Full Comment - Our parole system makes Canadians ‘literal sitting ducks’

00:00:00.000 Hello, I'm Anthony Fury. Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comment.

00:00:09.700 Please consider subscribing if you haven't already.

00:00:12.620 Canadians were shocked, saddened, and outraged upon learning of the James Smith Cree Nation

00:00:17.200 stabbing rampage that left 10 people dead and 19 others injured. But their outrage only grew

00:00:22.660 when they learned that the now-deceased suspect, Miles Sanderson, was out on parole when it

00:00:27.520 happened. Out on parole after the board said he would not present an undue risk and that his

00:00:33.360 release would, quote, contribute to the protection of society. Likewise, people were saddened to learn

00:00:40.000 of the recent shooting death of Toronto Police Constable Andrew Hong, and again we learned the

00:00:45.140 killer had been in jail before and had been labeled as a high risk to reinvent. What is happening out

00:00:52.360 there? Are these two examples just rare aberrations? Or do we have a big problem with this system?

00:00:59.820 To tackle this issue, to look at the parole system and the whole Canadian legal system,

00:01:03.760 we're joined now by Toronto criminal defense lawyer and legal analyst Ari Goldkind. Ari,

00:01:08.780 welcome to the program. Always great to talk to you, Anthony.

00:01:11.780 Great to have you on, and yeah, people are asking a lot of questions, and I can't help but think that

00:01:18.520 some people probably had some questions beforehand about how parole works in Canada, but we seem to

00:01:24.580 be experiencing something of a moment right now with these two cases. I mean, wow. Is this a

00:01:31.140 conversation that's overdue to have right now? It's been overdue, Anthony, to be had for at least a

00:01:37.460 decade or two, probably since right from May 2020. It should have been had given the fallout of the

00:01:44.740 events then. Not only is it a conversation that should be had, Anthony, it's a conversation that

00:01:49.960 won't be had. I can assure you that this is a conversation once we get a week or two past

00:01:55.740 Sanderson in the latest news, a week or two past Petrie, the monstrous shooter of Constable Andrew

00:02:02.740 Hong. You know, there'll be another news cycle that comes along in a week or two, and this will be

00:02:07.360 forgotten. The problem is, and this will not be a problem to many people listening who are in control

00:02:14.120 of the law, Anthony, in control of Parliament, is because they haven't had crime happen to them

00:02:20.520 personally and directly. These are stories that happen to other people, to people on a reserve,

00:02:28.140 to Andrew Hong. But I invite anybody listening to us, go. I don't have Instagram, Anthony. You know I'm

00:02:34.240 not a big fan of anti-social media. That's what I call it. Never social media. Go read the post that

00:02:39.780 Andrew Hong's daughter put up last night about the loss of her father. Heartbreaking. And just what

00:02:45.860 kind of man he was. And then you explain to me why this isn't a national conversation where we get

00:02:53.220 past the woke nonsense of 2022, the virtue signaling, the demographic, the identity politics, because these

00:03:01.440 crimes affect real people. The problem is they don't affect the people in charge. That to me, before we

00:03:09.740 even get into the parole board or the legal system, which I can explain obviously, that is the number

00:03:15.920 one area I would point my finger at is the people who are making these decisions do not feel the effects

00:03:22.520 of their decision one iota. And I want to get into all those details. You know, one thing that's

00:03:28.520 interesting. And I take your point that they're not feeling it. But I also feel like the general public

00:03:33.520 who previously don't feel it, it kind of, it kind of bleeds out. I, to give an example, my household,

00:03:41.000 middle-class Canadian family living in a neighborhood where typically there hasn't been much crime.

