Conservative MP tables bill to end lenient sentencing for foreigners

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner has tabled a private member’s bill that would prevent Canadian judges from handing out lighter sentences to non-citizens to help them avoid deportation.

Source: Facebook

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner has tabled a private member’s bill that would prevent Canadian judges from handing out lighter sentences to non-citizens to help them avoid deportation.

Bill C-220, introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday, proposes adding a new section to the Criminal Code barring courts from considering how a sentence might affect the immigration status of an offender or their family.

The legislation states that when sentencing someone who is not a Canadian citizen, “a court shall not take into consideration any potential impact the sentence could have on the offender’s immigration status in Canada, or on that of a member of their family.”

If passed, the measure would overturn the effect of the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2013 ruling in R. v. Pham, which held that judges may weigh collateral immigration consequences such as the risk of deportation or loss of appeal rights when deciding on a sentence.

In that case, the Supreme Court reduced a two-year sentence to “two years less a day,” allowing the offender to retain the right to appeal a removal order.

Rempel said the current approach has created a “two-tiered justice system” in which non-citizens can receive more lenient penalties than Canadian citizens for the same crimes.

“Anyone seeking citizenship in Canada has responsibilities as well as rights,” she told reporters, arguing that the principle of equal justice is undermined when courts lower sentences to spare offenders immigration consequences.

Her bill follows a series of high-profile cases highlighted in August where judges delivered unusually light sentences to foreign nationals in order to avoid triggering deportation.

In one instance, an Indian foreign national received a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to attempting to purchase sex from a minor so that he and his wife could avoid removal from Canada.

In another case, a visitor convicted of groping on two separate occasions avoided a permanent criminal record so he could appeal his deportation order.

Rempel said such outcomes “offend all principles of fairness” and that her bill would ensure the same standard of justice applies to citizens and non-citizens alike.