If I understand the reasoning behind section 18.04 correctly, if a person is convicted of making money from fishing illegally, not of an attempt to do so, they could receive a $500,000 fine and a judge could decide the following:
If a person is convicted of an offence under this Act and the court is satisfied that, as a result of committing the offence, financial benefits accrued to the person, the court may, despite the maximum amount of any fine that may otherwise be imposed under this Act, order the person to pay an additional fine in an amount equal to the court’s estimation of those benefits.
As I understand it, the judge will be limited to a fine of $500,000 and will not be able to impose an additional fine if it is proven that the offender derived financial benefits from illegal fishing. The judge will then be required to ignore the seriousness of the offence. If a warehouse with $8 million worth of fish is discovered, and the owners did not have time to sell the fish, it is still a serious offence. The judge will need to have evidence that those folks had time to sell, say, $3 million worth of fish from the $8 million so that a fine over $500,000 is warranted.
We are talking about offenders committing serious crimes and harming our fishery. I find that this situation is really tying judges' hands. A case like that is a serious offence. Even though those people may not have derived financial benefits from the catch, they were smuggling a type of fish that they had no right to catch, fish worth several million dollars. But because they got caught before making the money, the fine would be capped at $500,000.
Do you follow my reasoning? Something about this is bothering me.