On Jan. 9, 2023, the relative of a Richmond Hill man accused of assault, choking and breaking the terms of his probation among a total of 13 offences paid down $1,000 for a new commitment — a promise the man would follow strict rules in exchange for temporary freedom.
They put up the money needed for a new bail order, signing off as his surety. Both the man and his relative agreed he would follow a slew of conditions, including a nighttime curfew and avoiding several locations and contact with certain people.
The promise lasted barely six months before he was back in court, again.
This time, he faced a litany of new charges, ranging from theft at a grocery store and damaging the bumper of a vehicle to attempted murder and assault with a weapon.
The charges also included two more allegations that the man, whom Global News is not identifying due to a publication ban, had failed to “keep the peace” as he had promised in a previous release order.
His release and return to court is part of a pattern that police and the Ontario government say is happening across the province.
York Regional Police Deputy Chief Alvaro Almeida told Global News bail breaches had “always been troublesome” but in recent years have “progressed to the point it has become a major issue for us.”
That issue, the provincial government says, can be solved with reforms of Canada’s Criminal Code and stricter rulings by judges.
Others believe an under-resourced court system is unable to scrutinize a deluge of criminal charges adequately, letting people in danger of repeating a crime walk free.
Bail reform and auto theft
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has, for months, linked the rising issue of auto theft to violent carjackings and home invasions, demanding a reform of who is eligible for bail in Canada.
The premier has claimed a growing number of people accused of violent crimes, repeat vehicle thefts or both are being let go by judges he has said need to hand down harsher decisions.
Gregory Brown, a professor specializing in criminal justice, told Global News the issue of auto theft had put bail reform on the radar at the top table, partly due to the people it affects.
“The proliferation of these organized auto thefts has impacted on large amounts of people from very influential communities, often high-end vehicles are being targeted in neighbourhoods that have no familiarity with crime,” he said.
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“The people who are having their $100,000-plus vehicles (stolen) are obviously wealthy, influential people with links in the political sphere and able to put some pressure on the government and make this a very public issue.”
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Most recently, during an August cabinet reshuffle, Ford added new political emphasis to his reform rhetoric, appointing Brampton MPP Graham McGregor to be the government’s associate minister of auto theft and bail reform.
McGregor told Global News his goals are threefold: assessing what measures the Ford government has introduced that work; probing and improving the areas of provincial jurisdiction where the government has failed; and lobbying the federal government hard to introduce stricter bail laws.
“We’ve got scenarios where you’ve got the same criminal that’s out on bail, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times,” he said. “And it’s not right — it needs to stop.”
While Ford has repeatedly called for “like-minded judges” to be appointed who will hand down harsher sentences, McGregor said he wanted to see political reform ushered in through changes in Ottawa.
“The Criminal Code is written by politicians,” he said. “I know that we hear that politicians aren’t supposed to interfere with the judicial system — I get that. But the Criminal Code is written by politicians, specifically the politicians in Ottawa.”
Auto theft has been at the heart of the government’s presentation of the bail reform issue, and Almeida agrees they are “very closely linked.” He said the combination of the perceived low severity of the crime, combined with how simple it can be to commit, has, in his view, led to repeat offenders, who are then released.
“It is a very low-risk, high-reward crime,” he said.
“If they are led to believe and know through their associates that you will get arrested and most likely you will be released and even when you’re brought before the courts for failing to comply to breaching your conditions, that nothing’s going to happen, then where’s the deterrent?”
McGregor said he wants to see permanent scanners introduced to Canadian National rail hubs in both Brampton, which he represents, and Vaughan to search for stolen cars before they leave the Greater Toronto Area.
The newly minted minister pointed to government spending, particularly on police resources, as a success, but admitted there is more to be done in Ontario, not just at the federal level.
“A lot of good work that we’ve done already as I’ve said but certainly a lot of things that the provincial government needs to step up on and we’re keen to do that as well,” he said.
Struggling court system
Critics of the Ford government argue the solutions lie closer to home.
Krysten Wong-Tam, the Ontario NDP’s justice critic, said that stretched court resources have left Crown attorneys little time to work out whom they should fight to keep behind bars after an arrest.
They argue that, even when a case goes to trial, inadequate resources are leading to dropped convictions or expired trial timelines and letting people who have been repeatedly arrested and charged walk free.
“There has been lots of complaints — both from the legal community, legal observers, as well as victims of crime, survivors of gender-based violence, people who’ve had, you know, cars taken off their driveway — everyone is upset that it has taken a long time for these serious cases to get to trial,” Wong-Tam told Global News.
They said the government had announced a constant sprinkle of small fixes but had failed to address the actual issue.
“None of it is a sustainable solution to the inherently larger problem that we have right now, which is the underfunding of the court system, the lack of services and resources in time for the Crown attorneys to assess high-risk, low-risk,” Wong-Tam said.
Donna Kellway, president of the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association, said her members were “continually in a situation of balancing” trying to assess potential repeat offenders under difficult circumstances.
She said that, as the government — which has announced more funding for police auto theft operations and the purchase of new helicopters — increases the resources front-line cops have, an under-resourced court can act as a bottleneck.
“If a massive investigation has just taken place and a tremendous amount of resources goes into that and, as a result of that, a large group of people are arrested, then we need to be able to make sure that we have the resources to be able to get those bails properly prepared and the bail hearings taking place, it’s all of that’s for nought,” she said.
Almeida agreed.
“There’s just simply not enough court space to hold contested bail hearings,” he said.
“And therefore that’s why you see a lot of these cases where the Crown may not have the opportunity or the resources to hold the contested bail hearing, so they’re consenting to bail.”
The government doesn’t deny the suggestion that the court system is struggling with a high number of cases but says it has been spending to solve the problem.
McGregor pointed to 190 new court staff and 25 judges the government announced in May but said the issue is still “a work in progress” to ensure court is properly resourced.
“When we talk about tough on crime, generally people think about putting more police and putting more boots on the ground, and that’s critically important, that’s something that we’re doing,” he said. “But we also have to make sure that we’re giving our court system the resources they need as well.”
Brown, the criminal justice professor, agreed that “Crown attorneys are not properly resourced” and that “judicial officials are not properly resourced” but said solving the problem will prove harder than identifying it.
“I think anybody that’s working in the system in any capacity for a decade or more understands that the system the way it works now is not functioning properly,” he said.
“There’s people being released that pose a serious risk to the community, and then on the other hand inexplicably we have some people that pose very little threat and they’re being detained.”