Being in Canada illegally should be treated like a crime. Being poor or mentally ill should not
If it were actually illegal to be in Canada illegally, there’s no defence you can offer that explains away the fact that you were caught, say, driving a stolen car.
A newspaper column doesn’t usually provide enough real estate to get into the weeds, and I jammed a lot of issues into this week’s Toronto Star piece on “bail reform.” I apologize in advance for giving short shrift to the issues I touched upon, recognizing that the life stories of of those being processed through the judicial system can’t be encapsulated in a sentence or two.
Indeed, I could dedicate an entire column to the increasingly woke Supreme Court of Canada, and the impact that has had on lower court attitudes and decisions — none of which are good for the fans of a “tough on crime” society. No room for that this week.
What there was time for, however, is a bit of first hand “Founder Mode” research into what’s going on in our Bail Courts these days, and the bedeviling challenge presented by the following representative cases:
how do we balance the sad life of a female addict with the reality of the small business owner who has had their front plate glass window smashed and must shut their store for the rest of the day to arrange for $1,000 of repairs?
the individual who had been charged with 52 different LCBO thefts – what is it about 30 or 45 days in jail that will cure them of their need to find that next bottle of vodka the moment they’re released from a stint in prison?
the aboriginal woman who asks for her Bail hearing to be delayed so that she could return to the Vanier women’s correctional centre in Milton, Ont. to access her methadone dose?
I have no idea whether or not the individuals involved in these representative cases would have been before the Courts if they had a permanent roof over their heads, with constant access to addiction treatment and mental health supports, but it’s worth a try. That’s where our version of Austin’s Community First! Village comes into play.
As for the Javell Jackson’s and Tibor Orgona’s of this world, they serve to remind us that being a police officer is as dangerous as ever. Regardless of their specific immigration/citizenship status, these two recent cases speak to the need for us to clamp down on some weird loopholes. If it were actually illegal to be in Canada illegally, there’s no defence you can offer that explains away the fact that you were caught, say, driving a stolen car. If Ottawa won’t exercise its discretion and immediately deport people who are here illegally when they’re caught committing serious crimes, Ontario may well need to spend a few hundred million dollars on additional detention facilities near the GTA.
I don’t doubt the stories of three inmates to a cell designed for two, and it’d be a true shame if overcrowding (regardless of immigration status) means that JPs feel as though they need to grant bail more frequently than they’d like. None of this sounds unfixable, however, provided the Feds do their part.
I’ve posted the first half of this week’s column below. If you want to see how it ends, buy a print copy, use your Apple News, or subscribe to the Star online via my special discount code: www.thestar.com/informed:
I’m in the “Jail Not Bail” camp, but all one has to do is spend a day watching the gut-wrenching proceedings at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre (TRBC) to appreciate that merely doubling the number of Ontario jail cells, while necessary, won’t provide a panacea.
Simplistically, the daily fare of Ontario’s Justices of the Peace (JP) falls into two distinct types of cases: a) petty crime, where no one was hurt, or b) everything else, except for a crime involving someone violating an existing probation order, and a criminal offence where the accused is not in Canada legally.
The last category is the easiest to tackle. If you’ve intentionally overstayed your guest visa and get caught breaching the criminal code, you don’t deserve the right to the presumption of innocence in bail court. Police officers would be safer, and the court system would be streamlined, if being in Canada illegally were an actual crime under the Criminal Code.
Incredibly, it isn’t.
If the accused hasn’t already applied for refugee status, which automatically gives them the right to stay for an immigration hearing, it doesn’t really matter whether they’re guilty or not of the alleged carjacking. If you shouldn’t be here in the first place, you certainly don’t deserve bail, and Ottawa seems disinterested in utilizing its existing detention authority under the Immigration and refugee Protection Act. Common sense requires that we not risk adding to Canada’s backlog of outstanding immigration arrest warrants: 37,326 at last count.
If it were actually illegal to be in Canada illegally, there’s no defence you can offer that explains away the fact that you were caught, say, driving a stolen car. Simple legislative changes would give JPs the right to order an immediate deportation in such situations, without wasting the time of Ontario’s overburdened Superior Court – saving both the cost of incarceration and ensuring that the individual can’t reoffend while on bail.
Likewise with every accused individual who is in violation of an existing probation order: that you were caught, once again, allegedly breaking the criminal code makes it tough to presume that you’re not a threat to reoffend if granted bail yet again.
At the other end of the bail spectrum is Courtroom 102 at Jane Street and Finch Avenue, dedicated to female suspects. On the day I attended, most of the cases involved backstories that included addiction, mental health crises and homelessness.
Hit the link to read the rest of the piece.
MRM
(note: this post is an Opinion Piece)