You may perceive that some of the legislation that's being introduced is directly or indirectly an attack on the principles of sentencing, because the principles of sentencing, as set out in section 718, really talk about using jail as a last resort. The particular section I referred to is subsection 718.3(2), and it says this:
Where an enactment prescribes a punishment in respect of an offence, the punishment to be imposed is, subject to the limitations prescribed in the enactment, in the discretion of the court that convicts a person who commits the offence, but no punishment is a minimum punishment unless it is declared to be a minimum punishment.
So that clearly addresses the issue of discretion and addresses what the minimum punishment is that you have to have so that it's a minimum punishment.
Our suggestion is that this be amended to include: “Notwithstanding any minimum punishment prescribed, save and except for the offence of treason or murder, the Court before sentencing the accused shall consider whether the minimum punishment is necessary having regard to the public interest,”--that's number one--“the particular needs of the community and the interests of the accused in all of the circumstances.”
So we say that if that exception provision is put in there, then you've accomplished everything that some may suggest you need to accomplish: sending a message out, respecting the courts doing their job and applying the discretion, reflecting the interests of the community, and also the particular community, for instance, if it is an aboriginal community.
I would like to say something in response to the question my colleague Ms. Beare was talking about, and that's the whole phenomenon of street gangs. I know that the chief was here today and Attorney General Bryant was here today. The prosecution of the street gangs in Toronto has been overwhelmingly successful. It's incredible, and the credit goes to the police and to the Attorney General in bringing these prosecutions forward. What happened was they made a concerted effort, they put the manpower out there, they put special teams there to give advice to the police in the beginning. They ran it like a business. It has nothing to do with minimum sentences, nothing whatsoever.
You remember what happened in Montreal; you read the papers. The concerted efforts of law enforcement, with guidance from the crown's offices, brought down a major alleged organization. They didn't have any of those minimum sentences. And when judges eventually get those people before them, if they are found to have committed offences that call for jail, they're going.
Three days ago, here in Ontario, Mr. Justice Archibald gave a 21-month sentence for someone in a car with a gun--more than anybody asked for. Judges are imposing these sentences, and there's no question that if you have a gun in the city of Toronto, or you access a gun, or you're in a room with a gun, then the system looks at that and the judges look at that from day one very seriously: they need minimum sentences.
So law enforcement is doing the job. What we're afraid of is that this bill simply reflects a political statement. We're sorry, quite frankly, that the Attorney General was here today, from this province, supporting this bill. I understand what he was saying. He was here to talk about things that are going on in downtown Toronto and an announcement today that Premier McGuinty.... It's all politics.