True Patriot Love - Bail Reform, Crime, and Canada’s Prison Capacity Crisis

00:00:00.000 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?

00:00:08.960 No violent offenders out there. Nobody can provide surety who's got a crime.

00:00:13.060 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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00:00:55.920 Thanks for joining us.

00:00:57.180 That's tplmedia.ca, tplmedia.ca slash local if we're in your town.

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00:01:04.000 So take a look and see local content as well as the national podcasts that we do.

00:01:09.680 And today we're taking a deeper dive on a topic that we started during our crime update last week.

00:01:15.000 I recommend you subscribe and follow along with the crime update

00:01:18.640 because every week we give sort of an overview of what's going on crime-wise across the country.

00:01:25.080 And this was on that list to talk more about it.

00:01:28.120 Paul Micucci joining me.

00:01:29.140 Thanks so much.

00:01:29.940 Hey, Mike.

00:01:30.600 When I say joining me, really, I'm joining you because you've taken a deep dive on bail

00:01:35.100 reform, which is what we're talking about today.

00:01:37.780 The Fed's dropped it about a week and a half ago now, and we're going to take a closer

00:01:42.800 look at it today.

00:01:43.740 Yeah, just before they go on summer vacation, you know, on the 18th, they dropped this C-14,

00:01:49.140 um which is very interesting because it really prompted my uh research onto how many people have

00:01:57.900 committed homicides on bail oh yeah so i dove into it i was very curious an interesting starting

00:02:06.740 point yeah you know and i so i went back i started diving i'm looking at trying to find 25 stats

00:02:12.500 trying to find 24 none trying to find 23 guess when the last time we reported the number of

00:02:19.780 people on bail that committed a homicide no idea 2022 there were 256 individuals charged with

00:02:28.260 homicide while on bail or conditional release accounting for 30 percent of the cases that year

00:02:35.940 that's incredible yeah and we just stopped we just dropped that stat well of course it got too high

00:02:41.620 yeah you know and that happens you know recently i don't know if you've followed this but

00:02:46.180 stats canada laid off a bunch of people so what happens with stats canada as you look at kind of

00:02:51.700 the ebb and flow of uh employment as soon as the stat becomes too difficult for the government to

00:02:57.220 deal with we just lay off that group or lay out that division and then off it goes that watchdog

00:03:03.380 is now gone right so if you look at it we have about we have about uh 2025 we had 788 victims

00:03:13.060 to homicide okay so it's roughly stayed fairly flat you know it's uh 1.91 per 100 000 population

00:03:22.020 which it's funny when we do report the number everyone always says oh that's a low number

00:03:26.980 compared to the u.s which is roughly three point something okay compare that to the u.s for me

00:03:31.780 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

00:03:37.140 stat we always throw on the table but we don't focus on the fat fact that the number includes

00:03:43.060 a third of the people that are out on bail that do commit the crimes of murder so and you know

00:03:49.300 then i then i went back and i actually looked and and you know the one that came to mind the

00:03:53.380 one that popped up was one that i think pierre polyev um always refers to and this is the the

00:04:00.340 a young lady in uh in Brampton that's killed by her partner who was out on gun charges so he was

00:04:09.960 given bail he had a violent past he was given bail um and uh it's Paul Henderson and Flo Bellman

00:04:17.780 uh basically he's saying that the court protected um this person let them out they committed the

00:04:26.760 crime they were mad that they were in there for partner violence got out and shot their daughter

00:04:31.980 and you know we just hear that time and time again and you know being familiar with peel

00:04:37.280 i went dug into it and i said okay what happened out of that like what was the result of that

00:04:42.380 well the the police uh crew or the police chiefs from peel all came together and they came up with

00:04:49.220 set of recommendations and this was took a while was in 2025 um you know and it was interesting

00:04:56.900 because the recommendations were review and expand reverse onus provisions for bail in cases involving

00:05:03.540 uh violent crime serious offenses and organized crime these are these offenses include car thefts

00:05:09.940 home invasion human trafficking and drug smuggling they wanted to actually have more money into jails

00:05:16.580 and policing well that made sense because they know there's a backlog um and basically uh they

00:05:23.060 wanted to prioritize victim safety in bail and release decisions right so that's currently not

00:05:31.140 in there which we're going to talk about in a minute because prior to c14 your ability to get

00:05:36.660 bail was based on the definitions it's uh three categories right and so they didn't have that in

00:05:42.820 there which i thought was just bizarre in my mind in in the new reform version of this bill

00:05:50.740 that this that's been put forward it's interesting because i took a look back and in just in march

00:05:57.860 alone the conservatives put forward bills that are very very um i i would say really more detailed

00:06:08.100 than what came out in this bail reform i'll give you one bill c-246 make sure sexual predators

00:06:13.540 receive consecutive sentences so each offense is recognized and punished that was thrown out uh bill

00:06:20.020 c-220 uh end leniency for non-citizens convicted of serious crimes and ensure deportation instead

00:06:28.820 of special treatment that one got voted down bill c-243 stop yearly parole hearings that force

00:06:36.020 victims families to relive the trauma again and again jail not bail so just even those three in

00:06:43.220 the last year prior and of course i think i recall when pauliev came out with this these suggestions

00:06:49.300 on the basis of the recommendations of the chiefs of police i i think that at that point the liberals

00:06:55.580 were like don't worry about it we're already working on something they did they did every

00:06:59.320 time he was either before or after them but you know mike and i don't know if you mentioned it

00:07:03.960 274 did you call up 27 because i know that wasn't on my list because it's a little earlier

00:07:08.340 so 274 this is the one that died on the order paper right it created a strict rule where anyone

00:07:15.480 accused of three or more serious crimes crimes that carry a maximum penalty of five years or

00:07:21.820 more would automatically presume to need jail while awaiting making bail highly unlikely for

00:07:27.920 chronic offenders and the liberals said to that that's a hollow statement it's not even a it's

00:07:32.560 not even law it's a very specific thing three strikes and you're out is a pretty consistent

