Shocking number of people charged with murder while on bail

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The problem of repeat violent offenders is not just real in Canada, it’s deadly. A Trudeau government response to a written question in Parliament shows just how deadly.

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A question submitted by Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman asked the government how many people have been charged with homicide while out on bail or another type of release.

The numbers, broken down by year, are shocking.

In 2022, there were 256 people charged with homicide while on some kind of release, including house arrest and parole. With 874 homicides in 2022, the 256 people charged while on release would equate to 29% of all homicides.

While justice insiders will quickly caution that people charged in 2022 may have been charged with a murder happening in other years, the numbers are still staggering.

“It obviously speaks to the problem on bail that we’ve been speaking about and speaking about repeatedly,” said Conservative MP Frank Caputo during an interview.

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Caputo is a former Crown prosecutor turned politician who has been looking at how the system works and right now, he says, the system is not keeping the public safe.

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“The Liberals have to know that bail is a problem, and they’re doing so little about it,” Caputo said.

While the original question submitted by the Conservatives asked for the number of people charged with homicide broken down by the type of release they were on from 2016 through 2022, the response wasn’t quite that detailed. The government only provided figures from 2019 through 2022 and lumped all kinds of release in together — from bail to house arrest, parole to community supervision.

In 2019, there were 182 people charged with homicide while on release; in 2020, the total was 198; in 2021, there were 171; and in 2022, the number came in at 256. Caputo calls it part of a disturbing trend of this government.

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The Conservatives have been hounding the Liberals on the impact of their bail reforms, which took place in 2019 and are still being felt throughout the system.

Under Bill C-75, judges and justices of the peace were instructed by changes to federal law to practice restraint on the matter of bail. The changes specifically said that those considering the case should, “give primary consideration to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances.”

Under intense pressure from the opposition and provincial governments across the country, the Trudeau Liberals agreed to toughen up bail but only for the most serious violent, repeat offenders. That means the vast majority of people proceeding through the system still receive release at the earliest possible time with the least onerous conditions.

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Caputo said that on a scale of one to 10, Bill C-48, which slightly tightened bail conditions, was about a 1 1/2. It didn’t go nearly far enough in putting measures in place to keep those who would do us harm behind bars.

That’s never been the Trudeau government’s view on criminal justice matters, though; it’s always been about making life easier for the convicted class.

Case in point, when then-justice minister David Lametti introduced Bill C-5 in November 2022, he described it as giving those who made small mistakes a second chance at life. The bill was really about eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for second and third convictions of serious gun and drug crimes.

There has been a lot of chatter about the revolving door that is the bail system in Canada; now we know how many people out on bail are charged with murder in a given year while on release.

It’s in the hundreds. That shouldn’t make any of us feel safe, but this is the reality of Trudeau’s Canada and his bizarre view of the justice system.

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