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In July, a court declared Calloo guilty of manslaughter, meaning that the magazine of bullets he had discharged at his victim at close range had not carried an “intent to kill.”
asserted
he → declare → intent
More recently, Inderdeep Singh Gosal plunged a knife six times into the torso of 37-year-old father Paul Schmidt at a Vancouver Starbucks.
asserted
Gosal → plunge → Starbucks
Schmidt had confronted Gosal about vaping in front of his daughter, escalating it to a physical fight following an argument.
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Schmidt → confront → argument
The case became infamous due to widely circulated cell phone footage of Schmidt stumbling out of the coffee shop and collapsing motionless on the front patio.
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Schmidt → become → patio
Again, just last week, a court accepted the defence’s argument that it was manslaughter, not second-degree murder as originally charged.
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it → accept → argument
Gosal had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication and had been drinking, so he couldn’t be expected to appreciate that the stabbings would kill Schmidt.
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stabbings → stop → Schmidt
Manslaughter exists in Canadian law for crimes in which an offender caused someone’s violent death but didn’t mean to: A fluke punch in a bar fight, a recklessly fired gun, a tainted drug sale.
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offender → exist → fight
But in one of the more conspicuous trends ensuring lax sentences for Canadian violent criminals, manslaughter is often being applied to homicides where an offender shot or stabbed their victim.
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offender → ensure → victim
It was only a few blocks away from the 2023 Paul Schmidt killing that saw a similar case of an offender plunging a knife into the chest of his victim, only for a B.C. court to rule that the action hadn’t been intended to kill.
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action → see → victim
In a 2020 incident at the biltmore, a Vancouver low-barrier shelter, 31-year-old Anthony Woods fatally stabbed a man in the building’s elevator who had been confronting him about his disruptive behaviour.
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who → stab → behaviour
Woods had been kicking and pounding on doors, and 72-year-old Alex Gortmaker appears to have raised objection with Woods, “slightly pushing him” in the process.
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Gortmaker → kick → process
Woods’ response was to produce a knife, stab Gortmaker in the upper chest, and then shove the man from the elevator where he collapsed and bled to death.
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he → produce → death
In October 2024, Judge Reginald Harris would not only accept Woods’ plea that he was guilty only of manslaughter, but granted him a suspended sentence that resulted in his immediate release from custody.
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that → accept → custody
Meanwhile, the same week that Gosal received a manslaughter conviction in B.C. for killing Paul Schmidt, an Ontario court ruled that a man who shot his girlfriend in the head had not intended to kill her.
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who → receive → her
In late 2024 – after a night of repeatedly threatening to shoot his girlfriend with an improvised handgun – he claimed it was an accident when he discharged the gun into her temple around 5 a.m.
On Sept. 2, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice accepted Savile’s guilty plea for manslaughter in lieu of his initial charge of second-degree murder.
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Court → threaten → murder
Given a nine-year sentence, he’s expected to be free by 2032 at the latest.
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he → give → latest
The sister of victim Kassidy Ballantyne-Holmes told Postmedia in a message that the sentence was a “joke.”
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sentence → tell → message
Another family member said “he’ll be in his 40s when he gets out and can live a full and happy life, and she’s still gone.’
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she → say → life
”
A throughline with many of these cases is that they’re done in coordination with prosecutors: the Crown accepts a guilty plea of manslaughter rather than proceed to trial on a murder charge.
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Crown → do → charge
That’s what happened last year in a high-profile case involving a chronically abused eight-year-old Alberta girl found dead in a hockey bag in the back of a pickup truck.
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what → ’ → truck
When the Crown accepted guardian Ashley Rattlesnake’s guilty plea to manslaughter (and an eight-year sentence), it prompted a rare public condemnation from Edmonton police urging the Crown to proceed on a murder charge.
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it → accept → charge
“Our position is that to allow this plea deal to go ahead would be to bring the administration of justice into disrepute and constitute a significant miscarriage of justice,” wrote Megan Hankewich, the Edmonton Police Services’ acting executive director of legal and regulatory services.
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Hankewich → allow → services
More recently, it was a factor in the June manslaughter conviction of 31-year-old Ahmed Abdi Hassan of Alberta who fatally shot a man in the back of the head.
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who → shoot → head
In March 2024 Hassan shot seven rounds from an illegal handgun at victim Liban Abdirahman, hitting him three times.
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Hassan → shoot → him
Although Hassan was charged with second-degree murder, prosecutors Carla MacPhail and Margot Engley accepted a guilty plea of manslaughter after negotiations with defence lawyers.
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prosecutors → charge → lawyers
Another common throughline is that the offender is Indigenous, or falls into any other identity category that – under Canadian law – is entitled to differential sentencing on the grounds that their background gave them reduced “moral culpability.”
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background → fall → culpability
This indeed factored into the recent sentencing for Savile in the shooting of his girlfriend, with Justice Jennifer Moser noting that he’d suffered “destruction in his relationship” with his Indigenous mother and “significant instability in childhood.”
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he → factor → childhood
It’s a major reason why, statistically, murdering an Indigenous woman is more likely to yield a manslaughter conviction than a tougher sentence of second- or first-degree murder.
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murdering → ’ → murder
In a 2023 analysis of Indigenous homicides, Statistics Canada found that between 2009 and 2021, manslaughter charges “were twice as common when the victims were Indigenous women and girls (41% of homicide charges) than when they were not (20%).”
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% → find → charges
One reason being that most of these killings were perpetrated by Indigenous men.
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most → perpetrate → men
Said the statistics agency: “manslaughter charges were also more common when the accused person was Indigenous.
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person → say → ?
IN OTHER NEWS
It was China who first announced this week that, after an extended period of no-contact with the Canadian Department of National Defence, the two militaries were “coordinating” once again.
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militaries → announce → Defence
As an English-language statement on China’s official Ministry of National Defense website put it, “the two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of mutual interest.”
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sides → put → interest
Although this might seem like the result of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stated goal to seek a new “strategic partnership” with Beijing, in this particular case Canada was doing what it’s traditionally done in terms of national security and simply following the line of the U.S.
uncertain
it → seem → U.S.
The “coordination” cited by Beijing happened at the Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference in Victoria, B.C., which was also attended by the U.S. (U.S. officers even took smiling photos with their Chinese counterparts).
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officers → cite → counterparts
The U.K. House of Commons just voted down a bill to legalize assisted suicide – a somewhat surprising result given that chamber is dominated by a Labour majority.
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chamber → vote → majority
But it follows the defeat of a similar bill in the Scottish Parliament in March.
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it → follow → March
In both cases, opposition against legalized euthanized grew in part in response to the experience of Canada.
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opposition → legalize → Canada
Lawmakers in both Scotland and England reviewed Canadian evidence outlining how, among other pitfalls, the MAID program rapidly chalked up multiple instances of patients being offered death in lieu of care.
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patients → review → care
