True Patriot Love - July 01, 2026


Bail Reform, Crime, and Canada’s Prison Capacity Crisis

Topics
prisons in high-crime areas
Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Mentioned
Paul Henderson Flo Bellman Bill C-63 Torontonian Pally Mike
Hockey Night Canada： My Unforgettable Broadcasting Experience #Hockey Manitoba in Focus： Affordability, Opportunity, and Canada's Heartland

Episode Stats


Length

52 minutes

Words per minute

185.54

Word count

9,747

Sentence count

103

Harmful content

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the Crime Update, Mike and Paul take a deeper dive on a topic that was covered in our Crime Update last week: how many homicide victims are released from custody while on bail or conditional release. In fact, a third of those released on bail commit homicide.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Yeah, we knew we needed bail reform, but did anybody know that we needed it to the point where all we're trying to do is hit the obvious points to protect ourselves?
00:00:08 No violent offenders out there. Nobody can provide surety who's got a crime.
00:00:13 If you've got a history of violence, if this crime is a violent crime, I mean, really, these seem like very basic points, Paul.
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00:00:55 Thanks for joining us.
00:00:57 That's tplmedia.ca, tplmedia.ca slash local if we're in your town.
00:01:01 And if we're not, we're coming there.
00:01:04 So take a look and see local content as well as the national podcasts that we do.
00:01:09 And today we're taking a deeper dive on a topic that we started during our crime update last week.
00:01:15 I recommend you subscribe and follow along with the crime update
00:01:18 because every week we give sort of an overview of what's going on crime-wise across the country.
00:01:25 And this was on that list to talk more about it.
00:01:28 Paul Micucci joining me.
00:01:29 Thanks so much.
00:01:29 Hey, Mike.
00:01:30 When I say joining me, really, I'm joining you because you've taken a deep dive on bail
00:01:35 reform, which is what we're talking about today.
00:01:37 The Fed's dropped it about a week and a half ago now, and we're going to take a closer
00:01:42 look at it today.
00:01:43 Yeah, just before they go on summer vacation, you know, on the 18th, they dropped this C-14,
00:01:49 um which is very interesting because it really prompted my uh research onto how many people have
00:01:57 committed homicides on bail oh yeah so i dove into it i was very curious an interesting starting
00:02:06 point yeah you know and i so i went back i started diving i'm looking at trying to find 25 stats
00:02:12 trying to find 24 none trying to find 23 guess when the last time we reported the number of
00:02:19 people on bail that committed a homicide no idea 2022 there were 256 individuals charged with
00:02:28 homicide while on bail or conditional release accounting for 30 percent of the cases that year
00:02:35 that's incredible yeah and we just stopped we just dropped that stat well of course it got too high
00:02:41 yeah you know and that happens you know recently i don't know if you've followed this but
00:02:46 stats canada laid off a bunch of people so what happens with stats canada as you look at kind of
00:02:51 the ebb and flow of uh employment as soon as the stat becomes too difficult for the government to
00:02:57 deal with we just lay off that group or lay out that division and then off it goes that watchdog
00:03:03 is now gone right so if you look at it we have about we have about uh 2025 we had 788 victims
00:03:13 to homicide okay so it's roughly stayed fairly flat you know it's uh 1.91 per 100 000 population
00:03:22 which it's funny when we do report the number everyone always says oh that's a low number
00:03:26 compared to the u.s which is roughly three point something okay compare that to the u.s for me
00:03:31 it's half okay right so if you look at it we're roughly half of what the u.s is so that's the
00:03:37 stat we always throw on the table but we don't focus on the fat fact that the number includes
00:03:43 a third of the people that are out on bail that do commit the crimes of murder so and you know
00:03:49 then i then i went back and i actually looked and and you know the one that came to mind the
00:03:53 one that popped up was one that i think pierre polyev um always refers to and this is the the
00:04:00 a young lady in uh in Brampton that's killed by her partner who was out on gun charges so he was
00:04:09 given bail he had a violent past he was given bail um and uh it's Paul Henderson and Flo Bellman
00:04:17 uh basically he's saying that the court protected um this person let them out they committed the
00:04:26 crime they were mad that they were in there for partner violence got out and shot their daughter
00:04:31 and you know we just hear that time and time again and you know being familiar with peel
00:04:37 i went dug into it and i said okay what happened out of that like what was the result of that
00:04:42 well the the police uh crew or the police chiefs from peel all came together and they came up with
00:04:49 set of recommendations and this was took a while was in 2025 um you know and it was interesting
00:04:56 because the recommendations were review and expand reverse onus provisions for bail in cases involving
00:05:03 uh violent crime serious offenses and organized crime these are these offenses include car thefts
00:05:09 home invasion human trafficking and drug smuggling they wanted to actually have more money into jails
00:05:16 and policing well that made sense because they know there's a backlog um and basically uh they
00:05:23 wanted to prioritize victim safety in bail and release decisions right so that's currently not
00:05:31 in there which we're going to talk about in a minute because prior to c14 your ability to get
00:05:36 bail was based on the definitions it's uh three categories right and so they didn't have that in
00:05:42 there which i thought was just bizarre in my mind in in the new reform version of this bill
00:05:50 that this that's been put forward it's interesting because i took a look back and in just in march
00:05:57 alone the conservatives put forward bills that are very very um i i would say really more detailed
00:06:08 than what came out in this bail reform i'll give you one bill c-246 make sure sexual predators
00:06:13 receive consecutive sentences so each offense is recognized and punished that was thrown out uh bill
00:06:20 c-220 uh end leniency for non-citizens convicted of serious crimes and ensure deportation instead
00:06:28 of special treatment that one got voted down bill c-243 stop yearly parole hearings that force
00:06:36 victims families to relive the trauma again and again jail not bail so just even those three in
00:06:43 the last year prior and of course i think i recall when pauliev came out with this these suggestions
