R. v. Kular, 2012 BCPC 296 (CanLII)
Citation: R. v. Kular Date: 20120502
2012 BCPC 0296 File No: 219698-1
Registry: Vancouver
IN THE PROVINCIAL COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
REGINA
v.
SUNNY KULAR
EXCERPTS FROM PROCEEDINGS
ORAL REASONS FOR SENTENCE
OF THE
HONOURABLE JUDGE W. KITCHEN
Counsel for the Crown: K. Gillett
Counsel for the Defendant: P. Smith-Gander
Place of Hearing: Vancouver, B.C.
Date of Hearing: May 2, 2012
Date of Judgment: May 2, 2012
[1] THE COURT: Mr. Kular must be sentenced on this information that has 14 counts. He has plead guilty to the counts from 3 to 14. I am not going to read the counts in full. They are on the information, of course, and they are also restated in the Pre-Sentence Report which has been prepared. In summary, the charges that Mr. Kular has pled guilty to are charges that by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means he did defraud various financial institutions from December 15th, 2003, until March 30th of 2005. The four financial institutions involved are the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, CIBC Mortgages on the information, First National Financial Group, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
[2] The fraudulent mortgages, which I will discuss in some more detail in a moment, totalled $1.8 million or so, Mr. Gillett on behalf of the Crown has estimated. These mortgages were in some cases sequential mortgages. Five different properties were involved. The amount of the loss was considerably less than the 1.8 million because the financing was sequential and in cases where there was a mortgage that had been financed following a previous mortgage the earlier mortgage was paid off. So the amount owing for the final mortgages on the properties was $829,000, which would be the amount that was out to the financial institutions.
[3] The victims were the financial institutions named on the information, but also the victims were persons that Mr. Kular had involved to put their names on title and commit themselves to paying the mortgages to the financial institutions. When the mortgages went into default the financial institution foreclosed and pursued the debts against the individuals.
[4] The agreed statement of facts filed as Exhibit 1 in these proceedings by counsel has a summary outline of the scheme that was involved here. Referring to paragraph 2 and 3 they read as follows [as read in]:
From the latter part of 2003 to the early part of 2005 the accused was instrumental in a number of real estate transactions which consisted of flipping condominiums at increasingly inflated values and fraudulently obtaining mortgages in excess of the true values of the properties. The accused recruited a number of straw buyers to obtain the mortgages and purchase the condominiums without making any deposit or down payment. Secret commissions were paid to bank employees to facilitate obtaining mortgage approval for the straw buyers based on false information. Because a more favourable loan-to-value ratio is allowed when the borrower lives in the subject property the lending institutions were falsely told that the properties would be owner occupied. Five different condominiums were involved in these fraudulent transactions and they were located in two Vancouver apartment buildings, one building at 4315 Fraser Street and the other at 636 East 8th Avenue in Vancouver.
[5] As an example of what was done with regard to each of these mortgages I am going to read the statement of agreed facts with regard to the first of these transactions chronologically, so referring to paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of the statement of agreed facts and this first transaction [as read in]:
In December of 2003 the accused recruited an acquaintance to purchase Apartment 301 - 4315 Fraser Street as an investment. M.D., the acquaintance, did not view the property or make any deposit or payment and left all the arrangements up the accused. The accused arranged to obtain a mortgage for M.D. from CIBC Mortgages Incorporated. To the accused's knowledge CIBC was provided with a false purchase agreement indicating that 301 - 4315 Fraser Street was being purchased for $120,000 with a deposit of $10,000. Also, CIBC was provided with false information about the employment income and assets of M.D. and CIBC was falsely told that M.D. would be living in the property.
Based on all of that information, on December 15th, 2003, CIBC provided M.D. with mortgage funds in the amount of $110,430 for this purchase which resulted in M.D. taking title. In fact and to the accused's knowledge 301 - 4315 Fraser was purchased by M.D. on December 15th for $70,315. M.D. did not earn as much as was reported to CIBC and the property was and remained a rental. Had CIBC known the true state of affairs it would not have provided the mortgage funds of $110,430 with respect to this purchase. $10,000 from these mortgage funds advanced with respect to this and other apartments in the same building was paid out to the accused by a cheque dated December 19th, 2003, noted as "re 4315 Fraser".
[6] So that was the first transaction and that was the pattern set that was followed with regard to the other transactions. Some of the following transactions the mortgage proceeds were used to pay off previous mortgages on the sale of the apartments. When the scheme was discovered all mortgages still remaining went into foreclosure. The straw buyers put forward by the accused in each case were then each liable personally and were pursued by the creditors on these debts. They were, therefore, victims also.
