The appeal concerned a constitutional challenge to the six-month mandatory minimum sentence for obtaining, or communicating for the purpose of obtaining, sexual services from a person under 18 for consideration.
The majority held that although the reasonably foreseeable youthful-offender hypothetical warranted a fit sentence of five months’ incarceration, the additional month required by the mandatory minimum did not meet the demanding standard of gross disproportionality under s. 12 of the Charter.
The Court emphasized the grave and inherently exploitative nature of child sexual commodification, the priority of denunciation and deterrence in sentencing such offences, and the need to exclude irrelevant sympathetic details from hypothetical scenarios.
The declaration of invalidity issued by the Court of Appeal was therefore set aside.