00:07:37.520 law in a lot of countries now right so the you know here you had the conservatives putting very

00:07:42.100 specific motions in bills and putting them up and putting them up and putting them up so waiting

00:07:47.680 waiting and the whole time as you mentioned the liberal government's saying it's coming it's

00:07:52.420 coming so sean frazier right yeah uh he's the minister in charge of this now sean has a lot of

00:07:58.160 interesting portfolios that he looked at immigration housing that he he made a horrific

00:08:03.560 mess out of and i think has been duly noted with a lot of people you know he's been given this file

00:08:08.700 and so he kept saying you know it's coming it's coming well it came just before they left for

00:08:14.020 summer vacation and it arrived do you mind me mentioning it arrived on a friday late in the day

00:08:20.220 yeah there's something to that i'm sorry but if you're expecting the media to cover something

00:08:25.860 that's not the time of the week and the time of day that you do it you do that to avoid scrutiny

00:08:32.500 yeah oh yeah for sure now c14 can we spend a few minutes because those people right i need to

00:08:38.860 unravel that yeah so uh it makes bail harder to get for those accused of repeat and violent

00:08:45.660 offending by creating new reverse onus rules in certain cases meaning the accused must show why

00:08:52.140 they should be released right right that sounds great you know when i read it it's funny i've

00:08:57.800 read this a couple times now you know the other day on the crime show and i've read it in prep

00:09:01.960 and then i read it in prep again today i'm reading it and i'm thinking okay that sounds good

00:09:05.940 however it it also requires first of all yeah it sounds okay because it's the first thing that they

00:09:15.300 it's the headline yeah yeah violent criminals won't get out on bail they need to prove it to

00:09:20.760 us and okay continue on into this yeah directs police to detain and accused for a bail hearing

00:09:27.240 when it is necessary to protect public the public including victims and witnesses

00:09:32.680 makes sense right oh of course yeah no another great headline the things that we really expect

00:09:39.180 our government and our law enforcement already to do requires courts to consider more factors

00:09:44.060 at bail hearings whether the allegations involve violence

00:09:47.760 that was random or unprovoked.

00:09:52.220 Okay.

00:09:52.520 So in other words, if you just got attacked

00:09:55.080 for walking down the street, then that must be considered.

00:09:59.800 Makes sense.

00:10:00.780 Fair.

00:10:01.160 Requires courts to consider whether the accused

00:10:03.860 has numerous or serious outstanding charges

00:10:06.300 when determining when to grant them bail.

00:10:09.160 Now, that seems like a no-brainer,

00:10:10.860 but I'm going to go back into where we're coming from.

00:10:12.960 where we were coming from before so in the in the uh the the legislation that's in place now

00:10:21.200 um for just another 30 days till the new legislation gets enacted this c14 didn't

00:10:28.380 require that right so which is odd to me that you wouldn't look at that you wouldn't ask the

00:10:34.420 question so now you have to ask that question it seemed by the way if you don't mind me saying

00:10:41.700 that seems ridiculous already that we for so many years just handled it that way and i think people

00:10:47.580 don't even understand how bail works in this country we'll touch on that i'm sure requires

00:10:52.640 courts to consider weapons bans in most cases yeah you can't carry a weapon after you no really get

00:11:01.140 out okay wow so that requires courts to look more closely at an accused bail plan when a reverse

00:11:07.940 onus applies right so we're gonna we'll jump into it for a minute but uh in the current system if you

00:11:16.340 uh think that you're not going to get bail or you're going to get denied bail you go to a lawyer

00:11:21.140 and you actually get the lawyer to create a bail plan the bail plan sets out you know you agree to

00:11:26.900 an ankle blazing on your leg you agree to not carrying a gun you all those things um it prohibits

00:11:35.220 courts from naming anyone as a surety uh who was convicted of a serious crime in the past 10 years

00:11:44.500 so this just seems like a no-brainer right like you know i can't how badly have we managed this

00:11:51.380 that common sense simple common sense checkbox points are have been missed for so long i mean

00:11:59.460 that's in many ways to me the biggest topic here yeah we knew we needed bail reform but did anybody

00:12:06.840 know that we needed it to the point where all we're trying to do is hit the obvious points to

00:12:12.040 protect ourselves no violent offenders out there nobody can provide surety who's got a crime if

00:12:17.520 you've got a history of violence if this crime is a violent crime i mean really these seem like very

00:12:24.200 basic points paul they do they do well and the interesting part they're all in these bills that

00:12:30.200 have actually been denied or turned down or said just wait it's coming i almost think the specificity

00:12:35.560 of these ones was too much yeah for our government to get on side with now it has tougher sentencing

00:12:41.400 laws too it requires consecutive sentences for violent auto theft and break and enter right which

00:12:48.040 doesn't exist today okay that's also wild requires consecutive sentences for extortion and arson

00:12:53.320 okay requires judges to consider interesting sorry arson and extortion two topics that we

00:13:00.440 consistently have on our crime shows oh yeah every week every week this one was overdue yeah oh yeah

00:13:07.000 well we waited we waited since well we started hearing about it through covet remember right

00:13:11.640 that became all the thing yeah requires judges to consider consecutive sentences for repeat violent

00:13:17.960 offending which i actually thought was in place i thought so too yeah anyways but uh well that's

00:13:24.640 my point we've we let it go to the point where you know if you do something highly unlikely

00:13:30.560 and i show up as a surety also highly unlikely yep there was no guarantee that i was going to

00:13:39.300 even monitor you in any way there's no guarantee previously or up to this point that i don't have

00:13:45.900 a crime that i'm i've got outstanding on the books so a criminal could get another criminal

00:13:51.100 out of jail till trial seems like an incredibly wild scenario well right now the criminal code

00:13:57.020 mandates uh that the bail judges can basically consider three factors um there's the primary

00:14:05.180 secondary and tertiary grounds okay the primary grounds uh do you they the judge looks for do you

00:14:11.180 have ties to the existing jurisdiction and what they're trying to find is there a flee issue yeah

