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

McGill University's campus in Montreal in November 2025. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

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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.

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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.)

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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:

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“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.

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“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.”

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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.