Western Standard - January 12, 2023


Justice system reform must become a priority in Canada

Topics
waiting for trial justice system reform
Mentioned
Ty Northcott
MPC Daily Market Update Jan 11, 2023 Federal government just transition policy

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

216.91

Word count

879

Sentence count

51

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Justice delayed is justice denied. You might be familiar with the saying, Justice delayed is Justice denied . In Canada, the waiting list to get on trial is becoming unreasonable by any interpretation. A trial has been scheduled for April 2024 for three men who were charged with mischief for their alleged role in the Coutts border blockade during a trucker's convoy protest last year. That will be 26 months after the alleged offense.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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.
00:00:00.400 You might be familiar with the saying, justice delayed is justice denied.
00:00:05.520 And I mean, it's an apt saying. It's a good one.
00:00:08.100 I was speaking actually to Ty Northcott last night.
00:00:10.760 You might remember him.
00:00:11.980 He ran the big illegal rodeo in Alberta during the COVID restrictions.
00:00:15.940 Well, his next court date over that is coming up in this June.
00:00:20.800 That'll be more than two years since the rodeo was held, I believe.
00:00:25.100 And who knows how long before that's all finished.
00:00:27.620 Now, Section 11 of the Charter covers the rights for people who've been charged with offenses.
00:00:33.200 Subsection B states the person has a right to be tried within a reasonable time.
00:00:37.440 Now, reasonable, that's a subject, is a subjective term and it's open to interpretation.
00:00:42.100 In Canada, the waiting list to get on trial, though, is becoming unreasonable by any interpretation.
00:00:47.720 A trial has been scheduled for April 2024 for three men who were charged with mischief over 5,000
00:00:54.100 for their alleged roles in the Coutts border blockade.
00:00:56.680 During the trucker's convoy protest last year.
00:00:58.860 That will be 26 months after the alleged offense.
00:01:02.120 Now, while the term mischief makes the charge sound minor, the men charged could be sentenced
00:01:06.140 to as long as 10 years for that offense.
00:01:08.560 So is it fair or humane to keep them waiting for over two years with such penalties hanging
00:01:12.660 over their heads?
00:01:13.660 I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of whether or not the charges against these particular
00:01:16.460 men or the potential sentence is appropriate.
00:01:18.560 That's a separate issue for a separate show.
00:01:20.140 Well, they are entitled to defend themselves in a court in a timely manner, though, and
00:01:24.700 they won't be getting that.
00:01:26.420 In 2016, the Supreme Court in Canada put its foot down and set a ceiling of 30 months for
00:01:31.560 superior court trials and 18 months for provincial court.
00:01:34.660 Yeah, those numbers represented what the Supreme Court wanted to bring the times down to at that
00:01:38.460 time.
00:01:39.120 Now, when a person is awaiting trial, their life is in limbo.
00:01:42.120 They aren't convicted of anything, yet they're living under limitations.
00:01:45.420 They might be held in remand for that period, or they might be released with bail conditions.
00:01:49.560 They usually can't legally travel, and they certainly can't make any long-term life plans
00:01:53.420 when they don't know if they're going to be incarcerated for a period of time in the future.
00:01:57.240 Now, in a system where this person is presumed innocent, they're enduring quite a bit of
00:02:00.920 punishment before they have a chance to try and prove their innocence.
00:02:04.460 These weights also, of course, increase pressure upon people charged to plea down to lesser offenses
00:02:09.360 just to get it all over with.
00:02:10.740 It's a pretty rough choice to make if you believe yourself to be innocent.
00:02:13.160 Now, of course, not everybody waiting for trial is innocent.
00:02:16.160 I mean, most of them are probably guilty.
00:02:18.300 Due to the long waits for these trials, though, the resources in remand and such are becoming
00:02:22.520 scarce.
00:02:23.480 Criminals that should have been considered too dangerous for bail are often released due 0.80
00:02:28.580 to pressures to relieve remand space.
00:02:31.840 Prosecutors and judges, again, they're more inclined to pursue plea bargains to try and
00:02:35.100 catch up with some of the backlog as well.
00:02:36.780 So some terribly dangerous people are getting light sentences due to this.
00:02:40.620 Now, justice reform rarely becomes an election issue, but it really should.
00:02:45.640 The government is too big and intrudes into our lives in way too many ways as it is, but
00:02:49.640 one area that they should be involved in is justice.
00:02:51.820 Policing and justice are clear areas where we need government authority, and we're starving
00:02:56.060 for both of them.
00:02:57.040 The protection of the public for crime should be a prime priority for governments, and
00:03:01.300 they're failing.
00:03:02.260 We need to increase expenditures and expand our criminal trial ability.
00:03:05.860 I mean, justice reform, yeah, it just isn't a flashy issue, and it isn't an easy way to
00:03:10.220 deal with.
00:03:10.600 Solutions to the backlogs in the court system, they aren't going to come fast.
00:03:13.840 Recruiting and retaining more prosecutors, public defenders, and judges can't be done
00:03:17.460 overnight, and it won't come cheap.
00:03:18.980 But it has to be done all the same.
00:03:21.000 Currently, the system is failing.
00:03:22.620 Citizens charged with crimes and citizens, it's failing the citizens who have been charged
00:03:26.380 with crimes.
00:03:26.820 It's failing the citizens who want to be protected from the criminals.
00:03:29.380 I mean, if the government can't maintain even a justice system, what the hell good is
00:03:32.440 it is, it's failing the citizens who want to be protected from the people who want to
00:03:36.800 be protected from the people who want to be protected from the people who want to be
00:03:37.800 protected from the people who want to be protected from the people who want to be protected from
00:03:38.800 the people.
00:03:39.800 These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms, regulations
00:03:45.360 and legislation in Canada, and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out
00:03:51.100 of the hands of the wrong people.
00:03:52.440 If you become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.
00:03:55.440 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited
00:04:02.540 access.