Then Quayat had a son. “That was itself a complicating variable,” he says. “It’s not a secret: I wasn’t in any meaningful relationship with my son’s mother. It was a completely unexpected thing.” All of a sudden, his work schedule — which might take him to court in Barrie one week, then to Hamilton the next — made it “very difficult” to be a part of his son’s life.

By 2017, he had joined the federal Crown’s off ice. He remained a busy courtroom lawyer, but he enjoyed less travel, a higher salary, a good benefits package and a pension. As a new parent, he says, “it made all the sense in the world.”

When Quayat became a prosecutor, James Miglin, a criminal-defence lawyer at Edward H. Royle, knew that his colleague would bring integrity and a “sense of fairness” to the position. “We need good Crowns,” says Miglin. “That’s essential to the proper functioning of the criminal-justice system.”

In his first few years as a prosecutor, Quayat took on two additional jobs. First, he became an instructor of international law at the University of Toronto. (He teaches the course on Monday evenings.) Second, he joined the armed forces as a reserve legal officer. “The work ebbs and flows,” he says. He might be called on, for instance, to brief commanders on updates to military law. Because he’s a federal public servant, it’s relatively simple to book off time as a prosecutor to advise the military. “It’s been a great experience.”

He spends the bulk of his working life, however, as a federal Crown. And, today, he’s happy to provide a sight line into the world of the prosecution service.

“One thing I wish people knew more of,” he says, “is just how much work goes on behind the scenes in evaluating our cases.” Before proceeding with a charge, he has to consider, for instance, his department’s resources and what to prioritize in the face of a chronically backlogged court calendar. Those decisions can be “agonizing.”

The behaviour of law enforcement is also a persistent preoccupation. “Most police officers are very good people, but some are not,” he says. “Like any institution staffed by humans, there are going to be people who don’t deserve to or ought not to be there.” Part of his job is to identify instances of misconduct. “Not a week goes by as a prosecutor where I am not questioning, interrogating or examining the conduct of police officers to ensure that it is above board and that it’s compliant with our constitutional norms.”

Quayat also wants the public to understand that prosecutors appreciate, deeply, what it means to ask the court to convict and imprison another human being. To illustrate that point, he describes how he’s handled about 15 “courier-import cases,” in which someone has tried to smuggle drugs (say, two kilograms of cocaine) into the country through the airport. That’s a crime, and he works hard to secure a conviction. But he also knows that the defendants are often racialized, poor or otherwise disadvantaged, not “the mastermind of a criminal organization.” After the court places such a person into custody following a conviction or sentencing hearing, Quayat has an emotional reaction: “When I leave the courthouse or the courtroom, I usually have to find a private place, and I sometimes cry.”

Such stories, he thinks, are important to share. “We need to, as Crowns, be a little bit more open to talking and to expressing our feelings,” he says. “In a universe where you have Twitter and TikTok, we can’t not be part of the conversation.”