00:03:45.840 My kids have been at those ages where they first start to hear about these kind of things. And they

00:03:49.520 had, oh, bad guys and robbers. And is a robber coming to our house while we sleep? And dad, what's,

00:03:54.660 and I say, no, you know, don't worry about it. And I say, you know, it's, I know you're not

00:03:58.400 describing me and your tee up, but I'm kind of like, well, that happens in like other areas or,

00:04:02.780 you know, people who are already involved in all this stuff. Don't worry. Doesn't happen here kind

00:04:06.460 of thing. And there was a shooting in the parking lot, uh, across the street from my house, two guys

00:04:12.680 blazing it out there with their weapons in broad daylight. And more and more, we're seeing this

00:04:17.000 in neighborhoods and what is going on? There's really the feeling among just regular folks that

00:04:22.100 it's not like a gangland thing anymore. Or even if they are gangsters involved in it,

00:04:25.380 they're bringing it to your backyard. There's this feeling that things are becoming unhinged.

00:04:30.120 And that's one of the worst reasons that may lead to change. So if change arises or occurs as a result

00:04:36.980 of that, that's a hideous indictment of the way our system works. And here's why, Anthony, about eight

00:04:42.220 years ago, I dabbled into politics. I won't get into it, but it was a very educational year,

00:04:46.920 changed my life and made my life much more interesting and better. But here's the point.

00:04:50.340 When I would go to low-income communities, I'm a criminal defense lawyer. Let nobody forget that

00:04:55.380 I am a criminal defense lawyer. But I went to the communities where the grifters, the grifters who 0.74

00:05:02.020 steal money by telling you that the police are racist, the grifters who make their living in 1.00

00:05:07.840 universities and colleges telling you the world is racist and police are racist and that the police

00:05:13.780 should be defunded. When I pounded the pavement, Anthony, this is going back to 2013 and 14. And

00:05:20.940 I would go to Jane and Finch and Thorncliffe Park and low-income communities. Every door I knocked on,

00:05:27.160 because I am and was a criminal defense lawyer and had a different police platform than I do now,

00:05:32.000 they'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't trust the headlines. We want to be as safe as people

00:05:37.080 walking through Forest Hill, Rosedale. We want more police so we don't have to step over drug

00:05:43.020 dealers in the parking lot. If only we would get rid of the grifters. That's the key. If only we

00:05:48.960 stopped listening to the grifters and that silent majority, Anthony, and I do believe this sincerely,

00:05:54.260 the silent majority has been silenced about crime. Who does it? Why it's being done? And the silent

00:06:01.400 majority will only, only see positive change in this area if they stop being silent and they start

00:06:09.220 being courageous. I need your legal expertise. So, Miles Sanderson, 59 convictions he chalked up

00:06:17.740 between the age of 18 and 32. When this information became clear to you, you saw the headlines, you read

00:06:26.280 the news. Did you say, based on your experience with the legal system, that this is a tragic

00:06:32.040 aberration? Let's just hope it doesn't happen again. Or did you say, yeah, yeah, I can totally see how he

00:06:37.420 got out? Totally see how it happened, par for the course. And here, no matter what anybody tells you,

00:06:43.700 Anthony, no matter what side they're on, if a Miles Sanderson happens and 10 people are butchered on or off a

00:06:50.060 reserve, and remember, we're talking stabbings here, Anthony. This isn't a quick death. These are people

00:06:55.600 butchered. Butchered. I use that word specifically. God forbid anybody looks at the crime scene photos 0.73

00:07:02.460 that I see from butchering, butchery, stabbings. Here's the point. We have a situation where everybody

00:07:10.320 points their finger at the parole board. You may not agree with this, Anthony, and you know that when

00:07:16.480 you and I talk, I never care who agrees with me. It makes no difference to me. This isn't the parole

00:07:21.560 board's fault. The parole board is the easy target here. We have a failure of the criminal justice

00:07:28.020 system. If anybody says our system works well, and Andrew Hong happens because Petrie gets to be out

00:07:34.540 to shoot him, Sanderson gets a 60th chance, a 60th, 6-0, so people don't think I'm exaggerating, 6-0

00:07:42.420 after terrorizing women, terrorizing children. The parole board says the community needs him. I'm being 0.93

00:07:48.420 serious. The parole board comes out and says the community needs him. He's a credit to the

00:07:52.420 community. We miss him. We need him. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what they say. How did it

00:07:56.220 happen? What's the nuts and bolts, though? So here's the nuts and bolts of how it happens. How did he get

00:07:59.860 up there, and who did he have a representative who was advocating for him? How did it unfold?

