Table 10
Court outcomes for selected firearms-related offences, pre- and post-2008 mandatory minimum penalty (MMP) legislation, offences with new and old MMPs

Table 10
Court outcomes for selected firearms-related offences, pre- and post-2008 mandatory minimum penalty (MMP) legislation, offences with new and old MMPs
Table summary
This table displays the results of Court outcomes for selected firearms-related offences. The information is grouped by Court outcomes of completed court cases (appearing as row headers), Firearms-related offences with amended MMP, Firearms-related offences with MMP unchanged, Pre-2008 and Post-2008, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Court outcomes of completed court cases Firearms-related offences with amended MMPTable 10 Note 1 Firearms-related offences with MMP unchangedTable 10 Note 2
Pre-2008Table 10 Note 3 Post-2008Table 10 Note 4 Pre-2008Table 10 Note 3 Post-2008Table 10 Note 4
number percent number percent number percent number percent
Total cases, by decision 905 100 812 100 1,349 100 1,606 100
Acquitted 8 1 9 1 48 4 77 5
Stay of proceeding 58 6 71 9 106 8 147 9
Withdrawn, dismissed, discharged 262 29 258 32 637 47 703 44
Other decision 39 4 7 1 29 2 35 2
Guilty 538 59 467 58 529 39 644 40
Total guilty cases, by sentence and custody length 538 100 467 100 529 100 644 100
Probation 35 7 18 4 100 20 105 17
Other non-custodial sentences 41 8 26 6 24 5 18 3
CustodyTable 10 Note 5 443 85 401 90 388 76 502 80
Less than 14 days 44 8 9 2 48 9 27 4
14 to 44 days 25 5 4 1 25 5 32 5
45 to 89 days 23 4 4 1 17 3 25 4
90 days to less than 6 months 55 11 14 3 30 6 36 6
6 months to less than 1 year 95 18 24 5 99 19 144 23
1 year to less than 2 years 144 28 75 17 127 25 203 32
2 years to less than 3 years 40 8 104 23 26 5 18 3
3 years to less than 4 years 9 2 128 29 9 2 10 2
4 years or longer 6 1 38 9 6 1 4 1
Unknown custody length 2 0 1 0 1 0 3 0
Note 1

Includes possession of prohibited firearm with ammunition (s. 95), weapons trafficking (s. 99), possession of weapons for trafficking (s. 100), and knowingly importing/exporting unauthorized weapon (s. 103). Some offences with mandatory minimum penalties (MMPs) subject to the 2008 legislation (s. 99, 100 and 103) may involve prohibited weapons for which there is no mandatory minimum penalty. MMPs were amended in 2008 to 3 years for a first offence and 5 years for a second offence where the weapon involved was a firearm, prohibited device or ammunition.

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Note 2

Includes use of a firearm in the commission of an indictable offence (s. 85), possession of a weapon obtained by crime (s. 96), and making an automatic firearm (s. 102). MMP introduced in 1995 was 1 year.

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Note 3

Pre-2008 selected cases: Date of offence and case completed between June 2, 2001 and the enactment of the 2008 MMPs (May 1, 2008).

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Note 4

Post-2008 selected cases: Date of offence and case completed between May 1, 2008 and March 31, 2015.

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Note 5

Custodial sentence lengths reflect the amount of time remaining to be served on a custodial sentence after credit has been awarded for time spent in pre-sentence custody. However, in some jurisdictions, the length of custody information represents the total length of custody imposed by the court. Therefore, some cases falling into the category below the minimum sentence may still meet the mandatory minimum requirement. Percentages exclude cases where sentence type was not reported.

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Note: A case is one or more charges against an accused person or company that were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision. Cases that involve more than one charge are represented by the most serious offence. Case length is elapsed time between the first court appearance to the date of decision. See "Methodology and data quality" for a description of case selection for the definition of time periods pre- and post- 2008 legislation. Excludes 56% of s. 99 and s. 102 offences and 33% of s. 95 offences where type of proceeding (summary or indictable) was not reported. Cases selected from adult criminal courts cases where case completion is between April 1, 2000 and March 31, 2015 for ten jurisdictions (excluding Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) based on survey coverage. Data exclude information from superior courts in Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and Saskatchewan as well as municipal courts in Quebec due to the unavailability of data.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Criminal Court Survey.
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