all they want,
00:34:42.680
the elites ain't going to do nothing because they're not affected by it, but so you're saying
00:34:45.600
make some noise. You have to have courage here, Anthony. I was discussing something with the other
00:34:50.900
day with a very, very well-known commentator in the States, somebody with a gigantic following,
00:34:56.740
I won't say his name because he's not here to talk about it, and he said something that I
00:35:00.740
thought was very prescient. I almost want to steal it, Anthony, but I don't steal other people's
00:35:04.840
lines. He said the greatest epidemic facing Americans right now is the epidemic called
00:35:11.220
shut-uppery, where we all can see what's going on in the world. We all know who's doing what to whom.
00:35:17.540
We all know what's happening. We know why. We don't have the power of Ron DeSantis to fly people to
00:35:23.300
Martha's Vineyard. We are all just ordinary average people that we think have no power or ability to
00:35:29.440
change anything. And his point was, is it's an epidemic of shut-uppery. And if more and more
00:35:35.860
people, the silent majority as I call it, if more and more people did not succumb to the epidemic of
00:35:42.700
shut-uppery, there may be more of a message sent here that this kind of violence, and I go right
00:35:50.660
back to Andrew Hong, Anthony, because this is a human face on it, okay? This is not esoteric.
00:35:57.220
That's why when people come back to me and say, well, you're a defense lawyer. How can you say
00:36:00.940
this? You're supposed to say the jail should all be empty. No, I would defend Sean Petrie,
00:36:07.540
or whatever his name is, if he was alive and not killed. And by the way, Anthony, as I'm sure you'd
00:36:11.780
vouch for, I would do a hell of a job, okay? Because everybody deserves the very best representation.
00:36:18.560
But when the laws in a country for sentencing, I'm not talking about proof beyond a reasonable
00:36:23.360
doubt. Those standards should never be lowered. But when our sentencing laws do not address a
00:36:29.640
changing and growing threat of violence to law-abiding peaceful citizens, it simply suggests
00:36:38.200
to me, and I'm going to use this term again, Anthony, that the grifters and the people who
00:36:43.520
are isolated in their ivory towers have been given far too much power. And the people that are facing
00:36:51.720
this and have to deal with it every day and climb over drug dealers in Toronto community housing,
00:36:57.920
the epidemic of shut-uppery has taken hold. And I think that's a very sad state of affairs.
00:37:03.380
We had this conversation 10 years ago. Stephen Harper heard the complaints. They created something
00:37:09.040
called mandatory minimums. And then some of the people, the ivory tower people were always freaking
00:37:14.740
out about the mandatory minimums, mostly repealed, Justin Trudeau, ghosting away from all of that.
00:37:22.240
Could that, was it, will it be part of the solution?
00:37:25.880
Okay, so here's an interesting point about mandatory minimums. Harper did that, and I'm going to take you
00:37:31.180
in a tangent, but I think it reflects exactly the point that I'm making about the ivory tower, okay?
00:37:36.060
Those mandatory minimums were there for very serious crimes, almost all of them involving
00:37:43.180
guns, okay? Now, this is important for people to understand. Almost all of them for people
00:37:49.280
illegally, unlawfully possessing guns, usually in violent street crime. Now, your audience can decide
00:37:56.880
for themselves who tends to be the possessors of those weapons. Is it a hunter in North Bay, Ontario,
00:38:03.020
or in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, or is it not? I'll leave that question open.
00:38:07.500
We know what's going on here. As you said, the shut-up rule, we know what's going on.
00:38:10.780
That's right. So here's the point. So here's the point. The Trudeau government gets rid of those.
