Archive: March, 2022

Minimum sentences require judges to impose a minimum penalty on persons convicted of a specific crime. Minimum sentences can result in judges issuing longer sentences. The issuance of longer sentences results in more inmates in federal custody which, in turn, increases the costs incurred by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC).

This report focuses on the minimum sentence for “Possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition”. Persons convicted of “Possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition” in each year continue to be sentenced to a total of 1,162 more years in federal custody than they were before the minimum was increased. The total cost associated with the additional 684 persons in custody and 467 persons on parole at a given point in time as a result of this minimum sentence is estimated to be $98 million/year. The effect of this minimum sentence persists despite the minimum sentence having been declared null and void by the courts. 

It is difficult to draw conclusions about the impact of other minimum sentences. It is also unclear, what effect, if any, the repeal of a minimum sentence would have on the severity of sentencing.

This report compares Canada’s tax administration performance with that of comparable countries with a set of indicators derived from the International survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA) 2020. ISORA is administered every two years, collecting data on the previous two fiscal years from over 150 national or federal tax administrations around the globe.

This report provides a distributional analysis of federal carbon pricing under the Government’s A Healthy Environment and A Healthy Economy plan.

This report analyses Department of National Defence planned capital spending under Strong, Secure, Engaged, announced in 2017, as of 2022.

This report examines the federal government’s Expenditure Plan and Main Estimates for 2022-23, which supports the first two appropriation bills that seek Parliament’s approval of $190.3 billion in budgetary authorities.

This note provides additional information related to federal infrastructure spending in Canada between 2016-17 to 2026-27.

This report provides a baseline projection to help parliamentarians gauge potential economic and fiscal outcomes under current policy settings.