Prosecutors gasping under crushing workload plead for help, say public safety at risk

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/01/2025 (238 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s exhausted Crown attorneys are tired of waiting to prosecute their case against the province.

Their professional association filed a grievance against the government in April 2023 over a growing workload that was becoming untenable for its membership. The matter won’t be heard by an arbitrator, however, until October.

Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys president Christian Vanderhooft turned up the volume Friday, warning that the problem has only grown more urgent in the interim and has now put the public at risk.

“We’d like to get concrete action and not wait for an arbitrator to hear submissions and reserve judgment and come down with a ruling months later,” he said in a statement, calling for provincial leaders to step up with more resources to hire more Crown attorneys.

“If this government is serious about protecting Manitobans and their communities, it must commit to providing the support and resources needed to prosecute crime.”

Rising crime rates across the province and more evidence in the form of electronic data — from cellphones, computers and security cameras and the impending rollout of body cameras worn by RCMP officers — that must be thoroughly reviewed means the number of work hours necessary to bring a case to trial is increasing exponentially, one prosecutor said, speaking under condition of anonymity.

Several Crown attorneys told the Free Press they are being asked to do too much with too little, are struggling to meet expectations and suffering from extreme stress.

Stays of proceedings, or delay motions, are made when the Crown hasn’t met a set of strict timelines for the handling of criminal cases, which were set out in a landmark 2016 “Jordan ruling” by the Supreme Court of Canada.

It imposed an 18-month limit in provincial court and 30-month limit in higher courts, from the time the charge is laid to the actual or anticipated end of a trial.

Data provided by the province in November showed that the number of motions seeking stays of proceedings owing to delays has increased to 37, up from 27 in all of 2023.

The association has seen serious cases, including sexual assaults, tossed out due to excessive delays, Vanderhooft said.

“The personal toll is extreme,” a longtime prosecutor said. “I can have a sex assault case where I have to read through thousands of text messages, but I am still expected to do it in the same amount of time (as a case that doesn’t involve any data analysis).

“Something has to give — we need either more Crown attorneys or more time to do it. More evidence isn’t a bad thing, but I can’t handle all the same cases I used to handle with the amount of information coming in.”

“Something has to give – we need either more Crown attorneys or more time to do it.”

The pot is dangerously close to boiling over.

“We are all working evenings and we are all working weekends — all of us,” said the prosecutor. “We are all terrified that we are going to miss something and get a case thrown out. It keeps me up at night.”

Brandon Trask, an assistant law professor at the University of Manitoba, said the crushing workload is threatening the Supreme Court timelines and, with it, public safety.

“At the end of the day, society gets the justice system it’s prepared to pay for,” he said. “We definitely need to see legitimate investment in the criminal justice system, and that includes significant investment in Crown attorneys in the Manitoba Prosecution Service.”

The association’s plea comes as serious crime continues to rise in the province.

In 2024, Manitoba set a new record for homicides at 99, more than double the 45 recorded 10 years earlier.

Trask added there’s a trickle-down effect when municipalities and the province pour more funding into policing, often leading to more arrests and more cases before the courts.

“There needs to be a recognition that if you’re bringing more cases into the system, you need to bring in more Crown attorneys,” he said. “What’s the point of laying more charges if those cases end up being dismissed because of time constraints or resource constraints?

That lack of resources is an issue across Manitoba, with young Crown attorneys in some rural circuits carrying some of the heaviest workloads in the province, one prosecutor said, adding some experienced colleagues have recently jumped ship “in significant numbers” and moved to other provinces where the pay is better and workload more reasonable.

The starting salary for Crown attorneys in Saskatchewan is “tens of thousands of dollars” higher than in Manitoba, the prosecutor said.

The province is currently advertising to fill multiple prosecution branch vacancies.

The Free Press was denied an interview with Justice Minister Matt Wiebe Friday. In a statement issued instead, he blamed the former Tory government for failing to address the situation.

“Since forming government, we have hired more than 30 new Crown attorneys and signed a new deal that significantly improves compensation and will help keep Crowns in the province,” Wiebe said.

“To reduce delays in our courts, we’ve made significant strides in hiring court clerks, reducing vacancies across the province, including by 85% in Winnipeg, since taking office. For years, the previous government disrespected our Crowns. We’re taking a different approach and are committed to working in partnership with Crown attorneys on recruitment and retention strategies, supporting them in their critical work to keep Manitobans safe.”

Vanderhooft wasn’t buying it.

“This government has said over and over again they want to be a listening government: it’s time to listen to those on the front lines of your criminal justice system,” he said.

“If the province does not move on this, we will continue to lose experienced prosecutors to other provinces and push the system past its limits.”

— With files from Dean Pritchard

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca