The Ben Mulroney Show - Our justice system is broken when people's charges are dismissed because trial takes too long

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Toronto Police Association pens a letter to Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre about four issues they want to know their positions on with Guest: Clayton Campbell , President of the Toronto Police Association -Our justice system is broken when people's charges are dismissed because trial takes too long 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

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us. And look, if you live in a big city in this country, then issues around our police, how we treat them, how we fund them, how dangerous our streets have become should be top of mind for you. And and so it is not surprising to me that during this election campaign, the Toronto Police Association has penned a letter to both Mark Carney and Pierre poliev about four issues that are very important to them.

They are looking for answers on these four questions and to talk more about the four questions and whether or not they've received any answers thus far. We're joined by Clayton Campbell, the president of the Toronto Police Association. Clayton, welcome. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Yeah, good morning, Ben. Thanks for having me. And you know, elections are a time Toronto Police Association. Clayton, welcome. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Yeah, good morning, Ben. Thanks for having me. And you know, elections are a time to discuss issues. These issues should be front and center for so many Torontonians

for so many people who, who believe that the service of the police is essential and the bravery requires commitment by by not just the, the taxpayer, but by various levels of government. So talk to me about these four questions, these four issues. Let's go through them one at a time. And the first one is about bail. Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for highlighting this.

I know, and especially with today, tariffs has kind of taken over the election, but I wanna make sure we're still talking about the issues that are important to public safety for the citizens and our members. Yeah so we put four questions to both leaders. The first one is around strengthening bail. We are seeing time and time again repeat violent offenders involved in firearm offenses and other violent offenses continually be released back into the community and causing havoc in our streets, violence, murders, shootings and other violent

offenses, and we need to protect our members and the public. So I want to hear what both parties have to say about that. Okay. And yeah, that's number one. All right. Number two is gun violence continues to be a threat to the safety of our communities. In 2024, there was a 34% increase in shootings, 52% increase in gun related homicides, it goes on. And then the question is, will you end the handgun ban and gun buyback program and redirect the resources to all police agencies, rather than focusing on legal gun owners that that one to me seems very well tailored to

the Canadian vision, the conservative vision on this. Yeah, and with any of these, I'm not about a certain political party or politics, it's really about public safety. And what we found is 85% of the guns that we seized last year, there are about 700 of them, all illegal guns, 85 were traced back to the US. And out of those 15 remaining percent, they just weren't able to trace them serial numbers were removed. So the majority of those would have been sourced back to the US. So we want to see what they have to say around stop focusing on legal gun owners and redirect that money to the border to

stop that flow of illegal firearms into our city and try to prevent some of the violence we're seeing. The third question is for decades, we have supported the families of murdered police officers Todd Bayless and Michael Sweet, as well as the families of murdered school children, Kristen French, school girls, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey, as they fight year after year to keep the offenders in custody. The existing sentencing and parole system has made this a lifelong struggle. So what are you looking for on this issue? Yeah, we're really proud. We've supported through the Tim

Danson, who's a great lawyer, supporting these families for years. And so what we have to do is every year these victims of these actual absolutely animals that have committed these heinous crimes, we have to go out and support them at parole hearings. So what we want is a high risk category just for those few serial killers, cop killers, and we want to make sure that there's changes to keep them in custody. It's disgraceful. The victims have to be re-traumatized every year. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's a re-victimization that happens when you ask them

not only to relive and relitigate their trauma, but on top of that, there is the possibility, no matter how small, that unless they are at the top of their game, unless they're able to sell everybody on how much they were hurt, that the offender could be let loose. It's horrible. Can you imagine these victims have to face these killers,

have to face Paul Bernardo, have to face the families face these cop killers that are in custody every year. It's unfair. It's not right. And these types of people should never be out of custody. And we need changes there. And we need a high risk category created for just those top few serial killers and cop killers. The final question is about staffing.

Staffing at the Toronto Police Service is at a critical level while the population has grown exponentially in the last decade, the number of police officers has gone down. Toronto has one police officer for 100 for every 171 residents less than the national average, despite being the largest city in the country. And then your question is, what is your plan to ensure the city of Toronto, the province of Ontario are adequately supported to provide our communities with appropriate police funding,

including assisting the national special events such as Pride, the Caribbean Festival and FIFA. So what, and this is a story that we have covered on this show and on this radio station. You know, this is a tricky one, because it seems to me there are a lot of there are a lot of issues that are brought to bear that lead to these these these these low numbers. Yeah, and I mean, the current Toronto Police Services Board have agreed to multi year hiring plan that we've talked about. But the reality of it is Toronto is very unique. You know, I grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario.