00:08:03.260 So let me explain. Yeah. So let me explain, because I would say, Anthony, if we took a poll on your show,

00:08:08.500 95% of people would not know the following. I'm going to make the example very, very easy.

00:08:13.960 Let's say Miles Sanderson gets a nine-year sentence for whatever crimes he's done in the past. Nine

00:08:19.620 years. Let's use that because the math is easy. Miles Sanderson will be guaranteed to be out of

00:08:25.120 jail in six years. What that's called is that after three years, he can apply for full parole. Most

00:08:31.740 people, many people get full parole. They get out after a third, three years. Most Canadians don't know

00:08:37.640 that. If, for example, you're like Sanderson, you're a higher risk, you're a higher threat level,

00:08:43.220 you may have to wait until the two-thirds mark. That's statutory release. The parole board almost

00:08:49.420 never, even with the highest risk offenders where they can insist that the person stay till nine

00:08:55.400 years, the person will be released at what's called statutory release. Now, there is a theoretically

00:09:00.440 good reason for that, Anthony, because the thinking is, and we can talk about this in a moment,

00:09:05.600 the thinking is, is that if you make somebody stay in their whole sentence until the nine years is up

00:09:11.720 to open the doors of jail, sort of like the Shawshank redemption at the end, and you let somebody out at

00:09:18.520 the nine-year mark, which is called warrant expiry, they're going to come out in the community with no

00:09:23.460 supervision, no help, no supports in the community, an island done to themselves. That's the thinking.

00:09:30.100 But when you look at Sanderson, I think many of your listeners and Canadians across the country would say,

00:09:34.820 well, hold on. He's flagged a high risk. He's done this before. Not exactly like this, but he's a

00:09:39.920 ticking time bomb. How in the world does the parole board let him out? This is not a parole board issue,

00:09:46.480 Anthony. I know it's an easier talking point. But you just quoted them. You quoted that crazy line.

00:09:52.780 Correct. And it is crazy. And we haven't even gotten into aboriginal sentencing discounts that are

00:09:57.620 codified in our criminal code, section 718 for anybody who wants to look. But when a judge gives a

00:10:04.260 sentence that is anything other than life, that person is going to be released. There's nothing

00:10:09.980 the parole board could have done, even if they kept them until the nine-year mark. At the nine-year

00:10:15.060 mark, again, that's a number I make up because a third, a third, a third is just easy to do.

00:10:18.740 At the nine-year mark, he's going to come out with no supervision. So that begs the question,

00:10:24.320 Anthony, that you and many of your listeners may have was, well, what do you do with a guy who's got a

00:10:29.500 three- or four-year sentence? But every psychological profile, every bit of data suggests

00:10:35.180 this person is literally a walking, ticking time bomb. What do we do? That raises a much

00:10:41.860 more interesting question that is not part of a national discussion, but I think it should be.

00:10:47.720 Okay. To go back to the current national discussion, how did they let him out? And here's

00:10:53.800 the headlines. I'm reading from a news story. Canada's parole board will review its decision

00:10:58.160 to release one of the men now suspected of, that was a bit prior to things wrapping up,

00:11:02.560 but basically parole board will review. Now what's going to come of it? Because you're saying,

00:11:06.560 well, that's not really the issue here, but what can come of that parole board review?

00:11:10.060 Absolutely. Just like Hockey Canada and their stupid review, which is a different talking point 0.99

00:11:15.860 for it. This is called covering your tracks. Okay. Or in my business, it's called CYA, 1.00

00:11:19.900 cover your posterior. I don't want to use the A-S-S word, but I just spelled it out. 1.00

00:11:24.400 That's all this is. It deflects the heat for a bit. The parole board did what the parole board does.

