Justice Committee on April 29th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 13 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, March 31, the committee is meeting to study Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses, but first, I just want to let each group know that they will have five minutes to make their opening statements, and then members will have questions.

I don't have a time card, but when you have 30 seconds left, I'll wave an envelope to give you a heads-up that you have about 30 seconds. I will have to interrupt you when your time is up.

We have three witnesses in the first round. We have Michael Spratt, criminal and appeal lawyer and partner at AGP LLP. We have, from the London Abused Women's Centre, Jennifer Dunn. From Saskatoon Tribal Council, we have Chief Mark Arcand, tribal chief.

I will begin by inviting Michael Spratt to speak for five minutes.

[Michael Spratt, Partner, AGP LLP Criminal Trial and Appeal Lawyers, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be back before the committee.

My name is Michael Spratt. I'm a lawyer. I'm certified as a criminal law specialist by the Law Society of Ontario, and I'm a partner at the criminal law firm of AGP LLP here in Ottawa. I've served on the board of the Criminal Lawyers' Association. I've acted as vice-president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa, and I've been practising in the trenches of our courts for about 15 years now.

I'd like to touch briefly on the three main features of the bill. I'll start with minimum sentences. In criminal justice policy, the embrace of mandatory minimum penalties is a sentencing tool that is the hobgoblin of small minds. The evidence is clear. MMPs are an ineffective and dangerous tool. They don't deter crime. They don't increase public safety. They disproportionately impact indigenous and other racialized Canadians, and they're incredibly expensive.

In 2005, the Department of Justice found evidence that minimum sentences are not effective at deterring crime. In 2007, the parliamentary information and research service cited numerous studies that came to the same conclusion. In 2017, a federal government report concluded:

Research in Canada and the United States has found no evidence that MMPs have deterred crime; rather, some studies suggest that MMPs can result in overly harsh penalties and disparities, that they increase costs to the criminal justice system as a result of higher levels of incarceration, and that lengthier sentencing may actually increase recidivism.

Expensive, racist, ineffective, unfair and cruel: that's why time and time again, minimum sentences have been declared unconstitutional by our courts.

It is a very positive step that Bill C-5 removes this corrosive sentencing policy from the Criminal Code, but of course, Bill C-5 does not remove all minimum sentences. We need to eliminate every single minimum sentence in the Criminal Code. I'll answer the question in advance: yes, including for murder, which is a particular concern for women who have killed their abusers.

Here's your history lesson. The only reason the minimum sentence for murder was found to be constitutional by the Supreme Court in the case of Luxton was that there was a possibility of review through the faint hope clause, which of course has now been repealed.

At the very least, this bill should be amended to allow an escape valve for the rest of the MMPs that aren't explicitly eliminated, and there should be a requirement that all reasonable sentencing alternatives be explored and considered before mandatory minimum penalties are imposed.

I'll move on to conditional sentences. This is one of the best parts of the bill. The amendment to the conditional sentence regime here is desperately needed. The amendment is going to bring consistency in the application of the criminal law across Canada. Different provinces now have different conditional sentence rules because of different court findings. On the ground, we see that conditional sentences bring efficiency and fairness to the justice system.

Some people—and I'll be blunt because I normally am, members of the Conservative Party—have said that conditional sentences are too lax. Now, just because a conditional sentence is available doesn't mean it is going to be imposed. Conditional sentences can be imposed only for sentences that fall under two years and only when there's no danger to the safety of the community. Conditional sentences provide significant restrictions, denunciation and deterrence.

If you thought that mask mandates were an oppressive restriction that deserved and called out for massive protests, wait until you hear about conditional sentences, because they can be more restrictive and more punitive, but they can also be rehabilitative. Unlike traditional jail, conditional sentences come with strings attached, such as house arrest. Offenders can be required to take counselling, seek employment, perform community service and make reparations to the victims of their offences. This is one of the best parts of the bill.

