LILLEY: Justice Minister's comments show he is out of touch on crime

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Carney's justice minister warns of "Wild West" Canadians are living in the Wild West as crime continues to skyrocket.

Brian Lilley

Published Sep 01, 2025 • Last updated 14 minutes ago • 3 minute read

Minister of Justice Sean Fraser is pictured in his office at the Justice Building on Parliament Hill shortly after being appointed to his position. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia Network

In Hamilton, more than 80 shots rang out as bars were closing during the early morning hours of Saturday,  leaving three injure

In Toronto, a 19 year-old was shot and killed in a bathroom at the Scarborough Town Centre and two 17-year-olds are now charged.

In Ottawa, a Jewish woman in her 70s was stabbed and sent to hospital just for shopping while being Jewish.

In Calling Lake, Alta., a man already wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant was picked up and charged for a home invasion where 40-year-old Edward Young was shot and killed.

Across the country, we can find examples of increasing criminal violence and a wanton disregard for human life. Increasingly, Canadians are feeling less safe and criminals more emboldened.

Now, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for a clarification of an existing law that says protecting your home, life or property is allowable, Liberals are mocking the idea.

“This isn’t the Wild West. It’s Canada,” Justice Minister Sean Fraser said on X.

“Canadians deserve real solutions that make us safer, not slogans that inspire fear and chaos for Pierre’s political survival.”

I’m sorry Minister, but the Wild West you are afraid of is happening in Canada today. If the four examples above are not enough, I could provide dozens more to you, if you would bother to look.

Have you considered the story of 71-year-old Shahnaz Pestonji?

You may have forgotten her name, Minister, because she died more than six weeks ago. To refresh your memory, Pestonji was the 71 year-old woman who was allegedly approached by a 14 year-old boy who demanded the keys to her vehicle.

“But fam, it went left. She wouldn’t give me the keys, so I yoked her,” the young teen said in a social media post just before his arrest.

We could point to the home invasion in Vaughan over the weekend. The shooting in Calgary that saw a residential neighbourhood forced to “shelter in place,” while police dealt with a man with a gun.

The videos of groups of men shooting randomly and illegally off a bridge in Ontario’s cottage country are definitely an example of the Wild West.

From the shooting in Valemount, B.C., to the home shot up in North Vancouver or the car shot up in downtown Edmonton early Saturday morning, crime is clearly out of control in Canada — and Fraser doesn’t realize it.

The Liberals can point to the most recent Statistics Canada report which says gun crime was down in 2023, compared to 2022 – the most recent report available. What they won’t tell you is that firearm-related violent crime increased by 54% between 2013 and 2023.

The biggest increases were pre-pandemic, as the Liberals were pushing their soft-on-crime agenda.

Between 2014 and 2024, the Toronto Police major crime indicators dashboard shows crimes such as assault, breaking and entering, auto theft and others increased by 46%. In that same time period, shootings increased by 160%.

The man who was immigration minister when things started to go sideways and who was housing minister when things got really awful is now our justice minister. It should be noted that Fraser has less experience in criminal law than the average court reporter.

The man spent his first several years as a lawyer working on sustainable development and then worked on intellectual property law. Now though, Fraser is the man that Mark Carney has put in charge of our justice system – meaning our courts, our criminal law and more.

Poilievre wants Canadians to feel safe in their own homes, on their own streets. He is calling for Canadians to be able to defend themselves and for the law to be clarified.

With his comments, Fraser is telling Canadians that there is no problem with crime, and we shouldn’t believe our own eyes, or the statistics.

It’s doubtful that crime will improve with Fraser at the helm, unless he opens his eyes to the reality Canadians are living.