Kinew’s guilty of shameless pandering by criticizing judge’s bail decision

Opinion

The first problem for Premier Wab Kinew is that he would not own the words he had just spoken in the Manitoba legislature.

On Tuesday, after Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan criticized the Kinew government for the release of trucker Navjeet Singh — accused of causing a November 2024 highway collision that killed a Manitoba woman and her eight-year-old daughter — Kinew offered harsh advice to judges.

After the collision, Singh failed to show up for a police interview and fled to India. He was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant until August, when he returned to Canada and was taken into custody by police.

At an Aug. 28 bail hearing, the Crown attorney argued Singh should be kept in custody because he had fled Canada and releasing him on bail would “endanger public confidence in the justice system.” A provincial court judge decided otherwise and released Singh after seizing his passport and ordering him to remain at his Ontario home.

Kinew told Khan he agreed with the prosecutor’s argument.

“In this particular instance, I think we have to — with all respect that we have for the justice system — encourage our judges and justices of the peace to reflect on the role that their decisions will have when they are learned of by the public,” Kinew told the legislature. “They have an important role to play in ensuring the impartiality and the fairness of our justice system, but I would remind those sitting on the bench that you have to make your decisions based on the world as it is, not as you would like it to be.”

Outside the legislature, Kinew claimed he was speaking in general terms, but then went on to argue “the public is losing confidence in the administration of justice in our province… and decisions around bail when they get publicized like this are contributing to that.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with the obvious fact that while the premier may consider this case to be representative of a wider issue, he was most definitely talking about Singh. Specifically, he was criticizing a member of the provincial judiciary. That is problematic on a number of fronts.

Kinew leads the political arm of government. By law, the judge is fully independent of the premier’s reach. Public criticism of an independent judge seems to blur all those lines.

However, that’s not the only concern.

The premier is apparently suggesting judges should consider how the public will react to their decision about whether to release someone on bail. Does the premier also want judges to prioritize public sentiment over the law when rendering verdicts on criminal charges?

The exchange between Kinew and Khan that precipitated the premier’s comments is an excellent example of the sloppy and destructive debate surrounding bail.

The premier no doubt knows that judges should only focus on public safety, not public opinion. The idea that a judge would shy away from making a legally justified, but unpopular decision, to avoid public backlash is dangerous to the administration of justice.

Conflating public safety with public opinion is shameless pandering to a public that is freaking out about an issue it likely does not truly understand. We can say that because, despite the shrill howling of politicians, bail decisions are complex and opaque. Bad decisions are obviously made, but much of the outrage directed at the justice system is based more on appearance than fact.

An accused person has a constitutionally guaranteed right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Bail releases, even ones that appear to be straightforward and easy to turn down, are rarely as simple as the public believes them to be.

In this case, the accused did not have a criminal record, returned to Canada voluntarily and surrendered his passport, and a family member posted a cash surety. Charges in connection with his decision to leave Canada last fall have been dropped, suggesting the court did not consider that in deciding whether he should be released.

Singh may ultimately be found guilty of one or multiple criminal offences in connection with the deadly collision, but they are not proven now. Which is to say, it’s much too early to render punishment.

The exchange between Kinew and Khan that precipitated the premier’s comments is an excellent example of the sloppy and destructive debate surrounding bail. The public has a right to be outraged when the bail system fails to protect them from dangerous offenders. But we project our outrage about the worst cases onto all cases involving bail.

It deserves to be noted that, while not an excuse for Kinew’s attack on the judiciary, Khan’s attempt to hold the Kinew government politically responsible for the bail decision is also the worst kind of pandering.

When Khan was a minister in the former Tory government, would he have accepted responsibility for every bad bail decision? Highly unlikely.

No one is debating the need for genuine bail reform. The federal and provincial governments are working to make the system more reliable, and to hold bail violators to account.

However, the chances of getting lasting, meaningful changes are greatly diminished if every bail case is used as the central narrative of opportunistic political theatre.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.