00:14:19.580 you know you're not going to attend court so do you have a history of not coming so when you commit

00:14:26.140 that crime and you go there to get your bail they'll ask you a set of questions you know uh

00:14:31.100 where do you live do you have ties do you have family do you have it they'll look at your your

00:14:35.660 history to say do you have a history of not showing up for your bail hearings um is there

00:14:40.780 an evidence that you could flee or that you have the means to flee right right we always hear about

00:14:46.060 that right the second one which is interesting are are you likely to endanger public safety

00:14:53.020 or interfere with the administration of justice while on bail that's a tertiary that's a tertiary

00:14:59.100 uh secondary that's a secondary okay it's a secondary one so okay it seems like a primary

00:15:04.780 one but okay so they they asked you do you have a criminal record do you have a history of not

00:15:09.020 complying with your bail conditions relationship uh with the deceased or do you have uh have you

00:15:15.660 made three threats to witnesses in the past okay so they look at all those things um

00:15:23.500 you know the strength of the prosecution against you so whether or not you know they have

00:15:29.660 good evidence that you if it's were you holding the smoking gun yeah is it a shut and dry case

00:15:34.540 right yeah um and then last the last one the third one they consider which again is very interesting

00:15:40.780 would your release offend a reasonable member of the public oh so that's the gauge that they use

00:15:47.340 would a reasonable member of the public be okay with you being out on bail yeah so now they have

00:15:53.180 to determine it's not joe who calls i guess so so now a reasonable member so they have to define

00:15:59.500 the it's up to the judge to define what he considers a reasonable public member yeah so if

00:16:03.660 he says i don't think the guy joe who calls the radio show ranting and raving is reasonable

00:16:09.660 therefore he says he ups the standard so the gravity of the crime the strength of the prosecution's

00:16:17.340 case uh whether they had a firearm so those are the things that they look at and then they create

00:16:24.700 a bail plan right right so after these three factors they actually sit down and then they

00:16:31.820 start to negotiate and they talk about who will supervise you where you live restrictions on your

00:16:37.980 address curfews gps bracelets uh restrictions of phone and internet prohibitions of operating a car

00:16:46.780 um who you can actually communicate with so you don't go communicating with the witnesses

00:16:51.900 so they create that list they create a plan your lawyer takes it and then

00:16:55.340 basically the judge determines if you get out okay and so that's what exists today

00:17:01.820 okay yeah it sounds a little loose to be honest with you in a lot of ways based on bill c14 and

00:17:09.360 the number of new things they've introduced that we thought were in here and they were doing already

00:17:13.880 yeah right it seems like it was a pretty loose shoe oh sure well you know we just went through

00:17:18.740 it quite frankly uh if we're now looking at uh reverse onus we're looking at uh

00:17:26.120 accused bail hearings necessary to protect the public and and the feds are passing this down

00:17:32.880 this is not this is not a federal this is not just for federal cases the fed the the government

00:17:37.880 has said okay provinces you got this this one's on you here's the guidelines by which you're going

00:17:43.740 to operate but now it's in your court no no pun intended yeah go and enact this yes this sounds

00:17:52.600 like it could break pretty i hate to be down on bail reform i just want the right bail reform just

00:17:58.460 like anybody but this seems like it could break between ottawa and any of the provinces because

00:18:05.980 they have to be retrained this sounds like more uh more strain on the court system that is already

00:18:13.640 really under a lot of stress right it sounds like we're going to need more places to incarcerate

00:18:20.060 people yes which were already short on it feels like my first blush opinion and i maybe you'll

00:18:27.740 set me straight on this that the government went not our problem that's what this bill reform feels

00:18:32.940 like to us we made an election promise you guys go and deal with it here's the terms yeah make

00:18:40.780 sure it's reverse onus and you have to define it now right so you have to come out and you have to

00:18:46.460 you have to not only define it you have to then define it train it for consistency

00:18:50.860 you know how hard that's going to be like seriously like think about it so so now what

00:18:55.660 do they call that that precedence uh everything's going to be based on precedence and interpretation

00:19:00.540 of this law and judges are going to be drawing on it now we've got before we even get to trial we

00:19:06.300 have a caseload just for bail yeah i wonder what the i wonder what the hybrid is on this one

00:19:13.740 what the hybrid well to me you know listen when they said reverse onus to me i thought that we

00:19:21.580 would actually open something up and we'd see a plan of you know you have to uh if you uh created

00:19:30.540 uh if you murdered someone if you use the gun if you like here are the you know the weapons and

00:19:37.580 everything if you use those you don't get bail like you know these are the things that you know

00:19:42.940 there'd be a point system that would actually make it almost impossible because you get five

00:19:48.140 points if you know you uh uh you had pre-meditation you'd get you know six points if you use the gun

00:19:55.740 you get if that's not how they're doing it paul that's how they should be doing it well you think

00:19:59.900 so there'd be a scoring mechanism to determine a point system and if it's over that point system

00:20:05.740 and then you would create a set of training for the judges that they could actually figure out

00:20:09.500 how to use the point system so therefore you can create a precedent that was consistent across all

00:20:14.540 the all the provinces but not this no well the feds don't the feds didn't drop anything with it

00:20:20.140 no they said they're going to give a guideline yeah of what's acceptable and not acceptable but

00:20:24.860 then they're going to leave it in the hands of judges do we even have enough judges i don't

00:20:28.700 think we do who are going to then decide whether or not we can put somebody in jail into incarceration

00:20:35.180 into a system that doesn't have enough beds for prisoners already so what the feds have done is

00:20:40.660 said make it harder and by the way we're not making it easier for you that's what i found i

00:20:45.800 saw that they put 3.9 billion aside for prisons in ontario oh wow okay i didn't know that but the

00:20:52.860 3.9 billion really needs to go to restoring and retrofitting the ones that we already have

00:20:57.480 and we are so over i think that we are 2400 uh prisoners more than we can handle in our

00:21:05.800 prison system now yeah what do we do with this paul well with more people not getting well

