The ReeveLaw Blog

There has been a recent increase locally in scams related to tax collection by suspects claiming to be police officers. Suspects advise victims by telephone that they have an overdue amount of taxes owed to Canada Revenue Agency and threaten that if they don’t pay, police will attend at their door and arrest them. York Regional Police do not engage in tax collection of any type. Don’t be scared and don’t be scammed. Just hang up.

The situation inside correctional facilities (i.e. jails) across the province “has gotten out of control.” The frequency of lockdowns are soaring. “It’s not a safe environment for anybody, the offenders or the staff.” During a lockdown the inmates are confined to their cell. They are prevented from seeing legal counsel and family, attending court, accessing medication, attending rehab and addiction programs and even food and showering. Rehabilitative programming such as anger management courses, addiction treatments and Bible studies are shut down during lockdowns. Some lockdowns can last a day or several days. Eventually they constitute a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

Prisoners, battling in court, say they’re deprived of hygiene, treatment, and outside contacts even before looming strike by corrections officers.

Source: ‘Astounding’ number of lockdowns at Maplehurst Correctional Complex | Toronto Star

Very few are “throw away kids”. Read this and feel the reality of rehabilitation and reformation efforts of the criminal justice system. It is people like this, our dedicated probation and parole officers who are the ones that promote healing and truly keep us safe.

Source: Youth Probation: Youth Probation

Although this is about family law cases with the inaccessibility of legal aid and the persistent downturn of the economy, these points are equally applicable to criminal law cases. Litigants without counsel: 1. Have unrealistically high expectations of the outcomes they are likely to achieve. 2. Are more likely to go to trial than settle. 3. Experience problems at trial as a result of their unfamiliarity with the law and court processes. 4. Achieve worse results than litigants with counsel.

A lot of good research on litigants without counsel has been published in the last three or four years, most notably, in my view, Professor Julie Macfarlane‘s “Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Self-represented Litigants,” a trio

Source: The Vicious Spiral of Self-Representation in Family Law Cases – Slaw

 If we’re going to continue to pack our jails with those on remands waiting a bail hearing or a trial and by handing out more and longer jail sentences then we have to pay the cost of jails and guards. Should correctional service officers and probation/parole officers be considered an essential service?

The corrections workers, who rejected an earlier tentative settlement, are in a legal strike position at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

Source: Union, government sit down to bargain ahead of potential corrections strike

Source: Crisis in Corrections | Ontario Public Service Employees Union

Instead of taking an emotional ideological view let’s take a look at the evidence. “As well-intentioned as the recommendation may have been, following through on it sets Canada on a course which ironically perpetuates aspects of the residential school legacy which we are trying so hard to leave behind. If Canada wants to learn from the residential school legacy, we should be the last to pass a law which has led other countries to forcefully removing thousands of children from their homes and driving a wedge between children and parents. So-called “conditional” physical discipline, which is what Section 43 allows, “was more strongly associated with reduction in noncompliance or antisocial behaviour than 10 of the 13 alternative disciplinary tactics.””

Source: Don’t make parents’ job more difficult › The Lethbridge Herald – myLH.ca

If you spend a night in this hotel remember, you have to comply with a demand to blow, don’t answer any questions about drinking or driving and be sure to give me a call in the morning.

Why did prosecutors in Pennsylvania charge Bill Cosby with sexual assault 12 years after the fact? Because the statute of limitations was about to expire. In Pennsylvania, “the statute of limitations for aggravated indecent assault, which is 12 years, had not expired. The statute of limitations for sexual assault vary by state and crime.” Let’s be very clear though, there is NO Statute of Limitations for any indictable criminal offence in Canada. Police can lay charges and the Crown can attempt to prosecute any serious criminal offence no matter how long ago it’s alleged to have occurred.

Prosecutors used new information to file charges before the statute of limitations expired.

Source: Why a Bill Cosby accuser is getting a second chance at a trial 12 years later

Why do we just accept, without questioning, that the government should take over the existing cannabis industry, seize control and profit from its distribution and taxation? This is, after all, the same entity that conducted a war against it and is still today prosecuting, convicting and imprisoning us for using it. There already exists a complex, effective distribution infrastructure that has been developed over decades. We don’t need no government intervention.

Before premiers, liquor unions and corporations start falling all over each other in an effort to cash in on legal cannabis sales, let’s remember the real reasons we should be ending cannabis prohibition in Canada.

Source: Don’t Let Those Who Opposed Legal Cannabis Profit From It Now | Dana Larsen