Tory crime agenda dealt a blow
Supreme court strikes down mandatory minimums for gun crimes
The Supreme Court of Canada dealt the Harper government’s tough-on-crime agenda a serious blow Tuesday by striking down a law requiring mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.
The 6-3 ruling, penned by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, said the statute was unconstitutional as it upheld a 2013 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that labelled the law cruel and unusual.
The court said the mandatory minimum sentence could ensnare people with “little or no moral fault” and who pose “little or no danger to the public.” It cited as, an example, a person who inherits a firearm and does not immediately get a license for the weapon.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government will review the decision to determine “next steps towards protecting Canadians from gun crime and ensuring that our laws remain responsive.”
McLachlin also took aim at the government’s core justification for tough sentencing laws, which it says is to keep Canadians safer.
“The government has not established that mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment act as a deterrent against gun-related crimes,” she wrote. “Empirical evidence suggests that mandatory minimum sentences do not, in fact, deter crimes.”
Eric Gottardi, head of the Canadian Bar Association’s criminal justice section, applauded the ruling because he said there is no solid evidence that stiffer sentences deter crime.
“In a climate where almost every law that is coming out of the government in the past 10 years has had some kind of mandatory minimum sentence attached to it, it is a pretty strong message to the government that their internal checks for what is constitutional clearly aren’t working.”
Gannon Beaulne, a Toronto lawyer who has written in favour of mandatory minimum sentences, said the Supreme Court overstepped its jurisdiction, which is becoming a pattern.
“The rule of law is aided by any legislative policy that makes it easier to determine what sentence you’re facing,” he said. “It impinges on Parliament’s jurisdiction to have a court of this country step in and erode that jurisdiction.”