00:21:11.240 here's the thing optically it looks like more people aren't going to get bail right but right

00:21:17.660 now based on the way this has been released who knows right because whatever they whatever the

00:21:23.540 precedent whatever they decide to train however they do it they haven't unrolled that yet they

00:21:28.380 haven't unleashed that or told us what it is it sure puts the premiers in an odd spot yeah so now

00:21:33.860 if i'm a premier i've been handed the ball here's the ball you figure out what you want to do for

00:21:39.040 training your judges for the criminal offenses and if you do it wrong and someone gets hurt like

00:21:43.400 this poor lady that got killed for the in brampton then they're going to point at you yeah that's

00:21:50.760 not going to point at us because we gave it to you to figure out so now we came up with a solution

00:21:55.280 and you were supposed to do it and you didn't do it here's the hot potato pass to you good luck

00:21:59.620 right yeah so now now if i'm a premier i got a bunch of issues right yeah i can go and i can

00:22:06.500 make bail reform really tough can't do this can't do that you can't do this you can make all those

00:22:11.860 things you can put it in okay where do you put the people so now you're in a catch-22 right

00:22:19.280 where do you get the courtrooms where do you get the judges yeah there's a whole new team of bail

00:22:25.540 judges that we need now well that's the thing you create you create a bail bail court so you create

00:22:31.580 a bail court and you create a maybe you create a scoring system or a mechanism fine you get there

00:22:36.680 and you get to bail court and you maybe you're super good at it so say within six months you've

00:22:41.840 created a system where you can click through it you can get you know 30 50 60 100 people a day

00:22:47.580 through it you get people through it you uh get rid of the backlog but it's so onerous because

00:22:53.180 politically you don't want to be on the hook for it that now you have to send them somewhere okay

00:22:58.060 now i got them i get you the more the more of these cases that get stopped at the bail end of

00:23:04.140 things the more stats you have on crime so where do you send them detention centers i don't know

00:23:10.540 yeah but detention centers are heinous detention centers right now are worse than prison yeah

00:23:16.460 people on the floors uh yeah we've caught there's cots there's caught after caught after caught it's

00:23:21.900 communal there's lots of crime there's lots of assaults there's it's really bad yeah when you're

00:23:27.260 short 2400 prisoner cells for the for the people who've already been tried and convicted yeah i

00:23:33.420 really i don't know where you put the bail people well that's the thing then i was just before the

00:23:37.980 show i was having a conversation with someone uh who was telling me a story about a friend of theirs

00:23:42.860 who is in uh a police person policeman and they basically are uh fairly tough from what they're

00:23:51.420 saying and difficult sometimes but they were uh they were complaining about how bad the detention

00:23:57.660 centers were yeah how ugly they've gotten and how how much crime is inside the detention centers

00:24:04.300 inside of canada so how fast can you go to build like you know you you know the stats right like

00:24:12.380 when i started off the show you know there's seven you know roughly 800 murders a year you know

00:24:18.420 there's uh 239 per 100 000 motor vehicles thefts we know the fraud rate is 436 per 100 000 people

00:24:29.660 we know cyber crime is 225 hate crime is 4882 and we know the approximate 2025 so we know all

00:24:38.820 those stats and we know the approximate sentencing against each of those right but the problem is you

00:24:45.220 can't sentence because you can't you have nowhere to put them yeah which we're still in the same

00:24:50.140 place we were six months ago when we did the show on jails well bail reform's okay so then you go

00:24:56.580 you get to go home okay we hope that you'll show up yep but then you show up for your trial and

00:25:02.960 you get sentenced at that point do we stay your sentence do we commute your sentence what do we

00:25:09.000 do how much of that then becomes a problem because we've got so many people awaiting trial

00:25:15.180 in jail right yeah okay so yeah yet we have a construction so in many provinces we have a

00:25:24.260 construction industry that's decimated us right that's the truth right now when we talk about

00:25:30.680 skilled trades what a you couldn't find a better place to hone your skills to build something than

00:25:36.900 a prison yeah even real estate is at a pre is not at a premium that it was you know just even a few

00:25:41.900 months ago well and for the most part for the most part you're going to be building that prison

00:25:46.040 outside the city in a farmland or somewhere and you know the city will accept you quite frankly

00:25:51.300 it gets through all your by bylaw uh exemptions go forward and you're going to be building

00:25:56.240 the prison there the city's happy to have you because that major factory that kept the city

00:26:02.000 alive is now gone so it has a huge amount of employment now when you look at the let's talk

00:26:08.760 about that for a minute and you know the number of prisons so the number of prisons i think before

00:26:13.240 the show we were looking at it it's like 261 uh prisons across canada yeah i had that jotted down

00:26:20.380 Compared to like 4,000 in the U.S.

00:26:24.500 We've got, yeah, 3,940 jails in the U.S.,

00:26:29.300 111 of them are federal, state jails, 968.

00:26:34.480 Private confinement facilities,

00:26:36.400 and I don't really know what that is, 82.

00:26:39.960 So that means private prisons, I suppose.

00:26:42.900 Private prisons.

00:26:43.280 They've got 82.

00:26:44.480 So a small percentage of their prisons are privately run.

00:26:48.000 Right.

00:26:48.180 Okay.

00:26:49.400 A lot of public-private partnerships on those.

00:26:52.220 Okay.

00:26:53.260 But I see what you're saying.

00:26:55.620 Their numbers match their prison requirements.

00:26:59.460 Well, but ours is, what, 261 or something?

00:27:02.560 It's some crazy number.

00:27:03.600 216.

00:27:04.880 216.

00:27:05.480 So 216 versus 4,000.

00:27:07.600 So even if we're 10 times the population in the U.S., right?

00:27:11.580 So we're roughly 216.

00:27:14.780 We're 2,000, right, if we were the U.S.

00:27:17.900 And then also we have our rate of incarceration, incarceration capacity.

00:27:27.580 And you mentioned this earlier.

00:27:29.240 This is stunning.

00:27:31.300 531 in the U.S.