00:06:49 on the basis of the recommendations of the chiefs of police i i think that at that point the liberals
00:06:55 were like don't worry about it we're already working on something they did they did every
00:06:59 time he was either before or after them but you know mike and i don't know if you mentioned it
00:07:03 274 did you call up 27 because i know that wasn't on my list because it's a little earlier
00:07:08 so 274 this is the one that died on the order paper right it created a strict rule where anyone
00:07:15 accused of three or more serious crimes crimes that carry a maximum penalty of five years or
00:07:21 more would automatically presume to need jail while awaiting making bail highly unlikely for
00:07:27 chronic offenders and the liberals said to that that's a hollow statement it's not even a it's
00:07:32 not even law it's a very specific thing three strikes and you're out is a pretty consistent
00:07:37 law in a lot of countries now right so the you know here you had the conservatives putting very
00:07:42 specific motions in bills and putting them up and putting them up and putting them up so waiting
00:07:47 waiting and the whole time as you mentioned the liberal government's saying it's coming it's
00:07:52 coming so sean frazier right yeah uh he's the minister in charge of this now sean has a lot of
00:07:58 interesting portfolios that he looked at immigration housing that he he made a horrific
00:08:03 mess out of and i think has been duly noted with a lot of people you know he's been given this file
00:08:08 and so he kept saying you know it's coming it's coming well it came just before they left for
00:08:14 summer vacation and it arrived do you mind me mentioning it arrived on a friday late in the day
00:08:20 yeah there's something to that i'm sorry but if you're expecting the media to cover something
00:08:25 that's not the time of the week and the time of day that you do it you do that to avoid scrutiny
00:08:32 yeah oh yeah for sure now c14 can we spend a few minutes because those people right i need to
00:08:38 unravel that yeah so uh it makes bail harder to get for those accused of repeat and violent
00:08:45 offending by creating new reverse onus rules in certain cases meaning the accused must show why
00:08:52 they should be released right right that sounds great you know when i read it it's funny i've
00:08:57 read this a couple times now you know the other day on the crime show and i've read it in prep
00:09:01 and then i read it in prep again today i'm reading it and i'm thinking okay that sounds good
00:09:05 however it it also requires first of all yeah it sounds okay because it's the first thing that they
00:09:15 it's the headline yeah yeah violent criminals won't get out on bail they need to prove it to
00:09:20 us and okay continue on into this yeah directs police to detain and accused for a bail hearing
00:09:27 when it is necessary to protect public the public including victims and witnesses
00:09:32 makes sense right oh of course yeah no another great headline the things that we really expect
00:09:39 our government and our law enforcement already to do requires courts to consider more factors
00:09:44 at bail hearings whether the allegations involve violence
00:09:47 that was random or unprovoked.
00:09:52 Okay.
00:09:52 So in other words, if you just got attacked
00:09:55 for walking down the street, then that must be considered.
00:09:59 Makes sense.
00:10:00 Fair.
00:10:01 Requires courts to consider whether the accused
00:10:03 has numerous or serious outstanding charges
00:10:06 when determining when to grant them bail.
00:10:09 Now, that seems like a no-brainer,
00:10:10 but I'm going to go back into where we're coming from.
00:10:12 where we were coming from before so in the in the uh the the legislation that's in place now
00:10:21 um for just another 30 days till the new legislation gets enacted this c14 didn't
00:10:28 require that right so which is odd to me that you wouldn't look at that you wouldn't ask the
00:10:34 question so now you have to ask that question it seemed by the way if you don't mind me saying
00:10:41 that seems ridiculous already that we for so many years just handled it that way and i think people
00:10:47 don't even understand how bail works in this country we'll touch on that i'm sure requires
00:10:52 courts to consider weapons bans in most cases yeah you can't carry a weapon after you no really get
00:11:01 out okay wow so that requires courts to look more closely at an accused bail plan when a reverse
00:11:07 onus applies right so we're gonna we'll jump into it for a minute but uh in the current system if you
00:11:16 uh think that you're not going to get bail or you're going to get denied bail you go to a lawyer
00:11:21 and you actually get the lawyer to create a bail plan the bail plan sets out you know you agree to
00:11:26 an ankle blazing on your leg you agree to not carrying a gun you all those things um it prohibits
00:11:35 courts from naming anyone as a surety uh who was convicted of a serious crime in the past 10 years
00:11:44 so this just seems like a no-brainer right like you know i can't how badly have we managed this
00:11:51 that common sense simple common sense checkbox points are have been missed for so long i mean
00:11:59 that's in many ways to me the biggest topic here yeah we knew we needed bail reform but did anybody
00:12:06 know that we needed it to the point where all we're trying to do is hit the obvious points to
00:12:12 protect ourselves no violent offenders out there nobody can provide surety who's got a crime if
00:12:17 you've got a history of violence if this crime is a violent crime i mean really these seem like very
00:12:24 basic points paul they do they do well and the interesting part they're all in these bills that
00:12:30 have actually been denied or turned down or said just wait it's coming i almost think the specificity
00:12:35 of these ones was too much yeah for our government to get on side with now it has tougher sentencing
00:12:41 laws too it requires consecutive sentences for violent auto theft and break and enter right which
00:12:48 doesn't exist today okay that's also wild requires consecutive sentences for extortion and arson
00:12:53 okay requires judges to consider interesting sorry arson and extortion two topics that we
00:13:00 consistently have on our crime shows oh yeah every week every week this one was overdue yeah oh yeah
00:13:07 well we waited we waited since well we started hearing about it through covet remember right
00:13:11 that became all the thing yeah requires judges to consider consecutive sentences for repeat violent
00:13:17 offending which i actually thought was in place i thought so too yeah anyways but uh well that's
00:13:24 my point we've we let it go to the point where you know if you do something highly unlikely
