Very much so; they cost us a massive amount of money. The minimum mandatory penalties reduce the amount of plea bargaining in the system, so more cases go to trial. They increase the number of charter challenges; over a third and possibly even higher of all the charter challenges in the system are on minimum mandatory penalties, and about half of them actually succeed. These clog up the system and they cost us money. When other people walk free on serious crimes because of a Jordan ruling, it's in large part caused by the massive logjam that is being caused by minimum mandatory penalties. If you look at the introduction of MMPs under the Harper Conservatives and the taking away of CSOs, the number of court cases go up and the delays go up, so we're attacking that too.
On April 8th, 2022. See this statement in context.