John Ivison: Exhibit A for why Canadians are losing faith in the justice system

Loath as I am to undermine public confidence in our institutions, the alleged shooting rampage by 25-year-old Brampton resident Omar Abdul Singateh last weekend offers a good example why so many Canadians have lost patience with the legal system.

Singateh was arrested in Toronto in the early hours of Sunday morning, after an exchange of gunfire near the Rebel nightclub on Toronto’s waterfront that led to him stealing a rideshare car containing four passengers, and subsequently striking pedestrians. Two people, including the accused, were transferred to hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.

Singateh was charged with discharging a firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm, possessing a firearm while prohibited, robbery, and four counts of forcible confinement.

As the firearm prohibition suggests, he was no novice in terms of close encounters with law enforcement.

It has emerged that he was awaiting sentencing, after pleading guilty in May to driving from his home in Brampton to Montreal, where he and two accomplices beat and tortured a man until he gave them $15,000 in cryptocurrency.

According to evidence filed in a Montreal courtroom, Singateh beat the man with a barbell and broke his fingers at the behest of an unknown man who he contacted via the Signal app.

“Time to do a little torture,” the anonymous man said.

Singateh was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to unlawful confinement, breaking and entering, armed robbery and assault and causing bodily harm.

He was released on bail and scheduled to appear in court in October for sentencing.

Apparently unbeknownst to the judge in Montreal, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida named Singateh as a member of a five-man smuggling ring that moved 100 guns into Canada. The indictment says the five individuals, at least three of whom reside in Canada, trafficked the guns from Florida to Canada in 2023 and 2024. Twenty-nine firearms were subsequently recovered from Canadian crime scenes.

I say “apparently unbeknownst” because any judge who had granted bail and subsequently found out about the U.S. indictment should immediately have contacted the office of the Crown attorney and requested Singateh be brought before the court to make the case for why he shouldn’t be placed in custody.

Yet, even on the merits of the Montreal case, it is inexplicable to me how any judge could leave Singateh at liberty after viewing the grisly evidence (much of which appeared in the Journal de Montréal).

“This is an embarrassing case,” said one retired judge I spoke with.

Singateh’s bail conditions are a matter of public record: he was on the hook to pay $3,000 if he failed to comply with the conditions and he had to surrender his passport. He was obliged to remain at home in Brampton between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.; not communicate with a number of associates; wear an ankle bracelet; and not carry any weapons.

Given we know he was caught with a banned gun last weekend, you can imagine there were other violations of the provisions in the release order signed by Court of Quebec judge Nathalie Fafard.

Canada has a history of race-based sentencing and it is possible “mitigating circumstances of background” played a part (Singateh is Black).

If so, the Montreal judge has done a disservice to his fellow citizens and the Charter of Rights, which says everyone has a right to “equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.”

Perhaps bail was granted with a mind to keeping a lid on the number of people in pre-trial detention (Statistics Canada says over 50 per cent of individuals in provincial and territorial prisons are on remand, rather than serving a convicted sentence). But if anyone deserves to be kept behind bars, it is Omar Abdul Singateh.

The only possible good news out of all of this is that the passage of Bill C-14 should ensure that repeats of his travesty are few and far between.

The bail and sentencing reform legislation passed through Parliament last month and introduces a new reverse-onus rule for violent offenders, so that the accused must show why they should be released on bail.

“I’m convinced that the new provision would likely result in this individual being kept in custody, pending sentencing,” said the retired judge.

He noted that his former colleagues are fiercely independent: they have customarily resisted direction from Parliament when it comes to provisions such as mandatory minimum sentencing (though, my observation is that they are less surly when their hands are tied by Supreme Court of Canada decisions).

But the new legislation was introduced because the public was outraged by what it viewed as the government’s catch-and-release bail and sentencing provisions that prioritized the rights of criminals over the needs of vulnerable Canadians.

“(The judiciary) is certainly not immune to the temper of the society in which they live,” said the judge.

Let’s hope that Singateh finds that out for himself whenever he has his next day in court.

National Post

jivison@criffel.ca