When Police Try to Run the Justice System in Canada

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the Crown attorneys, who prosecute offenders. It’s a simple division – so simple NBC summed it up in one sentence before every episode of Law & Order. Yet in Canada, the line between those two roles is blurring dangerously.

The latest assault on prosecutorial independence began in Edmonton. There, police did something almost unthinkable: before an accused woman had even entered her plea in a child homicide case, and before a judge had heard a single submission, they publicly attacked the plea agreement negotiated by Crown and defence. In a letter and press conference, they called the deal a plea to manslaughter, a “miscarriage of justice,” and demanded government intervention. Then, as if auditioning for a mob movie, they threatened to release “significant information” about the investigation if the plea proceeded.

That’s not transparency, it’s intimidation. It’s the kind of threat that, if made by anyone other than police, would trigger obstruction-of-justice charges. I’ve had clients charged for less.

The police aren’t supposed to lobby the government to scuttle plea deals. They investigate and provide evidence; they don’t get a veto over prosecutorial discretion. The independence of the Crown is one of the cornerstones of Canadian justice. Yet here it was, kicked aside by a police service willing to use public pressure to bend the system to its will.

The fallout was swift. The Canadian Association of Crown Counsel said it was “deeply troubled,” which, in the careful dialect of Crown prosecutors, is the equivalent of screaming into a pillow. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Bar Association’s Alberta branch called the police action “clearly against the Charter”. They warned that this kind of interference erodes trust in the justice system.

And they’re right. If the police can threaten to “go public” when they don’t like a plea, what’s next? Public press conferences during jury deliberations? Doxing judges who release the presumed innocent on bail?

The irony is that the Edmonton Police were, at that very moment, before the Supreme Court of Canada in Chief of the Edmonton Police Service v. McKee, arguing for less transparency. In that case, they sought to restrict what information about officer misconduct they had to disclose to prosecutors, despite clear Supreme Court precedent requiring police to share findings of serious misconduct with the Crown.

You could call that hypocrisy, but even that feels too polite. It is self-interest masquerading as justice. You can’t demand secrecy when it protects you and transparency when it serves your politics.

And it’s not just Edmonton. Across the country, police have been pushing further into territory that isn’t theirs. The Toronto Police Association recently blamed judges for a homicide allegedly involving a 12-year-old on bail – echoing their disgraceful reaction to the release, and later full acquittal, of Umar Zameer, the man wrongly accused of murdering a Toronto officer. When Zameer was found not guilty, police leadership again took to the microphones to question the justice system itself, forcing Chief Myron Demkiw to apologize later.

These public broadsides are not harmless venting. They are attempts to pressure judges and prosecutors politically. Every defence lawyer has heard some variation of “we’re waiting for police input” before a Crown will finalize a resolution. Input is one thing; approval is another.

Meanwhile, when police misconduct does see daylight, the picture isn’t flattering. Ontario prosecutors have documented 28 cases of officers being “deliberately untruthful” on the witness stand over the past decade. In Ottawa earlier this year, a Superior Court judge found two drug squad officers lied under oath, deliberately misleading the court to prop up an arrest they knew had no legal basis. The case collapsed, as it should have, after the judge called their conduct “the antithesis of what a reasonable person might expect in a trial.” And charges involving half a kilo of Fentanyl were dismissed, with the lying officers still carrying their badges and guns.

And yet, despite these scandals, police budgets keep swelling. Crime goes up, budgets go up. Crime goes down, budgets go up. Cannabis is legalized, and budgets go up. Training on Charter rights or ethical testimony? Somehow, never a budget priority.

The pattern is unmistakable: police forces want bigger budgets, less scrutiny, and more say over prosecutions. They want to hide their misconduct while dictating how the justice system should handle everyone else’s. That’s not public safety – it’s institutional self-interest dressed in Kevlar.

Our system is built on checks and balances. Police gather evidence. Prosecutors decide how to prosecute. Judges apply the law. Each step works precisely because it’s independent from the others. When police publicly bully prosecutors or threaten judges, they’re not defending justice; they’re eroding it.

The Edmonton case should be a wake-up call. If the Crown had caved to police pressure, it would have set a dangerous precedent: that law enforcement can override independent legal judgment with press releases and threats.

Maybe it’s time to rewrite that Law & Order opening narration for Canadian reality: “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two groups – the police, who investigate crime and increasingly try to direct its outcome, and the Crown, who are supposed to prosecute independently but now do so with threatening cops looking over their shoulder.”

A justice system that bends to police pressure ceases to be just. It becomes something else entirely, a system where the loudest, most well-funded, and most highly armed, not the rule of law, decides outcomes. And that should scare us all.