1) (Updated) Doug Ford floats idea of electing judges in rant on bail reform

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Liam Casey and Allison Jones, April 30, 2025

Ontario Premier Doug Ford blasted judges in the province whom he perceives as being soft on crime, and floated ideas on Wednesday such as electing judges and offering them payouts to retire early.

His comments sparked criticism from the opposition and concern from criminal defence lawyers.

Ford was at Peel Regional Police headquarters to announce measures on bail in an upcoming justice bill, though he said the most meaningful bail reform actions must come from the federal government.

The province will create specialized prosecution teams to handle bail for serious and violent offences, force those on probation who wear ankle monitors to pay for them and launch a comprehensive review of the bail system.

The bill is set to include changes to the judicial appointments process, and when asked about that, Ford ranted about judges and justices of the peace who give people bail multiple times.

“The system is broken, and once these judges get into their position, they have this sense of entitlement,” Ford said. 

“That’s what drives me crazy. We were democratically elected as a government. And I always say, the legislature is supreme and the people are supreme. When you get a mandate to do something, you can’t have judges constantly overruling the government.”

Ford then criticized a judge who recently ordered the province to pause the removal of some bike lanes in Toronto until a constitutional challenge is decided. 

Don’t judges have anything better to do than worry about bike lanes, Ford asked.

“What right do they have (as) unelected, politically appointed judges determining our budgets,” he said.

“We get elected democratically. Last time I checked, there hasn’t been any judges elected. Maybe that’s the problem. We should do what the U.S. does. Let’s start electing our judges, holding them accountable. And that’s my rant for the day, because I’ve just had it.”

Attorney General Doug Downey then approached the press conference podium to add his own comments on the subject and joked that Ford’s remarks were actually restrained.

“You should see what he says in private,” Downey said.

The attorney general said he’s looking for applicants who will “help protect our communities.”

“We need judges who will take the law, apply the law and understand where community sentiment is at,” he said. 

Last year, Ford defended his government’s appointments of two former staffers to a committee that helps select provincial judges, saying he wants “like-minded people” in appointments, not Liberals or New Democrats. 

On Wednesday, Ford dismissed the idea of judicial independence. 

“You know something, that’s a joke as far as I’m concerned,” he said. 

“There’s no judge appointed anywhere in this country, anywhere in the United States, anywhere in the world, that’s not a political appointment. Simple as that. You think these judges just come out of the blue?”

Ford also suggested he wants to offer buyouts to “bleeding heart” judges.

“I can’t wait until they retire,” he said. “Matter of fact, I’ll pay them to retire earlier. I’ll pay you out for two, three, four years. Just get out of the system, simple as that.”

As well, he suggested publicly highlighting the names of judges and justices of the peace who grant bail to an offender who then goes on to commit a crime. 

“Why don’t we post, ‘This judge let Johnny out six times, and he just murdered someone,'” Ford said. “Who’s accountable? Does the judge call the family up and say, ‘I’m sorry I let this guy out’? Something has to give, I just can’t stress it enough.”

The province appoints lower court judges and justices of the peace, who largely deal with bail matters. The federal government is responsible for hiring judges at higher levels of court.

Since taking office in 2018, Ford has remade the judiciary by hiring significantly more Crown attorneys as judges and more law enforcement officers as justices of the peace.

And in that time, provincial jails have seen a staggering increase of the inmate population to the point that the entire system is over capacity, provincial data show. More than 80 per cent of inmates in provincial jails have been denied bail as they await trial and, as such, are presumed innocent until found guilty.

There are several measures of accountability in place for judges and justices of the peace.

Judges’ decisions can be appealed and overturned by the Court of Appeal and the Ontario Judicial Council deals with complaints about judges’ conduct. For example, the council suspended Hamilton judge Bernd Zabel for 30 days for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat to court. 

Judges should not be held accountable directly to the public, said Boris Bytensky, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. That’s partially because legal decisions should not be a popularity contest, and the public does not have every single fact in a particular case to be able to properly judge, he said.

“Judges are appointed with tenure and with the absolute powers of judicial independence so that they are not doing something that is purely the most popular decision or that they think that the people will be happiest with,” Bytensky said. 

“It may be a very unpopular decision to do what’s right in law.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said Ford’s comments are “deeply alarming.”

“Respecting the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law is necessary for a fair criminal justice system in Canada, and protects all of our rights and freedoms,” the organization said.

The opposition also took umbrage with Ford’s comments.

“The premier’s attempt to politicize our courts and our judiciary is unacceptable and it is dangerous,” said New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles. 

“Look, his personal vendetta against the courts is not something that Ontarians share.”

