The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Canada's bail system failing?

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Canada's bail system is once again being questioned following the shooting of a police officer in Ontario's capital city last fall where the accused was out on bail at the time. The Ontario government has called on the feds to get tougher on repeat offenders, while advocacy groups have raised concerns over overcrowding in provincial jails. The Agenda invites with experts from across the board to discuss whether our bail system is failing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Matt Nethersole. And I'm Tiff Lam. From TVO Podcasts, this is Queries. This season, we're asking, when it comes to defending your beliefs, how far is too far? We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries in Good Faith,

a TVO original podcast. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Canada's bail system is once again being questioned following the shooting of a police officer in Ontario's capital city last fall, where the accused was out on bail at the time. The Ontario government has called on the feds to get tougher on repeat offenders, while

advocacy groups have raised concerns about overcrowding in provincial jails. Joining us now to discuss what reforms are needed, we welcome James Maloney. He is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada. He's also the Liberal MP for Etobicoke Lakeshore. Shakir Rahim, a lawyer and director of the Criminal Justice Program at the CCLA, that's the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Mark Baxter, President of the Police Association of Ontario. And Nicole Myers, criminologist and associate professor

in the Department of Sociology at Queens University. And let me just start, since this is our first program back in 2025, by wishing everybody a happy new year. Thank you for coming in all the way from Kingston. Indeed, very nice. And I'm happy to see you today because I've heard there are some other things happening in the nation's capital today and yet you're a Liberal member of parliament and you're

here. So we thank you for fulfilling your commitment to us. My pleasure. I'm focused on the task at hand here, Steve. Gotcha. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Shakir, your organization, and Education Trust released a report early last year to assess the current landscape of the bail system. And here are some key points.

Let's get this graphic up and I'll read along for those listening on podcast. 80% of people in Ontario jails are in pre-trial detention. 80%. It costs Ontario more than $400 a day to detain an individual. The constitutional right to a detention, 80%. It costs Ontario more than $400 a day to detain an individual. The constitutional right to a timely bail hearing is often violated due to court delays. The number of people in pretrial detention across Canada

has surpassed in custody counts prior to the pandemic. And there is still, as you may not be surprised to hear, mass incarceration and over-representation of black indigenous people in the criminal justice system. Okay, Shakir, get us started here. What prompted the CCLA to conduct this study on the bail system to begin with? Well, this was a follow-up on our 2014 report

on the bail system, where we observed many of the same trends. And one of the main reasons that we published that report and this report is the degree of misinformation and misunderstanding about how the bail system in Canada is operating. And as the statistics that you just raised point out, the reality of the bail system is quite different

than what we might read in the headlines. And the numbers you cited. Well, I think there is a narrative that system is quite different than what we might read in the headlines. And what is that? Well, I think there is a narrative that has taken hold that we have a lenient bail system, one that lets people out left, right and center. But for example, in 1982, it was around 23% of people in provincial and territorial prisons that were in pretrial detention. Now it's 80. Now it's 80% in Ontario.

What does that tell you? So it tells us that we have the opposite of a lenient bail system. There's always room for improvement. We need to care about public safety. But what we see right now across Canada, especially with overcrowding in remand facilities as well, is not a situation where bail is simply too easy to obtain

but actually quite the opposite. Let me follow up with Nicole on that. The report I believe is called Still Failing. This follow-up report, Still Failing. That's a tough title. Do you agree with it? I do. I think that we do have a system that's facing a whole lot of difficulties and failing in many ways but it may not as she just indicated. It's not necessarily failing in the ways that were commonly talked about. So we think then about sort of these relatively rare but incredibly tragic incidents that garner our attention and are deeply concerning and we need to worry about those. But when we then focus our attention on there without the context of what's going

on we miss that we incarcerate more people who are legally innocent than have been convicted and sentenced to be there. And so what we're really having people do is we're going you're innocent but we're going to have you serve a so what we're really having people do is we're going, you're innocent, but we're going to have you serve a sentence. And we're going to have you do that on the front end of the system. And this is happening to thousands and thousands of people.

