If Randall McKenzie hadn\u0027t been Indigenous, he wouldn\u0027t have been out. And he wouldn\u0027t have ambushed and allegedly killed a white cop.
that the best comprehensive solution to Canada’s bail conundrum is to light a giant fire under this country’s glacial justice system. Locking people up before they’ve been found guilty should always give us pause, but if it’s a few weeks rather than months on end, it’s much less ethically fraught. Still, special treatment for some groups of accused offenders would be baked in, and that’s pretty darned fraught as well.
Setting aside basic notions of fairness, the most obvious problem concerns potential victims. Under the Criminal Code, “protection or safety of the public, including any victim or witness” is a stated reason for denying bail.
Indeed, the “Gladue principles” are named after Cree-Métis woman Jamie Tanis Gladue, who stabbed her common-law husband to death in 1995 in Nanaimo, B.C. You very rarely hear the victim’s name: Reuben Beaver, also Cree.
There are those who believe pretty much every Indigenous offender and every crime he or she commits is motivated to some extent by the multi-generational scars of colonialism — even when the victims are themselves Indigenous. There are those who believe that’s bunkum. There are many people, like me, in the middle. To my mind it’s obvious there are Canadians of all races whose upbringings were essentially engraved invitations to future criminality.
But, in addition to ensuring the accused show up for their court dates and the protection of public safety, the Criminal Code provides another criterion for denying bail: “If the detention is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.” Judges have some downright psychedelic ideas as to what instills confidence in Canadians and what doesn’t. Justice ministers, however, tend to be more clear-eyed.
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