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Legal accountability has always been the expectation in Canada, but has not been the reality of bail. The leniency shown to hardened criminals has burdened communities with crime. Decisions are often unpublished. Politicians are largely flying blind. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has noticed all this – and wisely opted for change.

Last week, Ford announced that he had directed his attorney general, Doug Downey, to begin collecting statistics on bail. While the ministry did not provide the Post with the specific metrics that can be tracked, Ford’s exchanges with the press indicated that he hopes to understand the rates at which individual judges and justices of the peace release bail.

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“It’s out of control right now,” Ford told reporters on July 29. “We have some of the greatest (justices of the peace) and judges in the country … but there are some who continually bail people out, not once — twice, three times, four times, five times.”

Ford promised that “We will measure up and there will be accountability, like I will be held to account …. There must be accountability at all levels from the Prime Minister, directly from the Prime Minister … and police chiefs and courts. Courts are not exempt.”

It’s a modest change, but one that could have a huge impact. Once implemented, it will bring transparency, which is currently lacking in many bail courts. Most decisions are issued orally and are thus unavailable to the public, making any attempt to quantify decisions a monumental, if not impossible, task.

Combined with Fords bail system upgrades and recent commitment to appointing “like-minded judges” who are inclined to protect the public from violent offenders, which is the Premier’s mandate as a democratically elected leader, Ontario is moving in the right direction.

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Public bail statistics will give Ontarians a more accurate picture of how the courts work. If court appointments have been made responsibly, more accessible information about bail should build trust rather than destroy it. If the information is so troubling that it corrodes confidence in the justice system, it will provide a clear opportunity for the Ford government to change its appointment process and better lobby the federal government to fix the system.

The bits of information about bail that are currently available are not optimistic. In Ontario, there were incidents of breach of court orders accompanied by violent crime Rose 29 percent between 2017 and 2021. And across Canada, in areas where the RCMP is responsible for policing, just over half of all homicides between 2019 and 2022 were engaged by someone upon release.

The stories behind these numbers are harrowing: body parts breaching his bail conditions, just to be re-releasedas well as harasser of women and cop killer; sometimes, recurring bail violations disappear before the judgment. Any crime committed on release is preventable.

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New data will provide Ontario with the information needed to make the case for stricter bail laws. For many years, Canada’s bail rules have given judges a great deal of discretion, and the Trudeau government too mild to be effective reforms, adopted in December, have done little to improve the situation.

If this flexibility is statistically shown to have created a systemic risk to public safety, the case for change – whether made in the media or in a parliamentary committee – is much easier to make.

Some legal activists will disagree with Ford. They will talk about crimes committed on release as if they were natural disasters, rather than products of human choice. They will argue that the Prime Minister is way out of line – indeed they already are.

Speaking to Trillium, an Ontario publication, defense attorney Michael Spratt criticized Ford’s push to hold judges accountable as an attack on the independence of the judiciary, as well as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Retired Judge Norm Douglas, meanwhile, claimed it existing accountability structures – appellate courts and judicial councils – are sufficient.

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However, these are not the only forms of liability. The bench is not solely responsible for itself; and if it was that would be a problem.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin understood this well. Speaking at a conference in 2006, she explained the dynamic in detail. The ultimate sanction against referees lies with their corresponding legislators — but the court of public opinion mattersalso. None of this is radical or against the rule of law: in a democracy, the final calls must lie with the elected body, not the appointed body.

Ford is responsibly blazing a trail that his second prime minister should follow. They are already unhappy with the federal government’s soft approach to crime called last year for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to strengthen bail laws. It was a pointless exercise — provinces can’t change the penal code, and Ottawa hasn’t been receptive, beyond making small, mostly ineffective tweaks.

However, provinces can do their best to demonstrate why reforms are necessary. Most people don’t take advantage of all the tools available to do so, but Ontario is trying. So should the rest. Vaguely complaining about Trudeau’s justice policies and relying on Statistics Canada to publish the odd crime statistic isn’t cutting it anymore.

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