When thinking about how a Canadian court might have handled the Harvey Weinstein trial, one thing is for certain: his sentence would have been a lot lower.

The convicted rapist and disgraced Hollywood mogul was handed a 23-year sentence Wednesday in a New York court for rape and sexual assault against two women.

A jury of seven men and five women had found Weinstein guilty in February of raping an aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and sexually assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 by forcibly performing oral sex on her.

In Canada, the Criminal Code stipulates that a person found guilty of sexual assault will face a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years. But Ontario criminal defence lawyers said cases here don’t often get the maximum term of imprisonment, and it’s likely that Weinstein would have been given a lesser term.

Ottawa criminal defence lawyer Michael Spratt estimated the overall sentence would have been closer to five years in Canada, given Weinstein’s lack of criminal record, and the system’s “focus on rehabilitation, and restraint and taking into account health considerations.”

Toronto-based lawyer Angela Chaisson said two to three years’ imprisonment would be the typical range for penetrative sexual assault, though she said she could see Weinstein getting closer to four years as a “trial judge may be tempted to impose a hefty sentence to communicate the community’s denunciation.”

“Two to three years is extremely low,” Chaisson said, “but it’s low for a reason, because our Canadian system is based around the idea of rehabilitation at its core.”

She also said she hoped that the sentencing would lead people to reflect on incarceration and its relationship to the larger feminist movement.

“Sexual violence will not end with the prison system,” she said. “We can feel affirmed when somebody who has caused women extreme harm is being held accountable, and we can feel that while still asking for a transformative way forward that is not rooted in incarceration.”

Spratt said Canada’s Supreme Court has said that the maximum term of imprisonment for criminal offences should be reserved for the worst offenders committing the worst offences. He said people looking at this country’s criminal justice system may have a “knee-jerk reaction” that Canadian sentences are too low, if they compare 23 years to a hypothetical sentence of five to seven.

“The bulk of expert evidence and criminological research actually paints Canada’s sentencing practices in a very positive light, compared to the United States,” he said. “It’s because of restraint and that nuanced rehabilitation approach that Canada has fared very well when looking at rates of recidivism, rehabilitation and protection of the public.”

Another key difference between the New York trial and a Canadian court is that there are no statute of limitations in Canada, meaning there is no ban on prosecuting a historical sexual offence.

In the Weinstein case, actress Annabella Sciorra testified Weinstein barged into her apartment, raped her and forcibly performed oral sex on her in the mid-1990s. Prosecutors were not able to prosecute that allegation on its own because of its age, but tried to use Sciorra’s testimony to help establish a pattern of behaviour and prove the most serious charges in the case: two counts of predatory sexual assault. The jury acquitted Weinstein of those two counts.

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“In Canada, you can go to the police at any time and make an allegation of sexual assault that can have happened 20 minutes ago, two years ago, 40 years ago, it doesn’t matter,” Chaisson said.

Historical sexual assault cases “aren’t uncommon cases in our court system because we don’t have a statute of limitations.”