November 4, 2024 – Letter on behalf of the Black Action Defence Committee, Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, and the Black Legal Action Centre regarding Ontario’s Calls for Bail Reform
We write in response to the recent calls for criminal justice and bail reform made by the Ontario government and echoed by police associations. Cumulatively, our organisations have worked tirelessly over the past five decades to address systemic issues in the criminal justice system, particularly those that impact Black People in Canada. The Ontario government seeks to roll back the successes we have achieved. We stress that the proposed reforms are misguided and fail to promote public safety. If implemented, these reforms will disproportionately harm Black People in Canada without a correlated improvement in public safety. The proposed reforms, in short, would be damaging to all Ontarians and, by extension, Canadians.
