Indigenous Toronto man with a criminal record of 101 break-ins gets time served

The Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto, Ontario on Friday, July 17, 2026. Photo by Peter Power /Peter Power

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A Toronto man with Indigenous heritage who has 101 break-ins on his criminal record won’t serve any more time in jail after his recent sentencing, even though he was arrested with nearly an ounce of fentanyl.

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Kieron Tierney — who had already done time for 85 previous break-ins — was sentenced to time served and probation for 16 more break-ins in an Ontario Court of Justice Gladue Court. The same judge handed him a suspended sentence on the drug charge after Tierney pleaded guilty to possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking.

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Gladue Courts stem from a 1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that said judges should consider the often-tumultuous personal backgrounds of Aboriginal accused and seek alternatives to prison time if possible.

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“Kieron Tierney has now accumulated 549 days of pre-trial custody on the present charges,” Justice André Chamberlain wrote in an Oct. 8 decision.

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Even if he applied only the standard credit of multiplying days spent in pre-trial custody by 1.5, Tierney would have already served more than two years in custody, said the judge.

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“The Crown nevertheless seeks a total sentence of four years’ imprisonment, noting that, unlike his previous matters, the present offences include the more serious charge of possessing nearly one ounce of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking.”

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Chamberlain started his decision with a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada in the 2016 case of Cheyenne Sharma, an Indigenous woman who pleaded guilty to importing two kilograms of cocaine in exchange for $20,000 from her boyfriend — a task she said she carried out to avoid seeing her and her daughter evicted.

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“Sentencing law cannot erase this country’s colonial past. Nor can it remove the causes behind an offender’s crime. But it is uniquely positioned to ameliorate — or aggravate — the racial inequalities in our criminal justice system,” the country’s top court said in the Sharma decision.

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The Gladue Court heard Tierney’s 16 most recent break-ins cost victims $26,000.

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“This represents a substantial financial impact and is a significant aggravating factor,” Chamberlain said, noting Tierney’s lengthy record is “undeniably extensive.”

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Tierney began using opioids at 15 and is now addicted to fentanyl, the judge said, noting his “ongoing struggles with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

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For 188 days of full or partial lockdown during remand at the Toronto South Detention Centre, Tierney spent “much of his time triple-bunked in a two-person cell, often leaving him to sleep on the floor near the toilet,” his lawyer said, noting his client had a “serious toothache” that went untreated behind bars for 10 months.

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“We keep building jails to lock people up and expand our capacity,” said the judge. “Politicians bemoan the criminal justice system’s catch-and-release policies, yet they can hardly staff the jails we have now. Kieron Tierney pays the price for that failure through substandard care and a total disregard for his medical and cultural needs.”