00:13:30 and i show up as a surety also highly unlikely yep there was no guarantee that i was going to
00:13:39 even monitor you in any way there's no guarantee previously or up to this point that i don't have
00:13:45 a crime that i'm i've got outstanding on the books so a criminal could get another criminal
00:13:51 out of jail till trial seems like an incredibly wild scenario well right now the criminal code
00:13:57 mandates uh that the bail judges can basically consider three factors um there's the primary
00:14:05 secondary and tertiary grounds okay the primary grounds uh do you they the judge looks for do you
00:14:11 have ties to the existing jurisdiction and what they're trying to find is there a flee issue yeah
00:14:19 you know you're not going to attend court so do you have a history of not coming so when you commit
00:14:26 that crime and you go there to get your bail they'll ask you a set of questions you know uh
00:14:31 where do you live do you have ties do you have family do you have it they'll look at your your
00:14:35 history to say do you have a history of not showing up for your bail hearings um is there
00:14:40 an evidence that you could flee or that you have the means to flee right right we always hear about
00:14:46 that right the second one which is interesting are are you likely to endanger public safety
00:14:53 or interfere with the administration of justice while on bail that's a tertiary that's a tertiary
00:14:59 uh secondary that's a secondary okay it's a secondary one so okay it seems like a primary
00:15:04 one but okay so they they asked you do you have a criminal record do you have a history of not
00:15:09 complying with your bail conditions relationship uh with the deceased or do you have uh have you
00:15:15 made three threats to witnesses in the past okay so they look at all those things um
00:15:23 you know the strength of the prosecution against you so whether or not you know they have
00:15:29 good evidence that you if it's were you holding the smoking gun yeah is it a shut and dry case
00:15:34 right yeah um and then last the last one the third one they consider which again is very interesting
00:15:40 would your release offend a reasonable member of the public oh so that's the gauge that they use
00:15:47 would a reasonable member of the public be okay with you being out on bail yeah so now they have
00:15:53 to determine it's not joe who calls i guess so so now a reasonable member so they have to define
00:15:59 the it's up to the judge to define what he considers a reasonable public member yeah so if
00:16:03 he says i don't think the guy joe who calls the radio show ranting and raving is reasonable
00:16:09 therefore he says he ups the standard so the gravity of the crime the strength of the prosecution's
00:16:17 case uh whether they had a firearm so those are the things that they look at and then they create
00:16:24 a bail plan right right so after these three factors they actually sit down and then they
00:16:31 start to negotiate and they talk about who will supervise you where you live restrictions on your
00:16:37 address curfews gps bracelets uh restrictions of phone and internet prohibitions of operating a car
00:16:46 um who you can actually communicate with so you don't go communicating with the witnesses
00:16:51 so they create that list they create a plan your lawyer takes it and then
00:16:55 basically the judge determines if you get out okay and so that's what exists today
00:17:01 okay yeah it sounds a little loose to be honest with you in a lot of ways based on bill c14 and
00:17:09 the number of new things they've introduced that we thought were in here and they were doing already
00:17:13 yeah right it seems like it was a pretty loose shoe oh sure well you know we just went through
00:17:18 it quite frankly uh if we're now looking at uh reverse onus we're looking at uh
00:17:26 accused bail hearings necessary to protect the public and and the feds are passing this down
00:17:32 this is not this is not a federal this is not just for federal cases the fed the the government
00:17:37 has said okay provinces you got this this one's on you here's the guidelines by which you're going
00:17:43 to operate but now it's in your court no no pun intended yeah go and enact this yes this sounds
00:17:52 like it could break pretty i hate to be down on bail reform i just want the right bail reform just
00:17:58 like anybody but this seems like it could break between ottawa and any of the provinces because
00:18:05 they have to be retrained this sounds like more uh more strain on the court system that is already
00:18:13 really under a lot of stress right it sounds like we're going to need more places to incarcerate
00:18:20 people yes which were already short on it feels like my first blush opinion and i maybe you'll
00:18:27 set me straight on this that the government went not our problem that's what this bill reform feels
00:18:32 like to us we made an election promise you guys go and deal with it here's the terms yeah make
00:18:40 sure it's reverse onus and you have to define it now right so you have to come out and you have to
00:18:46 you have to not only define it you have to then define it train it for consistency
00:18:50 you know how hard that's going to be like seriously like think about it so so now what
00:18:55 do they call that that precedence uh everything's going to be based on precedence and interpretation
00:19:00 of this law and judges are going to be drawing on it now we've got before we even get to trial we
00:19:06 have a caseload just for bail yeah i wonder what the i wonder what the hybrid is on this one
00:19:13 what the hybrid well to me you know listen when they said reverse onus to me i thought that we
00:19:21 would actually open something up and we'd see a plan of you know you have to uh if you uh created
00:19:30 uh if you murdered someone if you use the gun if you like here are the you know the weapons and
00:19:37 everything if you use those you don't get bail like you know these are the things that you know
00:19:42 there'd be a point system that would actually make it almost impossible because you get five
00:19:48 points if you know you uh uh you had pre-meditation you'd get you know six points if you use the gun
00:19:55 you get if that's not how they're doing it paul that's how they should be doing it well you think
00:19:59 so there'd be a scoring mechanism to determine a point system and if it's over that point system
00:20:05 and then you would create a set of training for the judges that they could actually figure out
00:20:09 how to use the point system so therefore you can create a precedent that was consistent across all
00:20:14 the all the provinces but not this no well the feds don't the feds didn't drop anything with it
00:20:20 no they said they're going to give a guideline yeah of what's acceptable and not acceptable but
