Saying it would be a “bad day for them” should someone break into his home, Ontario Premier Doug Ford praised the Crown attorney’s decision to not pursue charges against a Lindsay man who defended himself from an intruder armed with a crossbow.
It never made sense that the guy trying to protect his life also ended up in handcuffs. Now it is official that it didn’t make sense.
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The Ontario justice system has finally, wisely and rightly, decided that a Lindsay man who stabbed an attacker Aug. 18, 2025, who allegedly broke into his apartment while he was sleeping, was acting in self defence and they will not pursue it any further in the courts.
The first person to offer praise was the Premier.
“Guys, if you break into someone’s home, you need to pay the price,” Doug Ford told reporters Thursday, just after the decision to drop the charges was announced. “Anyone breaks into my home, it’s going to be a bad day for them — real, real bad day.”
This is a blockbuster day for common sense and one that will resonate among criminals as well. The system will no longer necessarily be your bodyguard.
The people under attack can take action now.
Friends of Jeremy McDonald, charged after defending himself with an intruder in his apartment at 3:20 am Monday, tell the story of what transpired here in Lindsay pic.twitter.com/KmGMhTIGBj
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) August 20, 2025
“If the guy breaks into your house and he has a crossbow ready to kill you, it’s free game,” said Ford. “You protect your life” and “you protect your family.”
Groundbreaking and precedent setting
This may be one of the biggest contributions on the public safety file in Premier Ford’s almost eight years in power. It’s groundbreaking and potentially precedent setting.
The charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon against Jeremy McDonald coming out of last August’s attack against him have been yanked. The 44-year-old dad, who has a job and was minding his own business in the middle of the night when he was victimized, is a free man again. He can have his life back.
In a short conversation with the Toronto Sun the day after the incident, McDonald indicated he felt he was merely defending himself. The system now sees it that way too.
‘Something is broken’
Count this as another win for those pushing for the concept of being able to defend oneself from a violent attack on you or your family in your own home.
It’s also a big win for the Premier who has stuck his neck way out there against his own police and justice system to remind them all that it is unreasonable to criminalize the victims of crime.
“Something is broken,” Ford said at the time of this incident.
He also said, “This (accused) criminal that’s wanted by the police (allegedly) breaks into this guy’s house, this guy (allegedly) gives him a beating, and this guy gets charged” and “I know if someone breaks into my house or someone else’s, you’re gonna fight for your life. You’re going to use whatever force you can to protect your family. I know everyone would.”
It seems the justice system is now listening.
Here is the rundown of the scene in Lindsay in which a man defended himself from an intruder at 3:20 am Monday. pic.twitter.com/PEBejnAYSA
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) August 20, 2025
What McDonald did was basic common sense and simply someone’s survival instincts kicking in. The Premier got this one right. And now so has the system.
This decision today is a huge step forward toward one day seeing a castle doctrine approach in Ontario.
It’s also another message to Ontario police services and Crown attornies that while there may not be self defence laws in place like they have in Florida, the public is no longer interested in prosecuting the victims.
So when the Crown announced in court Thursday morning in Lindsay that they had dropped the charges on a man who was violently attacked in his home but fought back and stabbed his intruder, they met the mood of the country.
It was self defence
The Crown said at first the police had evidence to lay the charges, but upon probing it further they decided this was a self defence case.
“In the specific circumstances of this case, the Crown has concluded that there is evidence supporting this defence, such that there is no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction,” the Canadian Press reported.
Meanwhile, the alleged intruder, Mike Breen, 42, is still recovering from the wounds he suffered in this incident. And he faces his own set of charges for allegedly breaking into the second-floor apartment on Lindsay’s main street while carrying a weapon for dangerous purposes.
He is still before the court on those matters and is innocent until those charges are tested against him.
What will be interesting going forward is how this case, and the one last week in which Peterborough convenience store clerk Tejeshwar Kalia was acquitted by a jury for hitting an intruder with the same baseball originally used on him, will affect police in similar cases where they often charge people on both sides of these confrontations.
At the time, Kawartha Lakes Police Chief Kirk Robertson explained Canadian law “requires that any defensive action be proportionate to the threat faced,” which “means that while homeowners do have the right to protect themselves and their property, the use of force must be reasonable given the circumstances.”
The Chief has not commented since the charges were withdrawn, but you can see the difficult task police have had with this kind of thing.
However, things just got easier for police going forward. The precedent has been set. The next time it’s obvious that someone breaking into your house runs into pushback from a citizen fighting for their life the solution is simple.
Just charge the criminal – n ot the innocent homeowner.
Lindsay is a bedrock Canada community. Town has good bones. Yes there are modern problems. But its greatness and sacrifice is on display too. From Olympia Restaurant’s 100 years in business to Kawartha Dairy to iconic premier Leslie Frost’s law offence, there are these reminders pic.twitter.com/CKOTPQOm0I
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) August 23, 2025