00:11:29.620 It does what it's commanded to do for Aboriginal and Indigenous people. Again, we haven't even gotten

00:11:34.340 into that. That's a real hot talking point, which I think has left swaths of the Canadian population

00:11:40.100 open to violence and clearly on the James Cree Reserve suffered from it. But the parole board,

00:11:45.600 here's the point. He didn't get early parole. He got statutory release. Okay. So at the two third

00:11:52.760 mark, everybody gets released. There are extraordinarily few, like Paul Bernardo, like

00:11:58.420 Anthony, if I could use an extreme example, where the parole board will say, hey, he's just too dangerous

00:12:04.560 to come out until the end of the nine years. You add the Indigenous factor here, you add in the 0.92

00:12:10.480 criminal code, you add in a case called the Queen and Gladue, you get called into the parole board

00:12:16.040 that's going to be called. You know all the names that get tossed in this world, Anthony,

00:12:20.860 if you don't cater or assuage the concerns of certain groups that call themselves minorities

00:12:27.700 or victims of crime or all these other... And do they feel this, the people who sit on parole boards?

00:12:33.400 They are not immune to these pressures. Not only do they feel it, Anthony, you put them on a lie

00:12:41.620 detector tomorrow and give one of Canada's most skilled cross-examiners full leeway. I'm telling

00:12:48.100 you, not only are they not immune to it, it governs many of their decisions. And if you look at the

00:12:53.240 wording of the parole board decision, Wee Sanderson, you can see it permeate because remember, this man

00:12:59.600 was flagged as an extraordinarily high risk. But the parole board, and I know this is not a juicy

00:13:07.120 talking point, Anthony, I'm well aware of it's not. The parole board is handcuffed, unintended,

00:13:13.880 with what they can do with him because he had so little time left in his sentence. And it's just

00:13:19.280 like the RCMP the other day. You might have seen this, Anthony, because it's interesting too.

00:13:23.540 The RCMP came out and said, well, truth be told, we weren't even looking for him,

00:13:27.400 even though he was on the run and AWOL, we've just got too many people like him on the run.

00:13:34.380 Red flags. Red flags. That's right. And the point is, because I'm inside baseball, Anthony,

00:13:39.420 this is my life and my living. What does this say to the broader Canadian community that we've got

00:13:45.440 millions and billions to send off to wars and countries that we have no interest in and nothing

00:13:51.240 to do with? But people in Saskatchewan, people in Ontario, people in British Columbia are literally

00:13:57.800 sitting ducks for people like this. And I'm telling you again, Anthony, the reason they're left

00:14:04.400 sitting like ducks is because Justin Trudeau, certain people in the criminal justice system

00:14:11.520 do not feel this intimately. It happens to other people, not them. I can assure you,

00:14:18.200 if tragedies like this happened to certain judges, God forbid, to certain defense lawyers,

00:14:24.760 God forbid, this would not be an ideological, esoteric, oh, let's just look at the numbers

00:14:30.220 and it's only two in ten people that do it. God forbid you're one of the two in ten people

00:14:36.380 whose child is hurt, whose wife is home invaded, whose best friend is shot. Trust me, Anthony,

00:14:43.660 your views change in literally a nanosecond. There was an awful incident in Toronto a number

00:14:49.100 of years ago and a teenage girl died, a blonde girl, a blonde Caucasian girl. And there was a

00:14:56.840 lot of, and it was a tragedy. It was awful. And obviously she deserved to be memorialized and

00:15:00.700 remembered publicly the way she was. And then there was a commentary where people said, well,

00:15:05.780 she's only getting the attention. You only really care because this is a white blonde girl. 1.00

00:15:10.060 And people, you know, I don't care for that toxic stuff. And it was race-based debates,

00:15:14.800 but then at the same time, overlap with what you're saying. And depending on what was really

00:15:18.460 motivating the frustrations of people making these complaints, like they sort of kind of had a point.

00:15:25.700 Jane Kreeba.

00:15:26.560 Yes.

