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“Judge reduces sex criminal’s jail time because of his race,” reads the headline of one news report. “Nova Scotia First Nation bans premier from Indigenous land in wake of cannabis crackdown,” reads another.
Nigerian immigrant Omogbolahan Jegede, 25, a former university football player, was found guilty of assaulting two women in 2022 and 2023. One of the women was choked almost into unconsciousness, another was forced to perform oral sex while her movements were being forcefully controlled by him. He was sentenced to only two years in prison.
“This sentence would have been much higher,” wrote Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge Frank Hoskins, had it not been for the “Impact of Race and Culture Assessment,” which claimed that Jegede “was feeling intense pressure around the time of the assaults and did not have culturally appropriate support to turn to.”
The judge noted that Jegede came from a strong, church-going family with strict parents who had stable professional careers. Jegede did well in school and excelled in sports, showing leadership capabilities. Jegede told the court he grew up feeling loved by his supportive family.
Jegede was born in Lagos, Nigeria and moved with his family to Canada at the age of 10, living in Ontario and then Alberta. Jegede’s mother said the transition to Canada was a significant adjustment for the family, and said their son “experienced bullying in elementary school due to his accent and racial identity as a black child.”
The Impact of Race and Culture Assessment asserts that Jegede “struggled with a sense of isolation” being a black man in the predominantly white university town of Antigonish, where he attended St. Francis Xavier University. The judge said that the Impact of Race and Culture Assessment “provided valuable insight. It has provided me with an understanding of Mr. Jegede’s background from a social, cultural perspective.”
The Impact of Race and Culture Assessment was developed in 2014, and began receiving federal funding under the Trudeau government in 2021 to the tune of $6.6 million tax dollars over five years, with more funding thereafter, to implement these assessments in courts across Canada.
Section 3(b) of the Judges Act requires federally appointed judges to take ideological training seminars in “social context” including “systemic racism and systemic discrimination.”
Obviously, anyone who commits serious violent crimes is mentally and emotionally disturbed, to say the least. Canadian judges take the offender’s background and circumstances into account when imposing sentences. A high percentage of offenders of all races and ethnicities have experienced various hardships, many of them severe, in childhood. Giving special consideration to skin colour is the epitome of racism and the repudiation of the rule of law. The Roman goddess of justice, Justitia, wears a blindfold to represent impartiality: justice should be applied without regard to irrelevant personal characteristics like wealth, sex, or skin colour.
Also in Nova Scotia, the Mi’kmaw First Nation has declared that the province’s premier, justice minister, and minister of aboriginal affairs are “undesirables” who cannot set foot on band lands in the wake of a recent crackdown on illegal cannabis sales. According to the National Post, the Mi’kmaw claim that “the Nova Scotia Provincial Government has no jurisdiction on reserve lands” and threaten a $50,000 trespassing fine. Mi’kmaw Chief Michelle Glasgow stated in a news release that the premier “has continued to radicalize colonial practices to suppress our community and fellow Mi’kmaw.”Premier Houston was quoted as saying, “It’s still Canada. To have somebody banned from a community with an ‘or else’ statement is kind of bizarre for me.”
“Bizarre”?
How about calling it a toxic, racist assault on the rule of law?
Words aside, what really matters is whether the premier submits to this outrageous demand. He need not personally travel to the reserve, but ordinary policing to control illegal cannabis should continue.
We have a serious problem with racism in Canada. It can be seen in laws, court rulings, and government policies that treat Canadians differently based on their race, ancestry, skin colour, and national origin. Giving people different legal rights—and privileges—based on their ancestry or ethnicity is a recipe for resentment, conflict, strife, and division.
In the 1980s, Canada played a leading role in the international movement to end the racial segregation of Apartheid in South Africa. “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law,” declares our Charter. It’s time to recapture and once again promote the idea of equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).