Overview
- Jeffrey George Ewert, convicted in 1984 of second-degree murder and attempted murder, began attending McGill’s law school in September and has been excluded from campus since early October while the university reviews the matter.
- Ewert was granted day parole in 2025 after a federal court found the Parole Board had not properly applied Gladue principles and parole records rate his risk of reoffending as moderate-to-high.
- McGill says it cannot discuss individual student records because of privacy laws and has not confirmed whether it knew of Ewert’s criminal history at admission while his lawyer says he disclosed it.
- Students and faculty remain sharply divided, with competing petitions and an anonymous open letter calling for a safety framework and a participatory review and a separate petition urging restoration of his access.
- The dispute highlights wider tensions in Canada over rehabilitation, victim and campus safety, university limits on asking about criminal records in Quebec, and the separate role of law societies in licensing lawyers.