Sentencing Scholarship and
Sentencing Reform in Canada
A. Manson, The Law of Sentencing.Toronto: Irwin Law, 2001.
Pp. 412. [Softcover $39.95 (Cdn.)].
A. Manson, R Healy & G. Trotter, Sentencing and Penal Policy in Canada:
Cases, Materials, and Commentary. Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2000.
Pp. 801. [Hardcover $120.00 (Cdn.)].
Julian V. Roberts*
Introduction
The appearance (within months of each other) of these two volumes, a new text
and a casebook on sentencing, is cause for celebration, and justifies some reflection
on the state of sentencing scholarship and training in this country. The volumes share
a common author-Professor Allan Manson, for many years Canada’s leading sen-
tencing scholar-and a common goal: to offer students of law and other interested
parties an up-to-date and succinct summary of the law of sentencing, and sentencing
materials, published in a casebook for the first time. His co-authors on the casebook
are Professor Patrick Healy from the Faculty of Law, McGill University, and Profes-
sor Gary Trotter from the Queen’s University Faculty of Law. Together these works
provide law professors with all that is necessary to teach a course on the subject. They
also fill a long-standing void, by providing a text and companion casebook that incor-
porate not just a summary of the law of sentencing, but also related topics in the area
of penology.
A decade ago there was little point and less need to write a review essay on the
moribund state of sentencing scholarship; there was simply too little happening. By
. University of Ottawa.
McGill Law Journal 2001
Revue de droit de McGill 2001
To be cited as: (2001) 46 McGiU LJ. 1163
Mode de r6f&ence: (2001) 46 R1D. McGill 1163
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1990 the reports of the Canadian Sentencing Commission’ and the House of Com-
mons Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor GeneraP-both landmark docu-
ments in different ways-were languishing on library shelves. The criminal justice
system was awaiting the federal government’s response to these two reports. Legal
scholars had little to write about, while sentencing scholars in the sociological tradi-
tion were hampered by the total absence, believe it or not, of even the most basic sen-
tencing statistics.’ Articles on sentencing in legal periodicals were conspicuous by
their absence, and few, if any, law schools offered sentencing courses.
I. Recent Developments in Sentencing
All this has changed with the inception of statutory sentencing reforms in 1995
and 1996. In 1995 Parliament approved Bill C-68,’ which created a series of manda-
tory minimum sentences of imprisonment for a number of offences. For ten offences
(including robbery, which alone accounts for a significant number of cases’) the man-
datory minimum punishment is at least four years in prison if the offence was com-
mitted with a firearm.
The mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment sit uneasily within the
statutory framework of sentencing created by Bill C-4 1, which was proclaimed on 3
September 1996. Sections 718 to 718.2 of the Criminal Code’ now specify the pur-
pose and principles of sentencing. The principle of proportionality in sentencing has
been designated as “fundamental” by Parliament. In addition, Bill C-41 recognizes
the importance of a restorative element in sentencing by two provisions. First, the
statement of purpose includes restorative considerations in the codified objectives of
sentencing! Second, the bill created a new sanction, the conditional sentence of im-
‘Canada, Sentencing Reform: A Canadian Approach: Report of the Canadian Sentencing Commis-
sion (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1986) (Chairperson: J.R. Omer Archambault).
‘Canada, Taking Responsibility: Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General
on Its Review of Sentencing, Conditional Release and Related Aspects of Corrections (Ottawa: Supply
and Services Canada, 1988) (Chairperson: D. Daubney).
‘Now Statistics Canada publishes sentencing statistics annually, although they are far from com-
prehensive, as they lack important information such as the criminal history information, and are de-
rived exclusively from provincial courts; for the most recent trends see J.V. Roberts & C. Grimes,
“Adult Criminal Court Statistics, 1998199” (2000) 20:1 Juristat 1.
4Firearms Act, 1st Sess., 35th Parl., 1994 (assented to 5 December 1995, S.C. 1995, c. 39).
In 1999 police across Canada recorded 5,124 cases of robbery with a firearm. See S. Tremblay,
“Crime Statistics in Canada, 1999” (2000) 20:5 Juristat I at 16.
“An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing) and other Acts in consequence thereof, 1st Sess.,
35th Parl., 1994 (assented to 13 July 1995, S.C. 1995, c. 22).
‘R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46.
‘ See supra note 6. The objectives of sentencing include
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J. V ROBERTS – SENTENCING SCHOLARSHIP
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prisonment, a term of custody served in the community that has an important restora-
tive component, as was recognized by Chief Justice Lamer in the Supreme Court of
Canada’s decision in R. v. ProuW
Finally, although the Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to intervene in
the area of sentencing, recent years have seen a flurry of judgments,2 several of which
were provoked by appeals with respect to the conditional sentence of imprisonment.
