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The majority of fraud cases in Ontario have ended with charges being stayed or withdrawn since 2020 because of COVID-19-related backlogs, the growing complexity of frauds, and a lack of resources in the province’s criminal justice system, according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fiscal year, the latest for which data is available, 58 per cent of fraud cases ended with the charges being stayed or withdrawn, compared to 46 per cent a decade earlier, when guilty decisions still made up the majority of outcomes in Ontario.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.” 

The trends in Ontario are playing out across the country. More fraud incidents are being reported each year, while police are completing fewer investigations into them. And when charges are laid, more than half of those cases have ended with them being stayed or withdrawn since 2022, according to numbers from Statistics Canada.

Given the rising number of frauds, sophistication of the schemes, limited resources, and that more of the culprits are tied to overseas organized crime, experts say Canada’s fraud problem likely won’t be solved through individual case enforcement and prosecution. 

“To make it work would probably be a goliath task,” said Peter German, president of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP.

“Disruption might very well be the route that police have to follow and that’s a very legitimate objective — disrupt these criminal organizations.”

Norman Groot, a civil fraud recovery lawyer in Toronto, thinks police are focusing more on prevention.

“The code word that you hear in law enforcement circles is ‘disruption,’” said Groot. “There’s so many complex organized frauds going on that from a law enforcement perspective, if they can disrupt, that’s a significant achievement.”

The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police didn’t respond to CBC News’ request for comment on provincial fraud statistics.

German argues that police should use their relationships with the finance industry, which he says is already dealing with fraud on a “minute-by-minute” basis. He also says governments should remove privacy barriers preventing the private sector from easily sharing information that could help law enforcement investigate fraud.

Halifax-based anti-fraud consultant Vanessa Iafolla also believes the private sector could help.

“I’d love to see our telecoms agencies get on board and really start doing the work of screening out these fraudsters, stop letting them come through our phones,” she said. 

“Not letting fraudsters have access to us, I think, is a huge, huge step forward and one that we need to take seriously as Canadians.”

Iafolla acknowledges that fighting fraud is going to require significant investment, but says it’s still worth it.

“That’s important for our own economy,” said Iafolla. “If that money leaves here, it’s not spent here.”

Ontarians reported losing nearly $193.5 million to fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre from the beginning of this year through the end of September. Across Canada, those reported losses hit $544 million in the same time frame. The centre estimates only five to 10 per cent of victims report their losses.