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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   937 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 18, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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The unstoppable force meets the unmovable object

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/espaces-autochtones/2213574/affaire-cope-cour-supreme-gladue-vulnerabilite-droit

A man in Nova Scotia was condemned to 5 years for battery on his wife. The appeal court reduced the sentence to 3 years because the original judge did not properly take into account the systemic difficulties that first nations offenders have faced through their lives (a precedent set by the Supreme Court in 1999 requires taking the circumstances of the accused into consideration for sentencing). The crown prosecution is appealing this to the Supreme Court now on the basis that the appeal court has not taken into account recent additions to the criminal code that require taking into account the particular vulnerability and frequent victimisation of first nations women.

Text of opinion

The appellant says the sentencing judge made legal errors by: failing to apply Gladue principles in a meaningful way; placing minimal weight on the recommendations of the Sentencing Circle [a special pre-sentence report from members of the defendant's tribe, in addition to the usual pre-sentence reports from the defendant and the prosecutor]; overemphasizing denunciation and deterrence, and underestimating the restraint provisions of the Criminal Code that specifically apply to Indigenous offenders; and failing to place adequate weight on the mental illness he was experiencing when he committed the offences. He seeks a new sentence of time served and “a period of residual probation with conditions that encourage rehabilitation”.

As these reasons explain, I agree the sentencing judge erred by not sufficiently accounting for the appellant’s serious mental health and addictions issues at the time of the offences. I find these factors, viewed in the context of the appellant’s Gladue factors, were underemphasized, which constituted an error in principle. The principle of restraint should have had more resonance in this case.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-718.04.html

718.04 When a court imposes a sentence for an offence that involved the abuse of a person who is vulnerable because of personal circumstances — including because the person is Aboriginal and female — the court shall give primary consideration to the objectives of denunciation and deterrence of the conduct that forms the basis of the offence.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-718.201.html

718.201 A court that imposes a sentence in respect of an offence that involved the abuse of an intimate partner shall consider the increased vulnerability of female persons who are victims, giving particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal female victims.

It's clownish to me that specific additions were made to the criminal code to protect Indigenous women, but that since the overwhelming amount of violence done to them is domestic violence from Indigenous men, these protections are essentially cancelled out by provisions to protect Indigenous offenders.

Prime example of too much policy being a bad thing. If there weren't specific protections for Indigenous groups, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

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