Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's remarks. He seemed to suggest that he believes that the legislature has no role in sentencing—that it is up to the legislature to determine what is a crime, but that it is up to judges alone to determine sentencing. I think there is a strong case to be made, though, that legislatures in a democracy have a responsibility to at least establish something like sentencing starting points. We can debate whether mandatory minimum sentencing starting points and other mechanisms are appropriate.
The reason for the legislature to have a voice in sentencing is twofold.
Number one, in a democracy, it is the job of a legislature to establish the relative seriousness of a crime and to say, through sentencing starting points or mandatory minimums or other mechanisms, that we view something as a very serious crime and that we therefore have set a higher sentencing starting point, and that we view something else as a less serious crime and have therefore set a lower starting point.
Another important reason for the legislature to be engaged is a matter of equality. Different judges likely have different opinions about the sentences that are appropriate for certain crimes, so to have a standard sense of what the sentencing starting point is for a particular crime ensures equality for people who go before different judges for the same crime.
Does the member agree in principle that legislators in democracies should have some role in establishing, at the very least, starting points for sentencing so that there is equality and so that there is some social voice speaking to the court about the relative seriousness of certain kinds of crimes?