This webinar will examine the Canadian approach to sentencing guidance (both legislative and appellate) as it has shaped up in recent years. The first part of the webinar will be more conceptual and historical, exploring the uniqueness of the Canadian approach, in comparative perspective, and examining the idea of “individualized proportionality”, which has developed as the guiding concept in the jurisprudence over the last 20 years. The second part of the webinar will turn to certain practical problems and issues that are in tension with this overall conceptual trend, notably the role of starting points, sentencing ranges, and the interpretation of legislative “signals”. Building on the presenter’s current research, attendees will be presented with an argument about the recalibration of sentencing ranges that appears available, but has not yet been tested in courts.
4:30 PM (Vancouver)