00:15:27.500 And that point, and it's interesting that you say they have a point. They actually did because just

00:15:33.200 for people who aren't intimately familiar with the name across the country, that's because a man who

00:15:38.340 didn't look like Jane Kreeba and didn't share her skin color, shot up the Eaton Centre.

00:15:43.440 Yes.

00:15:43.780 The Eaton Centre, just for people to understand, is sort of the West Edmonton Mall Central Park

00:15:48.780 of Toronto. It used to be high-end. I mean, I don't think it is anymore.

00:15:52.500 It was one of the biggest malls in Canada back then.

00:15:54.180 Yes. And one of the most high-end and expensive. And that sort of woke the city up.

00:15:58.440 And we were having a sort of race-based discussion one way. The problem is you're not allowed to have

00:16:05.260 it the other way. You're not allowed to have it about who commits crime. What do the statistics

00:16:09.520 tell us? Who's overrepresented? Who's unrepresented? It was almost a condemnation

00:16:14.780 that you really shouldn't care so much about Jane Kreeba being shot because she's white, 0.53

00:16:20.180 Judeo-Christian, etc. That goes back to my point earlier, Anthony, which is why the silent majority

00:16:26.420 of all races and religions, Anthony, that's why we've been gaslit. Okay? And I'll get to the

00:16:32.280 criminal defense lawyer part of this in just a moment. But we've all been gaslit to be told that

00:16:37.400 only people like you or me, and people don't believe I'm like it because I'm a criminal defense

00:16:41.420 lawyer, but only people that sort of look like Anthony Fury or other people like that care about

00:16:47.860 that is absolutely, completely false. And the worst part about this discussion is that the more money

00:16:55.660 that you have, the more you can tend to live in one of these areas or communities that theoretically,

00:17:01.500 Anthony, going to your point, theoretically, you're immune from it. It's almost like in the U.S.

00:17:06.280 All the people who want to empty the jails, who want to defund the police, do you think it's just

00:17:12.300 a coincidence they all live in gated communities? I don't think it's a coincidence, but it's a

00:17:16.960 complete insult to law-abiding, ordinary, average, tax-paying people. I'm going to use a name,

00:17:23.640 Anthony, just for this point. Sure.

00:17:24.960 The man who Petrie, the shooter of Andrew Hong, also shot was a man named Mr. Ashras. He's a Muslim

00:17:33.220 man in Mississauga, beloved by his community, hardworking, I guarantee you tax-paying, employed

00:17:40.340 a number of people, the model citizen. He was mowed down by this monster. Now, you tell me, do you think

00:17:48.460 just because he's a Muslim man or because somebody else might be a recent immigrant from wherever

00:17:54.960 or the black community at Jane and Finch doesn't think they have as much right to be safe as you

00:18:02.880 and I? Anybody who tells you that is either a professor at York University or is a professional,

00:18:09.720 professional, professional grifter. Funny because it's true. It's tragic. It's not funny. I laughed 0.68

00:18:16.000 through the tragic. That's right, but I'm only interested in what's true. I'm only interested

00:18:19.180 in what's true, and here's the criminal defense lawyer point, Anthony. We have had a pendulum

00:18:23.400 where in the United States, we all read about somebody who possessed a little bit of marijuana,

00:18:30.160 spends the rest of their life, life in jail at Rikers Island or at San Quentin. They have a pendulum

00:18:35.840 that swings, many people would say, far, far too much to locking people up and throwing away the

00:18:41.420 key forever. But when it comes to serious, serious crimes of violence, they tend to think that it's

00:18:48.000 not worth risking other people. As much as Canada seems to think everybody can be rehabilitated,

00:18:55.240 you just walk into court, you say, look, the guy in the jail is getting his GED. The guy is going to

00:19:01.980 go to a healing circle. This guy is rehabilitated. We err on the side of everybody sings kumbaya.

00:19:09.300 The problem again, Anthony, is if you stretch too far to each side of the pendulum, you tend to miss

00:19:16.380 a lot of logic and common sense in the middle where, yes, many people deserve a second chance.

