Justice committee  Thank you. Absolutely, we do take the position--it's in our brief--that interference with judicial discretion is one of the major problems with this bill, in particular because it doesn't allow the factors to be taken into account. There are always a variety of factors, includin

Justice committee  I can respond to that. I apologize. My French is not very good, so I'll answer in English. The idea that having a mandatory minimum sentence is “equality”--and I use that in quotes because it's a simplistic version of equality. You have to actually look at the circumstances that

Justice committee  The incapacitation point has come up a few times, and I've made the submissions about deterrence. Obviously protection of society through incapacitation is another of the goals of the sentencing process, but we always have to keep in mind that it's only selective incapacitation f

Justice committee  Not at all. That's not--

Justice committee  I can say a couple of things. You're absolutely correct. In most cases the retreat from the use of mandatory minimums has been in respect of drug offences. Certainly in the U.S. I think that's been the case. There's a study by the Vera Institute from 2003 that looks at this acros

Justice committee  I think I'll let Kim go first.

Justice committee  Yes, I can briefly speak to that. When the sentencing principles were introduced in 1995, at that point, there were a lot of common-law decisions that these principles had relied on, but they had never been codified in the legislation. It was a result of much research and of the

Justice committee  I'll just make a couple of more comments, adding to what Kim has said. As we understand it, one of the key bases on which this legislation is being put forward is to act as a deterrent. I think it's very important to keep in mind that sentencing severity, that is, having a hars