The way we have been educated in this country—and it's true also in the United States—is to believe that if we are Euro-Canadian people, then people who are not of our background are inferior to us, because that's the belief system that came over with colonialism and those who brought the European systems of believing things. It was behind the use of common law. It was behind the use of various other legal mechanisms to establish and justify crown sovereignty in this jurisdiction. They said they were a superior people entitled to do this.
When we encounter people who are not of that background, we assume they need to be shown, that we need to treat them in a way that will bring them into that mould. When I was a young lawyer practising law, I had many judges who would say to my indigenous client, “You need to learn that this law is meant for you; therefore, I'm going to sentence you to this”, whereas a non-indigenous person who had committed the same offence might not get the same sentence. They would attempt to use the law to teach a lesson.
That kind of belief, that European colonizers who came to this country were superior to the indigenous people who were here, is an inherent part of the colonial experience. It has taught indigenous people that they are inferior; it has taught non-indigenous people that they are superior, and it has contributed mostly to the very negative relationship that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous people.
Judges, who are predominantly of European ancestry, believe that when they exercise discretion, they have to do it in such a way that it will reinforce what the system is all about.