THUNDER BAY -- A southern Ontario judge said he could not consider Thunder Bay a vulnerable community when sentencing a woman on drug trafficking charges who was travelling to the city with cocaine and fentanyl.
Following a trial, a Toronto woman was found guilty in January 2024 by Justice Russell Silverstein of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, conspiracy to traffic fentanyl, and two counts of possession for the purposes of trafficking.
In June 2020, the Ontario Provincial Police stopped the woman on Highway 400 near Barrie, Ont., and a search of her vehicle uncovered 1.15 kilos of cocaine and 52.2 grams of fentanyl. It was revealed she was travelling to Thunder Bay with the drugs.
During a sentencing hearing, the Crown argued an aggravating factor in the case was that the accused was going to stay on in Thunder Bay to oversee the distribution of the drugs.
While Silverstein agreed that was a possibility and that the accused “had the confidence of the leaders,” he could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that that was in fact the case.
Silverstein also dismissed another aggravating factor presented by the Crown - that the city of Thunder Bay is a particularly vulnerable community with respect to drug trafficking.
Local judges, as referenced by Silverstein, can draw on their own experience regarding the impact drugs have on a specific community.
Justice Danial Newton, a local judge, cited: “the vulnerability of the Northern communities to which fentanyl was being trafficked,” as an aggravating factor during sentencing hearing in 2018 for a man convicted of trafficking fentanyl.
City leaders, police, and community groups have raised numerous concerns regarding the impact the illicit drug trade is having on the city, including a sharp increase in the number of overdose deaths and gang-related violence and crime.
While Silverstein noted that a Supreme Court of Canada decision opened trial judges to consider the vulnerability of a community when determining a sentence, in this particular case, he cited a lack of evidence presented by the Crown to allow him to consider it as an aggravating factor.
“The Court’s judgment does not, in my view, support me making such a finding in this case in the absence of evidence to this effect, which evidence could have been called on the sentencing hearing, but was not,” Silverstein said.
The accused was ultimately sentenced to 60 months on each count to be served concurrently.
