Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks at a press conference in Kitchener, Ont., on Sept. 2.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his government is looking into livestreaming bail hearings, despite federal laws that routinely prohibit the publication of many of the details of these proceedings both to protect victims and to ensure the right of an accused to a fair trial.
At an appearance on Monday in Brockville, Ont., an hour’s drive south of Ottawa, the Premier repeated his frequent criticism that courts allow too many accused criminals out of custody before their trials and urged the federal government to fix the “broken bail system.” And he said his government was looking to open up bail hearings to public scrutiny.
“We know we need to do more to fix the broken bail system and protect our province,” Mr. Ford said. “That’s why we’re exploring new measures to bring our bail system out into the open by livestreaming bail hearings … which right now are not accessible to the public except for people who are there in-person.”
Much of what occurs in most bail hearings is subject to publication bans, which are required by provisions in the federal Criminal Code – beyond the purview of provincial law. They are routinely imposed to ensure any evidence disclosed before a trial is not heard by potential jurors, or to protect victims’ privacy.
But Mr. Ford dismissed a question about this, and said his government would move ahead.
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Boris Bytensky, a Toronto defence lawyer and the past president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, said Mr. Ford’s idea to livestream bail hearings was simply not feasible, and would be illegal under the federal Criminal Code.
“I am sure Premier Ford knows that the current state of our law would not permit bail proceedings to be broadcast, for multiple reasons. So this is not a realistic proposal that is being made,” Mr. Bytensky said in an interview.
But Mr. Bytensky said he welcomed the idea of providing the public with more information about how bail is administered, which he argues would put to rest the common refrain from politicians such as Mr. Ford that it is granted too liberally.
In his remarks on Monday at an event to mark the seeking of bidders to construct a new jail, Mr. Ford also lashed out at “bleeding heart” judges and asserted that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being applied too stringently to help criminals.
“You know, you always hear about Charter this, Charter that, Charter rights for criminals,” said Mr. Ford, who is the first Ontario Premier to use the Charter’s so-called notwithstanding clause to suspend rights. “How about Charter rights for the victims once and for all? I think I’ll keel over if I ever hear one of the judges out there say they’re going to have Charter rights for the victims that carry these crimes for a lifetime.”
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Mr. Ford said that currently, when bail is granted to a violent offender, judges and justices of the peace do not provide a written justification, and that this needed to change. This would make it easier for the public review the reasons for their decisions, he said.
He also called for the province to set up an “anonymous regional dashboard” to “identify bias, promote accountability and restore public confidence” in bail decisions. Mr. Ford has previously suggested a website where bail decisions could be tracked.
The Premier said he looked forward to discussing his changes with Ontario’s Solicitor-General, Michael Kerzner, and its Attorney-General, Doug Downey “in the coming weeks.”
Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, gearing up as MPPs return to Queen’s Park next week after an extended winter break, has made law-and-order a theme in recent days.
On Sunday, his office released a letter Mr. Downey wrote to the federal government to urge Ottawa to change the laws to make the use of pepper spray in self-defence legal and to automatically require DNA samples from sex-crime suspects under arrest.
Mr. Ford said allowing pepper spray would help women feel safe and warned Ottawa to stop “dillydallying” on bail changes.
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Ontario’s Premier has a long history of lashing out at the legal system. Last year, he labelled judicial independence “a joke,” while calling for U.S.-style elected judges. Those remarks prompted an unprecedented joint statement from the province’s top judges defending judicial independence, as well criticism from the Opposition that Mr. Ford sounded a lot like Donald Trump.
His government has already made a series of changes to the way it selects lower-court judges that critics say has undermined a long-established system meant minimize political interference. The Premier has previously said he wanted “tough” and “likeminded” judges.
At the same Monday event, Mr. Kerzner made his first public comments on Project South, the sweeping anti-corruption investigation launched last June after a failed Toronto-area hit on a corrections officer.
Mr. Kerzner said that correctional officer safety is of “paramount importance” and that the ministry has already made changes to protect staff, without providing specifics.
“On the operational side, the ministry is taking precautions to make sure that our correctional officers are safe,” he said.
With reports from Patrick White and Laura Stone