Justice committee  I've had peripheral involvement but nothing too much.

Justice committee  I can't really speak to the probabilities. I know that it's becoming more difficult to get a pardon, generally, and that there are obviously delays in that. I'm being reminded that there are delays in obtaining a pardon. I would also say that if you're going to argue that it's e

Justice committee  Yes, I would agree that a judge will most definitely take that into account. I suppose what I was getting at before was that I think the inclusion of this language is symbolic, in that it would be an expression of Parliament that these acts are particularly worthy of condemnation

Justice committee  In my experience, with respect to a fine, obviously when you have a fine, it's premised on the ability to pay. And courts are mandated——I'm thinking of a recent case, in fact—to look into whether the offender has the ability to pay. When it comes to fines, a certain amount of tim

Justice committee  A probation order, I think, as compared to a minimum fine, which stands alone, has much, much more flexibility. A fine is almost the pinnacle of inflexibility, whereas a probation order can have any number of conditions that can combine both rehabilitative and punitive conditions

Justice committee  I think it's important to give the judge the discretion. Every once in a while you have an exceptional case. You may have somebody who has made significant steps to atone for their conduct and for whom the imposition of a criminal record would actually be contrary to the public i

Justice committee  If I could add something with respect to the charter—and unfortunately I didn't have too much time to look into this—I saw a potential issue arising with respect to section 2(b). As you know, mischief doesn't only consist of destruction of property but also the interference wit

Justice committee  Technically you could have a plea, based on a joint submission between crown and defence, for the minimum fine. But generally speaking, as a criminal lawyer I would be looking to negotiate with the crown to plead to the lesser included offence of general mischief for some sort of

Justice committee  It's available, and that's where my comment goes at the beginning that you're transferring discretion from the court to the crown. It's not up to the sentencing judge to decide what count is being pled to; that's the crown's discretion. So you would have to convince the crown.

Justice committee  Yes, of course it has. But what this does is force the hand of lawyers to look for innovative ways to get the crown to use its discretion, which I suspect causes anger in this committee.

Justice committee  No. What I was referring to is using that to then pitch a discharge to the judge, so whether the crown agrees with me or not that they're going to go for a discharge, I would still have a chance in front of the sentencing judge to say, my friend disagrees with me here, but I'm go

Justice committee  That's correct, sir.

Justice committee  I'll respond in English, if I may.

Justice committee  My reading of the legislation is that you have to have been convicted a second time under this particular provision in order to attract the mandatory minimum second step in the sentencing. That's my understanding.

Justice committee  My understanding is that it has to be a second conviction. If I were convicted of the offence two years ago, and then I come before the courts again and I plead guilty, I would be subject to the mandatory minimum of not less than 14 days. There's a 14-day minimum the second time