Very briefly, in the time that I have left, I'm going to deal with the drug amendments. Canada is in the grip of a deadly overdose epidemic. In 2020, more people died in British Columbia of drug overdoses than car crashes, homicides and suicides all combined. Since 2016, more than 20,000 Canadians have died of opioid overdoses. Incrementalism is not enough here. People do not lead incremental lives, and they're not dying incremental deaths. The harms of continued criminalization are real.

This legislation as it pertains to this drug issue is window dressing. It's the same type of window dressing we saw in 2018, with legislation that sought to divert administration of justice defences through police diversion. That power has been used four times by the police in Ottawa.

The real solution here is not to give more power to the police but to take it back. We need decriminalization and safe supply legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Spratt.

I'll now go to Jennifer Dunn of the London Abused Women's Centre for five minutes.

[Jennifer Dunn, Executive Director, London Abused Women's Centre]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the committee for inviting me here today. It is nice to see you all again.

My name is Jennifer Dunn. I am the executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre, or LAWC, here in London, Ontario.

LAWC is a feminist organization that supports and advocates for personal, social and systemic change directed at ending male violence against women and girls. Our centre is non-residential. We are an agency that provides women and girls over the age of 12 who have been abused, assaulted, exploited, trafficked or experienced non-state torture with immediate access to long-term woman-centred counselling, advocacy and support.

On April 8, the Honourable David Lametti said, “Community safety is what we want. These reforms will...make [it] happen.” We do partially agree with the honourable minister. Community safety is what we want. However, we do not believe Bill C-5 is what will make it happen, the way it is. There are two issues that I want to address today. One is conditional sentencing. The other is mandatory minimum penalties. I'll start with conditional sentencing.

With Bill C-5, the court may, for the purpose of supervising the offender's behaviour in the community, order that the offender serve the sentence in the community. Some of the offences listed in Bill C-5 are sexual assault, criminal harassment, kidnapping, trafficking in persons, material benefit and abduction of a person under 14. Women and girls are five times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault, and sexual assault is a violent crime on the rise in Canada. With conditional sentencing, many women will be stuck in the community with the offender, which places them at even higher risk.

A conditional sentence does nothing to stop an offender from continuing to commit violence. Women need the courts to see this. A conditional sentence for these offences undermines the seriousness of these crimes.

I have a quote here from a woman I am proud to work with. Her name is Caroline. She is a peer support worker and a survivor. She said:

I know a case where two men got 4 years and for trafficking, that’s nothing when women face a lifetime sentence after being trafficked, many women will never get over it and at minimum those women face years and years of counselling and constantly watching their back.

We know from our work that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Victims and perpetrators live in the same communities. An offender being placed back into the community with a conditional sentence is not always the answer.

The second issue I want to address with you today is the repeal of mandatory minimum penalties for some offences in the Criminal Code. I urge the committee to think about the most marginalized individuals when considering if this is good enough. Repealing some mandatory minimum penalties over others does not help with public safety. Women are not protected by the law unless all mandatory minimum penalties are considered.

For example, a mandatory life sentence for women who end up convicted of murder in situations where they were reacting to male violence is inappropriate. Each year 40% to 50% of women sentenced to life in prison are indigenous, and 91% of them have histories of physical and sexual abuse.

Canada's longest mandatory minimum penalty, the mandatory life sentence for murder, has resulted in countless miscarriages of justice for women. It has been proven time and time again that there is not a full understanding of the impact of violence against women in the criminal justice system.

When listening to the previous sessions of the study, I also heard more than once that there are cost savings with Bill C-5. I would ask if cost savings should actually be a point of concern when we are discussing the lives of women. We need systemic change. We need to protect women. Women deserve to live free from violence. The courts need to see that women are easily placed at more risk.

On Wednesday in the Senate, while speaking about a different bill, Bill S-205, Senator Pate said the following:

...let’s ensure that we address the issues, attitudes and ideas that fuel misogynist violence in society and our criminal, legal and penal systems, while simultaneously implementing the sorts of robust social, health and economic support systems that can truly assist women to avoid and escape violence.

This could not be more true for Bill C-5 as well.