And so while we may recognize that tragic things happen and maybe some decision making needed to be different in those individual cases, we can't forget to put that into the context of acknowledging that these are people's legal rights. You have a right to be presumed innocent until you've been proven guilty. If we want to sanction people, we want to punish them,

hold them accountable for what they've done, we need to convict them first. Mark, where are you coming from on this? Yeah, certainly we have a system that needs to continue to be evaluated, and that isn't working. And it's not working for Canadians. It's not working for our members that we represent.

We're continuing to see far too many offenders arrested for violent repeat offenses that are back out on the street committing an offense the next day and revictimizing the the folks in our communities and what our members you know are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and what they're hearing from the community is You know, we're arresting someone for a violent offense. We're arresting someone who continues to breach conditions

that continues to re-offend and victimize the community. We arrest them. We charge them. They're back out on the next day committing the same types of offenses. And it's becoming a real problem. And we're getting, the result is folks in their communities are really starting to feel unsafe. The thinking on this side of the table is

that 80% of the people who are in provincial jails right now are technically innocent, right? They're innocent until proven guilty, which is a very high number compared to several years ago. What's your take on that? Yeah, my take is that stricter policies for repeat and violent offenders isn't about punishing the innocent. It's really about striking a balance of protecting and safeguarding people's rights, but also protecting our communities and ensuring that folks, you know, they do have a right to bail. And there are certain rights that go with that. But we've got to carefully balance that with the safety and the security of our communities. And that's where this system continues

to be failing our communities. And we need to continue to reassess, and we need to make some changes. James, I wanted you to have a chance to listen to all the other wisdom at the table before you weighed in. How do you think it's going so far? Look, I mean, the problem is I see,

one of the big problems I see is there's rhetoric out there that distorts the perception of the reality. Because I mean everything I've heard right now is true. All five of us here in this room and everybody I know wants a safe community. I want my neighbors to feel comfortable. I want to feel when I go home I don't have to worry about some of the things we're talking about. The problem is there's so much political rhetoric out there right now that it distorts the reality. There's a capacity issue. I mean, governments need to work together.

All of us need to work together. That's where this discussion needs to focus, in my opinion, because right now you have provincial governments pointing at the federal government. You have different organizations pointing at the federal government as if the laws are all the problem. The bail laws are not the problem. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement. The problem is there is structural integrity problems with our system, whether when it comes to Crown attorneys, when it comes to penal institutions.

In my writing of Etobicoke Lakeshore, my constituents are concerned because the the West Toronto Detention Centre is way over capacity. And what does that mean? It means people who are getting out on bail who shouldn't be getting out on bail because for two reasons. There's not enough Crown attorneys to process the bail applications and there's not enough capacity in the prison to put them in because the conditions are inhumane and that's not my language. That's language that comes from judicial renderings, judicial decisions that have been released in the last few months.

And those are both areas that the provincial government has carriage of. Absolutely. So in your view, if there is a problem with bail right now, it's because Queen's Park isn't acting enough. Look, I'm not going to say it's one person's fault or the other. I'm going to say it is not constructive when you have provincial politicians going on Twitter and having press conferences every time there's

a sensational crime and blaming the federal government for the bail laws because that is factually not the case. There's a capacity issue, there's a structural integrity issue. You speak to Crown attorneys and they will tell you they don't have the capacity to conduct all these bail hearings. We heard data talked about, we need data desperately because right now in the province of Ontario we have no idea what the process is or how these things play out. So whenever we hear a story about a crime being committed and the person is out on bail,

the next question that should be asked is why did they get out on bail? What were the circumstances surrounding their bail hearing? Was there a bail hearing? And if there was, was it appealed? But we don't have that information and The province isn't forthcoming with it. And that's part of the discussion that needs to happen. And we need to sit down at the table, all of us. I'm willing to sit down with provincial representatives.