These judgments follow those from the mid-1990s when the Supreme Court began to
take greater interest in the question of appellate review of sentences, beginning with
R. v. Shropshire,” and more importantly, R. v. C.4.M. =
II. Sentencing Scholarship
With the notable exception of the Criminal Reports (which has continually pub-
lished commentaries on sentencing), there has been a dearth of sentencing scholarship
published in recent years. The recent statutory reforms and Supreme Court judgments
have, however, triggered a considerable volume of scholarship. The conditional sen-
tence alone has generated many articles. Certain publications stand out, and several
legal periodicals have led the way. A 1997 conference of the Canadian Institute for the
Administration of Justice explored the evolving world of sentencing, and a volume of
papers presented at the conference was compiled by Patrick Healy and H61ne
Dumont.’3 As well, within its four brief years of existence, the Canadian Criminal
Law Review (edited by Anne-Marie Boisvert, Patrick Healy, Guy Cournoyer, and
718.
(e) to provide reparations for harm done to victims or to the community; and
(f) to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, and acknowledgment of the
harm done to victims and to the community.
9 [2000] 1 S.C.R. 61, 182 D.L.R. (4th) 1 [hereinafter ProuLr].
R. R v. Morrisey, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 90, 191 D.L.R. (4th) 86; R. v.
itst, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 455, 184
D.L.R. (4th) 385; R. v. Knoblauch, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 780, 192 D.L.R. (4th) 193 [hereinafter Kno-
blauch].
“[1995] 4 S.C.R. 227, 129 D.L.R. (4th) 657.
‘2[1996] 1 S.C.R. 500, 194 N.R 321.
“3 Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, Dawn or Dusk in Sentencing, ed. by P. Healy
& IL Dumont (Montreal: Th6mis, 1997).
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James O’Reilly) has published twelve articles” on the issue of sentencing, including a
special issue in September 1999.”
In May 1999 the Criminal Law Quarterly, edited by Kent Roach from the Faculty
of Law, University of Toronto, published an entire issue upon sentencing. This was
followed two years later with a second special issue on the topic, containing articles
on mandatory minimum penalties,”6 conditional sentencing,” and the statutory aggra-
vating sentencing factor relating to hate or bias motivation.” If this attention to sen-
tencing seems excessive, it simply redresses the neglect of this topic in previous years.
In fact, in the first forty volumes of the Criminal Law Quarterly, containing almost
three hundred articles, fewer than twenty articles were devoted to some aspect of the
sentencing process.
These special issues should prove particularly useful for the topic of conditional
sentencing, as they both precede and follow the Supreme Court’s guideline judgment
in Proulx.” Also in 2000, Shereen Benzvy Miller and Kent Roach edited a special is-
sue of the Canadian Journal of Criminology’ devoted to “Changing Punishment at
the Turn of the Century: Finding the Common Ground”. In 2001 the Osgoode Hall
Law Journal will publish a special issue edited by Professor Liz Sheehy (University
of Ottawa) devoted to the pressing topic of mandatory sentencing.
As for the training in the area, the scant attention paid by law schools to the issue
of sentencing has always been a puzzle. The simple reality is that the outcome of most
” See e.g. I. Grant, “Legislating Public Safety: The Business of Risk” (1998) 3 Can. Crim. L.R.
177; T. Quigley, “New Horizons in Sentencing?” (1996) 1 Can. Crim. L.R. 277; H. Dumont, “Avoir
ou ne pas avoir la condamnation A l’emprisonnement avec sursis: voili ]a question” (1999) 4 Can.
Crim. L.R. 197; WJ. Vancise, “To Change or Not to Change-That Is the Issue” (1996) 1 Can. Crim.
L.R. 263.
“(1999) 4:2 Can. Crim. L.R.
6 N. Crutcher, “Mandatory Minimum Penalties of Imprisonment: An Historical Analysis” (2001)
44 Crim. L.Q. 279.
‘” D. North, “The ‘Catch 22’ of Conditional Sentencing” (2001) 44 Crim. L.Q. 342; A. Manson,
“The Conditional Sentence: A Canadian Approach to Sentencing Reform, Or Doing the Time Warp
Again” (2001) 44 Crim. L.Q. 375; J. Roberts & P. Healy, “The Future of Conditional Sentencing”
(2001) 44 Crim. L.Q. 309.
” M. Carter, ‘”Addressing Discrimination
through the Sentencing Process: Criminal Code s.
718.2(a)(i) in Historical and Theoretical Context” (2001) 44 Crim. L.Q. 399.
” See also Canada, Department of Justice Canada, The Changing Face of Conditional Sentencing:
Symposium Proceedings (Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, 2000).
” (2000) 42:3 Can. J. Crim.
