And they are. That's another one of the myths, that judges tend to be soft on crime or incapable of meting out a stiff punishment. Maybe I'm not a very good lawyer, but my clients who are recidivists get whacked the second time around. By whacked, I mean they get hit a lot harder. It's double the sentence the first time, and sometimes more than that.
We heard a case today about the crown asking for ten years and the defence asking for two or something, and the fellow got two years, and that's not acceptable. There was a case in London yesterday where the defence asked for four months and the crown asked for six and the judge gave him nine months. No one's saying anything about that. That's a judge who obviously exceeded what even the crown wanted. With all due respect to the police, because I have represented people who have held up stores with unloaded firearms, there's a bit of a myth out there about what judges are doing and what they're not doing.
Mr. Trudell gave you the example yesterday of Justice Archibald, who meted out a 21-month sentence for the possession of a gun. I would think most defence lawyers--those who have been practising for a while, at least in Ontario--would say the tariff has gone up greatly. And judges are not soft on crime; they are very serious about crime. The issue here really isn't being tough or serious, it's being smart on crime and dealing with it in a way that's truly going to prevent it. That's what we're talking about.