Supreme Court restores minimum sentence for obtaining sexual services from a minor

Supreme Court building shrouded in fog in Ottawa on April 16, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The Supreme Court of Canada has reinstated the mandatory minimum sentence for offenders who obtain or solicit sexual services from a minor in exchange for money.

In doing so, the country’s highest court overturned a May 2024 decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal, which ruled that the mandatory minimum sentence for the offence was unconstitutional. The Quebec court judged that the minimum sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment, as defined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In a 7-2 split decision published Friday, the Supreme Court noted that the crime is serious, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years.

“There is no doubt that the sexual commodification of children is a veritable scourge in Canada, one that the state has every interest in suppressing and severely punishing,” wrote the court in its decision.

The case dates back to the summer of 2018, when the defendant, Mario Denis, now 61, fell into a trap set by police officers who had posted advertisements for escort services. On at least four occasions, the undercover officer had mentioned that the escort in question was 16 years old. Denis was apprehended as he entered the room where the underage escort was supposed to be.

The Criminal Code provides for a minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment for a first offence and one year for a repeat offender. Found guilty at trial, Denis was sentenced to the minimum term.

The defendant appealed the verdict and sentence and challenged the constitutionality of the minimum sentence, after other mandatory minimums were struck down by the Supreme Court. 

To support this type of constitutional challenge, an appellant has the right to invoke not only their own case but also hypothetical scenarios. 

The Quebec court considered the hypothetical scenario of an 18-year-old man in love with a 16-year-old girl who he knew was selling sexual services and texted her to obtain them. 

It decided that the minimum sentence would be unconstitutional based on that scenario, even as it ruled that the sentence was justified in Denis’s case and upheld it.

The Supreme Court, however, judged that even the hypothetical crime was serious. 

“A number of factors tend to draw the offence toward the high end of the scale of gravity: it involves the abuse of a position of trust and the abuse of a person under the age of 18 years, in addition to having a significant impact on the victim, considering her age and the commodification of her body,” the court wrote in its decision.

The Supreme Court also dismissed the Court of Appeal’s consideration of the hypothetical offender’s romantic feelings in its decision. 

“Recognizing them as a mitigating factor (or even as a relevant factor in the analysis) would amount to condoning a serious abdication of responsibility or even excusing his wrongful conduct,” writes the court in its decision. 

In other words, romantic feelings do not diminish the gravity of the crime. “Superfluous details, often added to make the offender more sympathetic, must be removed to prevent them from unduly tainting the analysis,” added the court.

The court recognized that, in this hypothetical, the six-month sentence would be severe, but that it “falls far short of meeting the test for gross disproportionality.”

It also found the six-month minimum sentence did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, who signed the dissenting reasons, argued that the minimum sentence does violate section 12 of the Charter.

“When a proportionate sentence would not require actual imprisonment, sending a young first-time offender to prison for six months is a gross injustice that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,” she wrote. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2026.

Pierre St-Arnaud, The Canadian Press