Minister Varane has invited, on more than one occasion, He's the Minister of Justice. Minister of Justice, provincial counterparts, to sit down and let's have this discussion. But they're not willing to do it. Well, I don't know if two of the people that you were referring to in that last answer about calling press conferences every time something bad happens, but there were two out of the provincial cabinet that we did invite to be with us here tonight on the program

and for whatever reason they declined our invitation. That's the Solicitor General Michael Kersner and the Associate Minister of Auto Theft and Bail Reform, Graham McGregor, who has direct access to this file, obviously. Here's what we can do. We can put this letter that Kersner, the Solicitor General, sent to the federal government and made public on the record here. And here are a couple of things that he has in mind.

Can we get this graphic up, please? Restoring mandatory minimum sentencing for serious crimes, and then removing bail availability for offenders charged with some particularly egregious offenses, for example, murder, terrorism, intimate partner violence, et cetera. Let's do a couple of more bullet points here. Introduce a three-strike rule, mandating pretrial detention

for repeat offenders, and remove credits for time served awaiting trial for repeat and violent offenders. Okay that's coming from two cabinet ministers in the province or check that from Michael Kersner the Solicitor General top law enforcement official if you like in the province what do you think of those options? Yeah I think it shows you know we we need as as you've said here we need all levels of government, we need everyone to come together to find some solutions. And it shows a willingness on the provincial government

to come to the table and say, hey, these are some of the things that we're proposing. One of the things that we have right now that when you talk about the 80% of folks in custody are awaiting a trial, part of our problem now is we have a system that in many ways incentivizes folks to stay in custody are awaiting a trial, you know, part of our problem now is we have a system that in many ways incentivizes folks to stay in custody at times. Because if they are planning on pleading guilty or they know that they're guilty of the offense

that they've been accused of, they're going to get additional credit for staying in custody. And so, you know, oftentimes, and I think a lot of people don't realize this, but oftentimes, folks will get two-for-one credit for time they spent in custody before their trial. So you like getting rid of the credit? So the credit needs to go. In terms of minimum mandatory sentences for our most serious offenses, I don't understand why we wouldn't have that and why the federal government wouldn't entertain bringing something like that back.

Well, let's find out. James? Look, I mean, I'll agree with Mark on the first point, but I don't agree that the provincial government has signaled a willingness to sit down and talk about this. The Minister of Justice, Arif Farani, has asked them, in letter, time and time again, to come and sit down. You just said right now, Steve, they refused to come on the show, or they declined the invitation. That sends a very loud message to me. It means they don't want to have these hard discussions. We're here talking about bail reform. What does the letter talk about? It talks about mandatory minimum

sentences. It talks about things other than bail. With all due respect to my provincial counterparts, they're not being completely candid and straightforward about this. They're playing the sensational card and it doesn't work. They need to sit down in a room, look, I'll come back on your show and sit down with the associate minister McGregor. I practiced law for 20 years, Steve. I know a little bit about the program or the system. I'm more than willing to sit down with him and anybody else, and I know the minister

is as well, to have these discussions, including the police and other stakeholders. But until we get past this rhetoric stage of these people having a press conference or putting out tweets and doing all this we're not going to accomplish anything other than blaming people that in large measure don't deserve the blame. Let me just get a little background here this three strikes thing that we've heard about this was a big deal in the states for a while can you tell us what that is and what the experience down south was when they did it yes so three

strikes are the end it takes different formations in different places but the idea that after a certain after three particular offenses of a particular seriousness that you're going to be automatically locked away or locked away for like very lengthy periods of time and what we're continuing to see in the United States is developing a long history of mass incarceration where they are bankrupting states by trying to pay to incarcerate all of these folks. And what the need is then to go how do we start trying to backstep and undo and this is what governments are now actively trying to do. They're

recognizing these kinds of policies cause harm and part of what the harm is is making something mandatory. What I would offer something that needs to be more tempered like a structured discretion where we can sit and have a conversation about what do we value, what do we want you to consider, how much weight do we want you to give this, maybe even hurdles that we have to meet particular thresholds before we're gonna put

somebody in custody. But as soon as you make something mandatory and take away the possibility of going below that, removing discretion, we're creating the opportunity for more injustice. Well, okay, Shakir, can I, let me just see if I can understand this better. I suspect nobody wants to put anybody in jail here for 10 years if they stole a loaf of bread on three separate occasions because they were hungry.

