Keeping Up Is Hard to Do:
A Trial Judge’s Reading Blog

REASONS FOR SENTENCE

R. v. Aragon, 2022 ONCA 244, at paragraph 127:

Trial judges are obliged, including when sentencing offenders, to provide reasons that explain what they have decided and why they have decided that way: R. v. G.F., 2021 SCC 20, 459 D.L.R. (4th) 375, at para. 69. When read as a whole in context of the evidence, the arguments and the live issues in the case, those reasons must disclose the pathway the trial judge took to reach their decision (“factual sufficiency”) and must enable the unsuccessful party to discern if any errors have occurred, so that they can meaningfully exercise their right to appeal (“legal sufficiency”). I am persuaded that the reasons the sentencing judge provided with respect to some of the rulings he made during the sentencing hearing were insufficient.