00:20:24 then they're going to leave it in the hands of judges do we even have enough judges i don't
00:20:28 think we do who are going to then decide whether or not we can put somebody in jail into incarceration
00:20:35 into a system that doesn't have enough beds for prisoners already so what the feds have done is
00:20:40 said make it harder and by the way we're not making it easier for you that's what i found i
00:20:45 saw that they put 3.9 billion aside for prisons in ontario oh wow okay i didn't know that but the
00:20:52 3.9 billion really needs to go to restoring and retrofitting the ones that we already have
00:20:57 and we are so over i think that we are 2400 uh prisoners more than we can handle in our
00:21:05 prison system now yeah what do we do with this paul well with more people not getting well
00:21:11 here's the thing optically it looks like more people aren't going to get bail right but right
00:21:17 now based on the way this has been released who knows right because whatever they whatever the
00:21:23 precedent whatever they decide to train however they do it they haven't unrolled that yet they
00:21:28 haven't unleashed that or told us what it is it sure puts the premiers in an odd spot yeah so now
00:21:33 if i'm a premier i've been handed the ball here's the ball you figure out what you want to do for
00:21:39 training your judges for the criminal offenses and if you do it wrong and someone gets hurt like
00:21:43 this poor lady that got killed for the in brampton then they're going to point at you yeah that's
00:21:50 not going to point at us because we gave it to you to figure out so now we came up with a solution
00:21:55 and you were supposed to do it and you didn't do it here's the hot potato pass to you good luck
00:21:59 right yeah so now now if i'm a premier i got a bunch of issues right yeah i can go and i can
00:22:06 make bail reform really tough can't do this can't do that you can't do this you can make all those
00:22:11 things you can put it in okay where do you put the people so now you're in a catch-22 right
00:22:19 where do you get the courtrooms where do you get the judges yeah there's a whole new team of bail
00:22:25 judges that we need now well that's the thing you create you create a bail bail court so you create
00:22:31 a bail court and you create a maybe you create a scoring system or a mechanism fine you get there
00:22:36 and you get to bail court and you maybe you're super good at it so say within six months you've
00:22:41 created a system where you can click through it you can get you know 30 50 60 100 people a day
00:22:47 through it you get people through it you uh get rid of the backlog but it's so onerous because
00:22:53 politically you don't want to be on the hook for it that now you have to send them somewhere okay
00:22:58 now i got them i get you the more the more of these cases that get stopped at the bail end of
00:23:04 things the more stats you have on crime so where do you send them detention centers i don't know
00:23:10 yeah but detention centers are heinous detention centers right now are worse than prison yeah
00:23:16 people on the floors uh yeah we've caught there's cots there's caught after caught after caught it's
00:23:21 communal there's lots of crime there's lots of assaults there's it's really bad yeah when you're
00:23:27 short 2400 prisoner cells for the for the people who've already been tried and convicted yeah i
00:23:33 really i don't know where you put the bail people well that's the thing then i was just before the
00:23:37 show i was having a conversation with someone uh who was telling me a story about a friend of theirs
00:23:42 who is in uh a police person policeman and they basically are uh fairly tough from what they're
00:23:51 saying and difficult sometimes but they were uh they were complaining about how bad the detention
00:23:57 centers were yeah how ugly they've gotten and how how much crime is inside the detention centers
00:24:04 inside of canada so how fast can you go to build like you know you you know the stats right like
00:24:12 when i started off the show you know there's seven you know roughly 800 murders a year you know
00:24:18 there's uh 239 per 100 000 motor vehicles thefts we know the fraud rate is 436 per 100 000 people
00:24:29 we know cyber crime is 225 hate crime is 4882 and we know the approximate 2025 so we know all
00:24:38 those stats and we know the approximate sentencing against each of those right but the problem is you
00:24:45 can't sentence because you can't you have nowhere to put them yeah which we're still in the same
00:24:50 place we were six months ago when we did the show on jails well bail reform's okay so then you go
00:24:56 you get to go home okay we hope that you'll show up yep but then you show up for your trial and
00:25:02 you get sentenced at that point do we stay your sentence do we commute your sentence what do we
00:25:09 do how much of that then becomes a problem because we've got so many people awaiting trial
00:25:15 in jail right yeah okay so yeah yet we have a construction so in many provinces we have a
00:25:24 construction industry that's decimated us right that's the truth right now when we talk about
00:25:30 skilled trades what a you couldn't find a better place to hone your skills to build something than
00:25:36 a prison yeah even real estate is at a pre is not at a premium that it was you know just even a few
00:25:41 months ago well and for the most part for the most part you're going to be building that prison
00:25:46 outside the city in a farmland or somewhere and you know the city will accept you quite frankly
00:25:51 it gets through all your by bylaw uh exemptions go forward and you're going to be building
00:25:56 the prison there the city's happy to have you because that major factory that kept the city
00:26:02 alive is now gone so it has a huge amount of employment now when you look at the let's talk
00:26:08 about that for a minute and you know the number of prisons so the number of prisons i think before
00:26:13 the show we were looking at it it's like 261 uh prisons across canada yeah i had that jotted down
00:26:20 Compared to like 4,000 in the U.S.
00:26:24 We've got, yeah, 3,940 jails in the U.S.,
00:26:29 111 of them are federal, state jails, 968.
00:26:34 Private confinement facilities,
00:26:36 and I don't really know what that is, 82.
00:26:39 So that means private prisons, I suppose.
00:26:42 Private prisons.
00:26:43 They've got 82.
00:26:44 So a small percentage of their prisons are privately run.
00:26:48 Right.
00:26:48 Okay.
00:26:49 A lot of public-private partnerships on those.
00:26:52 Okay.
00:26:53 But I see what you're saying.
00:26:55 Their numbers match their prison requirements.
00:26:59 Well, but ours is, what, 261 or something?
00:27:02 It's some crazy number.
00:27:03 216.
00:27:04 216.
