In bills that have been introduced and that will be introduced, the ten-year barrier is very significant for suspended sentences and conditional sentences. For example, you have surely noticed that the idea of five years less a day has started to come into our legislation since the Charter, which enshrined the principle of...
Before the Charter, since there was no principle that required a trial to be held before a jury when the maximum penalty was five years, there was no reason to stipulate five years less a day. Future bills might specify that there can be no suspended sentences if the penalty is ten years or that there can be no conditional sentences if the penalty is ten years. In that case, the ten-year limit takes on a significance that it did not have before.