Lady Justice has been depicted as blindfolded for centuries—an implicit promise not to judge a person by immutable factors such as skin colour. In Canada, that may be changing, as courts increasingly consider a defendant’s race when determining punishment.
Rulings of recent years highlight the trend: A B.C. judge earlier this year ruled that a black man who stabbed his girlfriend to death will become eligible for parole in 12 years in part because of “systemic anti-Black racism.” A man of Filipino heritage convicted of a hit-and-run in Ontario received a conditional sentence in 2024 in part because of reports of racism, including classmates making “slanted-eye” gestures at him as a child. And a hashish trafficker in Quebec had his sentence cut by a third last year, at least partly because he descended from slaves.
