Focus on the verdict, not political posturing

This may not be popular — after all, politicians from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew to Ontario Premier Doug Ford have gone full-bore to wind up the public on this issue.

Kinew even went so far as to suggest invoking “the code of the streets” and the need for some convicted criminals to be buried “under the prison.”

The object of their attacks? A Supreme Court of Canada verdict that overturned a mandatory minimum one-year prison sentence for convictions involving child pornography.

The verdict is getting plenty of heat beyond the politicians.

But hold your own rage to the end of this editorial, if you can.

The case involved a frequent issue about mandatory minimum sentences — if those sentences are fair for people convicted of the offences, or whether their blanket nature creates a potential violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights.

The court wasn’t even asked to address the specifics of the two cases cited in the appeal. It wasn’t asked to consider the particular sentences given in those cases.

“First, this appeal is exclusively about analyzing the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentences. Indeed, in their joint (submissions), the appellants specify that their appeal concerns neither the sentences that were imposed on the respondents nor the cruel and unusual nature of the minimum sentences in relation to them,” the judges wrote.

The judges made it abundantly clear in their verdict that child pornography was both heinous, and, with the internet, an ever-growing problem, and that Parliament was fully within its rights to impose ever-longer sentences for convictions: “(T)he sentences imposed for the offences of possession of and accessing child pornography must reflect the fact that Parliament has increased the maximum sentences for these crimes and indicated that the objectives of denunciation and deterrence must be given primary consideration for such offences.”

The verdict’s point was that mandatory minimum sentences were not an acceptable method to achieve that goal, because they could put people in jail for a minimum of a year in cases where that sentence was manifestly unfair — not even that they have, but that they could.

Citing an earlier court verdict, the judges articulated the point of sentencing to be “the complex question: ‘For this offence, committed by this offender, harming this victim, in this community, what is the appropriate sanction under the Criminal Code?’”

For child pornography offences, is it a mandatory minimum of one year in jail?

Most would agree it is — and, in fact, the majority of sentences for child pornography offences are well over a year in jail.

The judges cited a hypothetical case in their deliberations: if a 17-year-old sent her 18-year-old boyfriend a nude picture of herself, and he showed it to a friend, the boyfriend would face a mandatory year in jail under the existing law.

The court isn’t saying that people who access and hold child pornography shouldn’t be punished — the court decision very much says they should be.

But what it also says is that mandatory minimum sentences are a flawed means to reach that end.

That kind of analysis is why we put experienced and knowledgeable jurists on the bench — and why we don’t elect them. They’re not supposed to look at the law from the point of view of popular sentiment.

Just the facts.

The last few days — oh, and Manitoba’s premier — have made it clear that the facts don’t matter, however.

Blind rage is far easier than careful consideration.

To be absolutely clear, the Supreme Court is saying politicians have the tools to make better laws to address the issue.

Maybe instead of posturing, the politicians could just work together, go ahead and do that.