Judge rules life with no chance of parole for 25 years is Charter violation for killers of elderly couple in Abbotsford home invasion
No remedy yet decided upon by Justice Brenda Brown in advance of sentencing three international students who killed Arnold and Joanne De Jong in 2022
October 19, 2026
*Warning: This story deals with several details of a double homicide that could be disturbing to some readers – PJH
While Canada’s Parliament quashed the so-called “faint-hope clause” 15 years ago, a glimmer remains.
Vancouver lawyer Donna Turko represents Indian international student Kushveer Singh Toor who, along with Abhijeet Singh and Gurkaran Singh. murdered septuagenarians Arnold and Joanne De Jong in a home invasion in Abbotsford on the Mother’s Day weekend 2022.
The men had done some pressure-washing for the De Jongs before they hatched a plan that was both horrific and inane.
“Joanne was hit in the head and stabbed in the neck,” Justice Brown said in convicting the three men of first-degree murder on May 8, 2026.
“Arnold’s head was wrapped in duct tape. He died by suffocation. Her by exsanguination.”
First-degree murder in Canada comes with a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. Sentencing hearings in cases such as this should be relatively simple since judges are given no leeway in the criminal code, unlike manslaughter, which can range to a light sentence for a killing that's closer to an accident up to life in prison for near murder.
But Turko had an idea.
Zombie faint hope
In a previous case, Turko represented Luciano Mariani who murdered ex-girlfriend Caroline Bernard in 2021. Mariani was convicted but Turko launched a constitutional challenge under section 12 of the Charter, which covers cruel and unusual punishment.
For many decades, Canada had the so-called “faint-hope clause” that allowed judge to give a sentence of life in prison but a chance of parole after only 15 years in certain favourable circumstances.
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government killed faint hope in 2011.
So why has the zombie of faint hope risen? In the Mariani case, Turko pointed to the case of Alexandre Bissonnette, the man who murdered six men in a mosque in Quebec in 2017. Bissonnette was originally sentenced to consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole for 40 years.
The Supreme Court of Canada, however, ruled that was a violation of section 12 of the Charter, i.e. cruel and unusual punishment. The reason being, why should a man who murdered one person get the same sentence as a man who murdered six? The principle of proportionality in sentencing made that unfair.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Crossin agreed in January 2025 that it is unconstitutional to treat all offenders convicted of first-degree murder with the same punishment.
The actual status of faint hope is still before the courts in B.C. and the Supreme Court of Canada.
As for Mariani, his lawyer won that argument but that didn't mean he got a sentence allowing him to apply for parole after 15 years, just that it was possible for him to have argued that. Because of the particularly heinous nature of the killing, 25 years before parole eligibility seemed fit to Justice Crossin.
Turko is in a similar situation in the De Jong case since her client and the two co-defendants tortured and violently murdered the elderly couple.
The case was in BC Supreme Court in Abbotsford on Monday (Oct. 19, 2026) scheduled for sentencing, but instead was a decision on the application. Justice Brown likely had no choice since judges must follow precedents, so Justice Brown ruled that the 25-year mandatory minimum violated the three men’s section 12 rights under the Charter. What she did not do was decide upon a remedy. What is clear is that this decision does not mean every murderer will be eligible for parole after 15 years, all it means is that waiting the full 25 years is a Charter violation.
“What that finding ultimately means for their parole eligibility remains to be determined,” daughter Heather De Jong-Hoogland said in a post on social media.
The De Jongs adult children and other family members have been traumatized for years because of this case. Now they have to endure yet another step in the process.
“We are feeling pretty defeated and left wondering the value of human life when two people’s lives can be so cruelly taken and criminals, who aren’t even Canadian, are protected.”
The good news in reality is that first-degree murderers rarely get parole at their eligibility date.
Singh, Singh and Toor remain in custody. Because of the Charter application on a date that was supposed to be a sentencing, the actual sentencing didn't happen, something that frustrated family members. Instead, the case was put over to Feb. 22, 2027, for sentencing.
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Paul J. Henderson
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