We didn't have Pride or Carabana or FIFA or Taylor Swift and these type of events that bring millions of people to our great city. And I think it's important that other levels of government help with this level of policing. And it would be interesting to see what both parties say about that. Have you heard anything yet from either one? So we've set a date in a few weeks to ask them for a response, but I will say this. I've had prior to the election being called, members of parliament and candidates from

the Conservative Party take the time to come and meet me. I have a unique position that I get to speak on behalf of 8,000 of my members. They're not allowed to speak publicly. I'm the only one that can. So I've been very happy to see the conservatives have come out and met me. I've been disappointed to see I haven't had anybody from any of the other parties come out and meet me and hear what our thoughts are. But my door is open and anybody can come up here and let us know their ideas. But we're looking forward to the answers to these really important questions. Yeah. And look, I think it's incumbent on all of us to have a good

faith expectation that they, they realize that when the cops talk, it's not, it's if the cops are asking for anything, it's because they want to better serve the community. It's not self-serving. They're not asking for, you know, they're not asking for anybody to top up their pension at this point. These are issues that affect frontline workers and ultimately the safety of our community. So you would hope that everyone, regardless of party affiliation, would want to get behind this. But I've got to say, you know, and I go back to the gun buyback one and focusing on legal gun owners. I don't I don't see the

Liberal Party coming on board with that, because they've really made it their stock in trade to to go after every single legal gun in the country. And they raise the specter of the massacre at the Polytechnique every year to get that done. And then despite the numbers of illegal guns that are making our streets less safe. Yeah, I agree with you. And so I can tell you a public safety when we go to the town hall meetings with local city councilors, it is always a priority. And I can tell you people in Toronto are concerned about repeat violent offenders.

They're concerned about gun violence. We're seeing it on our streets, unfortunately daily. So my job is to speak on behalf of over 8,000 people and let the politicians know this is what we believe We need to help keep Toronto safe and our members and the community all want the same thing We want healthy and safe neighborhoods where we can live and work and take our kids to school and feel safe So so what happens Clayton? What what happens if one candidate comes and checks every single box answers all four questions to the satisfaction of?

The Toronto Police Association is this? Do they do they receive an endorsement from the organization? Or are you allowed to do that? How does it work? Yeah, so we can do endorsements. And we were very proud to endorse Doug Ford in the last election. At this point, we want to do we've committed and we put in our letter to both leaders that we're going to share this with our entire membership and the community. I think our membership and the public deserve to know these answers and we're going to make sure we share it far and wide and

people can make their own decision when it comes to this election. Yeah, well, I think, I think this these are four questions. Like I said before, the four questions that should be top of mind, not just for the police, but for all of us who rely on the police. Because as I said, what you're asking is to be able to do your jobs more effectively. And the answers to these questions can determine how safe our streets ultimately are. So I want to thank you, Clayton Campbell,

very much for joining us. Although while I have you, I was talking about the the coyotes in Liberty Village. What what happens if a police officer comes in contact with a coyote? Yeah, so I mean, we have very strict laws if you know, an animal was in distress that we can put them other other misery, but we'd call animal control to come and deal with

those sorts of things. And that's what we would do. And on very, very rare circumstances, you know, God forbid a deer is injured or something on the road. We have the authority to put them out of their misery, but it's really up to animal control to deal with coyotes and other wildlife in the city. So there's no police task force that's going down to Liberty Village looking for roaming bands of coyotes. No, not that I'm aware of.

Okay, all right, good to know. Clayton Campbell, President of the Toronto Police Association. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service. Please pass on my deep appreciation to your membership. I appreciate it. Yeah, you're welcome and thanks again for sharing this important topic today. Welcome back to the show. And every now and then there's a story that we have to talk about because it just feels wrong. It

feels like something was done wrong to somebody who was trying to do right. And there's a story of a Georgia father, 24 years old, he's got three kids, three kids. And he needed to go to a job interview. This guy was going to a job interview and he's got three kids aged one, six and 10. And look, he didn't have the ability to get daycare. Obviously he's looking for a job so he probably doesn't have a lot of money.

