This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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The Conservative government’s tough-on-crime approach has received another major setback at the hands of the Supreme Court of Canada. In its latest ruling, the court blocked the government’s attempt to disallow judges from regularly allowing credit to offenders for time served in jail before sentencing. The unanimous 7-0 ruling has continued the losing streak of the Harper government in major cases at the Supreme Court over the past month.
The rulings in two separate cases were a major rebuke for the Harper government’s approach to sentencing. According to the court, the rulings were rooted not only in a straightforward interpretation of the Truth in Sentencing Act, but in timeless principles of sentencing. According to the words of a Harper appointee, Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, “a rule that results in longer sentences for offenders who do not obtain bail, compared to otherwise identical offenders is incompatible with the sentencing principles of parity and proportionality.” Karakatsanis, who was one of four on the panel of seven judges who heard the cases, stated that “this is particularly so, given that vulnerable and impoverished offenders are less able to access bail.”
The law in question is the foundation of the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. The 2010 Truth in Sentencing Act aimed to prevent judges from giving double credit to offenders, where each day behind bars before a trial counted is counts as two days off their ultimate sentence. The act sought to make each day count as one, or at most up to 1.5 days credit “if the circumstances justify it.”
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