But if you, you know, if you sent somebody to hospital three times because you committed assaults on three separate occasions, we might very well conclude that you were too dangerous to be out on the streets. So help us understand the context here behind three strikes. Sure, Steve. I think the problem with three strike rules is it removes the opportunity to look at unique situations and considerations. You're essentially binding the hands of the judge, and we see that that leads to cases

of injustice where maybe there are circumstances we did not contemplate even for someone who might have had let's say a long period between reoffending or change life circumstances that that rule removes consideration of. But I want to just quickly touch base on two points that were previously raised in this conversation. The first is around what the Ontario government is asking for. Now we've heard that bail reform is about repeat violent offenders. But in that letter, as you noted, there is the removal of bail for all offenses entirely. So that would include people who are first-time offenders with no criminal history.

People like Umar Zameer, who was charged with a serious crime of murder, but we clearly saw that was a weak case and he was acquitted and the associate minister... Give us 20 seconds of background. Oh of course yes. Mr. Zamir was a family man. I would in downtown Toronto with his family. He was approached by two officers who were undercover, didn't know who they were, panicked, drove his car away and tragically one of those officers passed away but it was found that you that he had no criminal intent, didn't know they were officers and he was acquitted.

Now that's the kind of person where even earlier on in the prosecution it was seen that that was a weak case. In fact, the bail judge commented on that. And yet that's the kind of case with which the associate minister of bail reform has admitted their proposals would result in bail being denied for someone like Zemir. And his life was already turned upside down pretty dramatically. Absolutely.

And when you hear about proposals, like eliminating bail entirely, those clearly violate a constitutional right, Section 11E of the Charter, which grants access to reasonable bail. And so I think we have to be very careful about, we hear on one hand rhetoric about we're dealing with a very small class of repeat violent offenders, but then in the proposals that are being floated

and supported by some people at this table, we're hearing about bail as a core right, which has been part of the common law system for centuries, being removed altogether. I should just ask you, James, as a politician, you're different from everybody else at this table in as much as you work in a sometimes theatrical environment where we know that some parties in particular will play politics with a particular issue in order to get headlines from it.

You guys do it too. Everybody does it. You may not do it on this issue, but everybody does it. How do you take that out of the equation here, so that people can just focus on, as Nicole says, the context, the facts, and not so much of the theatre? That's really my point, Steve, because if you talk about the Zemir case, the Premier and the Mayor at the time both made public statements after the incident happened and they were wrong. Politicians should not be commenting on matters before the courts.

John Tory did apologize for that. I know he did, I know he did. And I have the utmost respect for John Tory. But it just shows the danger. I mean the difference between politicians and lawyers is lawyers like to have all the facts before they give an opinion. Politicians don't.

And that's acceptable in some circumstances. It's part of the political world. But when it comes to law and order issues, it's a very dangerous approach to things because it distorts the truth. It distorts the facts. And it creates the impression with the public that things aren't really the way they are. So people need to, you know, dial it

back. We need to have a dialogue back to what we were talking about earlier between all the parties and all the stakeholders and try to find a system that works. I believe the federal government has done a very good job, you know, with respect to these bail reforms since I've been in office in 2015. You know, Bill C-48, which came into effect just under a year ago now, it'll be 12 months in a couple days, was a result of consultation with provinces, with police associations, with different stakeholders, and everybody bought into it.

