A West Kelowna man who was found with a large amount of fentanyl and a firearm in his vehicle in May 2021 will spend another month and a half behind bars after he was sentenced Friday.
Gregory Eli, 37, was arrested in the early morning hours of May 19, 2021 at a West Kelowna convenience store, and police found 34.5 grams of a mixture of fentanyl and caffeine on him and another 35 grams in a satchel in his vehicle. Officers also found a stolen, loaded .22-calibre pistol in the vehicle along with brass knuckles.
Following a previous trial, Justice Michael Brundrett convicted Eli of possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a restricted/prohibited firearm and possession of the brass knuckles, and Eli was back in Kelowna court Friday for sentencing.
Eli appeared in court through a video feed from jail, as he's currently in custody. He had been released on $3,000 bail back on Nov. 26, 2021, but he was re-arrested this past January when he was charged with a handful of new crimes, including possessing another firearm and uttering threats.
At the beginning of Friday's proceedings, Eli pleaded guilty to the uttering threats charge and in return, provincial Crown prosecutor Murray Kaay stayed his other charges, including the firearms charge, two other weapons charges and a charge of breaching his release order.
Despite the second set of charges stemming from an incident a year and a half after the first, Kaay consented to allowing Eli to serve his sentence for the threat concurrently – at the same time – as the drugs and weapons sentence.
While federal Crown prosecutor Ranjit Randhawa sought a total sentence of five years for all four convictions, which would have seen Eli serve another 19 months after credit for time served, Justice Brundrett instead handed down a total sentence of 3.5 years.
Eli has spent a total of 819 days in jail on the charges prior to Friday's sentencing, and with enhanced credit, he was credited with about 3.2 years of time served. This leaves him with 48 days left on his sentence.
Justice Brundrett pointed to the “totality principle” and Eli's Indigenous heritage for reducing what would have been a longer sentence.
The totality principle is a sentencing principle for an offender facing multiple convictions that prevents a total sentence from becoming "excessive." For decades, higher courts have ruled that a sentence should not deprive a person of any hope of release or rehabilitation.
A more recent sentencing factor, from a landmark 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision, takes into consideration Canada's history of colonization and its widespread impact on Indigenous people.
Eli is a member of the Westbank First Nation and his father was sent to residential schools as a child. Eli's father struggled with alcohol abuse and these challenges extended to Eli, who began using drugs at age 12. He's continued to face addiction challenges most of his life, and admitted to selling drugs to support his habit.
“Intergenerational trauma is insidious,” Eli's defence counsel Jonathan Fernandes said during sentencing submissions. “Subsequent generations are poorly equipped to deal with life's trauma ... In this particular case, the intergenerational trauma cut off language, it cut off culture and it also imported I'm sure quite a bit of resentment within the family.”
Indigenous people are overrepresented in Canada's criminal justice system, and the Supreme Court of Canada has noted this is an indication the system is discriminatory towards Indigenous peoples. "Gladue" sentencing principles aims to help address this.
Justice Brundrett largely agreed with Fernandes, noting Eli's circumstances “temper what would otherwise be a more severe sentence.”
The judge addressed Eli as he handed down his sentence, pleading with him to turn his life around.
“I know it's hard but you've got to commit yourself to staying away from drugs, you're just harming yourself and others and it's going to kill you if you keep it up," Justice Brundrett said. "So don't return to drug dealing, stay away from weapons like firearms. You've got to find a better path forward in life."
