🇨🇦 Direct to trial, 33 charges quietly vanish

Ontario wants the public to clap because this is supposedly normal. In Project South, prosecutors used direct indictment to skip the preliminary inquiry for 13 accused, then shaved 33 charges off the indictments for eight of them, as reported. Translation: trust the machine, ask fewer questions, move along. When the state says efficiency, it usually means less scrutiny for institutions that already police themselves.

At the centre is Toronto cop Timothy Barnhardt, cut from 17 charges to 10, and Brian Da Costa, from 16 to 9. Dropped counts include drug trafficking, conspiracy to accept a bribe, and conspiracy to falsely accuse a person. We are told this is just streamlining in a system under stress. Of course it is. Canada’s justice bureaucracy can find endless resources to sermonize about equity and inclusion, but when corruption, organized crime, police data leaks and alleged murder plots hit home, the process suddenly needs shortcuts. Decay at the core, managed by people demanding more trust than they deserve.

🍁 Maple Chronicles