What kind of difference do you think it's made? Well, it's probably a little bit early to answer that question. I mean, it's probably a little bit early to answer that question. I mean, it's only been a year, but back to the political rhetoric piece. I mean, because that's the one and only piece of legislation the conservative federal conservatives ever supported and that was only because Pierre Pauli sort of boxed himself in because after he became a leader in the summer, he went public. He was on a news program and said, I'll pass that bill tomorrow. So when we went to the House in September, he said,

okay, let's pass it today. It took a couple of days, but he'd sort of cornered himself. And now they've turned around since then and they've been criticizing that very legislation, which they support and endorse. So how is that constructive when we haven't had an opportunity to sort of digest it and see how we've had an impact on the system? It doesn't help. And this is the kind of thing we need to dial back. C-48's been in for a year. Can you tell if it's working better now? Well, Steve, I think it's a little bit early to tell.

I mean, it's just under a year since it received royal assent. But the important thing to look at, I think, is going back to the rhetoric point I was making earlier. This bill is the only bill that received the support of the opposition conservatives and that was because Pierre Pauliev sort of boxed himself in to a position publicly that he then had to follow through with in the House of Commons. But ever since the bill was passed and keep in mind this bill was done in consultation with all levels of government including the

provincial government, police associations, all other stakeholders who all endorsed it wholeheartedly. But immediately, almost immediately after the bill was passed, it's received criticism from the opposition, which just goes to show you that there's a lack of sincerity when it comes to having discussions politically about bail reform. And frankly you've seen the same thing from the province as well because they've been coming out hard on further bail reform, because what they do is every time there's a crime committed that gets public attention, they jump on it and sensationalize it for their own political purposes. And it creates this impression that just simply isn't true about our system.

How do you think the bail reform act's working so far? Yeah, so it was right around a year ago this time, and we came out and we supported the changes that were made. But what we're seeing since then is we're continuing to see repeat and violent offenders in our communities victimizing folks. And it doesn't seem to be having the desired effect and impact that it didn't. I think it's important that this type of... Look, bail is a very complex issue,

and it's going to take a lot of work to get a system where our communities feel safe and we're protecting the rights of the folks that are accused. But we've got to continue to evaluate that. Yes, it's only been a year, but immediately, our members are seeing not much of a change. Folks are still getting bail too easily. Folks are still getting bail too easily that are committing violent repeat offenses.

And so those changes doesn't seem to be having the desired effect or the desired impact that we thought it would. We think we need to continue to reevaluate it and continue to make changes. Want to come back on that? Yeah, with all due respect, Mark, I mean, how can you evaluate it if you don't have data? Part of the discussions leading up to the passage of C-48 was a commitment by the provinces, including the province of Ontario, to provide data about bail hearings. We haven't seen that yet.

And it goes back to my other point. If they're not willing to sit down and talk to us about this, you can evaluate this all you want by reading articles in the newspaper, but that that's not going to that's not a proper assessment you need the data you need to know what happened to these bail hearings you need to know where the bail hearings are taking place in Brantford or in Toronto or in Northern Ontario or remote communities you don't know how the system is working because we don't have the data. Mark is your evidence systemic or is an anecdotal?

Sorry certainly anecdotal but what we can anecdotal but what we can say is that our members that are laying charges, that are in the courthouse, that are going to court, that are seeing offenders being released, revictimizing our communities, our community members are telling us that. Folks in communities are saying that they feel unsafe in their communities. That's still a problem. And so we've got to continue to look at it. I mean, you're right, it's been a year. It's hard to assess all of the data that's That's still a problem. And so we've got to continue to look at it. I mean, you're right.

It's been a year. It's hard to assess all of the data that's been happening for a year. But let's talk to the folks on the ground. Let's talk to the prosecutors. Let's talk to the police officers. Talk to the victims. OK, you made a point several minutes ago

about pretrial credits. You didn't like the fact that people who were incarcerated waiting for their trials were getting credit for time served. And you would like to see that changed. Shocker has got a view on that, which I think we need to hear as well. What's your take?

