Crown calls for 9-year sentence for Yellowknife furanyl fentanyl dealer

The prosecutor is calling for a nine-year prison sentence for a Yellowknife man who imported and trafficked a form of the deadly opiate fentanyl.

At a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, Duane Praught said the courts established a starting point of five years when sentencing low-level fentanyl dealers, but that was before it was clear how deadly the drug is.

"Fentanyl is, by far, the most dangerous drug being used by illicit drug users today," said Praught, noting that in 2019 the drug resulted in 523 overdose deaths in Alberta.

"The opiate crisis in this country is ongoing," said Praught. "It may not be on the front page anymore because of COVID-19 and other events, but it is still a crisis."

Praught was speaking at the sentencing of 25-year-old Darcy Oake. Oake pleaded guilty to trafficking furanyl fentanyl and was found guilty of three other charges, including illegally importing it into Canada and criminal negligence causing bodily harm for providing some of it to a friend who almost immediately overdosed.

Sentence should denounce selling of drug, says Crown

Praught said the main priority of the sentence given to Oake should be to denounce the illegal selling of the drug and deter others from doing it.

The court heard that Oake had no criminal record when police arrested him after searching his home in November 2016. At the time, Oake was in hospital recovering from his second overdose in a week after receiving a 10-gram shipment of the drug from a supplier in China he found on the dark web.

Oake received a total of 20 grams from the supplier. Oake complained after ordering 10 grams and not receiving it for weeks. The supplier mailed a second 10-gram shipment just before Oake received his initial order.

He traded some of the drug to the friend who overdosed. In texts recovered by police, he also agreed to sell some to another acquaintance.

Proposed sentence 'bizarre,' says defence

Oake's lawyer, Katherine Oja, said it would be "bizarre" to sentence Oake to nine years when the courts have given similar sentences to far more sophisticated drug traffickers dealing in greater amounts of drugs.

Oja cited the case of Todd Dube, a 22-year-old Ontario man who was sentenced to nine years after he headed up a dial-a-dope operation in Yellowknife that sold fentanyl, cocaine, cannabis, MDMA and other drugs.

She said police estimated Dube's drug ring was selling 6 to 8 kilograms of cocaine every month. When police busted the operation, they found 1,100 fentanyl pills, four kilograms of cocaine, and six kilograms of cannabis, among other drugs.

Oja said one of the key differences between Dube and Oake is that Oake was trading the drug largely to supply his own addiction, whereas Dube was doing it for money.

"Addiction is recognized in the medical field as a disease or a disorder," said Oja. As a result, she said, Oake is less to blame for his actions than a dealer selling drugs strictly for profit.

Oja said a sentence of 5 to 6 years is appropriate. After deducting the three years and four months credit Oake has for the time he's already served, that would leave him close to or within the two-year limit for serving sentences in the North instead of in a federal penitentiary.

Justice Shannon Smallwood said she will give her decision on June 30.