00:27:33.720 That's the U.S. rate per 100,000 in Canada.

00:27:37.340 It's 98.

00:27:39.680 So, yeah, there is a huge deficit just in planning.

00:27:45.880 Your stats show planning is not part of our...

00:27:50.060 No, we underplanned this horrifically.

00:27:52.320 So in the criminality world, we definitely missed the target.

00:27:57.800 Someone dropped the ball on putting up the red alert

00:28:01.660 that we needed to be building prisons more frequently.

00:28:04.980 Well, when you do that,

00:28:05.940 you're admitting that you have a crime problem with your country.

00:28:09.440 Well, when I kicked off the show,

00:28:11.220 I said even homicides for 2022,

00:28:14.380 to if i don't report the stats and i don't want to tell you how many people are being arrested and

00:28:18.220 what your crimes are and i don't have any analytics to tell me what they are where they are how they're

00:28:22.860 happening why would i spend the time to actually try to build jails to house the people that because

00:28:27.780 i'm trying to deny that i'm having any of it happening we went into denial we came out of we

00:28:33.400 came out of covid with a pure denial of our criminal rates right we wanted to pretend that

00:28:39.120 we were canada the good that we weren't having crimes so what we did is we started pretending

00:28:43.880 we didn't need uh bail reform prisons it is total denial on our part like and it's it's crazy that

00:28:52.760 we keep it's crazy that we keep doing it because people are talking about like it's no secret

00:28:59.800 people are not not talking about you just have to watch the news every morning we all know it

00:29:05.720 having to create a law that says end leniency for non-citizens convicted of serious crimes

00:29:10.440 what the hell of course yeah i mean so so you know if if i'm if i'm sitting there you know

00:29:19.320 you you spent a lot of time mike in the movie business actually when i when i first met you

00:29:23.640 you and i met a gentleman who went and scouted sets that's right right so to me right away my

00:29:30.340 mind goes and i'm not trying to you know pretend i could fix this problem but right away my mind

00:29:34.980 goes to get the heck out there and find large uh warehouse empty buildings and rural communities

00:29:42.580 that would accept a prison or a detention center at multiple levels right remember kingston used

00:29:48.420 to have the worst offenders they used to have the badest of the bad millhaven and all of those yeah

00:29:54.020 exactly so you find areas that you can ship different levels of criminals into so you know

00:29:59.300 based on the you know the the uh type of crime and and then quite frankly and the and the and

00:30:05.700 whether you're trying to rehab them or not right that's the other thing or whether they're

00:30:09.700 rehabbable because quite frankly there does the chances of rehabbing someone who's a you know a

00:30:16.180 sociopathic murderer um you know who's killed you know eight people yeah is way different than you

00:30:24.100 know someone who just created manslaughter in a fight outside a bar right right so there's

00:30:28.820 different levels and i think that there is a certain amount of that now however the facilities

00:30:34.180 are double timing and triple timing for purpose yeah everyone's everywhere everyone's in each one

00:30:39.220 of them whether it's a detention center whether you know it's it's a prison but to me it would be

00:30:44.420 getting out there quickly now and trying to figure out not not build buildings it'd be trying to

00:30:51.220 retrofit buildings that exist to try to put people into place because you're behind the

00:30:55.940 eight ball you went into denial after covid now you're behind the eight ball you have 2400 people

00:31:01.700 coming into the system now you do this new bail uh reverse owner onerous if you actually get the

00:31:08.580 province so now here's the interesting let's play the devil advocate here yeah right you're the

00:31:14.180 province right i'm the federal government okay mike i want you to use the reverse onus uh process 0.56

00:31:22.420 for your jail reform okay right you're going to look at it and you say oh crap i don't have the

00:31:29.060 means to do this right so but what you're going to say so then you're going to what i would do

00:31:34.580 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

00:31:40.260 i'm going to make it very tough and i'm going to back up criminals out the wazoo so i'm going to

00:31:46.580 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

00:31:52.060 i've done it now where do i put them so now i would take the ball and lob it back over the fence

00:31:57.580 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

00:32:02.980 even further i would actually do it even further i need more prison money and you need to build them

00:32:06.800 yeah because i don't want the contracts who wants a prison contract think about it that's a good

00:32:12.120 you are the premier that brought prison you're the prison premier yeah right i would throw that

00:32:18.280 back to the prime minister right and say no you be the the prison prime yeah you'd be the jailer

00:32:23.880 yeah i don't want to be the jailer i don't want to be known because every one of those people you

00:32:28.360 throw in jail quite frankly has a family and they're not going to vote for you like this is

00:32:33.080 all about politics right throwing the ball back and across the fence right and no one wants it to

00:32:38.920 land on their side of the fence and where we're going to end up we're going to end up what not

00:32:44.200 doing anything again probably but i think you can't i think you can't because i think the mistake

00:32:49.560 that's made here i think where sean frazier bill c14 the mistake with that was made here

00:32:55.000 is it goes to the premiers the premiers can't ignore it now it's almost like they have to make

00:33:00.440 reverse onus so tough that bail can't be achieved right because now if you let loose

00:33:07.800 like you know and something happens it's on the province it's on the premier it's on the

00:33:12.200 that's true right now and now think about it it's closer to home before when it's in the federal

00:33:17.720 side and these crazy three-factor rules and everything the province could say well you know

00:33:23.160 it's happening because of the feds it's happening because of the criminal code right now the criminal

00:33:28.120 code's on you if it happens you're the premier of that province it's your responsibility oh the

00:33:34.120 citizens are going to be really mad right the citizens are going to be like so as soon as as

00:33:37.560 soon as uh you know jane or jimmy's parents get up crying on that mic on that hot mic and start

00:33:44.200 telling the story how your uh the the bail offender who got off came and killed their son or daughter

00:33:53.000 oh especially after you had the chance and you got new rules and you were mandated by the government

00:33:59.240 to do this no it's a tough situation it's an uh it literally puts them in a very awkward spot it

00:34:05.000 totally does yeah so now they put now if i'm sitting in their shoes i'm like i got it can't

