[Clive]

It is interesting that the charges were laid in Peel Region at the west end of the GTA even though the arrests were made across the GTA and the detention facility in Durham Region at the east end of the GTA.

It has been over 25 years but the conventional wisdom then was "the Crown at Peel doesn't deal". The story went that when a defence counsel would ask the Crown what it would accept, the reply was usually "I will accept a plea of guilty".

I explicitly asked the supervising Crown whether that meant more trials and fewer convictions and he told me "no". "We get the same percentage of guilty pleas and the same rate of convictions as other urban jurisdictions."

I am not currently au courant with the Peel Crown but my experience is that institutional practices such as this tend to persist.

Just speculation. Is there anyone here currently familiar with current Peel Region practice?

[GMMAC]

I live in Peel & my perception is the exact opposite.
In fact I'd go so far as to observe that it's served as the breeding ground for some of the most biased legal hacks in the province who've later gone to become Head Crowns & Judges elsewhere.

Leo McGuigan (sp?), who was effectively the 'go to guy' when the AG's Office was making its 'deal with the devil' with Karla Holmolka, was also then the long-time supervisor for an area which included Peel.

At least with all of the terrorists being male, you may possibly be on to something since Peel is notorious for gender-biased justice:
When (now Judge) Paul Taylor was Head Crown (under old Leo) he once got into a very public scrap with Mr. Justice Flaherty in open Court (!) over his outright demand that a nanny actually videotaped physically abusing a toddler receive a conditional sentence!

His rationale: nothing beyond her say-so that she'd been an 'abused woman' in her third world homeland prior to coming to Canada !!!

[gonzo]

"...Is there anyone here currently familiar with current Peel Region practice?..."

My knowledge of the Peel Crown is hopelessly old, Clive, but I do remember that CFB Borden up the road a bit had a useful group of SAS lads that were loaned-out on occasion to deal with the hardcases.

Probably accounted for some of those guilty pleas................FRegards

[Fair Go]

There were bound to be terrorist cells in Canada as in other parts of the world. What amazes me is that when you read posts such as those to the G & M, the liberals are in denial. These terrorists had enough explosives to kill thousands of innocent people and everyone, whatever their political persuasion, should be very grateful that they were caught.