Justice committee  What do you mean?

Justice committee  Yes, but the point is this. When people are charged in Canada, they can be charged by way of summary conviction or by way of indictment. If they're charged by way of summary conviction for the same offence—assault, for example, by summary conviction—or by indictment.... If there'

Justice committee  If the legislation says that for any offence that's punishable by ten years or more the judge no longer has the discretion to apply a conditional sentence, for example, in some cases, then the prosecutor ultimately has that decision, because if the prosecutor before charging says

Justice committee  Yes, but for different reasons.

Justice committee  Not judges, but prosecutors.

Justice committee  They don't have it. The decision to prosecute by way of indictment or by way of summary conviction is a prosecutorial decision. The point that was made by our colleague earlier is that what this law will do is shift the power to the prosecutor in deciding whether this person will

Justice committee  On this bill?

Justice committee  Yes, we provided a document; we responded to the minister. The people in charge of the liaison committee sent a letter to the minister. I believe madame la greffière has a—

Justice committee  If I understand the question correctly, you're asking if prosecutors were faced with a situation where, under this legislation, they would necessarily have to impose jail, would that maybe cause some prosecutors not to charge, for example, but to indict?

Justice committee  That definitely used to happen before 1996; there is no question about that. The court of appeals had maintained those situations because it was obvious that sending people to jail would be disastrous. The problem is that now there is an additional tool in those circumstances t

Justice committee  Yes, I'll try to be brief. It's difficult to talk about the constituents. I'm representing the Quebec Bar here today. We have two honourable members who are members of the bar, and they are probably on opposing sides of the issue. So it's difficult to say that we're speaking fro

Justice committee  I concur.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few questions for Mr. Battista. We have just received a brief about the bill from André Jodoin and other academics from Quebec. Do you know these people: Julie Desrosiers, law professor at Laval University, Simon Roy, from the Université de Sher

Justice committee  I'm going to speak from an empirical standpoint, because I have not studied this, and on behalf of the majority of lawyers who practise criminal law. Conditional sentencing has been used a lot in Quebec. As a practioner, it's my impression that the Quebec Court of Appeal has had

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Petit. There are a number of aspects to your question. You said that the threat of imprisonment is always there when a judge imposes a conditional sentence. To begin, you have to acknowledge that it is indeed a sentence of imprisonment that is imposed. The only di