And so he dropped off his three kids inside a McDonald's. He left them there about 4.30, came back to check on them once, and then returned finally from the job interview at just before 6.30, and was promptly arrested for leaving his three kids unaccompanied in a McDonald's. And I wanna hear from you at 416-870-6400

or 1-888-225-TALK. This to me is, he's just trying to do right. Was it a perfect scenario? Obviously not. But the question is, is 10 years old, too old, or too young to be looking after two siblings in a relatively public setting like McDonald's? Shouldn't we show sympathy to this man and on people who are just trying to do their best with the limited options that they have? I should add that when people heard this story, a GoFundMe was started to help him with all of his bills,

and I'm sure he's gonna have legal bills now. They're trying to raise $50,000. They're already at 38, almost $39,000 US. So as a matter of fact, there's an NFL X NFL player that says he's going to help this man. Like this to me is, you know, can we remember the latchkey kids of the 90s? How many kids had to just literally walk themselves through,

take the subway, walk themselves home, open their own door, cook themselves dinner and wait for their parents to come home. I mean, I'm not saying that this was the right thing to do, but I am saying it was probably the only thing he could do. What's he supposed to do? Bring a one-year-old to a job interview? He wanted to put himself in the best position

to help his family. And the fact that he had to avail himself of what I'm sure was a safe place. Look, when the cops showed up, when the cops showed up, everything was fine. Kids were just sitting there. The 10 year olds watching the one year old. And so I'd love to hear from you 416-870-6400 one triple eight two two five talk. What does your instinct tell you in this moment? Because my instinct is let the guy go. He was just trying to get a job. He didn't abandon his kids.

He was trying to provide for his kids. That's got to matter. And look, to the police officers who say I was just doing my job, God gave you the ability to be empathetic and to understand and to listen. If you're just following the letter of the law, then we don't need police, we need robots. But you're a human being, put yourself in his shoes.

I remember a story when I was on morning television that there was a single dad who had a number of young kids and he had to, at the end of the summer, he was not gonna be able to be there when they got home from school. And so during the summer months, he spent his time teaching them how to ride different buses and connect from one bus to the next.

And he had one child, I think was in like, older than 10, maybe 11, 12, 13, something like that. But the kids were fairly young. And he taught them how to ride, he taught them how to ride the transit so that they could ultimately get home from school and they could be waiting for him there when he got back from work.

And somebody saw them on the, on transit without a parent, a guardian, and called Child Protective Services. This to me is a bridge too far. Like we're all trying to do our best. I'd love to hear from you. So let's jump right in with Dan. Dan, when you hear this story,

what does your heart tell you? I feel bad for the guy. Yeah. And I feel upset that the government and everyone's sticking their nose into this. At 10 years old, I recall regularly with my parents both at work and all my friends, this was the generation, I was down on Queen and Young.

No one showed me how to use the subway, but I had to take the connecting TTC from North York, go down to Queen Street on any given day and hang out. And you remember Young Street in the 80s. It was strip joints and arcades and bars. Yeah. You know, going to the comic shop and everyone was like that. It wasn't just me, all the kids were like that.

Yeah, I mean, I was the exception because I had RCMP following me everywhere, but I completely, I empathize, I understand. It's, and thank you for the call. I think we have to remember where we came from. And again, I'm not suggesting I want this to be the rule, but can't it be exceptional? Can't we exceptionally understand

that this dad was trying to do right by his family and trying to provide for them. He wasn't abandoning them. He was showing responsibility. Let's check in with Jason. Jason is 10 years old, too young to watch over a sibling in a public place. In McDonald's with a six year old and a one year old.

I liked the previous color. I feel absolutely terrible for the guy, and I think employers should do better to encourage people who are coming in for an interview, like bring the kids in, and we'll look after them the best we can. But if he was at home, that might be a different story. But there's too many variables in a public place like McDonald's for a 10 year old to deal with a six year old and a one year old.

Yeah, look, and I take I take your point, I take your point. But I don't know enough about the story. My guess is he put them there because it was close enough to where he was going to be that he felt as comfortable as he could possibly be in that moment. Obviously, he came back to check on them once. But yeah, it's not a position I would ever want to be in myself.

