Conservatives plan to end leniency for non-citizen criminals in Canadian courts

 

Conservatives to end leniency for non-citizen criminals

Non-citizens convicted of serious crimes should be deported,

not given leniency by virtue of their immigration status.

Michelle Rempel Garner

Aug 13, 2025

Should judges be allowed to use a non-citizen's immigration status to issue a more lenient sentence to a convicted offender for their crime?

While many Canadians would rightly say no,  2013 Supreme Court ruling (R. v. Pham) suggested otherwise, and legislation is urgently needed to address this problem. 

Here’s why.

The Pham ruling effectively allowed judges to, in certain circumstances, consider the impact of triggering a removal process under Canada’s Immigration Refugee and Protection Act (“IRPA”) provisions when issuing a sentence. Those provisions include deportation without appeal rights for non-citizens convicted in Canada of an offence under an Act of Parliament punishable by a maximum imprisonment term of at least 10 years, or for crimes in which a term exceeding six months has been imposed.

Lately, as public support for immigration has waned amid the Liberal government's rapid increases to the number of immigrants entering Canada that outpaced housing, healthcare, and job market capacities, several high-profile cases of judges applying leniency in sentencing due to potential impact on immigration status have emerged.

For example, a permanent resident received a conditional sentence after being convicted of trying to purchase sexual services from a 15-year-old, as a stronger penalty would have hindered him and his wife from obtaining Canadian citizenship. Another non-citizen in Canada on a visitor's permit was convicted of twice groping an 18-year-old woman's genitals under her skirt as she stood at the bar to buy a drink and received a discharge to avoid a permanent criminal record and allow a deportation appeal. There are many other examples that illustrate the trend of immigration status being considered in sentencing, with criminal lawyers now routinely arguing for lighter sentences so their non-citizen clients can evade deportation or denial of citizenship under IRPA's current provisions.

While it’s tempting to blame judges for this state of affairs, the fault squarely lies with the federal Liberal government, who, in spite of the increased evidence of leniency in sentencing due to consideration of immigration status in recent years, have declined to provide more clarity to judges through legislation. 

This is why once the House of Commons resumes in the fall, Conservatives will introduce legislation to amend the Criminal Code to rectify this issue. Our bill will add a section after Section 718.202 of the Criminal Code which will expressly outline that any potential impact of a sentence on the immigration status of a convicted non-citizen offender, or that of their family members, should not be taken into consideration by a judge when issuing a sentence.

The rationale for this change is straightforward. Anyone seeking residence or citizenship in Canada has responsibilities as well as rights. The citizenship guide clearly states that citizens must obey Canada's laws and respect the rights and freedoms of others, and IRPA outlines the potential consequences for non-citizens who fail to do so. Without legislative clarity on considering immigration status in sentencing, judges can apply aspects of the Pham ruling to undermine that principle for non-citizens, effectively end-running the deportation consequences already enacted by Parliament through IRPA. 

In effect, the Criminal Code amendment that Conservatives plan to propose this fall will prevent judges from using aspects of the Pham ruling to prioritize the process of entering and staying in Canada over the responsibility to respect Canadian law required of those seeking to do so. It will also help quell anger from Canadians who have read about high-profile rulings where the perception has arisen that non-citizens are receiving leniency for a crime committed on Canadian soil simply by virtue of their non-citizen status.

The vast majority of people in Canada who have immigrated here or are on temporary visas  abide by the law. Removal from Canada for non-citizens after being convicted of a serious crime is a no-brainer to both protect Canadians, the value of Canadian citizenship, and every person who resides in Canada and plays by the rules. 

After a decade of Liberal post-nationalism and excessively high immigration levels, accepting this change would allow the Liberals to demonstrate some respect for Canadian citizenship by affirming that, at minimum, the privilege of residing here for non-citizens depends on adherence to the rule of law.

Sex Crimes by Refugees Double in Germany; Court’s Leniency to Blame - Gatestone

By Pratyaksha Mitra 

Sex crimes by migrants doubled in past year

Instances of sex crimes by refugees having doubled in Germany in 2016 come as a shocking revelation. In the year 2015, crimes of this nature committed by migrants were 1,683. But in 2016 it has increased to 3,404. The crimes include not only outraging a woman’s modesty but also terrible crimes like rape. A criticism from ‘Gatestone‘ publishers of the present report, states that the cause of the increasing crimes lies with the German legal system which has taken a soft approach towards the migrants.

Gatestone, a neutral (not everyone would agree with that) think tank in Germany, has published a report informing about the sex crimes committed by migrants in Germany in the past 2 years which has become controversial. Gatestone has stated that the crimes committed by the migrants in 2016 which have increased twofold, should be a matter of great concern to Germany. The sex crimes committed in Germany are by refugees coming from countries like Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and also Algeria and Morocco. The report has emphasized the German judicial’s soft approach towards crimes ranging from outraging a woman’s modesty to rape. ’Gatestone‘ has blamed this wishy washy approach to be the cause of increase in the sex crimes in the previous two years.  

