Quebec wants feds to address ‘Netflix sentences’ for sexual assault aggressors

Quebec's justice minister says a loophole in Bill C-5, a legislation enacted by the Trudeau government, is allowing hundreds of convicted aggressors to avoid prison.

Quebec wants to address a loophole in a federal legislation that is allowing hundreds of people convicted of sexual assault to serve their sentences at home instead of in prison.

The province’s justice minister, Simon Jolin Barrette, says his government will ask the next federal government to tighten the rules around what he called “Netflix sentences” that have been drastically increasing in numbers in the past three years.

He says the loophole is due to Bill C-5, a legislation enacted by the Trudeau government in November 2022 that aimed to reduce discrimination in the justice system.

The year before it came into effect, the province says 52 offenders were eligible to serve their sentence at home. But in 2023 and 2024, that number climbed to 263 and then 347.

Jennie-Laure Sully, an advocate and community organizer from Concertation des luttes contre l’exploitation sexuelle (CLES), told Global News she and her colleagues often hear complaints about these “insulting” sentences served in the comfort of their own home.

“It’s really an issue,” she said, adding that victims have expressed that they would feel safer and more validated if their aggressors served their time behind bars.

While it’s already so difficult for victims of sexual assault and exploitation to come forward, she said this could discourage people from pressing charges.

“It’s sending the perpetrators the message that they can do this with little consequence.”