Jamie Sarkonak: Murderous rapist has no right to a McGill law degree

The most famous student at McGill’s law school this year is a convicted murderer and rapist who was paroled in part for being Indigenous. And there is no chalking this up to a mistake: McGill professors helped with his application, and the university was “fully aware” of his past, according to his lawyer.

It was CBC that first caught wind of Jeffrey George Ewert’s attendance at McGill Law, where he shared classrooms with many female students. Some of those students went to the news when they found out about Ewert’s crimes: he raped and killed a young woman in 1984, and over a month later, beat a 15-year-old girl into a vegetative state (“Kimberley is now completely spastic — unable to voluntarily control her movements — unable to speak more than one or two words,” reads a court decision tied to the beating.)

It appears that someone, somewhere took issue with Ewert’s presence because he had not been seen on campus since Oct. 6. A student petition supporting Ewert states that he was “escorted off school premises by security earlier this month.”

Nevertheless, it is odious that the man spent a month there to begin with. His history of cruelty and violence should have disqualified him from the honour of a legal education — and from taking a seat away from a student more worthy. And safety remains a concern. Ewert’s correctional file noted that his “risk of violence is assessed as moderate to high in the short term” that he had a “need to dominate and control women.” A 2022 parole board decision expressed concern over his “problematic reactions to feelings of rejection, dismissal, and criticism.”

The board wrote that Ewert’s “attitude towards women indicates that an undue risk to the community continues to exist,” citing a 2019 incident in which he told a female officer at a minimum security prison that he found her attractive, which made her feel uncomfortable.

This was downplaying what really happened. An incident report written at the time, reproduced in a Quebec court decision from a case brought by Ewert against correctional authorities, gives a more full account of what happened shortly after Ewert arrived at the prison:

“You informed (the parole officer) that you find her very attractive and distracting,” went the report, originally in French. “It appears that these comments were not made in the search of aid or for any therapeutic purpose. You made these comments in a flirtatious manner, while smiling, possibly to assert control. During the meeting with your (parole officer), another staff member noticed that you were visibly fixated on your (parole officer) in a preoccupying fashion. Your facial expressions were enough to alarm her to the point that she asked for additional supervision of the meeting.

“We are concerned with the rapidity of your behaviour and with your attitude as you have murdered and sexually assaulted two women of whom you found attractive, in an impulsive manner,” expressed the report. It concluded that Ewert’s behaviour “represents a risk for the security of our staff.”

Ewert was denied day and full parole — but he took the matter up to Federal Court and won in 2024. Justice Jocelyne Gagné decided that the fact Ewert had a 12-year long-term relationship during his incarceration, which ended and did not prompt a violent reaction from him, was enough to prove that he no longer had issues with women. She also insisted that his Indigenous heritage needed to be a much larger part of the calculation.

Fast forward to 2026, Ewert was allowed into the law program and appears to maintain an interest in expressing his attraction to women. CBC found his Threads and Instagram accounts and reported that “Ewert is actively communicating with women, commenting on images of women, many of which appear to be altered or created by AI,” in one case writing “hotties like you drive us crazy.”

Nevertheless, some number of McGill professors helped him get into the school. Nora Demnati, his lawyer, also taught at the school in 2021.

As perhaps the most backwards development of all, Ewert has received an outpouring of public support from people willing to overlook his history of violence and mistreatment of women. In a LexisNexis publication, retired lawyer John L. Hill framed Ewert’s enrollment as an opportunity for students to learn about the “difficult realities of rehabilitation.” And over 100 people — law students and alumni — have signed a petition dated Oct. 15 imploring McGill to “rescind the restrictions placed” on Ewert and allow him to continue his legal education.

“One-third of Canada’s prison population is Indigenous, and Jeff’s own incarceration is inextricable from the colonial institutions in which he was born,” reads the petition. “Few people in this country have been failed by as many institutions as he has, and McGill University now has a chance to set a precedent…. Jeff’s situation is where our collective commitments to reconciliation and rehabilitation are tested.”

On Saturday, the McGill law students’ association circulated a statement that balanced carefully on the fence. It acknowledged the fear of students, Indigenous over-incarceration, and the need to guard against sexual violence, but added that it would not comment on “admissions or parole decisions.”

Ultimately, the group blamed McGill for failing to “guide us through critical learning,” said it was “shocked by the reactive manner” in which the university handled the matter, and condemned the school’s lack of support measures to integrate formerly incarcerated students. It called on the university to provide better mental health resources and accommodations for survivors of sexual violence.

And then, two final requests: “We also believe that a circle discussion led by an Elder would provide an important and culturally appropriate space for our students to process recent events. Should the student in question be welcomed back onto campus, we ask that they receive the academic support necessary to continue their studies.”

What so many people seem to miss is that not a single person in Canada is entitled to a legal education. It’s a privilege — one that you should lose if you rape and kill another human being. Whether the man has served his time should be irrelevant. He’s a rapist and a murderer, and there is no undoing that.

Even if Ewert is permitted to finish his education and somehow obtain a law degree, he would still need to be admitted to the bar to become a lawyer. Some might point to this as a reliable safeguard, even that has had its share of failures. In 2022, Saad Gaya, a convicted terrorist who was part of the Toronto 18 plot 20 years ago, was given the go-ahead to practice law in Ontario. And since 2019, a man known only as A.A., who admitted to sexually touching children and who holds a law degree, has been embroiled in a legal battle in hopes of being licenced as a lawyer. Not all provinces are this lenient, but the trend is concerning.

We often criticize ivory towers, but in the case of justice, the tower is a key part of institutional defence. There are high expectations for honesty and good conduct among lawyers, and in exchange, this class of professionals holds a strong degree of influence and power over society. If those responsible for some of the most offensive crimes in society can be trained as technicians who tend to our rules on morality, then the system that allowed it to happen will lose the respect it enjoys from the general public. That is a recipe for the breakdown of order.

National Post