Edmonton Journal - Lorne Gunter: Bloody weekend in Edmonton heightens calls for bail reform
Police block traffic on Jasper Avenue between 118 Street and 120 Street as they investigate a crime scene on Saturday, August 30, 2025 in Edmonton.
On Tuesday, Edmonton mayoral candidate Rahim Jaffer issued an open letter calling on big-city mayors across the country to band together and demand the Carney government bring in meaningful bail reforms, not the piddly, window-dressing reforms introduced by the Trudeau Liberals last year.
“We’ve seen police in particular find it very hard to do their jobs when they’re having to deal day in, day out with the same handful of repeat offenders, who keep ending up back on the street,” Jaffer charged.
Indeed, a growing number of crimes across Canada are being committed by offenders who are on one form or another of bail while awaiting trial for earlier offences or who have been released early from prison.
Take the case of Cody Desjarlais, who was released on bail on July 4 while awaiting trial on 27 earlier charges. On July 16, Desjarlais is suspected of having stolen a car, used it in a hit-and-run that left a cyclist seriously injured, then hopped out on a busy street to stab a stranger on the sidewalk.
Or perhaps Edmonton’s best-known case of bail-related crime — the murder of Rukinisha Nkundabatware in 2023 at the Belvedere LRT station. Nkundabatware was stabbed, at random by Jamal Wheeler, who was out on bail for earlier violent crimes including attacks on strangers riding transit.
Jaffer’s open letter comes days after a frightening weekend of mostly random, violent attacks in Edmonton. So far none of these murders or assaults appear to have been committed by people on bail, per se. However, at least two were allegedly committed by offenders with extensive records of violent criminal behaviour and drug abuse, who were nonetheless roaming our city’s streets when they should have been locked up for society’s protection.
Last Saturday morning, a 64-year-old man was loading purchases in his car in the parking lot of the Eaux Claires Canadian Tire in north Edmonton when he was viciously attacked by a stranger who stabbed him several times, then fled on a bike.
Police have arrested Nathan Piche, a man with a long, long list of priors, including the fatal stabbing of another man in the west end in 2018.
There is no indication Piche was out on bail. Still, why was he on the streets at all? He has proven himself time and again to be a danger to society. There’s a strong argument he should have been locked up.
Edmonton Police are now working with Crown prosecutors to have Piche denied bail. Good luck with that. Ever since the Liberals’ 2019 bail reforms — the ones Jaffer wants repealed — it has been all but impossible for judges to keep even the most violent, repeat offenders behind bars while they await trial.
That why about 40 per cent of murders in Canada are now committed by people on bail or early release from prison. And that’s also why there has been a nearly 40 per cent rise in violent crime nationwide.
Police also allege that beloved NorQuest College instructor, Priscilla McGreer, who was gunned down in an SUV on Jasper Avenue early Saturday morning, was killed by Kyle Laumen, a man with “extensive court records” of convictions for violent crimes.
And there was an 82-year-old man seemingly killed in his own backyard in the Strathcona neighbourhood just north of Whyte Avenue on Saturday morning by someone police believe was likely a violent stranger. (No charges yet.)
Statistics show that overall crime rates in Edmonton went down by six per cent last year. Still, attacks like these give Edmonton residents the sense our city is becoming more dangerous.
Jaffer is right. If cities are going to tackle their crime problems head-on, they will need the federal government to toughen bail and probation rules dramatically.
