Tories Criticize Consideration of Immigration Status in Lighter Sentences for Criminals

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner holds a news conference in Ottawa on Feb. 21, 2025. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

The Conservatives say courts should not consider the immigration status of convicted criminals when handing down sentences, warning that doing so would create a “two-tier” system.

The Tories’ statement comes after a recent court ruling that spared prison time for a convicted criminal in order to reduce his risk of deportation.

“Non-citizens convicted of a crime should face the same consequences as Canadian citizens, and when they are convicted of serious crimes, they should be deported,” Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, her party’s immigration critic, said in an Aug. 26 statement.

In a decision on Aug. 22, the B.C. Court of Appeal had ruled that a lower court had erred in giving a sentence Rempel Garner said was “too lenient” to a non-citizen convicted of aggravated assault and possession of a dangerous weapon so that he could be spared deportation.

The accused, Jae Won Lee, a permanent resident, received a sentence of two years less a day to be served in the community, under a conditional sentence order, after he stabbed the victim twice on March 16, 2024, “without provocation, relentlessly pursuing him and causing serious injuries,” according to the Aug. 22 B.C. Court of Appeal case.

The Crown appealed the lower court’s decision, and the provincial appeal court agreed with the Crown, ruling that an appropriate sentencing for the accused is 42 months’ imprisonment less credit for time spent in pre-sentence custody.

“The Crown appeals on the ground that the judge below placed excessive weight on collateral immigration consequences and imposed a sentence that was demonstrably unfit,” court documents say.

Rempel Garner says the Crown shouldn’t have had to rely on an appeal to get the higher sentence.

“It shouldn’t have taken a long, expensive appeal by the Crown for the victim of this horrendous attack to get the justice he deserves,” she said.

“This is why Conservatives will do what the soft-on-crime Liberals will not: table a bill to end the two-tier practice of judges considering immigration status when sentencing non-citizens.”

Jeremy Bellefeuille, a spokesperson for the office of Justice Minister Sean Fraser, told The Epoch Times that Canada has “clear laws” to deport non-citizens who have been convicted of serious crimes.

“What the Conservatives are proposing is once again a failed approach that removes judicial discretion and ignores Supreme Court precedent,” Bellefeuille said in an Aug. 27 statement. “The Charter guarantees everyone is equal before the law, and our Liberal government campaigned on strengthening the Criminal Code to protect victims of crime and keep communities safe.”

The Liberals will bring forward new legislation in the fall that will include bail and sentencing reforms, Bellefeuille added.

‘End Leniency’

Rempel Garner announced on Aug. 13 that the Conservatives will table a bill when Parliament returns in the fall that aims to “end leniency for non-citizen criminals.” The legislation would amend the Criminal Code to prevent a non-citizen’s immigration status from being considered by judges in sentencing.

Judges have been permitted to consider immigration status when sentencing following a Supreme Court ruling in 2013. The country’s highest court was weighing in on the sentencing of Hoang Anh Pham, a non-citizen who was convicted of two drug-related offences. The sentencing judge from the lower court gave Pham a two-year imprisonment sentence, which meant Pham would lose his right to appeal a deportation order.

Reducing Pham’s sentence by one day would have lessened the impact on his immigration status, which the Crown argued the sentencing judge had been unaware of at the time. Pham appealed the sentence, but the Court of Appeal dismissed that appeal and refused to vary the sentence on the basis that Pham had a prior criminal conviction and had “abused the hospitality that [had] been afforded to him by Canada.”

However, the Supreme Court ruled that the appeal should be allowed and the sentence should be reduced from two years to two years less a day. The top court said it is “wrong” for courts to refuse a one-day reduction.

Rempel Garner referred to other cases where non-citizens in Canada were granted a sentence that allowed the accused to avoid collateral immigration consequences associated with recording a conviction.

“When it comes to sentencing non-citizens, Canada has essentially adopted a form of two-tier justice where judges can and have given lighter sentences to individuals who are non-citizens by virtue of this ruling,” she said. “This offends all principles of fairness that should be foundational to our justice system.”

The Tories’ proposed bill would add wording to the Criminal Code to outline that any impact of a sentence on a convicted offender’s immigration status, or the immigration status of their family members, should not be considered by a judge issuing a sentence.

“Becoming a Canadian is a privilege, not a right,” Rempel Garner said, adding while the “vast majority” of immigrants abide by the law, “removing non-citizens convicted of serious crimes is a no-brainer.”