Timeline of Injustice

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In 1775, the French speaking Acadians in Nova Scotia were forced to surrender their arms or be declared rebels to the British Crown unless they signed an unconditional oath of allegiance to the British Monarch...

Following the establishment of the colony of British Columbia, the local Tŝilhqot’in lands were declared open for access without negotiation or notice. In an effort at defending their lands from encroachment, the Tŝilhqot’in declared the beginning of the “Chilcotin War” in 1864...

Patrick James Whelan was publicly hanged on February 11, 1869 for the murder of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Whelan was arrested as a suspect 20 hours after McGhee’s death...

Louie Sam was a 14-year-old Stó:lō teenager when he was falsely accused of murdering a settler shopkeeper in the United States. He was detained by Canadian authorities at the request of a US Sheriff pending extradition. On February 28, 1884, a mob of 75 men crossed the Canadian border and lynched Sam...

Following the conclusion of the North West and Red River Rebellions in 1885, a six-person jury convicted Louis Riel of high treason. There were no Indigenous or French-speaking persons on the jury...

In 1885, following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act. The Act stipulated that every person of Chinese origin immigrating to Canada must pay a “head tax” of $50...

The Manitoba government enacted the Manitoba Schools Act and Official Language Act in 1890 as a reflection of the growing English Protestant majority in the province. The Manitoba Schools Act established a single, non-denominational English education system that effectively excluded the French Catholic population...

Peter Wheeler, who was born in Africa, was convicted of killing 14-year-old Annie Kempton after a Nova Scotia jury deliberated for 2 hours. A subsequent history of the case argues that it is a wrongful conviction caused in part by erroneous forensic evidence and prejudicial press coverage.

Cunningham v Homma, [1903] 9 AC 151, affirmed the power of Canadian provincial governments to disqualify voters on the basis of race. Although the County Court of British Columbia and the Supreme Court of British Columbia had each held that the province did not have the capacity to prohibit Chinese and Japanese Canadians from voting, the Privy Council reversed these decisions.

Section 98 of the Criminal Code was enacted to criminalize being a member of and advocating on behalf of “unlawful organizations”, subject to a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment. The provision was drafted in response to labour unrest of the early 20th century...

In 1927, the federal government amended the Indian Act to include Section 141, a provision that made it illegal to obtain funding or legal counsel for any Indigenous legal claim. Section 141 was enacted in response to movements such as the Nisga’a Land Committee and the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia.

Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Gabriel Sylliboy was convicted for hunting muskrat, after arguing that the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty recognized the right of his people to freely hunt and fish on traditional territories. The County Court of Nova Scotia, however, found that the treaty did not apply...

In 1926, Joseph Sankey - a 25-year-old Tsimshian man working seasonally at a cannery in Port Essington, B.C. - was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to hang. In 1927, Vancouver lawyer Joseph Edward Bird took on Sankey’s appeal...

Using Section 98 of the Criminal Code, the Government of Canada prosecuted the leaders of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) in 1931. Tim Buck, then General Secretary of the CPC, and seven other CPC leaders were convicted and imprisoned under Section 98.

The Province of Quebec enacted the Padlock Act, granting the Attorney General with powers to close (padlock) any building used for propagating “communism or bolshevism” for a year. The Act was a response to the federal government’s repeal of Section 98 of the Criminal Code, criminalizing membership in unlawful associations including the Communist Party...

Paralleling the Executive Order made under President Roosevelt in the United States, excluding all Japanese Americans from the American West Coast, the Canadian government created the similar Order-in-Council P.C. 1486. This Order required all Japanese Canadians to be excluded from a 100-mile zone inland from the Pacific Coast, resulting in the displacement of over 21,000 Japanese Canadians...

In Reference Re Persons of Japanese Race, [1947] AC 87, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upheld the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that declared the deportation of Canadian citizens of Japanese descent to Japan to be valid. The decision was in response to the 1945 Order-in-Council issued by the federal Cabinet, which had provided for the forced deportation of all Japanese Nationals remaining in the West Coast after World War II ended. Almost 4,000 Japanese individuals had been deported to Japan during this period of time.

In November 1946, Viola Desmond was arrested for sitting in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in Nova Scotia and refusing to switch seats. As there was no official regulation on racial segregation in Canada, she was charged and convicted instead for a minor tax evasion offense, due to the one-cent tax difference between the seat that Desmond sat in and the one that she paid for...