00:27:05 So 216 versus 4,000.
00:27:07 So even if we're 10 times the population in the U.S., right?
00:27:11 So we're roughly 216.
00:27:14 We're 2,000, right, if we were the U.S.
00:27:17 And then also we have our rate of incarceration, incarceration capacity.
00:27:27 And you mentioned this earlier.
00:27:29 This is stunning.
00:27:31 531 in the U.S.
00:27:33 That's the U.S. rate per 100,000 in Canada.
00:27:37 It's 98.
00:27:39 So, yeah, there is a huge deficit just in planning.
00:27:45 Your stats show planning is not part of our...
00:27:50 No, we underplanned this horrifically.
00:27:52 So in the criminality world, we definitely missed the target.
00:27:57 Someone dropped the ball on putting up the red alert
00:28:01 that we needed to be building prisons more frequently.
00:28:04 Well, when you do that,
00:28:05 you're admitting that you have a crime problem with your country.
00:28:09 Well, when I kicked off the show,
00:28:11 I said even homicides for 2022,
00:28:14 to if i don't report the stats and i don't want to tell you how many people are being arrested and
00:28:18 what your crimes are and i don't have any analytics to tell me what they are where they are how they're
00:28:22 happening why would i spend the time to actually try to build jails to house the people that because
00:28:27 i'm trying to deny that i'm having any of it happening we went into denial we came out of we
00:28:33 came out of covid with a pure denial of our criminal rates right we wanted to pretend that
00:28:39 we were canada the good that we weren't having crimes so what we did is we started pretending
00:28:43 we didn't need uh bail reform prisons it is total denial on our part like and it's it's crazy that
00:28:52 we keep it's crazy that we keep doing it because people are talking about like it's no secret
00:28:59 people are not not talking about you just have to watch the news every morning we all know it
00:29:05 having to create a law that says end leniency for non-citizens convicted of serious crimes
00:29:10 what the hell of course yeah i mean so so you know if if i'm if i'm sitting there you know
00:29:19 you you spent a lot of time mike in the movie business actually when i when i first met you
00:29:23 you and i met a gentleman who went and scouted sets that's right right so to me right away my
00:29:30 mind goes and i'm not trying to you know pretend i could fix this problem but right away my mind
00:29:34 goes to get the heck out there and find large uh warehouse empty buildings and rural communities
00:29:42 that would accept a prison or a detention center at multiple levels right remember kingston used
00:29:48 to have the worst offenders they used to have the badest of the bad millhaven and all of those yeah
00:29:54 exactly so you find areas that you can ship different levels of criminals into so you know
00:29:59 based on the you know the the uh type of crime and and then quite frankly and the and the and
00:30:05 whether you're trying to rehab them or not right that's the other thing or whether they're
00:30:09 rehabbable because quite frankly there does the chances of rehabbing someone who's a you know a
00:30:16 sociopathic murderer um you know who's killed you know eight people yeah is way different than you
00:30:24 know someone who just created manslaughter in a fight outside a bar right right so there's
00:30:28 different levels and i think that there is a certain amount of that now however the facilities
00:30:34 are double timing and triple timing for purpose yeah everyone's everywhere everyone's in each one
00:30:39 of them whether it's a detention center whether you know it's it's a prison but to me it would be
00:30:44 getting out there quickly now and trying to figure out not not build buildings it'd be trying to
00:30:51 retrofit buildings that exist to try to put people into place because you're behind the
00:30:55 eight ball you went into denial after covid now you're behind the eight ball you have 2400 people
00:31:01 coming into the system now you do this new bail uh reverse owner onerous if you actually get the
00:31:08 province so now here's the interesting let's play the devil advocate here yeah right you're the
00:31:14 province right i'm the federal government okay mike i want you to use the reverse onus uh process 0.56
00:31:22 for your jail reform okay right you're going to look at it and you say oh crap i don't have the
00:31:29 means to do this right so but what you're going to say so then you're going to what i would do
00:31:34 if i'm in your shoes i'm sitting in your shoes what i would do is i would say okay i'll do it
00:31:40 i'm going to make it very tough and i'm going to back up criminals out the wazoo so i'm going to
00:31:46 put all these people and i'm going to come back to you and say you're the one who wanted me to do it
00:31:52 i've done it now where do i put them so now i would take the ball and lob it back over the fence
00:31:57 oh that's all i would do is i throw it back i need more prison money yeah no not you see i would go
00:32:02 even further i would actually do it even further i need more prison money and you need to build them
00:32:06 yeah because i don't want the contracts who wants a prison contract think about it that's a good
00:32:12 you are the premier that brought prison you're the prison premier yeah right i would throw that
00:32:18 back to the prime minister right and say no you be the the prison prime yeah you'd be the jailer
00:32:23 yeah i don't want to be the jailer i don't want to be known because every one of those people you
00:32:28 throw in jail quite frankly has a family and they're not going to vote for you like this is
00:32:33 all about politics right throwing the ball back and across the fence right and no one wants it to
00:32:38 land on their side of the fence and where we're going to end up we're going to end up what not
00:32:44 doing anything again probably but i think you can't i think you can't because i think the mistake
00:32:49 that's made here i think where sean frazier bill c14 the mistake with that was made here
00:32:55 is it goes to the premiers the premiers can't ignore it now it's almost like they have to make
00:33:00 reverse onus so tough that bail can't be achieved right because now if you let loose
00:33:07 like you know and something happens it's on the province it's on the premier it's on the
00:33:12 that's true right now and now think about it it's closer to home before when it's in the federal
00:33:17 side and these crazy three-factor rules and everything the province could say well you know