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said she was concerned about the “very erratic remarks that the premier made this morning, kind of ignoring the rule of law and not recognizing the difference between the executive and the judiciary.”

“People need to have confidence in our judiciary system,” she said. “They need to know that their judges are fair, that they’re independent, that they’re qualified, and that they’ve been selected because of their merit.”

2) (Updated) Ontario to consider involuntary addiction treatment for people in jail, on parole, probation

Courtesy Barrie360.com Canadian Press

By Allison Jones and Liam Casey, May 1, 2025

Ontario is set to study how it can introduce involuntary addictions treatment for people involved in the correctional system, one of a slate of measures the government is planning as part of – or associated with – a large justice bill tabled Thursday.

However, the details of the legislation the government positioned as being tough on crime were overshadowed by comments from Premier Doug Ford that critics say undermines confidence in the justice system.

The move toward involuntary addiction treatment for people in jail, on probation and on parole is not contained in the legislation itself, rather officials will now look into how this can be done, how much it would cost, what sort of help they would need from the federal government to enact those measures, and consider lessons learned from other jurisdictions.

The ministry intends to present a plan to cabinet by this fall with a plan and options.

The idea of involuntary treatment has been a controversial one, with advocates arguing that it rarely works and treatment is significantly more successful when someone is ready to quit.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones said she wants to hear from experts and people with lived experience during consultations.

“Look, there’s no doubt that there has been an increase in the use of illegal and, frankly, deadly drugs in our communities and, yes, in our corrections facilities,” she said Thursday. 

“We need to do the work to make sure that any programs that we bring forward are actually going to help people.”

Among the measures in the justice bill are steps to make it easier to get restraining orders against domestic violence perpetrators, allow police to more easily seize electronic devices used to commit auto theft, and forces those on probation who wear ankle monitors to pay for them.

But questions about remarks Ford made Wednesday suggesting he wants to see an American-style system of electing judges, whom he criticized as entitled and soft on crime, dominated question period and Attorney General Doug Downey’s press conference about the bill.

It is not a plan the province is actually considering, Downey said Thursday.

“I think the frustration that it comes from is real,” Downey said. “He’s expressing what we’re hearing at the doors and what we’re hearing from people. It’s not something that we’re pursuing, but it is important that we go after the offenders, the violent and repeat offenders.”

Ford ranted at a press conference Wednesday about judges and justices of the peace who give people bail multiple times, slamming “unelected” judges for “constantly overruling” a democratically elected government. 

“Last time I checked, there hasn’t been any judges elected,” he said. “Maybe that’s the problem. We should do what the U.S. does. Let’s start electing our judges, holding them accountable. And that’s my rant for the day, because I’ve just had it.”

Ford’s comments caught the attention of various legal and civil liberties groups, who roundly condemned them.

In a rare move, Ontario’s three chief justices also issued a joint statement on judicial independence, which Ford called “a joke.”

“Judicial independence is a cornerstone of our constitutional democracy,” wrote the chief justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario court of justice.

“An independent judiciary protects the public, not just judges. It means a society governed by the rule of law.”

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said it’s not good enough for Downey to dismiss Ford’s comments as not being a real policy proposal.

“We cannot pass off an erratic rant and comments made that are later walked back as not serious,” she said. “These are very serious matters. The rule of law and order and our judicial system is very serious.” 

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Downey should have done more to shut Ford’s comments down.

“It’s dangerous, and it’s inconsistent with where we are as Canadians, and what we want to see in our judicial system,” she said.

Ford’s comments were prompted by a question about changes in the bill to the judicial appointments process, including a new pool-based recommendation process for judicial positions that would seek to streamline appointments and require a committee to consider criteria set by the attorney general.

The bill would also hold landlords responsible if they knowingly allow their premises to be used for illegal drug activity and improve the collection of forfeited bail money. Through regulation, the government also plans to include sex traffickers in sex offender registry obligations.

On involuntary addiction treatment, two senior government sources who were not authorized to give information publicly said Ontario is looking more to the model in British Columbia, which includes involuntary addictions treatment for people with simultaneous mental health challenges, rather than Alberta’s more sweeping approach.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government recently tabled legislation that would allow parents, family members, health-care professionals, police or peace officers to apply for a treatment order. People using substances and deemed a risk to themselves or others could be apprehended by police and ordered into treatment in a secure facility for up to three months, with the possibility of six months in community-based treatment, under the bill.

British Columbia last week announced the opening of a 10-unit facility for involuntary treatment of people already in custody at the Surrey Pretrial Centre, and a second such facility is on the way.

In Ontario, more than 2,600 people died in 2023 from opioids, the last full year of data available, which marks a 50 per cent increase in deaths compared to 2019.