Juno News - February 26, 2023


Is self-defence a right in Canada？


Episode Stats

Length

14 minutes

Words per Minute

201.08733

Word Count

2,922

Sentence Count

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show
00:00:05.920 let's talk about this story out of milton ontario which is very troubling and i always have to put
00:00:16.820 an asterisk here because sometimes you learn more facts about these cases later on uh that change
00:00:23.460 your perception so i'm going on an issue here that is very much focused on a limited set of
00:00:31.380 information but i think there's a fair bit of detail here to draw a conclusion about something
00:00:37.200 that's happened that i i find to be very concerning uh to go back to this uh night of february 19th
00:00:44.840 specifically 5 a.m february 19th a group of suspects the halton police say approached a house in milton
00:00:52.340 ontario with the intent of committing a robbery they entered the residence at least one of them
00:00:57.980 had a firearm with them and when they entered they were confronted by a resident of the house who had
00:01:05.440 a firearm now this person's lawyer says it was a registered gun which he used to shoot the intruder
00:01:12.460 it was him and his mother that were home the people that break broke in allegedly uh at least one of
00:01:19.620 them is facing charges of break and enter as well as unauthorized possession of a firearm but the man
00:01:25.580 who is who lived in that house who took a gun out to shoot the intruders has been charged with second
00:01:34.100 degree murder this is not an outlier there have been a number of cases in canada where people have
00:01:40.400 used firearms in self-defense which is legal yet have still faced charges even if they end up getting
00:01:46.980 exonerated from the charges that takes years they lose their firearms they use their fire their firearms
00:01:52.960 license they have to spend a huge amount of money uh in legal fees and they do this well uh they are
00:02:01.260 in some cases being treated more seriously than the criminals that they were responding to were
00:02:06.820 so we'll talk about the specifics of the case but i also want to talk in general terms about self-defense
00:02:11.520 lawyer sam goldstein is with me now sam good to talk to you thank you for for joining let's first
00:02:17.240 just explain to me in the clearest possible terms what is the law in canada about using a firearm in
00:02:25.280 self-defense yeah well um and simply simply put i mean you are you're able to you reasonable amount
00:02:33.220 of force to protect uh a loved one your property yourself and uh that up to the point of legal force
00:02:41.220 that's as simple as i could put it it's all about the you know the the real black boxes in the reason
00:02:47.480 in all the circumstances and what's reasonable that's the real issue here and from what you told
00:02:52.020 me and you know i was reading the story earlier and i didn't see the fact that one of the intruders
00:02:56.660 or maybe even more than one intruder had a firearm themselves i just saw that they had broken into the
00:03:02.280 house well i should say they've been charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm so that's what i was
00:03:07.140 drawing that from right so if they had a firearm i mean it seems to me it raises um you know the
00:03:13.640 circumstances a little bit more in favor of the uh of the person who's being charged now if someone's
00:03:19.500 entering your home with a firearm i guess it's some extent it depends upon what they were doing
00:03:24.160 with that firearm right but um if they were certainly pointing at the individual and threatening
00:03:30.140 the individual even let's go further that they fired at the individual it would seem that you have
00:03:35.380 the right you know reasonable amount of force to protect yourself from firing back yeah and i know
00:03:41.180 that there i mean the famous case that a lot of people uh certainly for me started uh paying attention
00:03:46.260 to this issue through the lens of was that one a few years ago in port colburn where a guy fired
00:03:51.420 warning shots because someone had uh basically firebombed his house and you know they burned his
00:03:56.740 dog's house down i think even singed his dog uh he wasn't even shooting to injure anyone
00:04:01.560 and uh this man is dragged through the ringer for years and years uh there was a gentleman i interviewed
00:04:07.120 when i did a documentary about firearms in okotoke same idea someone's rummaging around his truck in
00:04:12.480 the middle of the night he takes his firearms out he shoots around at the ground uh it ricochets and
00:04:17.720 hits one of the assailants then he's charged and even though he's eventually exonerated it's the
00:04:22.920 process is the punishment here so what i find to be troubling is how we have something that is
00:04:29.140 carved out in law that you're allowed to do that doesn't seem to stop these people from having to
00:04:35.960 really defend themselves against a charge well i mean let's just take i appreciate your point but
00:04:42.800 i mean let's just go back for a moment and look at a public policy perspective right you don't want
00:04:48.100 to allow any person to just simply say oh well they were coming into my house so i shot them right i think
00:04:54.800 you want the process to take place and i understand that the punishment is the process believe me i'm a
00:04:59.620 criminal lawyer i understand that for my clients but i think they're i mean i don't blame the the
00:05:05.060 police in this instance or for any instance when there's a firearm uh being discharged right to say
