The Ben Mulroney Show - Ontario Premier Doug Ford takes aim at the Judges in this province

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ontario Premier Doug Ford takes aim at the Judges in this province with Guest: Joseph Neuberger, Neuberger And Partners Criminal Lawyers, host of the podcast “Not On Record” If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now, our change will honour the Supreme Court of Canada, where justice and truth have guided decisions since 1875. As the country's highest court, it plays an essential role in protecting the rights and freedoms of all Canadians. The new one-dollar coin features a semicircle of laurels, symbolising the nine judges and their enduring pursuit of justice. Find the limited edition, 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada coined today. Well then get the RBC Ion Plus Visa and earn three times the points at grocery stores and restaurants as well as on gas

EV charging daily transit streaming services digital gaming and more all the time Get the RBC Ion Plus Visa three times the points conditions apply visit RBC comm slash ion cards Well, we experienced peak Doug Ford yesterday when he went on one of his folksy rants where he was so upset, so upset over the judges of the judiciary yet again in his estimation sticking their nose in his mandate. He was elected on a mandate and yet again they come in and stymie his attempts to do what he says he was elected to do. The focus of his ire yesterday was the injunction on the bike lanes that he was elected to remove

on the main arteries in the city of Toronto. There's an injunction now that's staying this, his dream to clear up those streets and get Toronto moving. And he was not happy about it. He started musing about maybe, maybe it's time to start electing these judges. Let's listen. But why don't we have the next election, the PC party, the Liberal party, the NDP party, the Green party, and the judges party.

Because they overturn everything, right down to the bike lanes. So, you know, we get democratically elected, and some judge slaps an injunction on bike lanes. Don't the judges have anything better to do than worry about if we're taking out bike lanes or not taking out bike lanes? One judge says, yeah, not a problem. The next judge, not because of law, because of their ideology. Their ideology is thinking,

well, maybe we shouldn't take out the bike lanes. What right do they have an unelected, politically appointed judges determining their budgets? Because of the decisions the judges have made in the past,

have cost us $10 billion. And we ran on a mandate, we got elected democratically. Last time I checked, there hasn't been any judges elected. Maybe that's the problem, we should do what the US does. Let's start electing our judges, holding them accountable. And that's my rant for the day, because I've just had it. All right, as soon as we heard that yesterday, we knew it was going to be a huge topic of discussion today. For the record, I do not know enough about this to have a strong opinion. However, we've invited somebody on who knows a thing or

two about a thing or two, Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger and Partners Criminal Lawyers. He's also the host of the podcast, Not On Record. Joseph, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Ben, thank you so much for having me on. Okay, so he laid out his frustration. By the way, I share his frustration, but I don't know if his conclusion is something that I can get behind. What say you? I agree, you can't get behind that. And you know, I say this as a person who's generally a supporter of the conservative party and I'm in favor of doing something about congestion in Toronto. But there's a lot of layers here and I got to just have some laneway, pardon the pun, to talk about this.

One, the judiciary and the justice system is a branch of our democratic process to have checks on government action. That is in any civilized democratic society. It is vital that people who feel that the government has done something unconstitutional, that they have a right to sue the government, bring an application to adjudicate on that. And it's not necessarily on ideology. This judge specifically said, I got to wrap my head around the constitutional aspect, which is being brought by the plaintiffs here as to does the charter apply to this? Does it cause a risk to bicyclists, etc.? That's all he needed time.

And so that's legitimate. And you want that to play out. If the judge does not rule in favor of the government, there's an appeal system. Now let's drill down about appointments versus elected. We do not want to import US language or or systems because it doesn't work in the United States. Okay, tell me why. Okay, well first of all, the majority of judges in the United States are appointed by the federal system or even by state governors.

