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| John L. Hill |
One of the men arrested was Trevor Bellows. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine in 2020. He was sentenced on May 22, 2024, to a two-year less a day conditional sentence with house arrest for the first 18 months and a curfew for the remainder of the term. He would then be subject to two years’ probation.
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Bellows was seen leaving a building linked to Tyshawn Walters, who was identified as using the unit as a stash house for drug trafficking. However, there was no evidence that Bellows had access to the suite. The only other individual known to have access was Boris Derpich. Further surveillance found Derpich passing bags to Bellows in a park. The police believed Bellows was acting as a drug courier for Walters and Derpich. This suspicion was supported by intercepted communications and video recordings made by police inside the unit. Messages were discovered that instructed Bellows to make drug deliveries on at least two occasions.
Bellows was 30 when the surveillance took place. He had graduated from high school and maintained a solid employment record. However, during the time he was under police observation, he experienced a period of unemployment and required funds to support his family. His family included his common-law wife, a 14-year-old stepson and a three-year-old daughter. He had no criminal record, but he had become addicted to cocaine.
The trial judge discounted Bellows’s involvement, noting that he pleaded guilty to conspiracy rather than actual trafficking and that his association with the other men was relatively brief. He cited R. v. Proulx, 2000 SCC 5 as confirming that conditional sentence orders can provide significant deterrence and denunciation, and no offences are excluded from such orders unless there is a minimum sentence that must be imposed.
The Alberta Court of Appeal reminded itself that it may only interfere with a sentence where there is an error of principle, a failure to consider a relevant factor, or an erroneous consideration of an aggravating or mitigating factor that impacted the sentence, or where the sentence is demonstrably unfit (R. v. Lacasse, 2015 SCC 64). An error of principle must have had a material effect on the sentence (R. v. Morgan, 2024 ABCA 345; R. v. Suter, 2018 SCC 34; R. v. Friesen, 2020 SCC 9).
Ultimately, the paramount principle of sentencing should be proportionality (R v. Safarzadeh-Markhali, 2016 SCC 14). The Appeal Court then proceeded with a summary of sentencing judgments over the years. It concluded with the observation that, “Our society knows considerably more about addictive drugs now than it did over 40 years ago when the wholesale starting point was established. What society has learned has in no manner justified any diminution of the proper appreciation of the gravity of the offence of wholesale trafficking in cocaine.” The court went on to say that Parranto has affirmed that appellate courts must sometimes “set a new direction” reflecting contemporary understanding of the gravity of the offence.
Alberta courts have long held that couriers are important parts of drug trafficking (R. v. Cirone, 1988 ABCA 228). It is “a palpable and overriding error” for the sentencing judge to characterize Bellows’s agreed involvement as “rudimentary” or “low level.”
The claim that Bellows committed the crime to support his family must be dismissed. R. v. Perka, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 232 makes it clear that the criminal justice system should excuse the infliction of a greater harm to avert a lesser evil. Providing for one’s family does not justify the harm, including death, that drugs cause.
Due to the errors in sentencing made by the trial judge, the Court of Appeal was entitled to substitute a sentence it found appropriate R. v. Bellows, [2025] A.J. No. 281. While the Crown suggested a term of over four years of imprisonment, the Appeal Court appeared mindful of Bellows’s positive past and the absence of a criminal record. A two-year penitentiary term was substituted for the King’s Bench decision to commence upon Bellows’s surrender to the Edmonton Remand Centre on or before March 27, 2025.
This judgment will please those Edmonton Journal readers who were shocked by the size of the Project Elk takedown. It will satisfy those who believe that lengthy incarceration and being tough on crime will solve Canada’s drug problems. Whether such denunciation of criminal wrongdoing will deter others in Bellows’s position from engaging in criminal activities remains to be seen.
John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a J.D. from Queen’s and an LL.M. in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the [True Crime] Story (AOS Publishing). The Rest of the [True Crime] Story has been shortlisted for a prestigious Brass Knuckles Award, which is the Crime Writers’ of Canada’s prize for best nonfiction crime book of the year. Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.
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