Thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, there is a disconnect. We've spoken to judges, and I think there's a disconnect between what judges perceive and their rationale for making those decisions. They will go back to the law, and case law, and precedent and so on.
Canadians expect something different. In our understanding, from a recent study that Dave can perhaps talk to, I think 74% of British Columbians—though my numbers might be off by two or three percentage points—do not think the sentences being rendered reflect the views of Canadians. Our own informal, non-scientific poll on our website, www.boardoftrade.com, shows that of the people who have answered that poll, about 77% think that sentences almost never or never reflect the views of average Canadians.
I had a discussion with British Columbia's chief judge, Hugh Stanfield, on The Bill Good Show on CKNW recently, for a couple of minutes. The question I asked him was, why are sentences in British Columbia so much more lenient than in the rest of the country? The second question was, how can you justify decreasing sentences for chronic offenders in the city of Vancouver given that graph—which I just mentioned here? His response was to refer to the recently commissioned provincial report by Doob and Webster, which shows in aggregate that average sentences in British Columbia were about the same as those in the rest of the country. But my feeling is that most Canadians think that sentencing in the country is an issue and a problem. That aside, his response was, well, it's a common misperception that sentences are lesser or more lenient in British Columbia. I asked if he was referring to the Doob and Webster report. He said, yes, and I referred him to page 64—which I believe is in the handout—showing that 21% of drug traffickers in British Columbia get more than six months in jail, whereas the average is 58% in the rest of the country.
So in aggregate our sentences might be the same as the rest of the country, according to Doob and Webster, but for the bad guys, the drug traffickers, we're far more lenient, and this graph demonstrates that.
For him to go on radio and tell the public that in fact we're no different—which is a myth—and then to defend the system and try to defend some of these lenient sentences, we think is offensive, and we think it can be misleading to the public as well. So we challenged him on that. You must have a more fulsome discussion with him on that, as it was only a short clip on the radio.
We're not finished with that. I think that disconnect between judges and the public's expectations is a serious issue in Canada.