00:34:10.280 get bill give me the money well i don't have the money where i don't why would it what what money

00:34:16.680 would i have well you either you're the one you gave me the reverse onus now you give me the money

00:34:20.280 to build the jails okay so now i've got he's already 78 billion in debt right right he's got

00:34:26.280 where's you getting the money to build my jails you can't take defense money because quite frankly

00:34:31.320 you know you got to show you got to show the g7 and you got to show nato and everyone that you

00:34:36.120 have the money to put into defense now so where are you going to get that you can't take it out of

00:34:41.640 what seniors payments we're watching you print money now when you do it so be careful exactly

00:34:47.320 you know you're going to cause inflation by actually spending more money so so now you're

00:34:51.320 you're in this kitchen we're going to increase tax like where are you so what about this the

00:34:55.040 provinces now have to okay they need more prisons yep they're going to be let's say in the current

00:35:01.580 forum they're on the hook to build those prisons not just build those prisons but maintain those

00:35:06.160 prisons staff those prisons oh yeah uh handle the loans on on property and the you know the upkeep

00:35:13.140 and expansion of those prisons now become a provincial burden what do they say per year it's

00:35:18.740 150 i i now this number may be wrong so fact check me guys it's 150 000 per inmate a year to keep an

00:35:27.060 inmate okay right so just you know i incarcerate you i put you on uh you know i give you three

00:35:32.740 years you know no no probation or whatever it is you have to spend three years you're a half million

00:35:37.620 dollar expense to the province yeah so now i'm forced to not do bail i got to get you into some

00:35:43.940 center you're costing me 150 that's an ongoing cost so like you look at the u.s the u.s that has

00:35:50.900 i don't know what's the prisoner rate mike it's crazy

00:35:58.020 yeah yeah of people in prison wow oh that's crazy so and the amount of the amount of prisoners in

00:36:06.020 the u.s is like an astronomical number right we've got 30 like 40 000 we have 40 000 people

00:36:12.100 in prison right now yeah in the u.s it's like a million people right yeah so you figure you know

00:36:17.540 150 000 times a million right you're a billion dollar ticket just on incarcerations in the u.s

00:36:24.820 is an industry so now we're 40 000 we go to a hundred thousand based on ours okay and we're

00:36:30.900 150 we're 150 000 holy cow yeah right now we're really that that's an insane number right so when

00:36:39.540 we're turning it's the next billion that the government didn't take a look at exactly so now

00:36:44.820 let's we can't predict the future on this but the one thing i will say can we just touch on the bill

00:36:49.900 for a second yeah it seems heavily porous and and leans on the provinces way too much for

00:36:56.820 interpretation i think even the the law society is saying that right then the next thing is

00:37:02.900 on that note where do you predict this ends up what can be done about this does it get adjusted

00:37:09.560 do we live with it do we live with it wrong and let it mount up this issue on a provincial basis

00:37:15.720 where do you think this goes where does it where does it go it gets lobbed back over the fence

00:37:20.920 yeah so you know now everyone's you know got their 20 22 week vacations they're off when it comes back

00:37:28.680 in the fall the first thing you're going to hear uh back to the federal government we all need

00:37:34.520 money so when they go to the end of the the premier's table when they all come with the key

00:37:38.360 issues yeah we can take care of it we can we can we have bail but now we need we need uh two billion

00:37:44.920 dollars to go build jails across the nation and we need a billion dollars a year to manage the

00:37:50.760 or 1.5 billion 1.5 we need another 1.5 so now your transfer payments for us just went up by that tick

00:37:57.560 yeah we're willing to do it but we have to do it now i don't see another option well there are

00:38:02.920 but they're i mean do we set a private private prisons do we well you know it's an interesting

00:38:09.800 it's even when you privatize it never works here no no but it's it's it's a very interesting so

00:38:15.960 you know the approach on this is very interesting right because on the liberal perspective they're

00:38:20.840 trying to leave it loose so they can get people rehabilitated and reformed and back on the street

00:38:26.120 so you know i don't want to be too onerous because quite frankly if i put the wrong person in jail for

00:38:31.480 too long it'll cause these impacts right on the conservative side they want hard and fast rules

00:38:37.560 of what you're sentencing and what you're you know when and why and how you go to jail right

00:38:43.160 makes sense yeah so which is fine yeah you look at other countries i think we have to go across

00:38:49.000 to other countries and see what's the model that's worked best in my mind quite frankly

00:38:54.600 you have to make it to the point you have to create it to the point where you display that

00:39:00.680 it's not um a holiday or a vacation for people to go to jail to get a crime yeah to put some in

00:39:08.980 do a crime that puts them in jail is it should have impact right so you know are you uh on hard

00:39:16.120 time are you are you trucked up to a mining uh mining uh community and are you going to work

00:39:22.240 every day are you on a detail are you on you know you because quite frankly right now what do we do

00:39:28.880 and forget forget the you know the sociopaths the you know the serial killers let's put those

00:39:34.640 park those those those are a tougher case you got to go kind of bury them away for the rest of their

00:39:39.680 life and they're done but you know for the car thieves and for the assaults and for those people

00:39:46.000 they're the ones who you got to take up and you got to get them to do hard so you

00:39:49.440 if all of a sudden all these people know that there's a consequence to their actions right

00:39:54.720 you know there's this this and this and it's well known through the community i'm going to think

00:39:59.680 twice before i go to do that right i'm not you want that to be the result of this yeah yeah fine

00:40:04.400 you know you can you can you know you can we just did a couple shows on it you know and the other

00:40:09.120 one that we have to address is we have to address minors in crime because that's become something

00:40:15.200 that's become more prevalent and using miners to inflict these crazy crimes on people uh whether

00:40:20.880 it's shooting a gun in their hands and then a little bit of cash and off they go and they you

00:40:25.840 know they go they get the minor offense you know status so they're they're in the minor zone you

00:40:31.600 know those are the things when you look at but if we if the consequences of their actions are known

00:40:36.480 and we publicize them and you know they they wear you know i hate to say it and a lot of people who

