Hundreds of thousands of Highway Traffic Act (HTA) charges that were dropped last year are a sign Ontario’s justice system is failing to live up to its basic functions and puts Ontario on the road to “lawlessness,” said the province’s opposition justice critic.
NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam urged that the provincial government provide more funding of the court system at a news conference outside the Toronto courthouses on Monday, to avoid further impacting road safety.
“Ontario’s justice system is failing its basic promises of fairness, timeliness, and public safety,” Wong-Tam said. “If there are no consequences to offenses, if there are no consequences to crimes committed, we become a land of lawlessness.”
Wong-Tam was responding to numbers uncovered in a CTV News and W5 investigation where more than one in ten HTA charges were dropped before trial.
That number rose from about 57,000 charges withdrawn in 2019 to about 253,000 charges withdrawn in 2024 – around 10 per cent of all charges.
In her news conference, Wong-Tam also added in charges that were dropped at trial for a grand total of 338,000, amounting to 13 per cent of all charges laid under the Act.
Some serious charges were withdrawn at greater rates, including: about 8,924 careless driving charges withdrawn, around 31 per cent of the total; 9,302 driving while suspended charges, or about 32 per cent of the total; and 5,464 stunt driving, nearly 42 per cent of the total.
One of the charges dropped include a driver running a stop sign on Shaw Street in Toronto and colliding with a cyclist. That such incident was caught on video with clear evidence, said Biking Lawyer David Shellnutt.
“The simple slap on the wrist of the Highway Traffic Act ticket and penalty is not even administered. How crushing is that to somebody who remains off work after being injured by someone?,” he said at the news conference.
Another of Shellnutt’s clients, Anna Pratt, said she had been hit while on her bike in 2022.
“I was really badly hurt. I had multiple fractures to my pelvis, in my sacrum, (and) I had a concussion,” Pratt said.
Pratt said she followed the charges laid closely, representing a “sliver of justice that was really important.” But the charges were dropped, she said, without warning.
“I really was beyond disappointed. I was upset. I was angry. And I really felt that I had been completely, completely ignored by the system.”
Trish MacKenzie, the CUPE Local 79 representative for the city’s prosecutors, said part of the problem is a “staffing crisis” in the prosecutors’ offices.
“We’re very concerned about this,” MacKenzie said, adding that there are unnecessary barriers to hiring more people.
“It’s been devastating to the morale of the office. Of course, people feel extremely burdened and overworked and stressed out. There has been difficulty with being able to simply get all the work done.”
An Ontario court judge also pointed the finger at a lack of a file management system to keep track of the volume of cases, saying that was why the system is in “shambles.”
I would like to remind everyone that we don’t have a court of justice. We have a court of law. Even the very terminology of ‘court’ is severely outdated. We don’t go to ‘court’ of a ruler to make our case anymore. We go to ‘court’ because you’re dissatisfied, or charged with something and the case is brought before a judge. The whole system is archaic - which is also why it is slow. The NDP rep should be thinking bigger (ie reform) when you’re already at the provincial level of government rather than screeching that the system is ‘too slow’ which leads to ‘lawlessness’. Just another day of government I guess huh?
That aside, anyone who gets behind the wheel should remind themselves that a few seconds in lapse of judgment could cause you to be charged end up in said court. Just that tiny few seconds. What should happen is a change in road design and in this day and age of 2025, more auto safety technology should be integrated and required by law. That would reduce the burden overall throughout the entire system. Of course that won’t rule out the intentionally bad actors which will always exist no matter what you do.
I don’t understand. The courts can’t manage files causing cases to be dropped?
Most parts of the justice system haven’t grown to keep pace with the population and its needs. Not enough judges, not enough court staff, not enough jails and prisons or staff for them, either. Cases have to go to court within a certain amount of time after charges are laid, and we don’t have enough capacity to hold all the necessary trials within the required period of time. It doesn’t matter how carefully they handle and sort files, it just can’t be done. So some cases get dropped, and not everyone agrees on which ones.
This situation shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how badly underfunded every other government service in Ontario is.
So what is the point of all this growth? They want to bring people in but don’t want to spend on infrastructure, so what do they think well happen. Is it just to prop up the GDP, seems to be the only number they care about.
Value is a product of human labour. Want more cool stuff? Get more humans.
bingo. you nailed it.
It’s complicated?
There’s been a fair amount of concern in the developed world over the past several decades regarding how to handle a large number of aging Boomers in need of elder care. Immigration from less-developed coutries is one way of offsetting the demographic weirdness that we’re dealing with. That may have been the original point. So, one government sets up policy with the idea of making sure there are enough young people around to hold the country together when the Boomers are no longer able to work. Successor governments didn’t tamper too much with that policy because it didn’t seem to be doing any harm as long as they could keep kicking the infrastructure can down the road. The can has now hit a brick wall, and we have to deal with the fallout from that.
Like go up.
No spend, only up
The courts were understaffed at the beginning of covid. Not enough money and not enough people. On top of that, a stressed population at the start of a pandemic.
The prisons couldn’t properly space people out and the cops, eager to justify their budget, they just kept arresting and ticketing people for minor offenses. They were asked to slow down and focus on major and violent crimes because the crown’s office saw this coming since way before covid.
So, prosecutors had to go through thousands of charges in order to decide what to keep and what to drop. More tax money and labour and hours they didn’t have to spare. Of course they’d miss things.
And this article points to a staff shortage and a filing system. It was too many emotionally challenged cops, a lack of social supports, and people who feel safer with more police, but not more lawyers to actually lay charges and prosecute offenders.
