In a recent ruling, Court of Quebec judge Antoine Piché tore a strip off Crown prosecutors who appear before him for discounting sentences based on offenders’ immigration status, to avoid non-citizens being flagged for deportation — which is supposed to happen after a criminal sentence of six months or more is handed down.
I was most intrigued by Piché’s annoyance at the widespread insistence that this doesn’t happen. This is one of those Canadian phenomena that clearly exists — National Post has reported many such cases, many of which wouldn’t be known to the public otherwise — but that we’re supposed to pretend does not.