He found himself in this position, and this was the decision he made. And look, I hope that, you know, we can appeal to the better angels of those who hold his fate in their hands. I would very much like to see a judge dismiss this and we could all he could move on with his life and keep the GoFundMe. He deserves it at this point. Shane, welcome to the show. What do you think? Honestly, like I said, I think it's

just gone bloody crazy, Ben. I mean, 10 years old, I was shoved out into a cornfield and started farming for my family. And well, no, it's true. You know what, 10 years old too, I was walking around the woods and the orchards were the 30, 30. Like, I mean, different times, right? My kids were left alone very young. I mean, we were out in the country on 15 acres. I mean, you got to do what you got to do.

And we're living in a world now where nobody wants to work. And this poor bastard is probably about one of a very low percentage of people who actually want to get a job and work and provide for his family and then you throw them into the system. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what the heck's going to happen to these kids? He's a single dad. And I thank you very much for the call. And look, if kids today can't look after their siblings, it's because we haven't allowed them to explore that level of responsibility. We have been bubble wrapping our kids.

And I'm not advocating to allow 10 year olds to babysit in public places. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is there has been a trend towards snowplow parents and helicopter parents. And like I said, bubble wrapping our kids because they are so, we're so afraid that they might get hurt

or they might not be able to rise to the occasion, but they can't rise to the occasion if we don't test them. And maybe for all we know, he has been training his kids. Maybe, I don't know, but let's keep the conversation going with Dina. Dina, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks for taking my call. I do feel real bad. He's trying to do right by his kids and his family,

going to the interview, but he just planned it so wrong. As somebody who does interviews, would have appreciated him calling me and saying, hey, this is my predicament. Can we postpone the interview? Do I have any options of them coming and just staying in a room? The thing is, it's a one-year old, not so much the ten-year old, but the one-year old

being there and the ten-year old being responsible. He could have reached out to church groups to see if they have any programs available to watch the kids for a while. It's just very unplanned, and I do feel bad for him. I just hope the judge is harsh on him and maybe gives him some sort of community service, a service that he could take his kids with him. Yeah, yeah, I am hopeful that this does get resolved

without him having to go into the system. That would be the worst outcome in this situation. But thank you so much for your call. And let's turn to Anna. Anna, what say you? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I feel like this guy should get a pass. If I was the police officer that showed up, I'd wait till the parent got there, if he could possibly wait and make sure the kids are safe. It's probably not the best decision the guy made,

but he was under pressure to get in. He's trying to get a job. I mean, that's some empathy and wait there and maybe have a talk with the father. Yeah. And then just let them let him let it go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he will have learned a lesson if the police show up. I don't know why they had to go the extra mile and take him into custody. But yeah, it is a shame. Let's finish up with Doug. Doug, where do you land in this debate? I'm not making apologies for the dad.

I'm saying I don't know that he had another choice. Yeah, no, I fully agree. And like you said, I hope that the system, somebody who's making his decision on his fate will take into, you know, be easier on them than probably society is. And I just wanted to note, like I'm from the Peterborough area and all of my kids, my youngest being 16, all took babysitting courses at the age of 10. And I can't remember who it was through, whether it was like the Red Cross or maybe the local Lions Club, but 10 years old,

I mean, they have a, they're kind of in that period where they're able to accept a little more responsibility and help out around with the younger children. That's my personal opinion. And I, you know, just the fact that there's a course available for kids to take a baby to learn babysitting skills. Yeah, that is, I think led to a lot of credence to maturity of it. Yeah, Doug, my both my sons took the babysitting course I wanted I want to know that once they got to a certain age, if my wife and I left the house,

we could leave them for a certain amount of time responsible. Not that we left them at 10. But we made sure they had that information. They knew what to do in an emergency. And I, I just I think that we don't give kids enough credit. Like I said, impossible situation that that found himself in. But the kids are okay. He would have learned a lesson with a rap on the on the wrist from the cops. But it is what it does. Here's hoping that as I said, they're able to appeal to the better angels of the judge and he can just go on with his life and keep the job that I hope he got.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And it wouldn't be a week if we didn't highlight something that just seems farcical in the Canadian criminal justice system. Here's a story of a real stand-up dude this guy's named Christopher Vaughn and He what did Christopher Vaughn do so he was caught with more than 70 grand in cash 400 oxycodone pills digital scales other drug paraphernalia in his apartment and What else he also had keys, allegedly holding keys to a storage locker in the same building.