Yeah, thanks, Steve. I think it's important to understand why pretrial credit exists. So this was the most recent Supreme Court of Canada decision was R.V. Summers that established this. And it exists because the conditions in pretrial detentionrial detention are frankly horrific and we're dealing with time served by people who at the time were innocent. So when, for example, since the Toronto South Detention Centre opened in Ontario, that's a remand facility we have here, there have been 115 cases decrying the conditions of

that facility. Judges have talked about people locked down for two thirds of the 20 months that they have spent in pre-sentence custody. Judges have said that while apparently aware of the judicial concerns raised about the inhumane treatment of offenders, the ministry has seen fit to ignore them. The notion that individuals who are

in these horrific conditions are strategically gaming the system is frankly out to lunch. People are suffering in these facilities and that's why we're giving them pre-trial enhanced pre-trial credit and the time they served was time when they had not been convicted of an offense. So if we want to address that issue let's fix the conditions in our facilities first we don't have to resort to these sorts of things in order to recognize human rights abuses. I want to add to that though because there's one other reason why we're providing credit.

The appropriate level to provide people is 1.5 to 1. If the important piece is that we are trying to acknowledge fairness, that if you get released on bail and you spend that time in the community, you get sentenced to custody and somebody else does not get released on bail, that if you both were to get the same sentence, you would spend the same total number of nights in custody. Almost nobody serves their full sentence. You're released at the two-thirds point. But any time that's been spent in pre-trial detention doesn't count towards that calculation of the two-thirds point. So

if we go ahead and remove this kind of crediting that's been provided, you are now making it that for folks who are not released on bail, folks who are experiencing poverty and mental health issues, challenges with substance use, some of the most marginalized folks in our society, we can punish you more because you didn't have the social connections and the ability to be supervised out in the community than if you had been out compared to somebody else on the other side. But I think you know we're talking about folks you know first of all if you go in if you go into any courthouse in the province of Ontario right now there are

somebody today in every courthouse that is up for bail that is in custody that is seeking to have it remanded because they know that they're accumulating two for one credit. They have an idea of the sentence that they're looking at and they're going to extend their time for pre-custody so they can get credit for that when they're sentenced to whatever crime it is that they're doing. Is that well known in the system? Like are we asking them that question?

Yes, this is happening and defense lawyers do this. This happens in every courthouse. It is well known that that's what happens. Lawyers will tell us that these types of things happen. Accused folks will say this as well. The other piece to this as well is that we're talking about, when I'm talking about repeat and violent offenders, some of the most serious crimes, I think the public expects that folks aren't going to be released on bail unless

there's a sensible plan to keep the community safe, to prevent reoffending, and to ensure that the accused person is going to make an appearance in court. And far too frequently, those things aren't all happening. Are those reasonable expectations by the community? They're certainly reasonable expectations, but I think what part of our problem gets to be is we have a volume problem. When we look at how most cases are resolved, 57% of people have all of their charges withdrawn against them.

They're never convicted of what we allegedly said they did on the front end. So what this suggests to me is that we're either bringing in a lot of minor things, we're bringing in things that do not have the necessary evidence to support a conviction, or we have decided that this, again, is perhaps minor enough that we could do some kind of a diversionary piece. And so if we can think about other creative ways, how do we respond to more minor level offending so that we can focus our attention on those who are the most risky, those who present those risks.

