\u201cMy future government will introduce mandatory prison sentences for possession of child pornography so that dirtbags like this go away for a very long time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Section 33 of the Charter\u00a0\u2014\u00a0known as the\u00a0notwithstanding\u00a0clause\u00a0\u2014\u00a0allows for provincial or federal legislation to override certain Charter rights for a five-year period.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Poilievre reacts to Supreme Court decision:<\/strong> Poilievre calls Supreme Court minimum sentencing ruling ‘wrong-headed’<\/p>\n CBC News chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks to the Leader of the Official Opposition Pierre Poilievre about a recent Supreme Court ruling against minimum sentences for child pornography. Poilievre says if he was prime minister his government would use the notwithstanding clause against the ruling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear when the next federal election will be called. Canadians went to the polls in April, but with Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s Liberals forming a minority government they could be brought down if they don\u2019t get enough votes<\/a> on their upcoming budget. <\/p>\n The Supreme Court was asked to weigh in on an appeal from Quebec involving two separate cases involving child pornography offences.\u00a0<\/p>\n In both cases, the men pleaded guilty to having hundreds of images of children, in one case as young as three years old, being abused.\u00a0Both of them challenged the mandatory minimum sentences for their crimes arguing they were unconstitutional because they could lead to grossly disproportionate punishment.<\/p>\n The sentencing judge in Quebec decided in their favour and the Crown appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘Lock them up and throw away the key:’ Poilievre<\/p>\n The question before the Supreme Court was whether the one-year prison sentence for accessing and possessing child pornography set out in the Criminal Code violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n The top court said it was only weighing the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentences, and not whether the sentences imposed on the two men were appropriate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Writing for the majority, Justice Mary Moreau argued there\u2019s a range of circumstances that could lead to convictions of possession or access to child pornography.<\/p>\n \u201cThey capture both the well\u2011organized offender who, over the years, has accumulated thousands of files showing prepubescent victims, and the young 18\u2011year\u2011old offender who, one day, keeps and views a file showing a 17\u2011year\u2011old victim that was sent to the offender without them having requested it,\u201d the decision read.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Moreau wrote that \u201cin the age of digital communication\u201d that last scenario \u201cis not uncommon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Poilievre said “the Supreme Court needs to get away from these imaginary scenarios.”<\/p>\n “Their conclusion actually should have been that the sentence should have been met much more than the one year and nine months that the two dirtbag offenders received,” he said.<\/p>\n “Frankly, if I had my way as a father, I would lock them up and throw away the key. “<\/p>\n Smith, Ford, Moe condemn decision<\/p>\n Writing for the dissenting voices,\u00a0justices Richard Wagner and Suzanne C\u00f4t\u00e9 said they would have allowed the appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe censure of society and the law must be reflected consistently and rigorously in the sentences imposed on offenders who are guilty of sexual offences against minors,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the imposition of more severe sentences, the justice system expresses society\u2019s deep and rightful indignation.\u201d<\/p>\n Other Conservatives were also swift to condemn the majority\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n Ontario Premier Doug Ford called on the government to invoke the notwithstanding clause. <\/p>\n “These people are predators. Disgusting scumbags who prey on children belong behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives,” he said on social media. <\/p>\n “The notwithstanding clause was designed to protect the will of the people.”<\/p>\n Calling the majority decision “outrageous,\u201d Alberta Premier Danielle Smith also called for the notwithstanding clause to be used.<\/p>\n \u201cThe possession of child pornography is a heinous crime, and even a one-year minimum sentence is already far too lenient,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also weighed in.<\/p>\n “If you ever wonder why I am so adamant that elected legislators, not unelected judges, should be the ones making the laws read [this] story,” he posted.<\/p>\n It’s not the first time Poilievre has vowed to use the controversial clause to override the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n During the spring campaign, he promised to invoke the clause to impose consecutive life sentences on multiple murderers.<\/a>\u00a0The top court ruled in 2022 that imposing consecutive life sentences violates an offender’s Charter rights.<\/p>\n The clause has been used at the provincial level, including by Saskatchewan<\/a>,\u00a0Quebec<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ontario<\/a>, but no federal government has ever pulled the legal lever. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Attorney General Sean Fraser’s office said they are reviewing the ruling’s implications “carefully.”<\/p>\n \u201cCrimes that exploit or abuse children are among the most serious and reprehensible in our society,” said the spokesperson, Lola Dandybaeva, in an emailed statement. <\/p>\n “Plain and simple: child abusers should face the toughest penalties Canadian law allows.”<\/p>\n Minimums can be ‘constitutionally vulnerable’ <\/p>\n Friday’s decision adds to a growing pile of cases where the Supreme Court has struck down mandatory minimums.<\/p>\n Moreau wrote that mandatory minimum sentences don\u2019t necessarily violate the Charter.\u00a0However, \u201cthe sentence is constitutionally vulnerable because it leaves no choice but to impose a grossly disproportionate sentence on certain offenders,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n The Canadian Centre for Child\u00a0Protection, which acted as an intervenor in the case, said it wasn’t surprised by the decision “given other jurisprudence surrounding the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentences in previous years.<\/p>\n “The decision is helpful in its acknowledgement of the increased prevalence of [child sexual abuse and exploitation material] and its general harm to victims and communities, including the growing threat of AI technology,” it said in a statement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says if elected he\u2019d use the notwithstanding clause to overturn Friday\u2019s ruling from the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":346696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-346695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115471449684804515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761954371_810_default.jpg\")
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The Supreme Court’s decision was split 5-4. (Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n