Wilbert Coffin was a prospector who was convicted and executed in 1956 for the murder of American hunters Eugene Lindsey, Richard Lindsey, and Frederick Claar. The basis for his arrest and conviction was his possession of some belongings of the deceased, despite the fact that he and several others were known to scavenge for abandoned property in the surrounding area...

Steven Truscott was charged and convicted for the murder of Lynne Harper in 1959, when he was only fourteen years old. The conviction was on the basis that Steven was seen giving Lynne a ride on his bicycle the same evening that she was reported missing, and supported by the conflicting testimony offered by witnesses, the autopsy doctor, and other experts...

Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas were the last two individuals to be executed in Canada. Turpin was convicted for the murder of a police officer, while Lucas was convicted for killing two potential drug trial witnesses...

Réjean Hinse was arrested for the armed robbery of a general store in Quebec in December 1961. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for aggravated robbery in 1964. Although the Quebec Court of Appeal quashed Hinse’s conviction in 1994, after the Quebec Police Commission had concluded that Hinse was the victim of a “botched investigation”, the Court stayed the proceedings rather than acquit him...

In Reference Re: Steven Murray Truscott, [1967] SCR 309, the Supreme Court decided to uphold Truscott’s 1959 murder conviction after considering new evidence. The majority upheld the conviction and found that the new evidence strengthened the jury’s decision to convict. Justice Hall dissented on the basis that the trial was not “conducted according to law” and there were “grave errors in the trial”.

Romeo Phillion was convicted of the murder of Leopold Roy in 1967. Although Phillion was arrested for armed robbery, he later provided a false confession to murdering “the fireman”. Although this was revealed to be part of a ploy for Phillion and his partner to collect reward money, the jury found him guilty of murder and he was sentenced to life in prison...

In Brosseau v The Queen, [1969] SCR 181, the Supreme Court of Canada considered whether a Cree man with a Grade 2 education could withdraw his guilty plea on the charge of non-capital murder. The Supreme Court dismissed Brosseau’s appeal, holding in a 4-to-1 decision that the trial judge did not err in law in accepting the guilty plea without first inquiring as to whether Brosseau understood the nature of the charge and the plea, as he was represented by counsel...

David Milgaard was convicted in 1969 for the killing of Gail Miller, when he was 16 years old. The jury found Milgaard guilty of both rape and murder, and his appeals to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada were dismissed. It was not until April 1992, after Milgaard’s case had gained public attention for being a wrongful conviction, that the Supreme Court finally concluded that his conviction should be quashed and a new trial ordered...

The Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) had perpetrated a series of terrorist attacks and kidnapped two government officials, murdering one of them, in furtherance of the Quebec independence movement. In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau deployed the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa and Montreal, and invoked the War Measures Act...

Donald Marshall, Jr., a Mi’kmaq man, was convicted of the murder of Sandy Seale in 1971 when he was only 17 years old. During Marshall and Seale’s confrontation with Roy Ebsary and Jimmy MacNeil, Ebsary fatally wounded Seale. However, Marshall was the one police charged for Seale’s death, on the basis that he was “known to them” from previous incidents...

Erin Walsh was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of Melvin “CheChe” Peters in 1975. Walsh was convicted on the basis of false testimony. With the discovery of exculpatory evidence in 2003, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal finally heard Walsh’s case in 2008. The Court determined that no reasonable jury, in possession of all the evidence, could have found him guilty of murder. Although Walsh’s conviction was finally quashed, he passed away in 2010.

Canada abolished the use of capital punishment through Bill C-34, which was passed by a free vote of 130 to 124. It received Royal Assent on July 16, and came into force on July 26, 1976.

Leonard Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement, was extradited from Canada and has been imprisoned in the United States since 1977. He was convicted after a trial by judge and jury in Fargo, North Dakota of killing two FBI agents at Pine Ridge. The witness statements and ballistics evidence used to convict him have since been challenged...

After Donald Marshall, Jr.’s wrongful conviction for murdering Sandy Seale was overturned in 1983, Seale’s real killer was only convicted of manslaughter, after three trials, and sentenced to only one year in prison.

In R v Yebes, [1987] 2 SCR 168, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously dismissed Tomas Yebes’ appeal regarding his conviction for two counts of murder. Yebes was convicted after his two young sons died in a house fire, on the theory that he had killed his sons and then set the fire to hide the evidence. His conviction was finally overturned in 2020, when a new trial was ordered due to fresh evidence demonstrating that the expert evidence given at his previous trial—that the house fire had been intentionally set with accelerant—was wrong.

Parliament, under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, rejected a motion to restore capital punishment by a margin of 21 votes, with 148 against and 127 in favour. Some Parliamentarians who opposed the death penalty raised concerns about possible wrongful executions.

