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Friday’s decision eliminates the uncertainty. Calling it an “indispensible sentencing tool,” the court decided it ought to be applied in every case, even technical violations of supervision orders, taking into account the history of colonialism, displacement and residential schools, and their lingering effects on educational attainment, income, unemployment, substance abuse and suicide, and the disproportionately high levels of incarceration for aboriginal people.

“Systemic and background factors may bear on the culpability of the offender, to the extent that they shed light on his or her level of moral blameworthiness,” wrote Mr. Justice Louis LeBel, for the majority. “Failing to take these circumstances into account would violate the fundamental principle of sentencing — that the sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.”

In a solitary dissent, Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein argued that the six-judge majority mixed up the goals of long-term supervisory orders with the goals of sentencing, and failed to give enough weight to the protection of the public, which is a primary goal of long-term supervision orders.

As he put it: “Aboriginal communities are not a separate category entitled to less protection because the offender is aboriginal.”

“In my opinion, Parliament has said that protection of society is the paramount consideration when it comes to such sentencing,” he wrote. “Elevating rehabilitation and reintegration into society to a more significant factor diverts the sentencing judge from adhering to the expressed intention of Parliament.”