Quebec wants to address what it’s calling a problem with a federal law that is allowing hundreds of people convicted of sexual assault to serve their sentences at home instead of prison.
The province’s justice minister, Simon Jolin Barrette, says Quebec 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.
“For the victim and for the population, [it erodes] trust, ” the minister told reporters on Tuesday.
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He says the issue is due to Bill C-5, a law 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.
“We want victims …