00:38:15.940
There's no demand to get rid of those, okay? Maybe the defense bar, maybe. There's no public demand
00:38:21.260
to get rid of those. In fact, the public would like to see sentences for that kind of gun violence
00:38:25.880
go up, and that kind of gun possession go up. It's, in fact, why he has all these handgun bans,
00:38:30.900
okay? Because everybody agrees guns are a scourge. But then, now let's talk about the ivory tower,
00:38:38.020
Anthony, and this pervades the culture that we live in. Stephen Harper, you invoked his name. To
00:38:43.440
some people, he's like Voldemort. I disagree. In 2011, and you may recall this, Anthony,
00:38:51.320
he brought in something that was very, very important, I thought, to the psyche of Canadians
00:38:56.580
in the criminal law, which was this. If you were Paul Bernardo, or Bruce MacArthur, or Miles Sanderson,
00:39:02.760
or Robert Pickton, and you killed more than one person, okay? His view was, well, why should you
00:39:09.980
be able to take two or three or four lives in Canada, but you still get to apply for parole
00:39:16.000
after 25 years? No matter how many people you mow down, it doesn't change the calculus. In other words,
00:39:22.740
the simple arithmetic, is that every life doesn't matter. Well, Anthony, as you know, in the criminal
00:39:27.560
code, there's no more serious crime than murder. Our criminal code reflects our moral values,
00:39:33.440
that taking a life is the worst thing you can do, especially when you plan and deliberate it,
00:39:38.520
called first-degree murder, okay? Justin Trudeau, to his great credit, and I say this because I'm not a
00:39:44.480
fan of his, but I always give credit where it's due, okay? He did not, since he became prime minister
00:39:50.000
in 2015, try and repeal that. He and his government shared the view that if you take more than one
00:39:56.540
life, every life taken should be worth, if a judge sees fit to do it. It's discretion, not mandatory.
00:40:03.660
50 years, 75 years, so that if you're Miles Sanderson, and he lived, he would never be able
00:40:10.660
to breathe the same air as you and I, okay? What happened just a few months ago, Anthony? You may
00:40:16.000
recall this. It's the mosque shooter, Bissonette. The Supreme Court, and this is their words, not me,
00:40:21.100
Anthony. Their words, not me. And I'm leaving aside my concerns about the appointment of the latest
00:40:26.980
Supreme Court judge. That's a hot-button topic that nobody has the guts to discuss for all the reasons
00:40:31.840
you can figure out. It came and passed in about a 10-minute news cycle. The Supreme Court came out
00:40:37.660
and said, well, if you don't allow somebody to apply for parole in their natural life, no matter how many
00:40:44.280
people they butcher, no matter how many people they kill or terrorize, that would be cruel and unusual
00:40:50.880
punishment to the killer. And it would be undignified to not let them apply for parole. That is a starkly
00:40:59.300
different view, Anthony, than I think the majority of down the road, down the middle, middle of the road,
00:41:06.320
whatever you call it, Canadians would feel. And that, to me, is a perfect, perfect example
00:41:13.400
of the disconnect when it comes to sentencing, Anthony. Remember, Anthony, I'm talking about
00:41:17.960
sentencing, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the perfect example I can give you about
00:41:23.340
the culture that ordinary, average, non-gated community, non-private security detail, not gun-owning
00:41:31.780
people on ranches in the middle of Saskatchewan have. Regular common sense. Regular common sense,
00:41:38.280
which is, wait a minute, you're more worried about the cruelty and indignity, the cruel and unusual
00:41:44.720
punishment of a guy who premeditates to kill five, six, seven people, that maybe he'll just have to
00:41:51.840
die in prison on the public's dole more than the families, widows, children, best friends, lovers,
00:41:59.180
cousins, grandparents of people who were butchered through no fault of their own. Maybe I'm the only
00:42:05.340
one in Canada who thinks that, Anthony. And if so, I'm happy to wear that badge.
00:42:09.600
Let me get you on this then before we go. So we get the captive audience, we get everyone involved,
00:42:15.160
we get the voices. Tragically, the people who think crime will never come to them,
00:42:19.500
it comes to them, they're attentive. It's our moment to strike. Can we drill down on the particulars?
00:42:26.060
What are the specifics we're going to do here? What is the legislation going to say? What is the
00:42:33.960
guidance document given to the people on the parole board?
00:42:37.220
All right. Let me go through a number of factors here, both with my criminal defense lawyer hat on
00:42:43.080
and off, but also as a legal analyst who tries to see things down the middle. Crowns have started to
00:42:48.980
bring in the last decade more dangerous offender applications. I explained what that was before to
00:42:54.620
your audience. I think there needs to be more of that for people like Miles Sanders. That's number
00:42:59.760
one. Number one. Number two, there have to be minimums that reflect society's basic condemnation
00:43:06.840
of the kind of gun crime that we're talking about. Three. In the law bet. Legislative minimums.