00:33:23 it's happening because of the feds it's happening because of the criminal code right now the criminal
00:33:28 code's on you if it happens you're the premier of that province it's your responsibility oh the
00:33:34 citizens are going to be really mad right the citizens are going to be like so as soon as as
00:33:37 soon as uh you know jane or jimmy's parents get up crying on that mic on that hot mic and start
00:33:44 telling the story how your uh the the bail offender who got off came and killed their son or daughter
00:33:53 oh especially after you had the chance and you got new rules and you were mandated by the government
00:33:59 to do this no it's a tough situation it's an uh it literally puts them in a very awkward spot it
00:34:05 totally does yeah so now they put now if i'm sitting in their shoes i'm like i got it can't
00:34:10 get bill give me the money well i don't have the money where i don't why would it what what money
00:34:16 would i have well you either you're the one you gave me the reverse onus now you give me the money
00:34:20 to build the jails okay so now i've got he's already 78 billion in debt right right he's got
00:34:26 where's you getting the money to build my jails you can't take defense money because quite frankly
00:34:31 you know you got to show you got to show the g7 and you got to show nato and everyone that you
00:34:36 have the money to put into defense now so where are you going to get that you can't take it out of
00:34:41 what seniors payments we're watching you print money now when you do it so be careful exactly
00:34:47 you know you're going to cause inflation by actually spending more money so so now you're
00:34:51 you're in this kitchen we're going to increase tax like where are you so what about this the
00:34:55 provinces now have to okay they need more prisons yep they're going to be let's say in the current
00:35:01 forum they're on the hook to build those prisons not just build those prisons but maintain those
00:35:06 prisons staff those prisons oh yeah uh handle the loans on on property and the you know the upkeep
00:35:13 and expansion of those prisons now become a provincial burden what do they say per year it's
00:35:18 150 i i now this number may be wrong so fact check me guys it's 150 000 per inmate a year to keep an
00:35:27 inmate okay right so just you know i incarcerate you i put you on uh you know i give you three
00:35:32 years you know no no probation or whatever it is you have to spend three years you're a half million
00:35:37 dollar expense to the province yeah so now i'm forced to not do bail i got to get you into some
00:35:43 center you're costing me 150 that's an ongoing cost so like you look at the u.s the u.s that has
00:35:50 i don't know what's the prisoner rate mike it's crazy
00:35:58 yeah yeah of people in prison wow oh that's crazy so and the amount of the amount of prisoners in
00:36:06 the u.s is like an astronomical number right we've got 30 like 40 000 we have 40 000 people
00:36:12 in prison right now yeah in the u.s it's like a million people right yeah so you figure you know
00:36:17 150 000 times a million right you're a billion dollar ticket just on incarcerations in the u.s
00:36:24 is an industry so now we're 40 000 we go to a hundred thousand based on ours okay and we're
00:36:30 150 we're 150 000 holy cow yeah right now we're really that that's an insane number right so when
00:36:39 we're turning it's the next billion that the government didn't take a look at exactly so now
00:36:44 let's we can't predict the future on this but the one thing i will say can we just touch on the bill
00:36:49 for a second yeah it seems heavily porous and and leans on the provinces way too much for
00:36:56 interpretation i think even the the law society is saying that right then the next thing is
00:37:02 on that note where do you predict this ends up what can be done about this does it get adjusted
00:37:09 do we live with it do we live with it wrong and let it mount up this issue on a provincial basis
00:37:15 where do you think this goes where does it where does it go it gets lobbed back over the fence
00:37:20 yeah so you know now everyone's you know got their 20 22 week vacations they're off when it comes back
00:37:28 in the fall the first thing you're going to hear uh back to the federal government we all need
00:37:34 money so when they go to the end of the the premier's table when they all come with the key
00:37:38 issues yeah we can take care of it we can we can we have bail but now we need we need uh two billion
00:37:44 dollars to go build jails across the nation and we need a billion dollars a year to manage the
00:37:50 or 1.5 billion 1.5 we need another 1.5 so now your transfer payments for us just went up by that tick
00:37:57 yeah we're willing to do it but we have to do it now i don't see another option well there are
00:38:02 but they're i mean do we set a private private prisons do we well you know it's an interesting
00:38:09 it's even when you privatize it never works here no no but it's it's it's a very interesting so
00:38:15 you know the approach on this is very interesting right because on the liberal perspective they're
00:38:20 trying to leave it loose so they can get people rehabilitated and reformed and back on the street
00:38:26 so you know i don't want to be too onerous because quite frankly if i put the wrong person in jail for
00:38:31 too long it'll cause these impacts right on the conservative side they want hard and fast rules
00:38:37 of what you're sentencing and what you're you know when and why and how you go to jail right
00:38:43 makes sense yeah so which is fine yeah you look at other countries i think we have to go across
00:38:49 to other countries and see what's the model that's worked best in my mind quite frankly
00:38:54 you have to make it to the point you have to create it to the point where you display that
00:39:00 it's not um a holiday or a vacation for people to go to jail to get a crime yeah to put some in
00:39:08 do a crime that puts them in jail is it should have impact right so you know are you uh on hard
00:39:16 time are you are you trucked up to a mining uh mining uh community and are you going to work
00:39:22 every day are you on a detail are you on you know you because quite frankly right now what do we do
00:39:28 and forget forget the you know the sociopaths the you know the serial killers let's put those
00:39:34 park those those those are a tougher case you got to go kind of bury them away for the rest of their
00:39:39 life and they're done but you know for the car thieves and for the assaults and for those people