In conclusion, we know that Bill C-5 is an attempt to tackle systemic racism in Canada's criminal justice system, but the committee must remember that many of the victims of these offences are also part of the most marginalized and vulnerable. The government has a responsibility to make decisions based on the best interests of all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Dunn.

We will now go to the Saskatoon Tribal Council's Chief Mark Arcand.

[Chief Mark Arcand, Tribal Chief, Saskatoon Tribal Council]

Tansi. Nanaskomin, kâhkîyaw.

My name is Mark Arcand. I'm the tribal chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council. I'm taking this call on Treaty 6 territory in the city of Saskatoon.

With regard to Bill C-5, I want to be very clear—mass incarceration of indigenous peoples, period. It's a strong statement, but it's an accurate statement. As of December 2021, 32% of people incarcerated in federal prisons were indigenous, a new historic high. Over the last decade, the number of federally sentenced indigenous women increased by 60%, rising from 168 in March 2009 to 270 in March 2018. Indigenous women account for nearly half of the women in federal prisons yet represent fewer than 4% of Canadian women. Those numbers are astonishing. They are repulsive and unacceptable.

Then we can look at youth incarceration. In the city of Saskatoon, 98% of the female youth in one youth facility are indigenous. That leads to the correctional system, the provincial correctional system and then the federal penitentiary.

When you talk about Bill C-5, I agree with your previous speakers who talked about the violence against women. That's never taken into consideration in the MMPs. When we look at all of these things, Bill C-5 fully repeals only 13 out of 73 MMPs. That's less than one in five MMPs. It fully or partially repeals only 20 out of 73 MMPs. That's less than one in three MMPs. It addresses only 10 out of 28 MMPs that courts have found unconstitutional. That's only about one in three MMPs found unconstitutional.

This is not in line with the call of the federal government to repeal all restrictions on the use of conditional sentences and MMPs in line with the TRC calls to action 30 and 32, calls for justice 5.14 and 5.21 of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and countless other sentencing and law commission reports. In particular, paragraph 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code mandatorily requires judges to consider an individual's indigenous history and consider all reasonable alternatives to prison when determining a sentence, including options for treatment in the community. MMPs can prevent judges from carrying out this duty to acknowledge and redress racism and colonialism.

When we talk about all of these things, it's very important that we also look at the fact that the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls stressed that mandatory minimum sentences are especially harsh for indigenous women and girls. The TRC said that the failure to provide sufficient and stable resources for the community and treatment programs that are necessary to implement Gladue and Ipeelee helps explain why those decisions have not slowed increasing aboriginal overrepresentation in prisons.

Bill C-5 is a baby step in the right direction, but it must be amended to be a good step forward. For any MMPs that are not repealed by Bill C-5, an amendment could be added to the bill to ensure that judges have the discretion to not apply MMPs if doing so would result in injustice. In appropriate exceptional cases, judges would have to be able to consider lesser sentences, including such alternatives to prison as community-based and culturally appropriate treatment options.

I apologize for not wearing a shirt and tie for the House of Commons, but I had to make a statement about residential schools, with the orange shirt that I'm wearing, and about all the harms that have been done to indigenous people. When we talk about MMPs, these are things that have to be really considered in regard to the sentencing of individuals for minor crimes to major crimes like murder. A lot of our indigenous women who were in self-defence mode will end up serving a life sentence because of the abuse they endured in their relationship. It's unacceptable. Judges have to have the ability to make those decisions by hearing the evidence, not by following MMPs all the time. Moving forward, it's not acceptable.

Even when we look at simple drug charges, we should be asking that our people be sent to treatment based on the residential school system and the intergenerational trauma that has led to all the negative impacts on people. I've talked about the young women, but in the city of Saskatoon, where I work, out of 450 men in one correctional system, 80% are indigenous. That's a high number.

They then graduate to the federal penitentiary, where we have a higher number. This is just in the province of Saskatchewan. Imagine those numbers across Canada. We have the lowest percentage.

Thank you very much.

