Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to the media during a press conference in Montreal, Friday, July 12, 2024.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Friday proposed life in prison for fentanyl traffickers, people convicted of multiple counts of human trafficking, and people who import or export more than 10 illegal guns.
The pledge is an expanded version of a plan announced in early February, when Mr. Poilievre said a Conservative government would imprison fentanyl traffickers for life. He has spent months attacking what he has described as extreme drug policies of the current Liberal government, including those on prescription opioids, while promising to end such programs. He has promised to instead focus on treatment and stricter drug laws.
Mr. Poilievre’s tough-on-crime proposals are central to the party’s election campaign. Jailing fentanyl dealers was highlighted in a fundraising push when the campaign started last weekend. And the proposal of mandatory minimum sentences directly echoes the strategy of former prime minister Stephen Harper.
But legal observers say details of the latest plans are problematic. The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down several, but not all, minimum sentences legislated by Mr. Harper. The top court rulings stated the inflexibility of various laws violated the protection against cruel and unusual punishment in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On Friday, as the Conservatives limited questions from reporters, the legality of the proposed minimums was not addressed. In the past, Mr. Poilievre has said he would use the Charter’s notwithstanding clause on issues of criminal justice, which can override the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, but he hasn’t answered the question on this proposal.
“If you exploit and terrorize our people,” Mr. Poilievre said on Friday, “you will go to jail for life and you will never come out alive.”
NDP candidate Peter Julian in a statement called the Conservative proposal “disingenuous,” given the courts ruled previous laws unconstitutional. A Liberal Party spokeswoman said Mr. Poilievre’s approach to crime takes its cue from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Life in prison means 25 years without the chance of parole, but people are often incarcerated longer. It is a severe minimum punishment reserved for only a few crimes, such as first-degree murder.
Fentanyl traffickers already face the prospect of many years in jail, after a 2021 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent sentences in the lower courts. And while trafficking in the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is not defined by volume, for drugs such as fentanyl, the current law allows judges to levy a punishment of life imprisonment.
“There isn’t an immense leniency from the courts. Quite the opposite,” said Shakir Rahim, director of the criminal justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “There’s a trend of court decisions that continually emphasize the need for denunciation and deterrence.”
Since 2016, opioid overdoses have killed almost 51,000 people across Canada. The Supreme Court has recognized the escalating crisis and the top court’s 2021 ruling on sentencing of major fentanyl dealers has reverberated.
In that case, two men in Alberta were convicted of large-scale wholesale fentanyl trafficking and the Alberta Court of Appeal then lengthened their prison sentences. Cameron Parranto, whose crimes included trafficking about 500 grams of fentanyl, saw his sentence increased to 14 years from 11.
The Supreme Court upheld that decision. The top court pointed to the public-health crisis and Justice Michael Moldaver, in concurring reasons, said that “heavy penitentiary sentences,” up to life imprisonment, were appropriate when an offender plays a key role in the trafficking of large amounts of fentanyl.
“Substantial sentences should be neither unusual nor reserved for exceptional circumstances,” wrote Mr. Moldaver, who retired in 2022.
Since the Parranto ruling, courts have cited it more than 200 times in cases with reference to fentanyl trafficking, according to the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s database.
In one example, a Provincial Court of Manitoba case in 2023, a man was sentenced to 11 years in jail, closer to the 13 years sought by the Crown than the six years proposed by the defence. The crimes involved about 430 grams of fentanyl. The judge said the sentence reflected “clear direction from the Supreme Court.”
In the Conservatives’ plan, the party drew a line at a weight of 40 milligrams or more of the deadly opioid. But the 40-milligram figure is low compared with amounts involved in serious Canadian cases and in the framework of penalties in the United States.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration outlines a minimum of 10 years in jail for a first offence of trafficking 100 grams or more of the most dangerous versions of fentanyl. That weight is 2,500 times greater than the amount cited by the Conservatives.
The Conservatives have not explained why they chose the 40-milligram figure. In an e-mail response to questions, the Conservatives last Monday pointed to comments in February from the party’s justice critic, Larry Brock, who said the proposal focused on people connected with organized crime.
Mr. Poilievre’s plan is unconstitutional, said Benjamin Perrin, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, after the plan was first released.
Prof. Perrin, a former Conservative legal adviser in 2012-13 who has since renounced tough-on-crime measures, said the 40-milligram threshold would hit “street-level drug dealers – many of whom are themselves addicted to the substances they are selling.” This would violate the Charter protection against cruel and unusual punishment.