On September 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney issued a formal apology to the Japanese Canadian survivors and their families. The government additionally issued a $300 million compensation package, which included $21,000 for each of the 13,000 survivors, a $12 million Japanese community fund, and $24 million to create a Canadian race relations foundation.

The Royal Commission on Donald Marshall, Jr.’s wrongful conviction issued its final report finding that even when Marshall was acquitted in 1983, the justice system defended itself at Marshall’s expense. The report also made many recommendations, including that the federal Parliament provide for pre-trial disclosure in the Criminal Code, and that it create an independent commission to replace the federal Minister of Justice’s role in ordering new trials or appeals on the basis of new evidence once ordinary appeals have been exhausted.

In Kindler v Canada (Minister of Justice), [1991] 2 SCR 779, and Reference Re Ng Extradition (Can.), [1991] 2 SCR 858, the Supreme Court of Canada held, with three Justices dissenting, that extradition is permissible even in cases where the accused would face the death penalty.

In R v Stinchcombe, [1991] 3 SCR 326, the Supreme Court of Canada created a broad constitutional right for accused persons to receive disclosure of all relevant and non-privileged material held by the prosecutor. The Court stressed that prosecutors should be concerned about achieving justice as opposed to winning their cases, citing the 1989 Royal Commission on Donald Marshall, Jr.’s wrongful conviction in support of its decision.

In 1991, the federal Minister of Justice allowed David Milgaard’s second application to have his conviction reviewed after his mother, Joyce Milgaard, met with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The Court found that Milgaard had not established his innocence, either beyond a reasonable doubt or on a balance of probabilities; however, new evidence, including that relating to another person who may have committed the crime, rendered his conviction unsafe...

More than a dozen people, including five police officers from three different police forces, were charged with sexual crimes against children who were in a daycare centre operated in the small town of Martensville, Saskatchewan.

With the use of new forensic scientific techniques, DNA testing finally determined that David Milgaard was innocent of the rape and murder of Gail Miller. Evidence instead pointed to Larry Fisher as being the true culprit. Milgaard was officially exonerated, and Fisher was subsequently convicted of Gail Miller’s murder.

In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada released R. v. Lavallee, in which the Court recognized that the experiences, background, and circumstances of the accused should be taken into account in determining whether she actually believed she was at risk of serious bodily harm or death and had to use force to preserve herself...

The Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin—or the Kaufman Commission—began in 1996. It was ordered by the Ontario government to address Morin’s wrongful conviction. The report was released on April 9, 1998, and contained 119 recommendations relating to flaws in the police investigation and forensic science evidence that had contributed to Morin’s wrongful conviction, prior to his DNA exoneration.

The Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Gladue recognized that Indigenous over-representation in the justice system is a “crisis,” given that 12% of federal prisoners at the time were Indigenous despite the same group representing only 2% of the national population. The Court mandated a new approach to sentencing but upheld the three year sentence for Indigenous woman Jamie Gladue, who abandoned her battered woman’s self defence claim and pled guilty when charges were reduced from murder to manslaughter after a jury had been selected for her trial in British Columbia.

The Supreme Court of Canada rejected attempts to subject a Mr. Big sting operation to a wide publication ban. The target was Clayton George Mentuck, a young Indigenous man from the Waywayseecappo First Nation. Mentuck was suspected of murdering 14-year-old Amanda Cook, also from the same First Nation...

In United States of America v Burns and Rafay, 2001 SCC 7, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians cannot be extradited to face the death penalty because of the risk of wrongful convictions. The Court cited recently revealed wrongful convictions in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States as a justification for its changed position since the 1991 Kindler and Ng decisions.

In 2000, a Commission of Inquiry chaired by retired Justice Peter Cory was formed in order to determine the causes of Thomas Sophonow’s wrongful conviction, as well as how these results could be avoided in future cases. The Sophonow Inquiry Report was published on November 5, 2001, and identified a number of problems that led to Sophonow’s wrongful conviction...

In 2002, the National Judicial Institute presented a seminar course on the topic of wrongful convictions, organized by Justice Marc Rosenberg. The course presented an opportunity for judges to learn from the legal and social science perspectives on wrongful convictions. The seminar featured Jennifer Thompson, a woman who had mistakenly identified her assailant, prompting the wrongful conviction of an innocent man that was subsequently overturned with DNA evidence.

