I can take you back and deal with that very simply. There has been a generational shift in judges. It has nothing to do with the appointment process; it's a matter of attitude.
Judges who were what Tom Brokaw called “the greatest generation”, those who grew up and went through the Depression, those who fought the war, those who made Canada what it was in the last 50 years of the twentieth century, they knew what to do when they were dealing with vicious criminals. They would sentence on a global basis to 35, 37, or 40 years. The same judges now in the courts of appeal across this country will limit global sentences to probably 20 at the most, and when you take into account early parole and other factors that are weaseled into the system, such as giving credit for time spent in custody awaiting trial and sentencing, what this means is that the price of crime is pretty low. Crime pays. Criminals continue to become almost serial criminals in property matters simply because there is no punishment, and that's mainly the fault of the provincial court that I was in, not the high court judges.
What I'm saying is that the boomer judges just don't get it. They will not protect the public through the sentencing process, and that is because many of them will openly say, anything but jail comes first. Look at the conditional sentence and it will tell you what it's like in the hands of judges.
I'l give you one brief example. The first day it came into effect in the court where I sat, a lawyer came up to me and told me I wouldn't know what was going on in Judge X's court, and when I asked what, he said it was a feeding frenzy. That judge, who was anti-police and anti-everything, jail included, was granting conditional sentences as quickly as he could. He probably granted 20 that day.
Now, what I'm saying is, where the hell does he come from with that notion? What I'm saying is that there can be judge-shopping. There can be manipulation of the process. Plea bargaining is rampant in this country. All of that turns judges into rubber stamps when there are plea bargains. I don't like it. I am ashamed of the fact that the judiciary has not done its job in the sentencing process under the Criminal Code, and the appellate courts, with their sentencing guidelines, have literally told Parliament they don't care what Parliament says in its legislation called the Criminal Code of Canada, which is the second most important piece of legislation in our country.
In our constitutional law, beneath the Constitution, where it says “a maximum in aggravated assault of 14 years”, can anybody tell me when they've last seen one? I haven't. The sentencing guideline in British Columbia is five to eight years, and that's ridiculous.
In other words, that's what's wrong with the judiciary, if I might say it in simple terms.