may I answer your question with a question? That is rhetorical by the way. Toronto has been plagued by anti-sematic demonstrations, threats and vandalism since October 7. How many of those demonstrators were charged and convicted and what penalties were the crowns asking for? The answer to the second half of that question will decide, at least for me, if the much cherished independence of the crowns as stated in your reply above was a legitimate argument on their part or whether they were just blowing smoke.
I didn’t ask a question but I’ll indulge you anyway since we’re a little bit up my alley on this.
I don’t know, but as none of those demonstrations resulted in a weeks-long occupation of an urban downtown, even were there organizers arrested and charged there would not be meaningful comparators to Pat King, or to whatever Livh and Barber are sentenced to.
Meaningful comparison will require similar charges, similar degrees of involvement and moral culpability, and readily comparable mitigating and aggravating factors.
The meaningful comparators that
are available are individual participants in demonstrations who were charged with simpler instances of mischief. I can say from firsthand knowledge sitting in court that individual participants in the convoy who were arrested as part of the final clearance and round up generally got minor, non-custodial sentences.
Generally, a guilty plea results in a lower sentence. Relatively few convoy ‘just participants’ went to trial. One who did and who was convicted of obstruction and mischief (after an acquittal for mischief was succesfully appealed by the crown) was David Romlewski. He was ultimately sentenced to one day of probation on a suspended sentence.
Lone convoy protester to appeal 'token' one-day sentence
If a pro-Palestinian protest locks up an urban downtown for three weeks and is forcibly driven out by Canada’s largest modern police public order operation, and if the organizers thereof are arrested and charged, and convicted at trial, it’ll be more feasible to do apples to apples comparison of sentencing positions.