00:43:14.240
Legislative. And I'm going to come to what happened last week in Ottawa. Remind me to come back to
00:43:18.980
Pierre Polyam, because I think there's an important point there, Anthony. There has to be an honest
00:43:24.720
discussion about our bail system. Is our bail system working? Or as many people criticize it,
00:43:31.520
is it a revolving door? There has to be a national discussion about that, given the number of crimes
00:43:38.220
that occur for people who are on release. Okay. Number four, we have to have an honest discussion of
00:43:44.940
what's called the Youth Criminal Justice Act. As you and your listeners may be aware, whether it's
00:43:49.960
carjackings or other horribly violent crimes in the GTA Vancouver, Montreal, extraordinarily serious
00:43:58.880
adult-like crimes are being committed by people who are 17 years old. Those people are not committing
00:44:04.900
these crimes by accident. Okay. They know that the YCJA will get them a kiss. We have to have an honest
00:44:12.260
discussion as to whether that document, which was created decades ago, is as apt and appropriate for
00:44:18.980
2022 violence, the changes in Canada, whether it be demographically, criminally, and the kinds of
00:44:26.240
violent crime that are being done. Fifth or sixth. I actually think what happened in Ottawa last week,
00:44:34.840
Anthony, was very important. Because if you listen to Tom Mulcair, you're going to think I'm digressing.
00:44:39.820
I'm not. If you're going to listen to Tom Mulcair in March of 2022, a theoretical expert, okay,
00:44:48.040
he came out and said at the beginning of the PC leadership contest, and I invite people to watch
00:44:54.600
this clip, by the way, he said Pierre Polyev doesn't have a chance. He will get killed by Jean Charest.
00:45:01.760
Pierre Polyev doesn't have a message. He doesn't appeal. Jean Charest is the man for our time,
00:45:08.220
and it's not even going to be close. Now, you might say to me, Anthony, what the hell does that
00:45:12.740
already have to do with what we're talking about? I actually think it does, and here's why.
00:45:19.320
I have said that Justin Trudeau will be prime minister for as long as he wants, okay? It's a
00:45:24.760
throne. It's not elected. He doesn't even have the majority of the popular vote, but that's our
00:45:29.260
electoral system. The way Canada is changing demographically suggests he can never lose.
00:45:34.460
It's the same argument that many people make about Biden in the States, etc., etc., but here's the
00:45:39.200
point. Pierre Polyev in the conservative leadership contest got 68%. Jean Charest got 12%. That told me
00:45:47.940
that under the surface, there's an undercurrent here where people don't want shut-uppery anymore,
00:45:53.340
where people actually will respond to a law and order agenda that is more concerned with Jane Kriba,
00:46:01.300
Mr. Ashraf, and Constable Hong than they are with their killers and murderers. And my point to that
00:46:10.240
is, Anthony, is if Pierre Polyev stays the course, or whoever Pierre Polyev was going to be, I'm not
00:46:16.160
using him as a perfect example, but if you have some guts in politics, if you stand on a law and order
00:46:23.960
or broken windows agenda, that you simply say, in a civil, beautiful country like Canada, this is
00:46:30.560
unacceptable. You don't get a pass because you're a certain demographic. You don't get to make excuses
00:46:36.920
that you were dropped on your head because you have a certain skin colour, or a certain religion, or a certain
00:46:43.140
creed. If there was more of what got Pierre Polyev 68%, and I mean this sincerely, where there were politicians
00:46:50.960
politicians of our time, Doug Ford is a plain-spoken person, if he was more outspoken about this, he has
00:46:57.020
been on bail, there could be a legislative push to say, hold on, it's not up to courts to make law.
00:47:05.920
I truly do believe that. It's up to courts to interpret whether laws are constitutional. I really
00:47:11.560
do believe that, Anthony. And if politicians stood up in the House of Commons and said, you know,
00:47:16.980
I don't know Constable Hong. I'm not his daughter. I don't feel this intimately. But I'm going to put
00:47:24.760
myself in the shoes of Constable Hong's daughter, or Mr. Ashraf's wife. I think at that point, we would
00:47:33.460
get the milk-a-toast, woke, virtue-signaling out of the criminal justice system. And if more participants
00:47:40.900
in the criminal justice system, including people who don't like me, who do what I do, Anthony,
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I'm not Mr. Popularity in my profession, I assure you. But if those people who can't stand me and
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think, oh, I'm wrong about everything, if God forbid their kids were ever kidnapped, or their
00:47:57.180
wife was carjacked leaving the mall, I just think a lot of these things would change. And it shouldn't
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take it happening to you for you to be concerned and ensure that we do everything that we can
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to make sure it doesn't happen to somebody else.
00:48:13.160
Ari Goldkind, thank you so much for your insights for the conversation. Definitely an important one.
00:48:20.320
Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Proulx,
00:48:26.180
with theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full
00:48:31.540
Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, and Amazon Music. You can listen through the app or your
00:48:36.900
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