Criminal
-
July 31, 2025
Appeal court rightly strikes down controversial phallometric testing order
Baba Ouedraogo was found guilty of a vicious sexual assault of a 15-year-old on Nov. 2, 2019.
-
July 30, 2025
StatCan reports 2024 crime data, finds 4% decrease
Statistics Canada has released a new report, “Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024,” which notes that the volume and severity of police-reported crime decreased four per cent that year after three years of consecutive increases.
-
July 30, 2025
Expert panel recommends 24 pre-1970 Supreme Court precedents for priority translation
The Supreme Court of Canada — which drew fire last year for its posting, and then removal, of some 6,000 pre-1970 untranslated (mostly English) judgments from its website — says it has started to translate some of the court’s “most significant” decisions rendered before the 1970 Official Languages Act (OLA) required all new judgments to be issued simultaneously in both official languages.
-
July 30, 2025
Provocation unproven in Manitoba murder appeal
Justin Patrick Monro, then 27, killed 37-year-old Derek Scott Sutton, but was it murder? Munro was charged with second-degree murder. A June 24, 2021, edition of the Winnipeg Free Press called it a bloody few weeks in Winnipeg, with 11 homicides in just 33 days.
-
July 29, 2025
Trudeau Liberals increased diversity of federal benches; female jurists made big gains: report
The former Trudeau government’s nine-year push for diversity in federal appointments since 2016 saw big progress for female jurists — who now make up 49 per cent of all federally appointed judges — along with significant gains for jurists who self-identify as Indigenous, racialized, ethnic, 2SLGBTQI+ or as having a disability, according to the latest information from the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.
-
July 29, 2025
N.B. funding programs for victims of gender-based violence
As part of its ongoing efforts to tackle an epidemic of gender-based violence, New Brunswick is spending millions on emergency transition programs, outreach initiatives and “second-stage” housing.
-
July 29, 2025
Applications open for Alberta Restorative Justice Grant
Applications are now open for the Alberta Restorative Justice Grant program. The province is investing $720,000 through the grant to support communities delivering restorative justice programs. This grant program supports initiatives that seek to hold offenders accountable and repair relationships damaged by crime outside the formal court system.
-
July 29, 2025
Strongly worded dissent in impaired driving case presages Supreme Court appeal
When a Court of Appeal justice dissents on a case involving a constitutional issue, it is reasonable to expect a referral to the Supreme Court of Canada. A dissent in the judgment in R. v. Westgard, 2025 SKCA 53 may lead to a consideration of whether the Criminal Code provisions requiring a motorist to provide a breath sample violate s. 8 of the Charter, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
-
July 28, 2025
SENTENCING - Sexual assault - Particular sanctions - Aboriginal offenders
Appeal by Wiens from sentence of three-years’ imprisonment and 20-year Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) order. Wiens was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious friend.
-
July 28, 2025
New report links homelessness to release from Ontario jails
Almost 10 per cent of people in Ontario experiencing homelessness went from provincial jail to life on the streets — and that number could possibly be much higher. That is according to a new report from the John Howard Society of Ontario (JHSO), From Incarceration to Encampment, which is calling for the provincial government to make a number of policy changes to ensure those numbers go down.