To answer your first question, the mandatory minimum penalty for accessing and possessing has been struck down. That's its status. Therefore, courts would not be able to apply those mandatory minimum penalties.
If Bill C-16 were to be enacted, it would permit courts to order a penalty below a mandatory minimum penalty because we have the new structured judicial discretion clause. We also have a “for greater certainty” clause that would essentially revive any mandatory minimum penalties that were previously struck down and that are still on the statute books. The result of those amendments would be that those two MMPs would once again be available to courts.