What was in that storage locker? Eight kilos of cocaine and another $14,000 in cash. So you would think that the swift hand of justice would come down on this man and rain retribution on him to the benefit of society. Nope, not in Canada because apparently The the trial would have taken more than 29 months and that it was a bridge too far It violated his his rights and so now he he got a stay So to discuss this we're joined now by Joseph new burger of new burger and partners criminal lawyers

He's also the host of the podcast, Not On Record. Joseph, I chuckle at this, but I'm sure as a lawyer, you take more offense to it. Well, you know, you got to dig deep into this one because there's a number of issues at play. One, there's the Supreme Court of Canada's decision, Jordan, which was a landmark decision on delay. And the reason for that was we have systemic delay across Canada, but two or three particularly bad jurisdictions, Brampton is one of them.

So Supreme Court of Canada decided if you're going to trial, it has to be completed within 18 months in the provincial court, 30 months through the system up to including the superior court where you would go to have your trial. In this case, the Crown was delayed by at least six months, if not longer, to get core evidence to the defense, which were the search warrants and what's called ITOs, or the information to obtain, so the basis in which the warrants are made. It took a very long time for the Crown to get it to the defense, and what the Crown did, because they were worried about a trial in the Provincial Court

going over the 18-month time period, is they directed an indictment to the Superior Court. So they bypassed that to buy them extra time. That generally upset the Superior Court judge, because the Superior Court's not to be a dumping ground for the problems that the prosecution has in assembling a case and two What's the problem with just producing the disclosure within a reasonable period of time 90 days? Why why can't that happen? These are systemic issues that have to be looked at. Yeah, it's not just about this individual It's about how long will it take to actually deal with individuals who are charged, especially those who are in custody Yeah, and listen, I get it.

I understand the concept, but for this to be such a hard and fast rule, I mean, if it's not done by 18 months and if it takes 18 months and a day, then, you know, then the guy might get a get out of jail free card. I don't understand why there isn't more nuance to it and appreciation. Okay, well, what is he charged with? Why is it? Why does it have to be such a hard and fast rule? Why is it black and white? So that's that's a brilliant comment. Because prior to Jordan, that's exactly what we had. We had a number of cases.

And when you put it together, there had to be a calculus and a general analysis of the complexity of the case, the prejudice to the accused, the overall time that it took to get to trial, and it would vary. If it was a simple impaired driving case or a domestic case, it would be different than a complex drug case or a homicide. So we have to have this analysis and then weighing in on what was the prejudice actually to the accused, and then you didn't have as many stays of proceedings because there was not this red line of delay.

Why did this happen? Well, the Supreme Court of Canada felt there was too much systemic delay across the board and the only way to motivate prosecuting authorities and the courts to move the cases along was to create this bright line. I think things were working just fine under the old regime and the old case law and I think this has caused too much mischief, which is now really upsetting the public. Yeah.

And so what happens, how, okay, let's assume that somebody wants to rectify this. Does it have to be rectified by the court itself, by the Supreme Court itself, seeing as how they were the ones who ultimately made that decision in Jordan? The best way for this to be litigated and dealt with is to have it go through a system on appeal

So the Crown could very well appeal this decision get it to the Court of Appeal Court of Appeal might say no the stay was not appropriate because it was just under the 30-month mark Then you could have an appeal up to Supreme Court of Canada and give the Supreme Court of Canada the opportunity now To either tweak the Jordan decision or somehow amend the analysis to take into consideration more nuanced complexities of cases to extend that time period. I think that's the best way to do it. Of course, you know, the federal government could intervene on this, but this is this is something I think is much better left to the courts to decide.

Absolutely. Well, listen, before we let you go, Joseph, I'd love to get your take on a story that we were talking about in our previous segment about this father of three, this 24-year-old man, father of three, it's Georgia. I get that it's the United States. But he left his kids 10, 4, and 10, 6, and 10, 1, 6, and 10 in a McDonald's while he went on a job interview. And when he came back and they were fine, he was arrested.

I wonder what, just as someone with a legal background, maybe not American, what are your thoughts on this? Well, as an avid listener of your show, I was listening and I was getting upset. And I liked one of your callers in which she said, you know, let the police officer stay there with the children when the father comes back, have a discussion with him.

And maybe there could be some further educational remedial steps taken by social services to have a discussion with them, check on the children at home, but don't arrest them. Don't bring them into custody. Don't put the children at risk of not having a father. This is, this is far too much overreach, far too harsh. And the poor guy is literally trying to get a job to support his family. So I think it's shameful. Joseph Numenberger, I really appreciate your take on both these issues. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure, Ben. Take care. Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance

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