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criminal charges is a conviction,2′ and the vast majority of convictions are the result of
a guilty plea entered following negotiations with the Crown. This makes the training
of legal practitioners somewhat misplaced; more emphasis should surely be devoted
to the sentencing process, on developing the skills of making a successful submission
to sentence.
A constant refrain from provincial court judges that I encounter at judicial train-
ing sessions is that the quality of sentencing submissions is poor.” The paucity of
training in law school must be one explanation. Another is the rapid evolution of the
field of sentencing. For example, a central focus of sentencing submissions today-
from the Crown or the defence perspective-is on the question of whether a
conditional sentence is appropriate, and if so, the nature of the optional conditions that
should be imposed on the offender. The importance of conditional sentencing has
been enhanced by the unanimous decision in Proubt, in which the former chief justice
made it clear that, so long as the statutory criteria had been met, no offender was
ineligible for a conditional sentence of imprisonment.’ This direction has surely
opened the door to creative submissions regarding sentencing.
In order to “sell” a conditional sentence to a skeptical judge, defence counsel
must be aware of the kinds of programs available, and must have some reasonable in-
sight into the likelihood that their client will comply with court-imposed conditions.
This means that counsel must inform themselves about available programs with a
view to constructing a sentencing submission that is both realistic and consistent with
the statutory statement of the purpose and principles of sentencing. In short, a lot
more is being asked of counsel in their sentencing submissions; counsel are now re-
quired to do more than merely seek helpful precedents and deliver a perfunctory
speech in mitigation. The last point about legal training with respect to this issue is
that whatever is taught in law schools, sentencing is a core issue in many judicial
training programs, such as those offered by the National Judicial Institute.
Ill. The Law of Sentencing
Professor Manson’s text appears in the fast-growing Irwin Law series that offers
concise yet comprehensive reviews of a wide range of topics. Although somewhat
longer than others in the series, it is nevertheless a model of clarity and concision.
2 The overall conviction rate for selected provinces and territories in Canada in 1998-99 was 62
percent; the conviction rate was highest for federal statute offences, lowest for crimes against the per-
son. See Roberts & Grimes, supra note 3 at 7.
” Some of this must simply reflect judicial “old fogeyism”-similar to the way that senior univer-
sity professors tend to grumble about the quality of student papers.
See Proul, supra note 9 at para. 79.
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Until now, the primary resource for students, practitioners, or scholars has been
Clayton Ruby’s Sentencing.” The most recent edition of the book, however, was pub-
lished two years ago; since then, a number of important developments have taken
place in the field of sentencing, particularly in the area of conditional sentencing. In
addition, although Mr. Ruby’s text is an excellent resource for practitioners, he de-
votes little space to the history of legal punishment and the origin of the justifications
of punishment, many of which were codified in the sentencing reforms of 1996.”‘ In
fact, theories of punishment consume less than two pages, at which point the author
launches into a description of the legislative regime. Practitioners may not find this a
significant omission, but students need more information about the theories of sen-
tencing, as useful submissions on sentencing require a basic understanding of the fun-
damental principles of sentencing.
The Manson text devotes two complete chapters to these topics, touching on all
the principal justifications for the imposition of legal punishment, including the re-
tributivist and utilitarian traditions that so often conflict with each other. He concludes
the second chapter with an account of communicative theories of sentencing, includ-
ing the less well-known but fascinating work of Antony Duff.26
From there the work proceeds to the issue of judicial discretion and the substan-
tive principles of sentencing, the sources of aggravation and mitigation, and the sen-
tencing hearing itself. It concludes with an examination of the sentencing arrange-
ments for murder and manslaughter, the role of the appellate courts, and the future of
sentencing. The only omission that struck this reviewer was an absence of much dis-
cussion of mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment, particularly those intro-
duced as part of the federal government’s firearms strategy.” In light of the number of
offenders affected by these mandatory penalties, and the harm that they inflict upon
both the lives of individual offenders and the rationality and coherence of the princi-
ples of sentencing, it is disappointing that there is so little said about the problem in
the text.’ The timing of the volume permitted Professor Manson to conclude his work
with some discussion of two important and recent Supreme Court judgments, R. v.
24C.C. Ruby, Sentencing, 5th ed. (Toronto: Butterworths, 1999).
For a brief account of the reforms contained in Bill C-41, supra note 6, see the account written by
the architects of the bill: D. Daubney & G. Parry, “An Overview of Bill C-41 (The Sentencing Act)”
in J.V. Roberts & D.P. Cole, eds., Making Sense of Sentencing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1999) 31.
See e.g. R.A. Duff, Trials and Punishments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
See supra note 4.
=’ They are discussed in the context of the effect of time served on the minimum penalty imposed.
See A. Manson, The Law of Sentencing (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2001) at 112.
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LatimerP and Kwblauch. Much journalistic ink has been spilt over the first case; Pro-
fessor Manson weighs in with an interesting commentary on the Court’s position.