If we have such a volume going through, we're removing the ability of people being able to make well-informed, proper decisions with the necessary information. Let me just check this with you because we're hearing the divide here. You know, there are, we can all look at the same glass of water and just see it very different ways. How do you find the sweet spot of compromise here so that everybody comes away content? Get everybody in the room. Look, Marcus said twice now he's relying on anecdotal information. So let's keep going back to data. Data drives positive outcomes. If he's saying defense attorneys are telling people this, well it's you know they're telling

that in the hallways of a courtroom in Brantford in Toronto, that doesn't help anybody achieve goals and work through the system. And it is a structural problem because if you don't have enough Crown attorneys, if you don't have enough courtroom space, if you don't have enough Crown attorneys, if you don't have enough courtroom space, if you don't have enough, you know, prison cells to put these people in, this problem only gets worse. And that's when you get in, again, into this anecdotal, sensationalistic, political rhetoric about we need to have tougher penalties,

just put them in jail because that'll solve the problem. But James, we probably can't build enough though, can we? We can never build enough courthouses, we can never have enough Crown attorneys, there's just no end to what you potentially could use. Sorry to interrupt, here's the analogy. People need to understand their jurisdictional boundaries here. Everybody knows when they're talking about health care that health care delivery is a provincial responsibility. So if you can't get a family doctor, if you're sitting for a long time in an ER,

or if you're waiting for an MRI, you know that's because there's a funding issue with the provincial government. But that's going to affect you. The medicine is not the problem, it's the integrity of the system. It's the structural integrity of the system is the problem. The judicial system is exactly the same thing.

If you don't have enough courtrooms, and if you don't have enough Crown attorneys, and you don't have enough other facilities, it's not just you and I that's affected, it's all of our neighbors and it's the entire community. It's all of my constituents in Tobaco Lakeshore and that to me is unacceptable and that's why the province has to step up. Nicole? I think the other thing that we also miss is that we have often having conversations about providing more

resources and support to police. We're putting more money into Crown attorneys into creating, you know, hiring more judges. We're not putting that same kind of money into legal aid to make sure that providing the appropriate defense counsel for those who are going through the system. And anyone who is unrepresented going through the court is going to struggle, it's going to take a longer piece of time. So if we're going to put more funding into particular areas of the criminal justice system and now acknowledge if there are more officers, we're likely talking more volume

coming in, we then have to make sure that that's in the court infrastructure is also equally supported to be able to respond and process those folks. The same thing I just said to him I could say to you there will never ever be enough money to handle all of the legal aid that's necessary right? Yes so I'd go back I guess to the earlier point about it we're bringing in a lot of minor stuff that is consuming a huge amount of resources we cannot keep up with this we have a capacity and only so many resources to be able to put into this.

Where do we want to spend that? I would say we want to be focusing on that which is serious and violent, rather than more lower level pieces. And it's not perfect, but these are choices that have to be made. Let me give you a concrete proposal that actually might require some resources, but will actually

make the system more efficient. Certain provinces in Canada have pre-charge screening. That means before the charge is formally laid a prosecutor reviews it and determines whether it should proceed through the system. And those jurisdictions, for example British Columbia, have a far lower withdrawal rate than other jurisdictions because there's not these excessive or unsupported charges clogging up the system. So there's one concrete way. Weupported charges clogging up the system. So there's one concrete way.

We don't do that in Ontario? We don't do that in Ontario. And CCLA has spoken about the merits of doing so. And I think it's something we should seriously consider in this province. Steve, I think we can have an entire episode on pre-charge consultation for charges. What I can tell you is that on the ground in British Columbia the police officers that are there, the president of the Canadian Police Association, it's from Vancouver, I'm on the National Board, we've had lots

of conversations around. The system isn't working as intended. In Guelph here in Ontario there's currently a pilot going on, I spoke to an officer just last week about it, lots and lots of challenges with that program. One example that he the officer in Guelph was telling me about is they arrest someone at night for breaching their curfew. And the Crown will say, well, listen, it's a minor breach charge, and they get released. And they don't follow through with those charges.