00:39:46 they're the ones who you got to take up and you got to get them to do hard so you
00:39:49 if all of a sudden all these people know that there's a consequence to their actions right
00:39:54 you know there's this this and this and it's well known through the community i'm going to think
00:39:59 twice before i go to do that right i'm not you want that to be the result of this yeah yeah fine
00:40:04 you know you can you can you know you can we just did a couple shows on it you know and the other
00:40:09 one that we have to address is we have to address minors in crime because that's become something
00:40:15 that's become more prevalent and using miners to inflict these crazy crimes on people uh whether
00:40:20 it's shooting a gun in their hands and then a little bit of cash and off they go and they you
00:40:25 know they go they get the minor offense you know status so they're they're in the minor zone you
00:40:31 know those are the things when you look at but if we if the consequences of their actions are known
00:40:36 and we publicize them and you know they they wear you know i hate to say it and a lot of people who
00:40:42 uh will go crazy when i say it having lived in the states and uh for 12 years and seen the way
00:40:49 different states treat crime when you're driving down the highway and there's a chain gang picking
00:40:54 up the litter and cleaning the highways in their orange jumpsuits it really does you you really
00:41:01 think twice about even honking your horn or doing it's amazing how that kind of message
00:41:08 causes you to kind of think twice when you're saying i don't want to be in that scenario oh
00:41:13 no i never want to creeps imagine how bad that scenario is right and that's what
00:41:17 and that's indoctrinated from childhood right so everyone who lives in that community
00:41:22 is seeing that like right in front of you they're seeing it happen you don't want to be that guy
00:41:28 no your parents have said you're going to end up on that chain gang out on the highway there
00:41:32 yeah yeah so you're told and you're seeing the live example so i you know again i like to see
00:41:39 the studies that show the most impactful effective way to do this and who's done this the best around
00:41:45 the world bring it but it's got to happen fast the problem is now see this ball that got rolling with
00:41:51 c14 the ball's been thrown over the fence 30 days paul 30 days it's in all these judges are going to
00:41:58 to start making rulings based on the reverse onus that's going to cause a bunch of other things
00:42:04 and when we come back if they've all made these tough rulings there's going to be a backlog of
00:42:10 people sitting in the system somewhere yeah either either post-trial waiting for prison
00:42:16 imagine that being on a waiting list for prison and or they're going to be delayed trial because
00:42:22 there's no place to incarcerate them on and not even if it's an obvious case even if it's like
00:42:27 a clear-cut case and somebody's going to go to prison for this they may find that it's delayed
00:42:32 way too long to even try the cases and then if i'm a police chief i'd be i'd be crying bloody
00:42:38 murder saying okay we did this they went there like you know i would i would be throwing the
00:42:45 ball because when i come to you to counsel you want me you want my officers to make a bail
00:42:51 determination right when after 25 years all you've done is disable our police force disable it
00:42:57 disabled now you want my officers my constables and my staff to make decisions with the courts
00:43:05 on whether somebody gets out on the streets oh no that's a pr problem for the police as well
00:43:10 yeah but then when i when i go when i go back when my budget's up for the following year to
00:43:15 get budgets done and i come back for more money and you say no
00:43:18 okay my officers can't oblige they can't yeah so what do you want me to do it so what they've done
00:43:26 is they've created the ball rolling on this is this this this gets worse now so because then
00:43:33 you know the council gets it they're going to go well okay i need to do a property tax increase i
00:43:39 got to find that money everybody's going to pay for this now you're in the middle of people's real
00:43:43 estate values crumbling down so those mill rates here's the interesting part this is kind of where
00:43:47 it all goes so where part of it goes this is the interesting rate right now so before your
00:43:52 home was worth x so then this we're not talking about this right now because everyone oh this
00:43:56 could be temporary or whatever you know you used to get your property tax based on your mill rate
00:44:00 based on the assessment of your home exactly now your assessment of the home you know the
00:44:04 the place i'm living in now right sold it the other they sold it the other day but on beside us
00:44:10 for half of what it was listed for right so now your valuations in that neighborhood a decent
00:44:17 neighborhood is actually starting to decrease now now my property tax mill rates and valuation so
00:44:23 at some point they got to come back because you know uh uh impact so or whoever it is it has to
00:44:29 come back and they have to take a look at those uh values and they're going to come back and say
00:44:35 oh you know all these properties are actually less than half so we have to go so then that actually
00:44:41 so you can increase the mill rates to try to keep the tax base but then people are going well
00:44:46 why is my property tax the same or more when my valuation of the asset that you're taxing me on
00:44:52 is decreasing so my wealth is eroded but yet you keep taxing me at the same level to keep my
00:44:58 services going because you created improper bail reform that you threw over the fence like it all
00:45:04 leads back already i already i want to fight my property tax yeah already i'm at a place where i'm
00:45:10 like how how am i at this place uh oh it's based on the impact evaluation oh yeah sure
00:45:16 And what do you do when you get those guys to come back?
00:45:19 It's never in your favor, I promise you.
00:45:21 And so now people won't even fight this increase because they know better.
00:45:25 But I don't think, well, I don't know if that's an interesting thing.
00:45:30 I think where they're going to, the challenge on the municipal level is going to come,
00:45:34 people are going to say no at some point.
00:45:36 So people are going to, they're going to vote for people that actually will agree that there's no problem.