Sex crimes by migrants increased 5 fold in 4 years

Gatestone has pointed out that the crimes committed by the migrants in Germany in 2016 have increased by whooping five times as compared to the crimes in 2012. It is also becoming clear that the crimes have been increasing with the increase in number of migrants. A harsh criticism from Gatestone has been that the German judicial system and the police machinery have been pushing the crimes committed by migrants literally under the carpet. To prove this claim, the Think Tank has cited an example.

A case of a 23 year old refugee from Turkey, charged for raping a German woman, had come before the Court. However, in spite of committing this crime he was acquitted. Why, because the victim could not prove to the court that she had opposed the youth. In spite of her repeated requests and opposition, the young refugee did not heed her. The Court did not accept her statement that the young man had been assaulting her sexually for four hours and hopelessly she had to bear the atrocity. With this example, Gatestone tore up the German judicial system.

Of course, who would believe a young German woman over a Muslim migrant? Perhaps if there were two girls who were held against their will and repeatedly raped, the judge might have considered the possibility that there was some truth. Wait a minute - are we talking about Germany or Saudi Arabia?

Wherever it is, they seem to be quite willing to sacrifice young German girls on the altar of political correctness and stupidity.

I don't have the actual numbers for 2012-2014 but I have enough to know that a graph of the numbers would certainly be an alarming bell curve that would look a lot like this:

Another College Student Avoids Prison After Raping a Freshman

No Prison For Colorado Student Who

Raped ‘Helpless’ Freshman

Austin Wilkerson had faced years behind bars 

for attacking a half-conscious woman

Tyler Kingkade 
Senior Editor/Reporter, The Huffington Post

Austin Wilkerson told friends of a fellow University of Colorado-Boulder student who drank too much at a party that he’d take care of her. Instead, he raped her as she drifted out of consciousness and lied about what he had done.



Wilkerson, 22, convicted of sexual assault of a helpless victim and unlawful sexual contact, faced a possible prison sentence of four years to life for the March 2014 attack on the freshman woman. But a judge in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday sentenced him to two years on work release and 20 years’ probation.

“I’ve struggled, to be quite frank, with the idea of, ‘Do I put him in prison?’” said Judge Patrick Butler, according to the Daily Camera newspaper. “I don’t know that there is any great result for anybody. Mr. Wilkerson deserves to be punished, but I think we all need to find out whether he truly can or cannot be rehabilitated.”

The lenient punishment, reminiscent of the six-month sentence given to Stanford University athlete Brock Turner in June for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, adds to the perception that the criminal justice system too often fails to consider the trauma and lifelong effects experienced by rape victims, said Brie Franklin, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

societal betrayal

It's a crying shame when it appears that Judges are part of the culture of rape on university campuses. How does such a sentence encourage the next girl who is raped on campus to come forward and report the crime. What's the point? She has to endure giving testimony, a cross-examination, and then listen to her rapist lie about her in front of her family - all for what? A slap on the wrist?

She suffers with the myriad psychological effects for the rest of her life! His sentence does nothing to help her heal but only deepens the sense of societal betrayal. Way to go Judge Butler!

“We are disappointed to see, yet again, that the impact on the perpetrator, who chose to commit a crime against another person, is being considered over the impact on the victim, who did not have a choice in the matter,” Franklin told The Huffington Post.

Turner’s light sentence helped propel national outrage against the judge who imposed the punishment and its message of making excuses for serious criminal assault.

  News report

Supporters of Wilkerson, as in the California case of Turner, appealed for leniency. Wilkerson’s friends and family said the crime was a “traumatic incident” for him. They asked the judge to consider Wilkerson’s future, and said he “will go far in this world if not defined by this one incident.”

His victim might have had the same potential, but unfortunately, she is defined by this one incident. She will need a lot of support to get past that.

Wilkerson’s victim drank too much celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and Wilkerson told her friends he’d take care of her. Instead, he “isolated and raped the half-conscious victim,” prosecutors said in court documents.

Wilkerson admitted to investigators he’d made advances to the victim that night, “but that she rebuffed him each time, and that he felt ‘pissed off’ and called her a ‘fucking bitch,’” according to court documents.

Wilkerson told the jury that the woman wasn’t inebriated and that their sexual activity was consensual. His defense argued that the victim filed a rape claim to cover up for a drop in her grades.


        COURT DOCUMENTS/THE HUFFINGTON POST

An excerpt from the pre-sentencing memo submitted by prosecutors in Austin Wilkerson’s case.
Following his conviction in May, probation officers recommended a sentence with no prison time, arguing Wilkerson was remorseful. Prosecutors fiercely disagreed, writing in a pre-sentencing memo that Wilkerson’s changing story was evidence he hadn’t seriously accepted his guilt.

District Attorney Stanley Garnett pointed to harm to the victim in a memo to the court, arguing “it is objectively offensive to consider as ‘punishment enough’ the fact that the defendant will have to pursue a career as a biochemist instead of as a medical doctor.” 

“If more than a quarter of people in this community were killed by a drunk driver, or assaulted or menaced during an invasion of their home, the community would call for a stronger message than a sentence of probation with no punitive sanction to effectuate respect for the law, the deterrence of crime, and the protection of the public,” Garnett wrote. “Sexual assault should be no different. Murderers go to prison. Armed robbers go to prison. Rapists go to prison. This is what justice requires.”