So let's get to whether what he said was accurate or not. There are state judges dealing with state authority and jurisdiction, that is criminal matters, family matters, and others. Many states will have appointments made by the governor and by committees set up by the governor, much similar to what we have in Ontario. And Ontario, as much as many of us were concerned, has a really good committee for appointments of judges that Doug Ford's government oversees. And they've done a relatively good job. In the United States, if a citizen feels that their constitutional

right has been violated, let's say a highway law, they can either bring an action in the state court or there's concurrent jurisdiction by a federal court and these are appointed judges. So just by saying that let's have an election of judges, that's not even accurate as to what the United States does and you do not want judges to be political entities that are beholden to a segment of your society that can then overrun the rights of minorities or push through or rubber stamp laws which trample on your liberties. All right, so Joseph, let's park the election of judges for a moment and let's talk about

the state of the judiciary right now, because that's really what Doug Ford was complaining about. He was musing about a conclusion which we don't necessarily have to deal with but what is the state of the judiciary he's claiming that they are that they are ideologically driven who who's appointing the judges that he he's taking issue with right now he is appointing judges his government is appointing judges in Ontario he appoints the judges of the Ontario Court of justice and with all due respect

three of my former colleagues in my office to associate to the law partner are all judges in ontario and they're all excellent appointment and he points tons of crown attorneys to the provincial bench and their excellent judges the committee who i've spoken to on numerous occasions are well-minded thoughtful individuals who want to make the right decision for Ontarians. They take into consideration multiple factors. Most importantly, merit.

They want to appoint people who are smart, capable, who can move cases along, who will be fair in the system. We have, I say this all the time on the podcast, I'm a criminal defense lawyer. I complain about stuff all the time, but we should be very proud in Canada of the judiciary we have. And you know what's shameful about what he said yesterday? He actually came out with proposals regarding what we've been talking about, Ben, about bail reform, which are actually pretty good because it sounds like he was listening to your show when you had me on because they're focused. I said we need to be measured.

So what he wants to do is invest in a dedicated unit of Crown attorneys who will handle serious violent criminal offenses and repeat offenders. Something we talked about. We have the guns and gangs unit. This will be like an extension. They will be tasked specifically with dealing with these types of cases, restrictive bail conditions.

No problem. If it's serious violent offenses and repeat offenders, good for you. That makes good sense. Guess what? Investment and funding of police. So the bail check units can actually go out and go to these people who are on bail and make sure they're complying with bail. And if they're not complying with bail, they're going to bring them before the courts and they can astreat the bail that's been put up and they will have enough resources to go after those sureties who haven't done their job. Ben, you and I have spoken about this many times. I think he's been listening to our show. I think he has. Joseph, I just want to talk

about because clearly Doug Ford is drawing a line in the sand as it relates to his relationship with the judiciary. Is there anything that he can do from with the powers that he has to, I don't know, create a system that makes him a little happier? No, if he does he ruins our process. If he does he erodes democracy, he erodes liberties and he will be upset with that once it hits home to family, friends or others and he does not want that. My advice would be, I understand the frustration, but your policies will get through if you

allow the system to work through it. You have excellent lawyers that you have who will go to court to litigate on behalf of the government policy, and eventually, if the judge doesn't make the ruling you want, there are appeal systems. And if you have to, God forbid, you can use the notwithstanding clause, which is something none of us are really in favor of. But he's complaining because this judge is appointed by the federal government, not necessarily a liberal appointment.

Again, many of the appointments of the liberal government and their system which is set up appoint people from various different stripes, not just those who are ideologically you know to the left or to the right so he does not want to play with our judiciary it's good it works hard some things need to be fixed within how we administer criminal law but we're getting there and like I said the measures yesterday were pretty focused and pretty balanced and I thought this was very good it's very important if if you want to express frustration, he says, I want to move Canadians forward. I want to clear up.

I'm going to do everything I can, but honor the system because it's the lack of due process in the United States, which is killing Trump's numbers. That's not a good thing. Due process is important. We need to ensure we protect it here in Canada. Joseph, last thing, let's go back to the case that led to this injunction. From what I understood and what I read, the bicycling, the people who were pro-bicycle, bike lane came with numbers, came with data, came with a case, and apparently the government came with anecdotes.