00:19:23.180 Many people who don't have 59 convictions and show that they're incorrigible make a god-awful mistake,

00:19:29.900 and we should err on the side of giving them a second chance. The problem in this country,

00:19:34.960 Anthony, this country, is there are a small subset of people, people who, again, the professors at

00:19:42.360 York University and the grifters will tell you everybody else failed them. They have no personal

00:19:48.480 responsibility. They can all be fixed if we throw money at the problem. That doesn't change anything.

00:19:54.500 It doesn't achieve anything. There are a very small number of people that if we kept our eye

00:20:00.300 on the ball and said, look, we're just not going to risk any more people at the hands of these people.

00:20:06.080 There are provisions in the criminal code, just so people understand how the sausage is made,

00:20:11.580 that any Crown Attorney in Canada can look at an offender if there's a track record of incorrigible

00:20:19.020 violence and say, you know what? Just like the movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise, for anybody

00:20:24.700 who's a movie buff, there are people whose risk is so foreseeable that are so dangerous, we're going

00:20:31.600 to try and label them a dangerous offender so they never breathe the light of day. That conversation is

00:20:38.620 one that needs to be had nationally, and we need to let race, religion, creed, and the racial grifting

00:20:45.800 get out of the way because eight to nine times out of ten, who are the victims of this kind of

00:20:52.920 violence? Anthony, God willing, it's not you and me, but that doesn't make it better. It's just as

00:20:59.460 terrible if it's somebody in a low-income community shot by somebody who looks like one of their own 0.96

00:21:05.400 as it is if it's Jane Creeba in the Eaton Centre. The problem is we are forbidden and verboten from

00:21:11.960 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

00:21:33.240 circle back on something you were saying that the news reported. RCMP says, well, we can't, you know,

00:21:38.940 we didn't really track the Sanderson guy because there's just so many other cases like this. You

00:21:42.760 know, we can't keep tabs on all of them. Whoa, what on earth is going on here? Ari, we see the

00:21:47.540 Sanderson story in the news. Obviously, it makes it to be the front page story, but I get from what

00:21:53.500 you're saying that there's dozens, others, hundreds, I don't know, thousands of other, not Miles

00:21:59.220 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

00:22:23.720 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

00:22:41.600 be very specific here. Nine out of 10 of these things won't be newsworthy. They'll be taking up

00:22:47.320 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

00:23:07.620 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 0.99

00:24:13.820 Columbia or organized gangs give two flying you fill in the blanks when Trudeau says, or, you know, 1.00

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. 0.88

00:26:30.060 Okay. I just have a real problem with it. I've always had a real problem with it, especially if 0.67

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 1.00

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. 0.99

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.

00:29:41.800 It's up to the defense to invoke it?

00:29:43.720 Yes.

00:29:44.240 Oh, the judge doesn't default to it.

00:29:46.400 No, but here's the other. Here's no. Well, the judge will make inquiries.

00:29:50.300 Okay.

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 1.00

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.

00:31:20.380 Or they have a native relative.

00:31:20.960 And I've only really found that out of late.

00:31:23.120 Yeah, I found it out two weeks ago. Now, I'm not actually being humorous about this. I've

00:31:27.040 actually seen it happen. Now, again-

00:31:29.360 And it works.

00:31:30.500 Of course it works.

00:31:31.280 They pull it off. Okay.

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 0.95

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 0.52

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.97

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 1.00

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 0.87

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, 0.94

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 0.54

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,

00:47:45.360 I'm not Mr. Popularity in my profession, I assure you. But if those people who can't stand me and

00:47:52.100 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

00:48:03.520 take it happening to you for you to be concerned and ensure that we do everything that we can

00:48:09.880 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.

00:48:18.580 Great to be with you, Anthony.

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 Alexa-enabled devices. You can help us by giving us a rating or a review, and by telling your friends

00:48:41.480 about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - September 26, 2022

Our parole system makes Canadians ‘literal sitting ducks’

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