Aboriginal Sentencing

"In our region, the public perception of the justice system in the past number of years has changed to one of fear and concern for human safety, especially in our Aboriginal communities.  The sentences handed down as punishment, for violent crimes particularly, seem to have evolved to a less than minimal standard.

"As aboriginal people, we are subject to a different interpretation or set of guidelines when sentencing is handed down.  Section 718 of the Criminal Code of Canada allows discretion with respect to Aboriginal status and allows for a certain level of flexibility by judges.  This is where the problems arise.

"The sentences themselves are perceived as favouring the offender, while the victims are either physically or mentally impacted and in many cases, left to live in fear and shame caused by the violation.

"With the number of violent crimes constantly on the rise, the impact in small communities is magnified due to the fact that these victims will end up in such close proximity to their offenders, only to feel victimized once again.

"Our communities need to have a level of security that allows for safety and law enforcement.  Criminals that commit violent offences should not be allowed to be released into the community on an undertaking and given the opportunities to re-offend.  There have been far too many of these situations that have occurred.  Furthermore, there is a need for families of victims to have the opportunity to be represented in court.  In many cases the victim is either afraid or intimidated to the point where they refuse to give statements."

Randy Edmunds, member of the House of Assembly, Newfoundland and Labrador

This is race-based sentencing at its most odious.  What it represents is the 'white man's burden', a sense of collective guilt over the past when white European settlers coming to Canada treated the existing aboriginal population as inferiors.  They are still being treated as inferiors.  With laws especially geared to favour aboriginal traditions, culture and heritage, when that means that the law goes easy on aboriginals, not holding them to the same standards of social responsibility as others.

This is not equality and justice administered equally for all.  When Randy Edmunds, himself of aboriginal ancestry and proud of it, wrote his letter of protest to the Chief Judge of the province's provincial court, he sent copies to the federal and provincial Ministers of Justice.  He represents a majority aboriginal riding.  And he is fed up with the local courts that see it as politically correct to let aboriginals off lightly for crimes they commit, simply because they are aboriginal.

It has become common, during sentencing, for judges to exercise the freedom given them under the Criminal Code, Section 718, to consider ancestry and heritage as reasons for lighter sentences for offenders.  The theory being that these people grew up and had their characters formed in blighted circumstances.  In the process the legal system believes it is advantaging aboriginals, but it is really penalizing the majority of aboriginals who are law-abiding and who suffer from the depradations of non-law-abiding counterparts.

Under the current system of political correctness supported by the legal structure and federal law, violently destructive cretins get off lightly because less is expected of them as a result of their culture and heritage.  And with this knowledge born of the experiences that they take away from sentencing, there is nothing to inhibit their further criminal activities because the penalties are so low.

Canadian lawmakers at all levels fear being accused of racial bigotry.  They will do whatever it takes to avoid being labelled as being insensitive to aboriginal culture.  And to achieve that end, they will close their eyes to the larger effects of this abandonment of responsibility on the part of the lawmakers.  Those larger effects are the victimization of greater numbers of people who live in fear of the criminals among them.

As long as it is official, that institutionally less is expected of aboriginals than of anyone else in compliance with social norms and the laws that govern everyone, inequality reigns supreme under the destructively avuncular code of treating some as being 'special', giving hem a free pass to flout the law and their personal responsibilities to themselves and to others.