Knoblauch is far less well-known, but in many respects carries wider implica-
tions, as it may influence a far larger number of cases. Mr. Knoblauch was a mentally
disordered offender who, according to expert testimony, represented a threat to the
community, having accumulated a considerable arsenal of explosives, and having
evinced clear intention of detonating the material at some future time. His case pres-
ents a classic difficulty for the sentencing process (aside from the problem of re-
sponding to his mental disorder), for although he represented a threat, he had not ac-
tually cotmnitted any dangerous acts. The most harm that he had actually inflicted
seems to have been blowing off his own fingertip while engaging in some rather
sloppy bomb building in his home.
Does the sentencing judge have the authority to impose a severe sentence on the
basis of predictions of dangerousness? Writing the judgment for the majority in a
five-four decision, Arbour J. was keenly aware of this limitation of sentencing process
to punish on the basis of predictions of dangerousness. She wrote: “There is no
mechanism in criminal law to remove dangerous people from society merely in an-
ticipation of the harm that they may cause. The limit of the reach of the criminal
sanction is to address what offenders have done.” ‘ As well, the codified fundamental
-principle of sentencing discourages judges from risk-based sentencing.
At the end of the day, the majority upheld a community-based sanction (a condi-
tional sentence) with the condition that the offender spend two years in a secure men-
tal health facility. This provoked a vigorous dissent from Bastarache J., who argued
that confinement in a locked mental institution could not possibly have been what
Parliament envisaged when it created this alternative to imprisonment, namely a sen-
tence served in the community.”‘ The ambit of the conditional sentence of imprison-
ment, introduced in 1996 for the “less serious, first offenders” has, in a few short
years, expanded almost beyond recognition. Yet the Court’s position has found sup-
port among some commentators, including Professor Manson, who argues that “it is
neither fair nor constructive to make the offender pay the price for our failure to pro-
vide sufficient resources to the sentencing system.'” The issue is likely to provoke
further commentary. I have already heard of counsel seeking what has been infor-
mally referred to as a “Knoblauch application”, by which they hoped to attain a con-
ditional sentence of imprisonment with a residential treatment requirement for a
mentally disordered offender.
29R. v. Latimer, [200111 S.C.R 3, 193 D.L.R. (4th) 577.
3 Knoblaudc, supra note 10 at para. 16.
31!bitL at paras. 96ff.
Supra note 28 at 389.
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IV. Sentencing and Penal Policy in Canada
The casebook edited by Allan Manson, Patrick Healy, and Gary Trotter includes a
comprehensive package of cases and materials pertaining to sentencing and parole. It
offers more than most casebooks by providing the reader with additional materials
relating to a diversity of issues that affect sentencing. These additional materials in-
clude statistics on the use of incarceration, writings on the philosophy of punishment,
and research on the effects of imprisonment. A couple of decades ago this material
would have been regarded as extraneous; now it is recognized as vital. Sentences of
imprisonment, for example, cannot be understood-and nor should they be im-
posed-without some understanding of their effects on the specific offender (which
are profound) and their impact on the crime rate (which is negligible).”
As noted in its preface, this casebook is the result of an attempt at Queen’s Uni-
versity to integrate the disciplines of criminal law and criminology. In this sense it
represents a growing degree of integration between the legal and sociological tradi-
tions. There has been clear evolution in the field towards a greater rapprochement
between the law and the social sciences, but two separate worlds still exist. Most
criminal lawyers have little familiarity with the empirical research on sentencing,
while social scientists have an even more fragile grasp of the law of sentencing. One
day sentencing courses will include a component on the social context of sentencing,’
while students in the social sciences will be required to study the statutory framework
and appellate jurisprudence. Until then this collection of materials will prove invalu-
able to legal and sociological communities alike.
In addition to the materials that most readers would expect to find, the casebook
also includes newer material on sentencing circles under the heading “Challenging the
Traditional Paradigm”. And since sentences of imprisonment cannot be fully under-
stood without knowing something about parole, the volume includes readings and
statistical information pertaining to conditional release from prison.
Conclusion
This then is the context in which these two excellent volumes appear. They will
be in considerable demand for some time to come, and Professors Manson, Healy,
and Trotter are to be congratulated for having made a signal contribution to the sen-
” In this context it is interesting to note that judges in England and Wales are being encouraged to
follow the fate of sentenced offenders by regularly monitoring the offender’s attempts at rehabilita-
tion; this may include judicial visits to prisons.
The curriculum of many judicial training seminars already reflects this trend, with courses on
prediction, the social context of sentencing, and the empirical research of sentencing becoming more
and more common.
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tencing literature. Where is all this leading? Better courses and more texts and schol-
arly articles. And that, at the end of the day, can only mean more rational, equitable,
and principled sentencing decisions.
