The Justice Files

Ontario Superior Court Justice Michelle Fuerst has rejected prosecutors’ bid to have a repeat child sex offender declared a dangerous offender, despite convictions involving young children in Canada and the United States.

Instead, Fuerst sentenced Michael Ferguson to 16 years in prison and designated him a long-term offender, imposing a further 10 years of community supervision after his prison sentence.

According to reporting by Peter Robinson, Ferguson pleaded guilty to four sexual assaults involving children as young as one and two child pornography offences. The Canadian offences occurred primarily in Simcoe County, with some occurring in a Toronto suburb. His victims’ identities are protected by a publication ban.

Ferguson previously fled the United States after learning authorities wanted him. He eventually returned, was arrested and pleaded guilty to raping a child. He received a 15-year sentence, mostly suspended, served approximately four years and was deported to Canada in 2021.

A repeat child sex offender who changed his name before abusing another boy has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by Manitoba provincial court Judge Kael McKenzie.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Ryan Knight pleaded guilty to sexual interference and making child sexual abuse material.

Born Ryan Gabourie, he received seven years in prison in 2005 for molesting five boys. He legally changed his name in 2021.

The latest victim’s father hired Knight for renovations in 2024 after an online search failed to uncover his convictions. Knight subsequently repeatedly sexually abused his 13-year-old son.

Federal Court Justice Lobat Sadrehashemi has overturned a study permit refusal and a misrepresentation finding carrying five years of immigration inadmissibility, ruling that federal officials denied the applicant a fair opportunity to answer their concerns.

In the October 5 decision, Said v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), the judge ordered a different decision-maker to reconsider Said Masoud Said’s application.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada suspected Said had used an undeclared representative to prepare his application. Said denied that allegation, explaining that an acquaintance of a family friend had helped pay the application fee because he lacked access to a credit card. He maintained he completed the application himself.

Officials relied on the same credit card appearing on several unrelated applications as an indicator of an undeclared representative. However, their procedural fairness letter never told Said that this was the basis of their concern.

An 88-year-old former Saskatoon music teacher will serve his sentence in the community after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting an eight-year-old boy during private organ lessons.

Justice Richard Danyliuk accepted a joint recommendation from Crown and defence lawyers for Raymond Eldon McHargue to receive two years less a day under a conditional sentence, followed by three years of probation. The sentencing took place in Saskatoon’s Court of King’s Bench on September 29. 

According to CTV News, McHargue must remain at an approved residence around the clock for the first six months unless permitted to leave. For the remainder of his conditional sentence, he faces a nightly curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., CJME reported. He must also register as a sex offender for life.

The Northwest Territories Court of Appeal has upheld a community-based sentence for a man who pleaded guilty to making child pornography, the term used in the Criminal Code, after photographing a sleeping teenage girl in a sexualized state.

John Henry Dillon admitted that he took the photographs when he was 19 and the victim was 17. According to the original sentencing decision, the images indicated that the victim had been touched and that some of her clothing had been removed.

The Crown withdrew separate charges of sexual assault and voyeurism by electronic means after Dillon entered his guilty plea.

N.W.T. Territorial Court Judge Robert Gorin described Dillon’s conduct as a serious betrayal of a vulnerable victim. Her impact statement said the offence resurfaced earlier trauma and left her experiencing anxiety and nightmares.

Nevertheless, Gorin imposed a conditional sentence of two years less one day, allowing Dillon to serve the sentence in the community.

A British Columbia man who killed his former girlfriend’s mother, bound her body and buried it in a forest will spend two years in prison after court delays and weaknesses in the Crown’s case helped produce a sentence below the usual manslaughter range.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice David M. Layton accepted a joint sentencing submission for Carson Saul MacKay, 33, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the November 2022 death of 57-year-old Jodine Millar.

MacKay was initially charged with second-degree murder.

A former Saskatoon realtor convicted of publicly inciting hatred against Jewish people will serve his sentence at home after Judge Sanjeev Anand accepted a joint recommendation for an 18-month conditional sentence.

Brandon Taylor Moore, 45, pleaded guilty in June following an investigation into antisemitic posts published through his X account, which had approximately 180,000 followers.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Moore posted frequently between February 2024 and December 2025. Some of the material incited hatred against Jewish people, including an image of Adolf Hitler captioned, “Make antisemitism great again.”

Anand accepted the sentence proposed jointly by Crown prosecutor David Piche and Moore, who represented himself.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray has stayed drug-trafficking convictions against two activists who sold heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, while giving Parliament six months to address an unconstitutional provision in Canada’s drug laws.

Drug User Liberation Front co-founders Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum won their constitutional challenge September 29. Murray also personally praised the pair, who bought drugs through the dark web, tested them and sold them at cost through a Vancouver compassion club.

“You selflessly put yourselves to the side for this cause, and that’s something most people wouldn’t do. For that I applaud you. You should be very proud of yourselves,” Murray told them.

As CBC reported, the club operated without prescriptions or medical oversight. Its membership screening required participants to be adults already using illicit drugs.

A Winnipeg judge has granted an Iranian-born man a conditional discharge after he pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism, citing the possibility that a criminal conviction could lead to his deportation and separate him from his American wife.

Manitoba Provincial Court Judge Catherine Carlson gave 29-year-old Seyed Reza Mir Heidari a conditional discharge and three years of probation in a Sept. 17 decision, according to the National Post.

A Maori woman caught at Vancouver International Airport with roughly 20 kilograms of methamphetamine in her luggage has received a two-year sentence amounting to time served. Judge Diana Vandor credited the woman’s pre-sentence custody and ordered no further jail time.

The woman was intercepted in February 2025 while attempting to fly to Auckland, New Zealand. The Crown sought eight years in prison. Vandor described six years as the low end of the usual range for an offence of this kind, but concluded that the woman’s circumstances justified a substantially shorter sentence.

Two Ontario convictions have been overturned after reviewing courts found trial judges Sandra Caponecchia and Feroza Bhabha abandoned their neutral roles and effectively joined prosecutors in cross-examining the accused.

As first reported by the Toronto Star, both cases resulted in new trials because the judges’ questioning created an appearance of unfairness.

In the first case, Caponecchia questioned a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met through Tinder after the Crown had completed its cross-examination.

Her questioning filled seven pages of transcript, nearly one-quarter the length of the Crown’s cross-examination. Caponecchia challenged the accused over his ability to remember “all the intricate details” of the sexual encounter.

She later convicted him and imposed a four-year prison sentence.

The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that conviction last month, ruling that Caponecchia’s “prolonged, sometimes confrontational” questioning amounted to cross-examination.

A New Brunswick judge has recognized a constitutionally protected Aboriginal right for Indigenous defendants to be represented in provincial court by an elder or another community member instead of a lawyer.

The decision was first reported by National Post columnist Jamie Sarkonak, who warned that it could allow unlicensed representatives to advance pseudolegal arguments in Canadian courtrooms.

Provincial Court Judge Martin Goguen issued the ruling in the case of Christopher Labillois, a Mi’kmaq man facing fisheries charges related to lobster harvesting.

Labillois sought permission to have Chief Del Riley, who is not a licensed lawyer, represent him as he argued that his fishing activities were protected by Aboriginal and treaty rights.

Goguen heard evidence that Mi’kmaq communities used elders to help resolve disputes before European contact and later relied upon chiefs and delegates during treaty negotiations and dealings with the British Crown.