Majority of Ontario fraud cases tossed since 2020 due to limited resources: Crowns’ association

The majority of fraud cases in Ontario have ended with charges being stayed or withdrawn since 2020 because of COVID-19-related backlogs, the growing complexity of frauds, and a lack of resources in the province’s criminal justice system, according to the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association. 

“When there aren't enough resources, Crowns are put in the unenviable position of having to prioritize,” said Lesley Pasquino, the association’s president.

“It's not something that we want to do; every criminal offence has an impact on someone.”

CBC News reviewed the latest three years of fraud statistics released since its investigative series The Cost of Fraud revealed in 2023 that only a fraction of fraud cases were making it through Ontario’s justice system. New numbers from Statistics Canada show the problem has only gotten worse since then, and have some experts pointing to alternative solutions.

The number of fraud incidents (reports to police that aren’t unfounded) each year continues to rise, and has more than doubled the annual total from a decade ago in Ontario — jumping from just over 30,300 incidents in 2014 to more than 71,700 in 2024. 

Meanwhile, police are completing fraud investigations by laying a charge for less than 10 per cent of the incidents reported each year. And even when there are charges, more than half of those cases are being tossed in the court system.

In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, the latest for which data is available, 58 per cent of fraud cases ended with the charges being stayed or withdrawn, compared to 46 per cent a decade earlier, when guilty decisions still made up the majority of outcomes in Ontario. In the interim, fraud reports skyrocketed and the pandemic created case backlogs across the system.

“Crowns were put under enormous pressure to try and resolve, or move, as many cases as they could out of the trial stream to make sure that cases such as homicides and sexual assaults don't get stayed for delay,” said Pasquino, who has been a prosecutor for over 20 years. 

On top of that, she says understaffed and overworked Crowns often don’t have the trained technical staff needed to keep up with all the material on complex fraud cases or sufficient time to prepare them for trial.

“Most Crowns are expected to be in court four or five days a week and if you've got 100 or 200 [cases] … when do you do that? You're doing that, evenings and weekends — all the time,” said Pasquino.

“We need more Ontario Crowns. We really need to look at their working conditions to make this a sustainable job.”

In an emailed statement, the Ontario attorney general's office told CBC News that by 2027-28, the provincial government will have invested more than half a billion dollars to address court backlogs. That includes adding 87 new justices of the peace, up to 52 new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice and hiring nearly 700 more Crown prosecutors, victim support and court staff. 

“Our government continues to take action to protect people and businesses by ensuring offenders are held accountable and that the justice system is supported with the resources it needs,” said press secretary Julia Facca.

The province also pointed to the work of Ontario’s Serious Fraud Office, which brings police and prosecutors together to provide “a unified and organized approach to combatting serious fraud in Ontario.”