The first Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads (FPT Heads) of Prosecution Report on the Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice was published in 2004. The Report contained chapters on the leading causes of wrongful convictions such as police and prosecutorial tunnel vision, mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, in-custody informers, and erroneous forensic evidence...

In 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to the Chinese Canadians who had to pay head taxes between 1885 and 1923. In 2009, the government awarded $20,000 in compensation to approximately 800 head tax payers or family members. The government additionally created Canada’s Community Historical Recognition Program during the process of redress.

In June 2006, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador published the Lamer Commission of Inquiry Report on the cases of Ronald Dalton, Gregory Parsons, and Randy Druken. The report made over 40 recommendations on all aspects of the criminal justice system, including important changes related to improving legal aid, the quality of police investigations, and the culture of the Crown office.

Following the report issued by Commissioner Sidney Linden on the killing of unarmed Indigenous protestor Dudley George, the Ontario government issued an apology for his death on May 31, 2007.

In February 2007, the Manitoba government published the public inquiry report on the wrongful conviction of James Driskell. In this report, retired Justice LeSage concluded that there had been a number of “serious breaches of basic disclosure obligations” on the part of the Crown. He also provided a series of recommendations...

Prior to the SCC’s decision in Trochym, judicial approaches to post-hypnosis evidence had been shifting from considerations of how much weight should be afforded to hypnotically enhanced memories to the issue of whether such evidence should even be admitted in the first place. Based on the prevailing consensus in the scientific community, the court in Trochym was not satisfied that post-hypnosis evidence was sufficiently reliable to be admissible.

On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an official apology in the House of Commons to residential school survivors and to all Indigenous Canadians.

In 2005, the Parliament of Canada acknowledged its responsibility for the internment of Ukrainian Canadians by passing the Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act. The Act provided for the “public recognition” of these events “and the promotion of the shared values of multiculturalism, inclusion, and mutual respect”...

In May 2008, the government of British Columbia offered an official apology for the wrongful treatment of the passengers on the Komagata Maru in 1914. In August of that same year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also offered an apology. However, his apology was criticized...

The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge’s Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario, also known as the Goudge Report, was published on October 1, 2008. The report examined wrongful convictions related to baby deaths and the testimony of Dr. Charles Smith, a pathologist whom the Commission determined did not have adequate forensic training and did not understand his role as an impartial expert witness...

In 2004, the Government of Saskatchewan ordered a public inquiry to investigate the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard. The report was published in 2008, and identified a number of factors that had contributed to this miscarriage of justice, including the intensive police questioning of young witnesses...

After years of accepting the results of over 350 Mr. Big sting operations, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R v Hart, 2014 SCC 52, that henceforth the results of such stings would be presumptively inadmissible. The Court excluded incriminating statements made by Nelson Hart in the drowning deaths of his three-year-old twin daughters because of internal inconsistencies and lack of confirmatory evidence...

On November 28, 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered an official apology to LGBTQ2S+ Canadians in the House of Commons. The government apologized for decades of “state-sponsored, systematic oppression and rejection”, and stated that the mistreatment of the community is a “collective shame”...

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued an official apology on July 7, 2017 to Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who had been detained by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay since he was 15 years old, and repatriated only in 2012. Accompanying this apology, the government also granted a $10.5 million settlement to Khadr.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an official apology in the House of Commons on November 7, 2018 for turning away Jewish refugees who were fleeing persecution in Europe before World War II. In particular, Trudeau made reference to, and apologized for, turning away the 907 German Jews on the MS St. Louis in 1939. The government additionally pledged to “do more” for the Jewish community.

In August 2019, Canada announced that it will begin to issue pardons for people who have been convicted of simple possession of cannabis and do not have other criminal records. Those convicted of cannabis possession no longer need to wait five years or pay the parole board more than several hundred dollars in order to obtain a pardon...

On August 14, 2019, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations issued an official apology in Iqaluit to the Qikiqtani Inuit of Baffin Island. The apology recognized the government’s actions towards the Qikiqtani Inuit between 1950 and 1975...

On May 23, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an official apology and exoneration for Chief Poundmaker at Poundmaker Cree Nation. An exoneration ceremony was conducted that included the Prime Minister, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde, and many First Nations leaders...

On May 27, 2021, Prime Minister Trudeau issued an official apology for the internment of Italian Canadians and for the community’s mistreatment during World War II.

In November 2021, Justice Harry LaForme and Justice Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré published their report on miscarriages of justice. Having conducted 45 roundtable discussions involving many exonerees and representatives from foreign commissions and legal offices, their report produced a series of recommendations for establishing an independent commission to review miscarriages of justice...