And that's one of the reasons they didn't get the ruling they wanted. Right, it's a failure to present proper evidence. They did their homework. So what they're saying is, I didn't read the brief, but I know what the general arguments were that there are a lot of people in Toronto who use their bikes on a daily basis to go to and from employment. And if they don't have bike lanes, there are statistics that say they're at risk of harm from vehicles. We know pedestrians and people on bicycles are hit by cars and God forbid killed many times. So those statistics, if you remove the bike lanes, which are there for protection of bikers,

that can have an impact on their rights under section seven of the charter to security of the person, which in essence protects them. Joseph, we gotta leave it there. Thank you, my friend. And I want to hear from you next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Time now to turn the microphone over to you, our listeners at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. In our previous segment, we talked about Doug Ford musing that maybe it's

time for judges to be elected because the status quo as he saw it yesterday was stymieing his ability to push forth his democratically elected mandate. He took great issue with that. We had a lawyer Joseph Neuberger on who said listen all the ways that doesn't make any sense. The question now to you is would you like a democratic say in who makes it to the bench? Give us a call 416-870-6400 and let's start this chat with Dean. Dean, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Yeah, good morning, Ben. I have felt for more than 30 years that all of our judges should be elected.

I don't like that they are beholden to political parties that are in power who are jam-packed, lawyers themselves. It seems like a big self-perpetuating system. They should be beholden to the unwashed masses. And I know they look down upon us, like we don't have the in-depth knowledge of the charter and all the rest is to make appropriate decisions about who should be enforcing our laws, but we do. And we're kind of tired of being treated like we, our concerns don't matter, that it's only the political party that appoints them that matters. But Dean, what do you make of the argument that Joseph Neuberger gave us in the previous segment that these judges, a lot of these judges have been appointed by this progressive conservative government.

So it's just been broken. It's a bunch of lawyers that are, not a bunch, a lot of lawyers in our governments, MPs and members of the committee and so on. They're lawyers and it's one big system they've built. I actually love his passion though because normally you could talk to Joseph about something criminally related, a porn behavior, he'd be very clinical and status-driven and this time he had passion. Oh he definitely had passion on this one, you're absolutely right. Dean, thank you so much for your call. Let's welcome Tom to the Ben Mulroney show. Oh number one, I'm not going to believe too much what your uh what your guest said because like

he's a lawyer, he probably argues cases in front of those judges so what's he going to do go there and run on the on the radio and say half these guys are idiots? He probably knows a thing or two about the about the judicial system. Well he does but he probably argues in front of these same judges so he's of course going to say good things about them but but that being said um of course they're going to bring their biases there's such a thing called judge shopping i'm sure you've heard of it. No what's judge But that being said, of course they're going to bring their biases. There's such a thing called judge shopping. I'm sure you've heard of it.

No, what's judge shopping? Well, judge shopping, your lawyer will pick a judge. Say you've got a trial, say on the 4th of September, and he says, oh no, we can't go there because that judge is da-da-da-da-da. You should take this judge here on September third of fourteenth of the people better judge for for your uh... for your if a particular problem but you know i don't think you go to the city of

people are paying attention to what goes on in the state now that's where judge shopping really happened you know they they they go there and they pick the judge that sympathetic to their car so so and uh... and they'll bring it you know if they'd but what happened to Trump. So we don't want to import that here. We don't, absolutely not. No. So I, you know, I don't know, I honestly don't know what the fix is, but it's a big problem. You know, I mean, we don't want to, probably, Lactinum is probably like your previous callers,

probably the way to go, you know, as far as being, you know, the government saying who should be in there, it's ripe for abuse. Well, thank you very much for the call. Let's welcome Eddie to the show. Eddie, do you want to be able to vote on judges? Absolutely, I do. I agree with Doug on this one because look, why is it that I can name every United States Supreme Court justice, every one of them, all nine of them, and I can't name you a single Supreme Court justice in Canada? I don't even know what a building is, where they work. I don't even know who's in charge. Who is our Supreme Court Judge, a justice, Chief Justice person? Is even that what they're called? Why are these people

hidden and they're not in the public? We're moving on our lives every day. We don't know their name. We don't know anything about them. Well, that mean you could, you could research it. You could find out. Why do I have to? They're a public person. Make their face public so that I know who they are and what they lean on. Why are they always hidden? Do you even know how these people are appointed and who appoints them? I have no idea. Our system is backwards. We need, well I agree with Dougie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the Supreme Court and what Doug's taking issue with are two separate things. And look, I don't know what to tell you. Doug is getting upset over an injunction

and I think he's right to be upset. But the fact is, from what I understand, and if I'm wrong, please call in and let me know. From what I understand, the government went in to that case ill-prepared. And that's why the injunction was thrown down. They did not show up with the data. And we would not be sitting here waiting to pull out those bike lanes had the government come That's why the injunction was thrown down. They did not show up with the data. And we would not be sitting here waiting to pull out those bike lanes had the government come correct. That seems to me that's the problem here. Not the judges.

