Conditional sentences were created in 1996 in the hope of emptying prisons of inmates who had received short sentences. No one ever questioned imprisonment for serious crimes that were dangerous to public safety. That was never part of the discussions at the upper levels of the government of Canada.
However, there were a lot of doubts about using imprisonment for short sentences, because for them, the harmful effects of imprisonment are much more significant than the positive effects they might have. There is no debate about this. No one in criminology would question the fact that short prison terms are harmful.
In Canada, at present, the overwhelming majority of sentences are for less than six months' imprisonment. A majority of sentences even falls below three months' imprisonment; I think that is above 60 per cent. There are some sentences of less than one month in prison.
So that means that these sentences could have been avoided and another kind of sentence could have been used, but it had to be invented. There has to be something else that has punitive potential and is not just probation in the community. That was what we invented in 1996. That is why I said it had strong sentencing potential. We wanted to institute home imprisonment. There were already conditions that meant it had to be a crime that was not dangerous to the public, in the case of home imprisonment, conditional imprisonment and imprisonment in the community.
The rug was cut out from under judges' feet. Judges said to themselves that if they could not impose conditional sentences and they didn't want to send the offender to prison, they had to find a solution. So they decided to impose intermittent sentences. As a result, there was an increase in what's called "weekend sentences": intermittent sentences, short sentences of under 90 days, that the person serves only on weekends.
However, they could not be accessed by indigenous people, since the prisons are too far from their communities. So they have to serve their entire sentence in prison. That was strongly criticized by the Viens Commission.
There are also minimum 45‑day sentences for some offences, and judges are required to impose them. They may not use conditional sentences. That again contributes to rising imprisonment. The reason why it specifically targets indigenous people is that in some communities, for example, there are more drug-related offences. So if there are minimum sentences for those, there will be more indigenous individuals ending up in prison.
As well, the general deterrent potential of imprisonment has never been demonstrated. In fact, it is recognized in law, it is not even being discussed, and it was recognized by the Supreme Court in Nur, which found that a minimum sentence for firearms offences was invalid.
I can't avoid using my speaking time to come back to the earlier discussion and recall the fact that minimum sentences can't be used for adolescents, in all cases. There is a real firearms and organized crime problem in Canada. The problems described by Ms. Samson are real problems. She identified some very important aspects of the problem when she talked about poverty, education and integration.
However, I wonder about the solutions she proposes, because imposing minimum sentences under the Criminal Code is not how we're going to hold adolescents accountable or deter them from committing other crimes, because, in any event, these minimum sentences can't be used for adolescents. There is every reason to believe that what will work for adolescents' are measures involving prevention, education, and rehabilitation.
The problem of firearms on the street is a lot broader and a lot more complex than what using the criminal law offers. I would say that as elected representatives, if you tell your fellow citizens that you are going to solve the problem of organized crime and illegal firearms on the street by increasing mandatory minimum sentences, you are leading them up the garden path, because raising minimum sentences isn't going to solve that problem.