Justice officials testing waters for sentencing reform promised by Liberals
OTTAWA — The Justice Department wants to know what Canadians think of changing some of the former Conservative government’s controversial tough-on-crime sentencing legacy — including mandatory minimum penalties — before the Liberals bring in their promised reforms.
An online survey asks respondents to judge several scenarios involving mitigating circumstances surrounding a crime, such as a brain-damaged offender whose condition leads to poor decision-making skills, or an offender who acted out of character and has apologized to the victim in court.
Consider, for example, the fictional case of Sarah, a 36-year-old single mother struggling with addiction who was convicted of drug trafficking after she was caught selling some of her prescription opioid pills.
The survey says she had a knife in her backpack, which she claimed was for her own protection, and after she went to jail, her two children were placed with child welfare services because she had no family to take them in.