Because the bike lane people showed up and they showed up with data and they showed up with a case and they got their injunction. Mike, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Good morning, Ben. How are you? I'm well, thank you. Awesome. You know, they say that democracy is for the people by the people, but the people are stupid. All right. We don't need to be electing, we don't need to be electing judges. Last Tuesday, I think it was Pearson's show, they had people calling in saying

that they would rather the Leafs win the Stanley Cup than have a conservative government elected. So I can't tell you. I mean these people, they live in their own little bubbles and we don't need them piping up and electing people that affect the lives of people that actually do pay attention. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Look, I defer to judges because I know how hard it is. I went to law school. I know how hard it is to be a great lawyer. And from a great lawyer, you become a judge and eventually a great judge. I know how hard that is. I was not built to be one of those people. I took a lot of great stuff out of my legal education, but I knew very early on I would

not be a lawyer. And so I appreciate that it is there is a lot that goes into becoming a lawyer and ultimately a judge and look, turning them into politicians, I don't know is the solution. Who do we have next? We've got Michael I don't know is the solution. Who do we have next? We've got Michael. Michael, welcome to the show. Good morning. Yeah, I like the idea that they're elected and they're held accountable, but look at the previous mayor's election. What, there were 101 people and a dog? And, you know, Olivia Chow had that special interest group rally around her, and that's how she got in.

I just think too many special interest groups vote and people that care don't vote. I think you're right. That's the issue. Yeah, I think you're right. We, I think we would make the system worse. I think we would end up with agenda driven politicians who are trying to get elected to become judges.

And I think we would end up with single issue judges who care about one thing and one thing only. And the people who care about those issues would come out and vote. I think you're absolutely right. I think you're onto something there. Frank, who do we have next? We got, is it Frank?

Frank, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. Good morning. The United States and in their states, they have some flexibility in how they go about in appointing and even electing judges. Some states specifically have nonpartisan commissions that actually appoint a judge, but after a certain term of service has completed,

whether it's four years, six years, eight years, they're then mandated to go through a election process. So to me, that's a pretty good check and balance that exists. And you know, in complaining about judges, there are options instead of having to appeal. There's a formal internal complaints process. You can complain formally writing to the judicial council and then you have the Chief Justice of Ontario, if it's Ontario that applies, that will actually minister and decide that complaint so I think there are sufficient safeguards in place in Ontario yeah but you know that's idea and suggestion about election electing the judge could work if they follow similar models in the United States

Frank what what do you think maybe maybe the middle ground is whatever the process is by which they they select judges, they weed them out, they interview them, maybe that needs to be changed or tweaked a little bit. Whatever questions they ask to determine whether somebody is eligible and should be on the bench, maybe maybe that formula needs to be tweaked. Yeah, Ben, that's great point. I think that what they would need is a independent legislative body

uh... with politicians from different strikes conservatives and dvd of the liberals uh... uh... hooked in with some senior judges from the duty to judiciary so there's an open forum to maybe make some rules to kind of uh... it to work out some of the problems that may exist you know during a term of a judge and what what uh... legislative framework should be followed to kind of work out some of the problems that may exist, you know, during a term of a judge and what legislative framework should be followed to kind of manage the process. Frank, we solved it, my friend. Thanks so much for calling in.

All right, let's say we got time for one more call. Stuart, give me your pitch in 30 seconds. Hi there, Ben. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate our Canadian style of justice. We have a professional judiciary. The last thing in the world we would want is to go to an American system that is tainted with politics where the judges and the district attorneys are elected. It's not our system. We don't know how to do it. I would not jump into that. Thank you very much for your call Thank you all for your calls Want to transform your space and your Sundays well home network is giving you the chance to love your home with $15,000 there can only be one winner tune in to renovation resort every Sunday and look for the codeword during the show

Then enter at home network.ca Watch and win for the code word during the show. Then enter at homenetwork.ca watch and win for your chance to win big. Amazing! The small details are the difference between winning and losing. Watch and win with Renovation Resort on Home Network.