00:40:42.480 uh will go crazy when i say it having lived in the states and uh for 12 years and seen the way

00:40:49.060 different states treat crime when you're driving down the highway and there's a chain gang picking

00:40:54.420 up the litter and cleaning the highways in their orange jumpsuits it really does you you really

00:41:01.240 think twice about even honking your horn or doing it's amazing how that kind of message

00:41:08.640 causes you to kind of think twice when you're saying i don't want to be in that scenario oh

00:41:13.180 no i never want to creeps imagine how bad that scenario is right and that's what

00:41:17.040 and that's indoctrinated from childhood right so everyone who lives in that community

00:41:22.440 is seeing that like right in front of you they're seeing it happen you don't want to be that guy

00:41:28.840 no your parents have said you're going to end up on that chain gang out on the highway there

00:41:32.860 yeah yeah so you're told and you're seeing the live example so i you know again i like to see

00:41:39.100 the studies that show the most impactful effective way to do this and who's done this the best around

00:41:45.340 the world bring it but it's got to happen fast the problem is now see this ball that got rolling with

00:41:51.500 c14 the ball's been thrown over the fence 30 days paul 30 days it's in all these judges are going to

00:41:58.140 to start making rulings based on the reverse onus that's going to cause a bunch of other things

00:42:04.580 and when we come back if they've all made these tough rulings there's going to be a backlog of

00:42:10.460 people sitting in the system somewhere yeah either either post-trial waiting for prison

00:42:16.260 imagine that being on a waiting list for prison and or they're going to be delayed trial because

00:42:22.400 there's no place to incarcerate them on and not even if it's an obvious case even if it's like

00:42:27.660 a clear-cut case and somebody's going to go to prison for this they may find that it's delayed

00:42:32.420 way too long to even try the cases and then if i'm a police chief i'd be i'd be crying bloody

00:42:38.880 murder saying okay we did this they went there like you know i would i would be throwing the

00:42:45.940 ball because when i come to you to counsel you want me you want my officers to make a bail

00:42:51.820 determination right when after 25 years all you've done is disable our police force disable it

00:42:57.500 disabled now you want my officers my constables and my staff to make decisions with the courts

00:43:05.100 on whether somebody gets out on the streets oh no that's a pr problem for the police as well

00:43:10.040 yeah but then when i when i go when i go back when my budget's up for the following year to

00:43:15.040 get budgets done and i come back for more money and you say no

00:43:18.400 okay my officers can't oblige they can't yeah so what do you want me to do it so what they've done

00:43:26.060 is they've created the ball rolling on this is this this this gets worse now so because then

00:43:33.420 you know the council gets it they're going to go well okay i need to do a property tax increase i

00:43:39.340 got to find that money everybody's going to pay for this now you're in the middle of people's real

00:43:43.820 estate values crumbling down so those mill rates here's the interesting part this is kind of where

00:43:47.900 it all goes so where part of it goes this is the interesting rate right now so before your

00:43:52.940 home was worth x so then this we're not talking about this right now because everyone oh this

00:43:56.940 could be temporary or whatever you know you used to get your property tax based on your mill rate

00:44:00.940 based on the assessment of your home exactly now your assessment of the home you know the

00:44:04.780 the place i'm living in now right sold it the other they sold it the other day but on beside us

00:44:10.620 for half of what it was listed for right so now your valuations in that neighborhood a decent

00:44:17.100 neighborhood is actually starting to decrease now now my property tax mill rates and valuation so

00:44:23.020 at some point they got to come back because you know uh uh impact so or whoever it is it has to

00:44:29.100 come back and they have to take a look at those uh values and they're going to come back and say

00:44:35.580 oh you know all these properties are actually less than half so we have to go so then that actually

00:44:41.980 so you can increase the mill rates to try to keep the tax base but then people are going well

00:44:46.860 why is my property tax the same or more when my valuation of the asset that you're taxing me on

00:44:52.600 is decreasing so my wealth is eroded but yet you keep taxing me at the same level to keep my

00:44:58.140 services going because you created improper bail reform that you threw over the fence like it all

00:45:04.520 leads back already i already i want to fight my property tax yeah already i'm at a place where i'm

00:45:10.440 like how how am i at this place uh oh it's based on the impact evaluation oh yeah sure

00:45:16.680 And what do you do when you get those guys to come back?

00:45:19.060 It's never in your favor, I promise you.

00:45:21.340 And so now people won't even fight this increase because they know better.

00:45:25.920 But I don't think, well, I don't know if that's an interesting thing.

00:45:30.440 I think where they're going to, the challenge on the municipal level is going to come,

00:45:34.260 people are going to say no at some point.

00:45:36.120 So people are going to, they're going to vote for people that actually will agree that there's no problem.

00:45:41.740 So if I'm a politician, which we have a bunch of elections coming up,

00:45:45.680 one of the things on your municipal side you should say you have to guarantee me no property

00:45:51.640 tax increases for the next four years if you can't we can't vote for you it doesn't matter

00:45:56.880 how much you like them how much they jump up and down on the podium like a funky chicken 0.75

00:46:01.160 how much crap they do you got to say to them you got to find dollars inside the whatever 0.98

00:46:05.840 and if not you have to go back to the province or the feds and figure this out because this is a 0.99

00:46:11.820 it's a vicious circle you've created whether it be this issue with bail reform but it can't land

00:46:17.620 back on the taxpayers no it can't it can't this is something you created you messed up you ignored 1.00

00:46:24.100 you should have been addressing along the way you shouldn't have squandered the money on stupid 0.99

00:46:27.520 projects right right and and that's why you know that sorry i was going to touch sorry i was going 0.95

00:46:32.540 to touch on that the pushback to the federal government not even at the municipal level is

00:46:38.800 we needed this taken care of and you're spending money over 50 years doing this and this and your

00:46:46.560 crazy budget what this doesn't even show up paul yeah this doesn't even show up that they're going

00:46:52.340 to reform the law to put people more people in jail did not include a major project that built