00:45:41 So if I'm a politician, which we have a bunch of elections coming up,
00:45:45 one of the things on your municipal side you should say you have to guarantee me no property
00:45:51 tax increases for the next four years if you can't we can't vote for you it doesn't matter
00:45:56 how much you like them how much they jump up and down on the podium like a funky chicken 0.75
00:46:01 how much crap they do you got to say to them you got to find dollars inside the whatever 0.98
00:46:05 and if not you have to go back to the province or the feds and figure this out because this is a 0.99
00:46:11 it's a vicious circle you've created whether it be this issue with bail reform but it can't land
00:46:17 back on the taxpayers no it can't it can't this is something you created you messed up you ignored 1.00
00:46:24 you should have been addressing along the way you shouldn't have squandered the money on stupid 0.99
00:46:27 projects right right and and that's why you know that sorry i was going to touch sorry i was going 0.95
00:46:32 to touch on that the pushback to the federal government not even at the municipal level is
00:46:38 we needed this taken care of and you're spending money over 50 years doing this and this and your
00:46:46 crazy budget what this doesn't even show up paul yeah this doesn't even show up that they're going
00:46:52 to reform the law to put people more people in jail did not include a major project that built
00:46:58 more prisons in this country that i know of yeah and now let me ask you this let's say that i'm a
00:47:03 municipality sorry now sometimes the more we do these shows a lot the deeper we get in yeah that's
00:47:09 when i start to get fired up here here's the one that's got me now if i'm kingston or peterborough
00:47:15 or one of these in ontario uh you know sorry as my reference point is ontario do we get a special
00:47:23 discount on our property taxes as a prison town do we get any benefits built in who covers those
00:47:30 benefits or do i just get stuck with the prison in my neighborhood 10 years after i bought my house
00:47:37 yeah we we don't seem to you know this is an interesting uh for a whole other show but no
00:47:42 matter what municipality you live in from bc toronto councils and people do not seem to be
00:47:48 very concerned about how their uh decisions impact your property values and we see it time and time
00:47:56 again whether it's six plex is small that popped in my mind yeah whether it's anything that you see
00:48:00 right yeah all these things that they're they're you know they seem to think that they want to
00:48:04 densify they want to do this they want to do that put a tiny house in your driveway yeah yeah yeah
00:48:09 put an addition that six stories you know what i mean like all right they want to allow all these
00:48:13 things to happen but yet they don't want to think about what the impacts are put a prison put a
00:48:19 prison in your back in your town yeah good luck getting someone to buy your house right yeah so
00:48:24 So now you got to, that's the next hot potato that Mr. Pally says.
00:48:27 So, okay, you know, now here's the interesting thing
00:48:30 that I would actually look.
00:48:31 So this is probably going too far, but let's keep going, right?
00:48:37 Go and figure out where the crime rates are highest
00:48:39 and put the prison there.
00:48:40 I was just going to say the same thing.
00:48:42 No, you created, you created, you wanted density.
00:48:44 So, hey, Mr. Torontonian or Mr. BC or Vancouver, you know what?
00:48:49 You want density.
00:48:51 Okay, counsel, you want density.
00:48:52 i'm going to put the prison in the downtown course so you can look at it right now american cities do
00:48:58 this so this isn't something that you don't see when you're in pennsylvania and you go drive
00:49:02 through you do see quite frankly where there is high crime rates and they go into those communities
00:49:07 and they build the prison right there downtown manhattan and you see it right and like everyone
00:49:13 who drives by it's like oh that's the prison yeah yeah you know and it's like okay but you know what
00:49:17 why should some guy lives is who's basically uh or some gal who has a home in a nice community
00:49:24 all of a sudden get lumped with a huge prison you know that has the the air siren go off every time
00:49:31 there's a break or any time uh there's yeah any time there's a break and then next thing you know
00:49:37 they dug their way out and they're running through your city and now you have to take your children
00:49:40 and shelter in place three times a year and that happens quite a bit by the way why did my life 0.70
00:49:47 become raising arizona suddenly what happened here but i that was that was my extension on
00:49:52 this thought as well okay if these towns don't get a benefit from it then really the prisons
00:49:57 need to go where there's the most crime because that municipality or that government or that
00:50:01 area of a province is not maintaining the right level of safety for the community and it's too
00:50:09 dense yeah so guarantee right away people will pay attention to their because then all of a sudden
00:50:14 your real estate will values will change because people will you know not only will i figure out
00:50:19 my schools i'll figure out what my crime rates are by that area and i'll go well i'm not paying
00:50:24 that much for that and by the way i'm not moving there because there's a potential if that gets
00:50:28 any worse i'm going to lose more property value and because you're going to build a prison so
00:50:32 that that'll and what that'll do is that'll cause people who don't care right now they sure will
00:50:37 care are we having a crazy idea i want people to feed this back because we did a show as you might
00:50:43 recall about protest parks yeah and i mean that was a whimsy that you and i just went down on on
00:50:50 the still like the idea so do i and a lot of people did i'd like to know if you think this
00:50:55 one point in particular should prisons be built in high crime areas because that's what was earned
00:51:03 in that area by that municipality city or town i i think that's an impact that's on the way and
00:51:10 if it's not thought of it really needs to be considered well that's the next part of this
00:51:15 this whole show at the end of the day what do we come up with we need more prisons yeah so more
00:51:20 prisons we're short 2400 beds right now and growing yeah so at some point they got to be
00:51:26 built and where are they going to be built so that's the next question that's the next ball
00:51:30 that gets thrown back over the wall but it gets thrown into the municipals so it goes in it gets
00:51:35 thrown into some municipality's backyard not even the province it's going to end up in a municipality
00:51:40 and a partnership with the province, which is often difficult,
00:51:43 with a federal mandate that is different from province to province to province
00:51:48 based on precedent, the judges that are answering to it,
00:51:51 the prison space that's available.
00:51:53 This bill is an airburger in a lot of ways.
00:51:58 Wow.
00:51:58 But it does cause the ball to start being thrown.
00:52:01 It does.
00:52:02 Yeah.
00:52:02 But it's being thrown to a province standing there with no glove on going,
00:52:08 we're already in a situation.
00:52:10 How can you do this to us?
00:52:11 I think that that bail reform should have come with a strategic financial plan to build it out.
00:52:17 Of course.
00:52:18 Of course.
00:52:18 It should have been out.
00:52:19 It should have had a prison plan.
00:52:20 It should have had basically, it should have had criteria.
00:52:23 It should have had a scoring system.
00:52:25 They had enough time.
00:52:27 Okay.
00:52:28 We'll see what happens.
00:52:29 Thanks for talking to me about this, Paul.
00:52:30 Thanks.
00:52:31 Thanks for joining us.