00:05:10.320 well okay i know that's what you have to say and i know that i know what's kind of funny here because
00:05:15.060 the guy's in your home with the fire you know and it's smoking and it seems like he's discharged it
00:05:19.700 against you but i think you know it makes some sense for the police to initially say look we're
00:05:24.080 going to charge you and we're going to let the process determine what's the reasonable circumstances
00:05:29.200 right now listen you know in this case andrew let's just step back again for just a moment
00:05:34.280 and look if this person was a lawful firearm owner um then it would have been uh it would have been
00:05:40.960 um you know there would have been locked away somewhere right and his ammunition would have been
00:05:44.920 locked away somewhere so it's a little bit suspicious to me and i know nothing about the
00:05:49.860 case other than what we've talked about is if someone's coming into your home i mean did he really
00:05:55.480 have enough time to go and unlock the ammunition and then unlock the firearm and load it right take
00:06:01.940 maybe the safety lock off of the fire uh yeah for for a handgun i mean just so people understand
00:06:07.520 the storage laws for a handgun uh it has to be double locked basically so it has to be in a locked
00:06:12.440 room or a locked case and then the firearm itself has to be locked and and there are people that
00:06:17.280 practice this that could do that very very quickly but there have been cases i'm aware of where someone
00:06:22.780 has done it and then police have said well there's no way you could have gotten it in time so we're
00:06:27.000 going to charge you with unsafe storage and stuff like that so so i agree but i guess my and and i take
00:06:32.440 you at your point i mean if if police walk into a house and you're holding a gun there's a guy dead in
00:06:36.860 front you know it would be very convenient of just saying well it was self-defense was just an
00:06:41.100 automatic exoneration where there's no further um action but i i don't know is there a way that we
00:06:48.820 could better enshrine this and and better educate police about it because i think a lot of the times
00:06:54.240 when you look at what charges are i i wonder if police necessarily know um how you do have these
00:07:01.520 rights to defend yourself in all these contexts i think often in the self-defense type of um
00:07:06.940 provisions of the criminal code it's very hard to start trying to narrow like to further narrowly
00:07:13.060 define them i think the fact that they're broad and they allow the discretion and really hand over
00:07:18.080 that you know the reasonable circumstance of that black box to figure out what's inside or what's
00:07:22.500 reasonable in the circumstances over to the court system rather than the police i mean i i tend not to
00:07:28.120 trust the police so i don't know if really defining it further is really going to help you help you
00:07:33.000 because they may use it against you at the same time but you know let's go to another point if you
00:07:37.120 don't mind andrew let's i mean to take your conversation forward a little bit and i think
00:07:41.760 you have a really good point about the fact that when people get charged with this and the guy in
00:07:46.140 colbert he then has to reapply for his you know to get his what weapons back right and i see that in
00:07:52.340 many cases where you know economist domestic assault where someone in the end is acquitted um and they
00:07:59.520 have to go through all these hoops to jump through to get their firearms back the real issue i mean
00:08:04.560 not the real issue but the problem is that the police once they try and get your firearm or once
00:08:08.820 they get their hands on them they all want to give them back and i think that's another issue that you're
00:08:13.940 pointing out and it's a really important one right that often what happens is you have to go through
00:08:18.820 all types of applications the court and so on to try and get your arm your firearms back when in the end
00:08:23.900 you did nothing at all so i mean what is the what is the process supposed to be because what i would
00:08:30.020 assume is that if your firearms are taken away from you in connection with charges that the second you
00:08:35.740 are no longer facing those charges your firearms should just be automatically returned to your
00:08:39.720 doorstep with a bow on them and perhaps not an apology card but they should be back in your
00:08:44.960 possession is that how it's supposed to be and it's just not functioning that way or is there actually
00:08:50.360 in the regulations a more convoluted process for people to reclaim that property uh well another
00:08:56.800 very good question andrew i can see why you're an award-winning journalist well thank you i'm very
00:09:02.780 popular i'm just having trouble getting the word out but carry on well i mean i you know i'm right
00:09:06.900 now in a situation where my client had a firearm he was charged a domestic assault they took away his
00:09:12.740 firearms uh he's been acquitted and despite the fact he's acquitted and this our 30-day appeal period
00:09:19.320 is over where the police or the crown has the right to keep the you know the the um at least
00:09:23.940 the the evidence all this was an evidence i'm having a very hard time getting getting the firearms
00:09:29.420 back police officers want to return my calls you know so you know i've got to go to court make some
00:09:34.780 sort of application uh to get the stuff back and you can make phone calls up the chief of police
00:09:39.120 people ignore you so there isn't really a process right and to some extent they could probably
