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Crime

Canada’s justice system struggling to fight crime amid highest murder rate in 30 years: report

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7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Canada’s murder rate has increased every year from 2018 to 2022, including by 8% from 2021 to 2022, and the police-reported rate for sexual assault is at its highest level since 1995, research indicates.

A well-known Ottawa think tank warned in a recent report on crime that Canada’s justice system is unable to keep up with out-of-control crime that has risen sharply in the last few decades to the point where the national murder rate at its highest in 30 years.

According to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s “Report on the Criminal Justice System” released last month, Canada’s violent crime severity is at its highest level since 2007.

“Canada’s criminal justice system is clearly performing worse than it was six years ago,” the report concluded. “There remains a need for ongoing independent monitoring and performance measurement of the criminal justice system in Canada.”

In 2021, the violent crime rate increased by 6%. In 2022, the rate went up another 5%.

According to researchers, Canada’s murder rate has increased “every year” from 2018 to 2022, “including by 8% from 2021 to 2022.”

“The current homicide rate is the highest it has been in 30 years, and the police-reported rate for sexual assault is at its highest level since 1995,” researchers described.

The Institute’s report card on crime in Canada goes through each province and territory, noting that every level of government “bears a portion of the costs of criminality and each level of government therefore has an interest in its suppression.”

Since 2017, when the last report card was released, some provinces have done better and others have gotten worse. For example, Alberta’s overall positive ranking has gone up (less crime) and Ontario’s has gone down (more crime). The provinces with the most violent crime in terms of rates per population were Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The report found that violent crime in the last five years went up overall, with the “proportion of “Canadians who express confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system is troublingly low.”

The report also noted that confidence in “police and the justice system are worryingly low.”

“And no wonder: The combination of plunging clearance rates and an increasing number of cases stayed or gives the perception of a justice system that has given up on its core responsibilities,” according to the report, which also noted that one of the biggest issues “with fairness in Canada’s criminal justice system is the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in incarceration.”

“Since 1995, the Criminal Code of Canada has required courts to consider all available sanctions other than imprisonment, especially when it comes to Indigenous offenders.”

It should be noted that Canada’s Supreme Court said in 2012 that lower courts must “must take judicial notice” of the history of “colonialism, displacement, and residential schools” when sentencing Indigenous people.

However, the reality is that Indigenous people jailed for committing crimes is extremely high proportionally in western Canada and Ontario.

When it comes to the overall justice system in Canada, it scored low in terms of efficiency.

“The percentage of cases stayed or withdrawn increased in every single province and territory since 2017, as has the median criminal case length,” the report noted.

Also, crimes have been solved at a lower rate in 2023 compared with previous years, as more cases were stayed or withdrawn.

“Our criminal justice system has unquestionably become less efficient over the last five years despite the introduction of measures designed to enhance the expedient dispensation of justice,” the report states.

“For the most part, the story is not a positive one. On all five of the broad criminal justice objectives, the system is not performing as most would hope, and the situation appears to be deteriorating,” the report concluded.

Crime on the rise in Canada under Trudeau

In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed Bill C-75, which in effect created a “catch and release bail system,” according to pundits and the opposition Conservative Party.

As a result, Canada has seen in recent years a sharp increase in auto thefts from organized crime groups, who have taken advantage of weak sentencing for those caught committing theft.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre recently blasted Trudeau for the rise in auto theft, blaming his soft stance on criminals.

“After eight years of Justin Trudeau, car thefts are up 300% in Toronto and 100% in Ottawa and Montreal. Nationally, car thefts are up by more than a third since his Liberal government took office,” Poilievre said.

Last week, Poilievre promised that a Conservative government would “go after the real criminals by restoring jail not bail for repeat violent offenders and career car thieves.”

“It’s not the courts that have turned loose criminals and allowed this crime wave, it’s Justin Trudeau. It was not the courts that passed C-75, the catch and release bail system, it was Justin Trudeau. It was not the courts that brought in house arrest for repeat car thieves in C-5, it was Justin Trudeau,” Poilievre said.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported that Statistics Canada data shows most violent gun crimes in the country last year were not committed at the hands of legal gun owners but by those who obtained the weapons illegally. This comes despite the federal government cracking down on legal gun owners.

Crime against Christian churches has risen sharply in the past two years, with approximately 100 churches to date having been set on fire or vandalized, with almost no arrests made. That fact has prompted Poilievre to call out Trudeau for being silent on the church burnings.

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Canada’s struggle against transnational crime & money laundering

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From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute

By Alex Dalziel and Jamie Ferrill

In this episode of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Inside Policy Talks podcast, Senior Fellow and National Security Project Lead Alex Dalziel explores the underreported issue of trade-based money laundering (TBML) with Dr. Jamie Ferrill, the head of financial crime studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia and a former Canada Border Services Agency officer.

The discussion focuses on how organized crime groups use global trade transactions to disguise illicit proceeds and the threat this presents to the Canada’s trade relationship with the US and beyond.

Definition of TBML: Trade-based money laundering disguises criminal proceeds by moving value through trade transactions instead of transferring physical cash. Criminals (usually) exploit international trade by  manipulating trade documents, engaging in phantom shipping, and altering invoices to disguise illicit funds as legitimate commerce, bypassing conventional financial scrutiny. As Dr. Ferrill explains, “we have dirty money that’s been generated through things like drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, sex trafficking, and that money needs to be cleaned in one way or another. Trade is one of the ways that that’s done.”