Nanaskomowin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Chief Arcand, for your testimony.

I'm now going to the first round of questions.

Our first questions will be from Mr. Moore for six minutes.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for taking part in the study of Bill C-5, formerly Bill C-22.

Many good points have been raised. I will encourage you, Mr. Spratt, since you mentioned Conservatives, to take the time to research the origins of most of the mandatory minimum penalties that are being repealed here. You'll find direct links back to previous Liberal governments, including the government of the current Prime Minister's father.

By no means are the mandatory minimum penalties in the Criminal Code there just by virtue of Conservative governments, although having been part of the former Conservative government, I'm very proud of the measures we took when it came to conditional sentencing. One of the key responsibilities for us as parliamentarians is to put in place legislation that creates balance and has a justice system that's balanced and protects rights, not only of the accused but protects society, protects victims and respects victims and their families.

What we were finding with conditional sentences in the past was that too often, for something very serious in the community, the punishment being meted out to offenders was to serve their time in the community. There are times when that's appropriate, but there are times when that is certainly not appropriate.

My question is for you, Ms. Dunn. I appreciated your testimony. Section 718 of the Criminal Code cites that one of the main objectives of sentencing is to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders and acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and the community.

You mentioned victims in your testimony. Bill C-5 expands conditional sentencing, like house arrest, to individuals who are found to have benefited financially from human trafficking. We have spoken a lot about human trafficking. It's a scourge on our nation and internationally. We've heard very compelling testimony at this committee of the tragedy that is human trafficking. What message do you feel it sends to Canadians, particularly to the women and girls that you mentioned, that people benefiting from human trafficking would be allowed to serve their sentences home in their community?

[Jennifer Dunn]

When we consider human trafficking as a conditional sentence based on the section of the Criminal Code you mentioned, it really undermines the seriousness of this particular crime. We know that in London, Ontario, for example, we are considered a hub for human trafficking. A lot of human trafficking happens right here in our city, and up and down the 401 corridor, the highway that goes from Windsor all the way to northern Ontario. The problem is that when you have an individual who has a conditional sentence and is put back into the community, oftentimes women are faced with having to face the offender as well, and that is very harmful.

We see time and time again women coming into our centre, and they can't even use their real names. We have to meet them outside of our centre. They can't be seen in our parking lot with our signage, because of the very dangerous situation that it puts them in when an offender is not maybe in jail, or is left back in the community. It really puts women at a higher risk, and it makes women have to watch their backs wherever they go. The quote I gave from my colleague, Caroline, speaks to that exactly. Women are left to pick up the pieces. Women are left to come to a centre like ours and seek counselling.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you. I appreciate that statistic you mentioned. I referenced a report published by Statistics Canada, which said “women were violently victimized at a rate nearly double that of men in 2019”. The report goes on to say that the discrepancy between male and female victims was largely due to the fact that “women were five times more likely than men to be a victim of sexual assault”.

I know that you deal in your organization with the fallout of these statistics, and you are able to to put a name to the stat. Sometimes when we're in these committees, I think we hear stats, but we forget that there's a person behind them.

Could you tell us, in the consultations you've had with the people who you work with, how Bill C‑5 could, in fact, fail Canadian women? What should we do instead to make a community safer rather than eliminating the inability of offenders to get conditional sentences and now being able to serve their sentence from home for some of these various serious offences against women?

[Jennifer Dunn]

When we're talking about sexual assault, the first thing that comes to my mind is how dangerous it is for a women to even get to the point where she's ready to report a sexual assault. It takes so much courage on her part to even get to that point, knowing that she's going to be wrapped up in the criminal justice system for a long period of time, having to potentially face her accuser in court, having to have her voice there for testimony, and the list goes on and on. There are so many reasons—

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Dunn, but the time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

We'll go over to you, Mr. Naqvi, for six minutes.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Spratt, welcome to the committee. It's good to see you. I was hoping you'd make it here in person from just down the street.

You called MMPs—I'm just recalling your words—ineffective, expensive and racist, I believe. I think you wrote an article back in June or July of 2020. Lawyers magazines are along the same lines as well.

