Ken Law investigation: Canadian regulators should protect New Zealand man, brother says

The brother of a New Zealander who died after ordering a product from a Canadian retailer who was accused of suicide says it shouldn’t be so easy for vulnerable people to buy dangerous substances online.

Sean Plunket says he is shocked by how easily his brother James ordered the fatal shipment from Canada, and has tough questions for the country’s internet regulators and e-commerce platforms over why they have failed to put a stop to it.

“The idea that he could have accessed it, not necessarily through the dark web, but that it was there, hidden in plain sight, terrifies me,” Plunket said in an interview from New Zealand.

“We know that at that moment he was vulnerable. At that moment he needed protection, there was someone who took advantage of him and made it easier for him to take his own life, not harder for him,” he said.

“It becomes very, very easy to make bad decisions when someone is making money off of it,” he said.

A New Zealand coroner this week found that Plunket’s brother, James, was one of four people who died after ordering products from Kenneth Law, a former engineer and chef living in Mississauga. James was one of three people who died after consuming the products.

These deaths bring the total worldwide deaths linked to items sold online by Law to 129, reported by CTV News.

Plunket, a presenter from New Zealand, said his brother James was a DJ and personal trainer whose business and marriage had suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He was as sharp as a tack. He loved to party, he loved to laugh,” Plunket said.

James Plunket was a DJ and personal trainer whose business and marriage were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, his brother said.

The report said Plunket ordered the package from Canada in June 2022 from a website “that police confirmed is linked to the Kenneth Law law firm.”

According to the report, about two weeks later, the 40-year-old died in a hotel room with packaging related to Lawa’s activities lying next to him.

The documents show that at least some of Law’s websites were hosted on Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify, which runs many online stores.

The company said they closed his accounts after Law was arrested in 2023. Police said Law sent about 1,200 packages to 40 countries during that time.

A Shopify spokesperson said: “As soon as we were notified of a potential violation of our Acceptable Use Policy, we immediately reviewed and took action to terminate all stores associated with Kenneth Law.”

Law has been charged with first-degree murder and assisting in suicide in 14 cases in Ontario. He has denied the charges. His lawyer said he was selling a legal substance.

Law’s products were also promoted elsewhere on the internet, including on a suicide discussion forum that CTV News did not name, presumably by Law himself.

There is currently no tool in Canadian law to block websites. This suicide forum, which CTV News does not list, could be covered by the Online Harms Act, which is in its second reading on Parliament Hill.

The law would prohibit certain websites from offering content that encourages young people to commit suicide. Website operators told CTV News they “don’t care about Canadian law.”

In a speech launching the bill in June, Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani said the Online Harms Act was necessary to protect Canadians from harassment and hate online.

“It scares me that the most popular toys in my house, screens, are currently not subject to any safety standards,” he said.

Sarah Kennell of the Canadian Mental Health Association said she hopes Canadian law will follow the lead of New Zealand, which banned access to the association’s forum and websites.

Kennell also called for greater accountability from big tech companies.

“The federal government should be regulating this issue, especially as we consider the ways in which people commit suicide and what we can do to keep communities, family members and clients safe,” she said.

Sean Plunket believes Canadian companies should exercise due diligence and make sure companies using their market are not harming people.

“As suppliers in the marketplace, don’t they have a responsibility to make sure they’re not literally selling suicide?” he asked.