I think that's a completely different conversation for a whole other day. I think what we've got to do here is when we're focused on repeat and violent offenders, we've got to make sure that we've got folks are being held in custody if they pose a significant risk to the community. And let's face it, a lot of times

when folks are being arrested, there's officers wearing body worn videos. So we're arresting someone that's got a firearm on them. It's captured on the video where the officer finds the firearm on the person as an example. That person is in custody. They should be held in custody. We should get them a trial quickly You know, I you've talked about boat resourcing certainly as you said none There's never gonna be enough money to to solve all of these these problems and resourcing will always be an issue as it will in every

Every aspect of what we're talking about But I think having folks that are charged with serious violent offenses that pose significant risk to the community, they need to stop being released. Let's hold them in custody. Let's get them an expedient trial, and they can have their day in court. They say politics is the art of the possible. So we just went through this a year ago, right?

We just got the new C-48 a year ago. When can you imagine, particularly given what all is going on in Ottawa these days, when can you imagine a consensus of people coming together saying, now is the time to reopen this and make some more changes? Sorry, did you say a consensus in Ottawa? That was silly of me to say, wasn't it? Look, it comes down to, and I'm going to go back to Mark's point earlier,

and take a little bit of issue with what you said said Steve, when it comes, there'll never be enough resources. That's not a good enough answer for me, because when it comes to public safety and making sure that my community, my constituents in the Tobacco Lakeshore are safe, I'm not gonna accept that ever, because that's just not good enough. You know, I want, I want Mark to come on this show next time and talk about how the police have enough resources. Bill Blair, who's my colleague and our Minister of Defence, when he was a chief of police about 12 years ago, there are 700 less police officers in the city of Toronto now than they were when he was the chief. That is unacceptable and saying there

isn't enough resources isn't good enough for me. We need to address this and we need to address but to Mark's point about repeat violent offenders and this is where we'll part company a little bit again what you're seeing is some of the bail laws that exist the repeat violent offenders the really bad guys they aren't getting out on bail it's the the laws that have been changed were things to codify decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada to address things like systemic discrimination and whatnot. And let me end with this, there isn't a single person, I get sick and tired, and back to your point about getting a consensus in Ottawa, of people saying you're soft on crime and this and that,

anybody's gonna look me in the eye and tell me I want bad guys walking around my streets either doesn't know me or is not telling the truth And I think that goes for everybody that's why politicians have to stop doing this they have to dial back the rhetoric They have to sit down accept responsibility Here's another example, and I'm sorry for going on too long But I'm very passionate about this the auto theft issue for years I would sit down with auto manufacturers saying surely to God you guys can do something to make it harder to steal cars It's the police they have to step up and do more. You'd

sit with the police, oh it's the audio manufacturers or it's the insurance companies or it's somebody else. So you put them all in a room they'll say okay now you say that to him and you say that to her and see what they say back to you and we did that and what have we seen? We've seen some constructive outcomes auto theft is actually on the way down. There's been measures taken, steps introduced by all levels of government and police now have resources available to them to address some of these. There's still a ways to go but that's how you do it. You don't do it by sending out tweets and jumping on the political reddit bandwidth. I'll give you

the last word. We're down to our last 30 seconds. Yeah I just want to point out the problem of policy by anecdote you know and I think we've the last word. We're down to our last 30 seconds. Yeah, I just want to point out the problem of policy by anecdote, you know? And I think we've heard that here. We're talking about data on this side, numbers, statistics, pre-charged screening, people detained. And we hear, well, I've heard this story, or I've heard that story.

You know, there is an incident a few weeks ago where some individuals were arrested for firearm offenses that occurred around Queen and Sudbury streets in Toronto. And just a few weeks after that, after all the tweets and people are out on bail and all the rest of it, a high number of those firearm charges were withdrawn. So those people weren't going to face those charges anymore because there wasn't adequate evidence. If we truly share the goal of public safety, which from the CCLAs perspective we do, it's important that we look at the data and make decisions that are going to protect all of us for those who are protected by these rights and for individuals who want to ensure

that they and their families are safe. That's what we stand for. Can I ask our director to give us? Perfect. That was the shot I was looking for. A wide charge so I can thank all of you for coming from near and far to be with us here on TVO tonight for a very good discussion. Thanks so much, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.