00:09:44.580 charge a police officer with theft himself because he's trying to convert it or or trying to detain
00:09:50.320 the release of it but you know those types of things aren't really going to go anywhere but it's
00:09:54.840 a problem there's nowhere in the crime that's where there there are sections of the criminal code
00:09:59.620 which will allow you to go and get exhibits back or evidence back uh but it's mostly sort of uh in
00:10:06.040 documentary type of issues not so much in real evidence but it's a situation where there is a bit of
00:10:11.480 gray area and where there's a gray area the police aren't going to help you out they're not you're
00:10:15.620 not they're not your friends and you can see the poster behind me right you see the police officer
00:10:20.980 with the uh half the smiley face and the wings you know and he comes across as being an angel but the
00:10:27.580 reality is is if you look closer he's got the the gun the handcuffs and so on the police are not your
00:10:33.300 friend i i i have to just i have i have to push back against i i think what that generalization i i think
00:10:41.160 that in general law enforcement has a lot of problems i i don't like painting all police
00:10:45.680 officers with that brush and and even all police services with that brush i think i think some are
00:10:49.640 better than others although this veers into a a more philosophical discussion that we should have
00:10:54.300 at another point because i think it's an important one but um let me just ask in general here about
00:11:00.060 where the change would be made i mean is this something that the federal government uh could just
00:11:05.840 pass a a single line bill that says when you're acquitted of a charge or charges are withdrawn
00:11:10.920 your any property seized in connection with that is returned to you would that be enough yeah i mean
00:11:16.360 in the criminal i mean the the certainly you could put in the criminal code um but i think it's actually
00:11:21.660 more provincial issue because the you know the local police are more falling underneath the province
00:11:26.900 than than the uh federal government but um look i i i haven't given a tremendous amount of thought
00:11:33.000 all i have is in many in the 24 25 years i practice the lawyer i'm constantly coming you know
00:11:39.140 coming against the problem with how to get my clients firearms back after they've been acquitted of
00:11:44.180 their charges so it's an ongoing issue whether it whether it would be um an amendment in the criminal
00:11:50.880 code federally maybe but the reality is andrew is what party in canada is going to amend the criminal
00:11:58.020 code to allow an individual to get a firearm back well exactly i mean theoretically the conservatives
00:12:06.400 uh might but i i i think they're more focused on just stopping the new regulations that are coming
00:12:13.060 in now i don't actually think there is a huge political appetite when you start talking about
00:12:17.920 anyone who's ever been charged with a a crime in canada because it's not a group that on the surface
00:12:22.960 is sympathetic even if uh someone's been acquitted of charges or the charges were withdrawn whatever the
00:12:27.980 case is um and i think that you you're right to point that out that it's very difficult and you
00:12:34.160 have people that fall through the cracks as a result yeah yeah but let me go back to your initial
00:12:38.580 question now about the issue of this individual milton man right yeah and i think you have another
00:12:43.880 very good point which is if these laws aren't somehow bolstered or supported um uh in the courts
00:12:50.460 right then you get a bit of um uh what's the word like a a chill type of factor in terms of people
00:12:57.360 who are defending themselves and they're wondering if they can likely defend themselves then of course
00:13:01.800 they may be injured uh in in an attack upon them right so you make a good point um it's important
00:13:08.020 that we have these laws and maybe it is important to some extent to try and um uh you know beef them
00:13:13.720 up a little bit uh i'm not a politician so i don't necessarily have no kind of go about that's why we
00:13:18.340 like you you know but you just ask questions i just answer them but uh you know but i think but
00:13:24.380 again to your point it's an important point i think there has to be some beefing up so people
00:13:28.400 feel more uh comfortable when they exercise their lawful right to defend themselves yeah and and i put
00:13:34.060 that disclaimer at the beginning of this discussion for a reason that i i don't know the facts of the
00:13:37.880 case i've you know the police have released a certain set of information and i would say just as a
00:13:42.140 result as as a related point that home invasions are very very rare i mean home break-ins are common
00:13:49.000 enough but but armed robbery is not a a very common phenomenon and when it happens almost always it's
00:13:56.160 the house of someone that's known to the assailants or it's the wrong house but they were going after
00:14:00.840 someone specific so uh you can read between the lines there and and see that there may be additional
00:14:05.280 context that police have that they haven't revealed but i'm also very keenly aware of of these cases in
00:14:10.940 the past where people that were legitimately using firearm and self-defense have been charged i would
00:14:16.200 say unfairly as a result so we'll certainly follow this uh sam goldstein always a pleasure sir thanks
00:14:21.720 for coming on today you're welcome thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the
00:14:26.900 program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news