“Justice”

A Toronto judge has taken the rare step of halting the extradition of an Ontario man to the U.S. to stand trial for child luring after finding his Charter rights were violated by law enforcement and justice officials on this side of the border.

Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas’s decision denounces the actions of the Ontario Provincial Police and provincial and federal Crown attorneys, saying their conduct “violates the community’s sense of fair play and decency and amounts to an abuse of process.”

We live in one hell of a chaotic nanny state in Canada.

On Tuesday, moments after reading an official city email warning New Westminster residents that their friendly dogs must be licensed, leashed and kept far away from others to ensure that everyone “feels safe,” I saw the news that an Ontario man caught on video trying to stab someone during a road rage incident had been arrested and released in a span of two days. He was in breach of two court conditions when he was arrested, too. But now he’s out on bail. We can’t allow a chihuahua to lunge at someone, but a knife-wielding man gets a pass. So much for that feeling of safety.

In January, the Federal Court found that the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act to respond to the protests of the self-styled freedom convoy in 2022 was not properly justified — a decision the federal government is now appealing.

At the time, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre celebrated that ruling.

“Today, in a landmark victory for the freedoms of Canadians, the Federal Court ruled that Trudeau broke the highest law in the land,” he said in a prepared statement, apparently referring to the Charter of Rights and Freedom.

CBC is getting more like Rachel Gilmore every day.

Non-citizens who commit crimes in Canada shouldn’t get discounted sentences simply so they can avoid deportation. But in the Canadian justice system, that’s exactly what happens. We are beholden to judges who believe the rules apply differently to everyone.

Pulling someone over for driving while Black — indefensible. Suspecting someone of being a shoplifter by virtue of their skin colour — unconscionable.

Toronto police chief Myron Demkiw has walked back the controversial comment that he’d been “hoping for a different outcome” in the trial of Umar Zameer, the man acquitted over the weekend of deliberately police Const. Jeffrey Northrup in the line of duty.

But he stopped short of criticizing his predecessor, former police chief James Ramer, who in the hours after the July 2, 2021, fatal collision dubbed Zameer’s actions in the plainclothes officer’s death “intentional” and “deliberate” — a position that was eventually rejected by Zameer’s jury and criticized by the judges who oversaw his case.

A jury has acquitted Umar Zameer in the death of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup, accepting that what happened in the parking garage below Nathan Phillips Square early July 2, 2021 was a horrible, tragic accident and not a crime.

On Sunday, after two days of deliberations, jurors found the 34-year-old accountant not guilty of all charges including first- and second-degree murder and manslaughter. Zameer was on trial for first-degree murder because Northrup was a police officer killed in the execution of his duties.