Two appellants pleaded guilty to wholesale fentanyl trafficking and received sentences of 7 and 11 years respectively at trial.
The Crown appealed and the Alberta Court of Appeal set a 9-year starting point for wholesale fentanyl trafficking, increasing the sentences to 10 and 14 years.
The majority upheld the starting-point methodology as a permissible form of appellate sentencing guidance, finding it compatible with existing sentencing principles and the deferential appellate standard of review.
The majority also found both original trial sentences demonstrably unfit given the gravity of wholesale fentanyl trafficking, and declined to disturb the Court of Appeal's increased sentences.
The dissent would have allowed the appeals, finding neither original sentence demonstrably unfit and that the Court of Appeal improperly reweighed mitigating factors.
