R v IM and R v SB focus on when underage youth should be sentenced as though they were adults. These two cases will be heard together at the Supreme Court of Canada, as the young people IM and SB are both challenging convictions that treat them as adult offenders. 

When a young person under age 18 is convicted of a crime, they are usually sentenced based on special rules set for young people. This is because, as a principle of fundamental justice, courts will presume that young people are more immature, more vulnerable, and less capable of making moral judgements than adults. 

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, there is a two-part test for sentencing young people as adults. The Crown must: (1) disprove the presumption about the young person’s immaturity, vulnerability, and lower ability for moral judgement, and (2) prove that the usual sentence for a young person is not sufficient in this case.  

The BCCLA is intervening to present arguments about Part (1) of this test. Our position is that the sentencing judge should only consider factors that prove something about the young person’s level of maturity, vulnerability, or capacity for moral judgement. From this perspective, factors like the seriousness of the offence, which were used for both IM and SB, are not relevant. Factors like a young person’s experiences of systemic racism, which was not sufficiently considered for SB, are extremely relevant.