Can we talk about the ineffectiveness first? Can you share with the committee what you mean by MMPs being ineffective? I recall reading in the article that you had spoken about how they increase crime rates as opposed to reducing crime rates.

[Michael Spratt]

That's right. The proponents of minimum sentences say that they deter crime, that the main good they do is they show how serious we're taking the offence, and it will stop people. Of course, with punishment after the fact, the harm has already been done.

The main thing about minimum sentences is, yes, it increases prison populations. Yes, it's expensive and it takes time in court, and it will stop people from committing crimes, but that's not how deterrence works. That's not how people are deterred. If you are committing crimes because you don't care or because you have a mental health issue or an addiction issue, deterrence does not work. Just jacking up the penalty doesn't stop people from committing crimes. A sentence like that, in addition to unfairness, can result in cruel punishment in some of those more unusual cases.

For some cases that may fall outside the norm and have compelling facts behind them, the increase in sentence can cut people off from communities and can crush an individual. That is part of the reason we see rates of recidivism. The rate of people committing crimes again goes up when we see sentences imposed under the minimum sentence regime.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You've written in the past, and I think you spoke to it today as well, calling MMPs a racist policy. Can you elaborate on that and explain how you have arrived at that conclusion?

[Michael Spratt]

There are a number of systemic issues. We certainly have seen the mass incarceration of indigenous individuals and racialized individuals. There are a number of reasons for that with minimum sentences. Number one, it sometimes relies on prosecutorial discretion as to whether minimum sentences are followed through with or not. If you are a white, upper-class individual, you're much more likely to escape the minimum sentence by having the prosecution, in a non-reviewable, non-transparent situation, not proceed in that sentence.

We often see people induced to pleading guilty when there are minimum sentences. That often falls on those who can't afford lawyers and those who have more contact with the police. A lot of these minimum sentences, especially for drug offences, fall disproportionately on individuals who are in over-policed communities. It's not because those communities necessarily have more quote-unquote “criminals” in them. It's that the police are there. They're not in Rockcliffe or Rosedale looking for the same offences. It's for a number of those systemic reasons that minimum sentences operate in a systemically racist and discriminatory way.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I want to turn to conditional sentence orders, CSOs. The way I see it, they are restoring discretion to a judge as one of the tools in sentencing.

Number one, do you agree with that? Number two, in what circumstances do you see CSOs being used in a criminal manner?

[Michael Spratt]

I'll give you one example. Mr. Moore talked about balance. Having hard and fast rules that prevent something isn't balanced. It's unbalanced. That's why the restrictions on conditional sentences have been found unconstitutional.

In one of my cases I represented a very young Black man. He was found with a gun. He wouldn't have been eligible for a conditional sentence under the old legislation, but he was because it was found to be unconstitutional. He had a minor record. He was on bail for over two years on house arrest. He had engaged in a community. He had made contacts with culturally appropriate rehabilitation efforts. He had taken responsibility. He had done everything you would want someone who has made a mistake to do, recognizing the harm that he had e caused on his community.

Also taking into account his cultural background—we had an enhanced pre-sentence report that dealt specifically with systemic discrimination in the community that he was from. He was granted a conditional sentence with house arrest, reporting to a judge, constant monitoring and making sure he followed through on programming. It is a harsh sentence and maybe even a longer sentence than if he would have just gotten a jail sentence. This is a man who now is going to be able to contribute and be reintegrated, rather than a man who's going to spend two years or longer in jail, learning the exact skills we do not want to teach young men who have made a very tragic mistake.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Is it perhaps in situations or circumstances where there are few to no public safety concerns where you perceive CSOs to be used?

[Michael Spratt]

That's right. That's statutory. There can't be any public safety concerns. It has to be a sentence under two years. You cannot think of the most heinous crime and say that person might be released on a conditional sentence, because that is not what is prescribed in the legislation. That is not what a court would do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Naqvi and Mr. Spratt.

