Jail and bail reform is the only effective way to protect the public from repeat, violent offenders, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Commissioner Thomas Carrique told a federal justice committee Wednesday.
“The public’s right to be protected from these offenders must be given far greater weight than is currently the case when bail matters are considered,” he said.
Carrique called for the committee to expand reverse onus provisions for firearms possession offences so that “repeat violent offenders, or serious prolific offenders” have to satisfy public safety considerations before being granted bail.
“The onus clearly should be on the accused to show why they should not be detained,” said the police officer. “We are talking about a very select number of repeat violent offenders who have a criminal history of committing violent crimes and using firearms in the commission of those offences.”
“If you stop and talk to any police officer in any community across this country, they will tell you that their top priority is to see bail reform. We owe it to each and every one of them, we owe it to victims of violent crime, we owe it to victims of intimate partner violence to make these changes,” Carrique told the committee.
“I strongly believe our officers, the very ones who protect our families and communities and Canadians alike deserve to be safeguarded against the repeat violent offenders who are charged with violent weapons-related offences while awaiting trial,” he said.
He said the bail reforms he was recommending were “responsibly focused” and could be done immediately and very effectively, and might have prevented the death of rookie OPP Constable Grzegorz Pierzchala, who was shot and killed while responding to a routine call about a vehicle in a ditch near Hagersville, Ontario, on Dec. 27, 2022.
Carrique said Randall McKenzie, the suspect charged with first-degree murder in the death of the constable, is a repeat, violent offender convicted of violent weapons-related offenses. He had already shown “a concerning pattern of noncompliance with previous weapons and firearms-related prohibitions and other court-imposed conditions,” noted Carrique.
McKenzie was on bail while awaiting trial for additional violent weapons-related charges, including assaulting three victims, one of which was a peace officer. He had a warrant out for his arrest at the time of Pierzchala’s murder and was being pursued by two different police jurisdictions, the committee heard.
Carrique told the committee McKenzie had criminal convictions for armed robbery using a firearm, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon, and assault, and a record of five previous convictions for failing to comply with court orders. McKenzie had cut off and discarded his GPS ankle monitor device while on bail, and had broken existing court conditions that required him to only go out with his mother for court appearances or to attend at his lawyer’s office.
“Despite all this, he was released on bail,” said Carrique. McKenzie had already been under “a five-year weapons prohibition in 2015, a ten-year weapons prohibition in 2016, another 10-year weapons and lifetime firearm prohibition in 2018.”
This was not the only instance of a repeat, violent offender re-offending. Carrique said that between 2018 and the end of 2022, the Ontario police saw a 72 percent increase in cases of serious violence involving accused individuals reoffending while on release for previous serious offences.
“I think those statistics speak for themselves,” the officer told the committee.
Carrique recommended that legislation be introduced that defines a “repeat violent offender” as one with “a distinct pattern of violent criminal behavior that have led to criminal convictions before the courts and evidence of convictions of having used weapons and or firearms in the commission of those offences.”
