
New Legislation
At the end of March, the Liberal government tabled Bill C-75 in the house of Commons outlining major criminal justice reforms. While some aspects of the bill seemed positive, like the promises to speed up the trial process, other measures introduced were taken straight from the identity politics playbook, and threaten to undermine the objectivity and impartiality of the Canadian judicial system itself.
The most questionable item in the legislation was the complete removal of peremptory challenges in the juror selection process from the Criminal Code. This provision used to allow lawyers to remove a potential juror without giving reasons. The government's justification for this move was likely in response to the Colten Boushie trial, where many left-leaning activists felt the predominantly white jury were overtly racist in their decision to acquit Gerald Stanley.












Comment: Update - The following story from February was brought to our attention by Twitter user @ThinGrayLine01, and is a good illustration of how a different set of rules is now being applied to so-called 'marginalized' groups within the Canadian court system.
Ontario judge strikes down mandatory minimum sentence for Indigenous offender