Next we'll go to Monsieur Fortin for six minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Spratt, I understand your concern about the negative aspects of mandatory minimum sentences. Even if they were no longer in place, I think judges would probably, in many cases, come to the same conclusion and there would be significant prison sentences, where the crimes warranted it. So the problem I have is not so much with this question of whether we should have minimum sentences, but rather with the message we are sending.

Would you agree with me, Mr. Spratt, that the justice system is like the backbone of society? It's what keeps people from killing each other. When we have a problem, we go to court and we ask a third party, the judge, to fix the problem.

People are concerned about the rise in gun violence. I am thinking in particular of Ms. Dunn's testimony earlier. She obviously has concerns about the abolition of mandatory minimum sentences. Some people have concerns that may be irrational and some may be rational, but there are concerns. If the lawyer's job is to plead and the judge's job is to decide, the legislator's job is to respond to the needs of the population. It is to reassure the population and to strengthen the confidence that the population has in the backbone of society, which is the judicial system.

Are you not concerned that by abolishing mandatory minimum sentences we are sending a message to the public that these crimes are not that important?

We're not talking about just any crimes. You yourself, earlier on, gave the example of murder, a crime for which we should even abolish mandatory minimum sentences, in your opinion. I was simply referring to the issue of firearms, when someone commits a crime using a firearm. These are things that I find unacceptable.

Again, aren't you afraid, Mr. Spratt, of the message this would send to the public and the effect it would have on people's confidence in our justice system?

[Michael Spratt]

The criminal justice system in legislation like this is a very blunt tool to deliver a message to the public.

More concerning to me has been the politicization of criminal justice over the last number of years, the ignoring of evidence. A message is sent to the public by virtue of the fact that things are criminalized and, in most cases, even when there is no minimum sentence, or even when there is a minimum sentence, if there is a very serious crime, the sentence is usually in excess of that.

Quite frankly, dealing with firearms, the die has been cast. The Supreme Court has found the law to be unconstitutional, and it's unconstitutional for good reasons. While you look on the one hand at potential, speculative, possible harms about the public getting the wrong message, on the other hand there is the injustice that existed through the imposition of the mandatory minimum sentences.

The Canadian public is capable of understanding nuance if you speak to them like adults. We can take crime seriously without taking discretion away from judges, and we can make sure that, when appropriate, very lengthy sentences are imposed. At the end of the day, I hope you would be guided by the research, that whether it's a communications tool or not, increasing sentences through the use of minimum sentences doesn't actually make the public safer. That's what you should be telling the public.

I would hope that if you accept that evidence, and I submit you should, given the decades of testimony that committees like this have heard on the topic—that the public not be lied to by saying they'll be safer with longer sentences—that you will engage in the harder work of ensuring the public is made safe through appropriate measures that are grounded in evidence and that actually work.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Spratt, at present, mothers are afraid to send their children to school because there are guns around. Bill C‑5 provides for the removal of mandatory minimum sentences even for armed robberies.

I understand what you are telling me. Between lawyers, we can discuss many things. However, you, I, and everyone else here works for the population. You are telling the public that it has been decided that a robbery committed with a firearm is now less serious than it used to be and that we are removing the minimum sentences for these kinds of crimes.

You can explain that there are problems with minimum sentences and that the sentence would be the same anyway, but the message may not be the one we want to send.

Don't you think the timing is wrong?

Some minimum sentences can be abolished now without a problem, but in the case of serious crimes, for example robbery with a firearm, don't you think we should keep mandatory minimum sentences?

[Michael Spratt]

The problem with mandatory minimum sentences is that they are a one-size-fits-all solution.

Yes, armed robbery should be taken very seriously, and it is. I've represented dozens of individuals, if not hundreds, who have been charged with serious offences, including armed robbery. Those individuals all go to jail and usually for a lot longer than the mandatory minimum sentence.

The problem with the mandatory minimum sentence is that the hunter who has an unlicensed firearm, who is technically not in compliance with the law, can also be captured by that minimum sentence, and that's not a good situation.