00:46:58.220 more prisons in this country that i know of yeah and now let me ask you this let's say that i'm a

00:47:03.220 municipality sorry now sometimes the more we do these shows a lot the deeper we get in yeah that's

00:47:09.780 when i start to get fired up here here's the one that's got me now if i'm kingston or peterborough

00:47:15.320 or one of these in ontario uh you know sorry as my reference point is ontario do we get a special

00:47:23.420 discount on our property taxes as a prison town do we get any benefits built in who covers those

00:47:30.260 benefits or do i just get stuck with the prison in my neighborhood 10 years after i bought my house

00:47:37.140 yeah we we don't seem to you know this is an interesting uh for a whole other show but no

00:47:42.260 matter what municipality you live in from bc toronto councils and people do not seem to be

00:47:48.180 very concerned about how their uh decisions impact your property values and we see it time and time

00:47:56.100 again whether it's six plex is small that popped in my mind yeah whether it's anything that you see

00:48:00.580 right yeah all these things that they're they're you know they seem to think that they want to

00:48:04.740 densify they want to do this they want to do that put a tiny house in your driveway yeah yeah yeah

00:48:09.620 put an addition that six stories you know what i mean like all right they want to allow all these

00:48:13.700 things to happen but yet they don't want to think about what the impacts are put a prison put a

00:48:19.140 prison in your back in your town yeah good luck getting someone to buy your house right yeah so

00:48:24.820 So now you got to, that's the next hot potato that Mr. Pally says.

00:48:27.780 So, okay, you know, now here's the interesting thing

00:48:30.800 that I would actually look.

00:48:31.900 So this is probably going too far, but let's keep going, right?

00:48:37.240 Go and figure out where the crime rates are highest

00:48:39.680 and put the prison there.

00:48:40.900 I was just going to say the same thing.

00:48:42.200 No, you created, you created, you wanted density.

00:48:44.660 So, hey, Mr. Torontonian or Mr. BC or Vancouver, you know what?

00:48:49.420 You want density.

00:48:51.280 Okay, counsel, you want density.

00:48:52.660 i'm going to put the prison in the downtown course so you can look at it right now american cities do

00:48:58.220 this so this isn't something that you don't see when you're in pennsylvania and you go drive

00:49:02.820 through you do see quite frankly where there is high crime rates and they go into those communities

00:49:07.940 and they build the prison right there downtown manhattan and you see it right and like everyone

00:49:13.140 who drives by it's like oh that's the prison yeah yeah you know and it's like okay but you know what

00:49:17.920 why should some guy lives is who's basically uh or some gal who has a home in a nice community

00:49:24.620 all of a sudden get lumped with a huge prison you know that has the the air siren go off every time

00:49:31.160 there's a break or any time uh there's yeah any time there's a break and then next thing you know

00:49:37.060 they dug their way out and they're running through your city and now you have to take your children

00:49:40.940 and shelter in place three times a year and that happens quite a bit by the way why did my life 0.70

00:49:47.280 become raising arizona suddenly what happened here but i that was that was my extension on

00:49:52.820 this thought as well okay if these towns don't get a benefit from it then really the prisons

00:49:57.280 need to go where there's the most crime because that municipality or that government or that

00:50:01.580 area of a province is not maintaining the right level of safety for the community and it's too

00:50:09.040 dense yeah so guarantee right away people will pay attention to their because then all of a sudden

00:50:14.460 your real estate will values will change because people will you know not only will i figure out

00:50:19.700 my schools i'll figure out what my crime rates are by that area and i'll go well i'm not paying

00:50:24.660 that much for that and by the way i'm not moving there because there's a potential if that gets

00:50:28.200 any worse i'm going to lose more property value and because you're going to build a prison so

00:50:32.080 that that'll and what that'll do is that'll cause people who don't care right now they sure will

00:50:37.760 care are we having a crazy idea i want people to feed this back because we did a show as you might

00:50:43.760 recall about protest parks yeah and i mean that was a whimsy that you and i just went down on on

00:50:50.220 the still like the idea so do i and a lot of people did i'd like to know if you think this

00:50:55.420 one point in particular should prisons be built in high crime areas because that's what was earned

00:51:03.240 in that area by that municipality city or town i i think that's an impact that's on the way and

00:51:10.740 if it's not thought of it really needs to be considered well that's the next part of this

00:51:15.900 this whole show at the end of the day what do we come up with we need more prisons yeah so more

00:51:20.640 prisons we're short 2400 beds right now and growing yeah so at some point they got to be

00:51:26.040 built and where are they going to be built so that's the next question that's the next ball

00:51:30.120 that gets thrown back over the wall but it gets thrown into the municipals so it goes in it gets

00:51:35.120 thrown into some municipality's backyard not even the province it's going to end up in a municipality

00:51:40.280 and a partnership with the province, which is often difficult,

00:51:43.300 with a federal mandate that is different from province to province to province

00:51:48.340 based on precedent, the judges that are answering to it,

00:51:51.740 the prison space that's available.

00:51:53.780 This bill is an airburger in a lot of ways.

00:51:58.440 Wow.

00:51:58.860 But it does cause the ball to start being thrown.

00:52:01.820 It does.

00:52:02.560 Yeah.

00:52:02.760 But it's being thrown to a province standing there with no glove on going,

00:52:08.220 we're already in a situation.

00:52:10.040 How can you do this to us?

00:52:11.400 I think that that bail reform should have come with a strategic financial plan to build it out.

00:52:17.420 Of course.

00:52:18.260 Of course.

00:52:18.600 It should have been out.

00:52:19.300 It should have had a prison plan.

00:52:20.780 It should have had basically, it should have had criteria.

00:52:23.740 It should have had a scoring system.

00:52:25.920 They had enough time.

00:52:27.680 Okay.

00:52:28.000 We'll see what happens.

00:52:29.180 Thanks for talking to me about this, Paul.

00:52:30.580 Thanks.

00:52:31.120 Thanks for joining us.

True Patriot Love - July 01, 2026

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

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