A Pervasive Problem: TBML is challenging to detect due to the vast scale and complexity of global trade, making it an attractive channel for organized crime groups. Although global estimates are imprecise, the Financial Action Task Force and The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) suggests 2-5% of GDP could be tied to money laundering, representing trillions of dollars annually. In Canada, this could mean over $70 billion in potentially laundered funds each year. Despite the scope of TBML, Canada has seen no successful prosecutions for criminal money laundering through trade, highlighting significant gaps in identifying, investigating and prosecuting these complex cases.

Canada’s Vulnerabilities: Along with the sheer volume and complexity of global trade, Canada’s vulnerabilities stem from gaps in anti-money laundering regulation, particularly in high-risk sectors like real estate, luxury goods, and legal services, where criminals exploit weak oversight. Global trade exemplifies the vulnerabilities in oversight, where gaps and limited controls create substantial opportunities for money laundering. A lack of comprehensive export controls also limits Canada’s ability to monitor goods leaving the country effectively. Dr. Ferrill notes that “If we’re seen as this weak link in the process, that’s going to have significant implications on trade partnerships,” underscoring the potential political risks to bilateral trade if Canada fails to address these issues.

International and Private Sector Cooperation: Combating TBML effectively requires strong international cooperation, particularly between Canada and key trade partners like the U.S. The private sector—including freight forwarders, customs brokers, and financial institutions—plays a crucial role in spotting suspicious activities along the supply chain. As Dr. Ferrill emphasizes, “Canada and the U.S. can definitely work together more efficiently and effectively to share and then come up with some better strategies,” pointing to the need for increased collaboration to strengthen oversight and disrupt these transnational crime networks.


Looking to further understand the threat of transnational organized crime to Canada’s borders?

Check out Inside Policy Talks recent podcasts with Christian LeuprechtTodd Hataley  and Alan Bersin.

To learn more about Dr. Ferrill’s research on TBML, check out her chapter in Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada.

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Crime

Trudeau’s pro-transgender regime is a get-out-of-jail-free card for Canada’s most violent criminals

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Canada’s most dangerous criminals are being sent to women’s prisons simply by identifying as such. This can only happen because the country is run by people like Justin Trudeau, who believes gender ideology with every fibre of his being.

You’ve probably heard plenty from Justin Trudeau and his progressive clones about conservative premiers “attacking” and “targeting” the so-called “LGBT community” for legislation protecting children from sex change surgeries. But you won’t hear a word about the victims of LGBT ideology – and you won’t hear a thing about the growing list of insanities inflicted on Canada by the policies they have passed and supported. 

Consider the case of Adam Laboucan, who as a teenager brutally raped a 3-month-old infant and allegedly drowned a toddler – he was convicted only of the violent pedophilic assault, because he was less than 12 years old when he drowned the 3-year-old boy, and under Canadian law you must be at least 12 to be prosecuted. 

Laboucan’s case – which LifeSiteNews reported on last year – was so disturbing that he became Canada’s “youngest designated dangerous offender.”  

Now, according to The Canadian Press, Laboucan is “seeking escorted leave from prison to attend Indigenous cultural ceremonies in Vancouver.” You see, Adam Laboucan has changed his name. He is now known as Tara Desousa, and the CP obediently refers to him by his preferred pronouns, leading to ludicrous sentences such as this one: 

Desousa, then named Adam Laboucan, was 15 years old in 1997 when she sexually assaulted an infant she was babysitting in Quesnel, B.C. The baby required surgery to repair the injuries.

Laboucan, of course, was not a woman when he attacked the infant and drowned the child. He is not a woman now, despite having obtained sex change surgeries since then (he is 43). He is considered so dangerous that B.C. Supreme Court Judge Victor Curtis imposed an indefinite sentence on him in 1999 because there was, in the view of the court, no foreseeable “time span in which Adam Laboucan may be cured.” The B.C. Court of Appeal affirmed the dangerous offender designation in 2002. 

They did so for good reason. Expert psychiatrists stated that Laboucan exhibited everything from “transsexual to pedophilic tendencies.” He was given to self-mutilation and even self-cannibalism. He was promiscuous and volatile, threatening to kill a female guard and behaving so erratically that a 2010 parole review again affirmed his dangerous offender designation due to his problems with “gender identity, impulsive behavior, violence and sexual deviance.” But in 2018, he began to identify as a woman. As LifeSiteNews reported shortly thereafter:  

In a 2021 brief to members of the House of Commons, incarcerated women’s rights advocate Heather Mason told a House Committee that numerous women prisoners had been subject to sexual harassment by males who call themselves females who are living in female prisons. Mason made special mention of Laboucan (Desousa) stating: “One of these women reported that while in the mother-child program, two transgender individuals with convictions for pedophilia, Madilyn Harks and Tara Desousa, would loiter near her and her child, making sexist and inappropriate antagonizing comments.” The person who calls himself Madilyn but was named Matthew has been labelled a serial pedophile with an “all-encompassing preoccupation in sexually abusing young girls.”

Note well: the reason one of Canada’s most dangerous criminals, a man with violent pedophilic impulses and a history of profound mental disturbance, can get sent to a women’s prison is because our country is run by people like Trudeau, who believes gender ideology with every fibre of his being. 

Laboucan’s most recent attempt at parole – in June 2024– was denied, with the Parole Board of Canada stating that that the victim of Laboucan’s assault and the family “have suffered pain, anxiety and anguish and long-term emotional impacts resulting from your offending. Each time you come up for parole, they are haunted by your offending and the damage you inflicted on their defenceless son/grandson.” 

Of course, the government now expects you to believe that these crimes were committed by a woman – and the board did say that “escorted temporary absences” were “the next logical step in reintegration and gradual release,” despite the fact that he is “an undue risk to society.”

Laboucan’s Vancouver-based lawyer, Caroline North, declined to comment on the Federal Court application when asked by the Canadian Press. 

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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