[7] Referring to the victim impact statements the effect on these persons can be seen. I will read the statement from Ms. Natalie Bales. She was born and raised in Vancouver and grew up as any regular person with hopes and dreams until she was victimized by a crime that would change her life forever. She is now 29 years old [as read in]:
...unable to do the things I hope I could have done in life. I look at my friends. Some own houses, some started their own businesses and began their lives. I see all this and break down every time this incident crosses my mind. I have been an emotional wreck since this has occurred. This matter has not only affected my life, but it has affected my parents' and my family's life. They've seen me crying and nothing but stressing, staying up all night and doing nothing but thinking what happened to me. My parents broke down with emotional stress as well, giving me verbal abuse which has caused me to stress even more.
This has affected me financially in a lot of ways that I had no choice and the only option was to claim bankruptcy. With having one of the best credits which I've built up with my bank on my own to the worst credits, with the bank not giving me any credit at all, I now need to use a prepaid credit card, which doesn't build me any credit, or use cash only.
Financially I can't do anything, I can't get loans, buy a car or a home or get a line of credit or even anything under my name. Basically I can't do nothing financially. This has ruined my life and my relationship. I still live at home with my parents because I can't move out on my own because they do credit checks to rent a place these days. Over the years I have suffered a lot with this incident. My life is now ruined.
[8] With regard to the victim impact statement from the second person, Mr. Karam Baki, he concludes his statement by saying: "In the end we," he and his family [as read in]:
-- have been left with debts of $175,000. The TD Bank says we owe them, close to $10,000 in lawyer's fees and another $10,000 in accountant fees, the cost to start a legal strata for one of the properties, additional costs of $3,500 renovating one of the apartments after a grow-op was discovered in it after Kular had arranged for tenants to move in. As we move closer to trial we can feel the same emotion of insecurity and fear welling up once again. Once again we live with feelings of anxiety and fear. This is already having a negative impact on us with our work environment and families.
[9] Mr. Hardev Gill has a similar theme and he concludes by saying [as read in]:
Mr. Kular's intentions were very wrong and morally incorrect. A person should not have to go through what I am going through. My life has forever changed in a negative way. I hope Mr. Kular realizes how much pain and suffering his actions have caused me and to the people that surround me.
[10] And finally, Ravinder Parmar includes in her statement these comments [as read in]:
Even now when I think of Mr. Kular and how he affected my life I get feelings of panic, anger and anxiety. Not only has he affected my life, but he has impacted the future of my kids' lives and my ability to provide them with the life I once envisioned. People should not be able to commit crimes like this and get away with it. The emotional and financial impact will be felt for years to come.
[11] As can be seen in those victim impact statements we often focus on the financial loss which can be considerable, in this case directly to the financial institutions, but it must be kept in mind that there is considerable psychological trauma and stress caused to many people involved, some even more peripherally in matters such as this. The persons that Mr. Kular was involving, I conclude, without really understanding what jeopardy he was exposing them to, have really suffered considerably and will continue for a period of time and we cannot forget that.
[12] When Mr. Kular began his involvement in these matters he was only 22 years old. He had come under the influence of an older former real estate agent, Mr. Jattan. Ms. Smith-Gander on behalf of Mr. Kular submits and the Crown accepts that Jattan recruited Kular to become involved in a scheme of mortgage fraud Mr. Jattan had previously been conducting. Initially this was represented to Kular to be a loophole that could be used for financing purchases and securing funding on property. Kular represented it on the same basis to the purchasers he himself recruited. In the end he told the court that he also felt victimized himself by Jattan, so perhaps to some extent he can understand the experience of the persons he recruited.
[13] In his statement to the court concerning Mr. Jattan, Mr. Kular said this [as read in]:
Prakash soon became my mentor as I told him about my family situation and I was willing to work hard for him. He eventually told me about some foreclosed condos that he bought well under the market value. He told me if I can get some friends and family members to buy them off him we can all make some good money. He also said that he knows a legal loophole in the lending system that we can buy properties with no money down. The way it worked was to inflate the price of these apartments to get a higher mortgage amount and all I had to do was to open a numbered company to flip these condos. I trusted Prakash and thought to myself that buying really cheap properties with no money down was a brilliant idea, so I explained this idea to a few of my friends and family members and everyone came aboard, thinking it was a win-win situation.
That details the offences committed and how Mr. Kular became involved in them.
[14] Looking at the background of Mr. Kular at the time he committed these offences, he had no criminal record. He could be characterized as a very bright, hardworking, responsible young man up until that point.
[15] Mr. Kular was born in 1982 in India, making him now 29 years old. He has a sister who is three years younger and he and his sister and both parents, even though the parents are divorced, now still have a close relationship.
[16] In 1989 when Mr. Kular was seven years old his father left for Canada. After he had left his father divorced his mother and his father remarried in Canada. In 1998, nine years after he had gone, Mr. Kular's father sent for the children, so he and his sister joined the father in Canada. The mother followed two weeks later. Of course the parents were divorced, there was friction and tension within the family and difficulty with the stepmother that the father had married, as a result of which Mr. Kular and his sister went to live with his mother in Surrey, I understand, with no financial support from the father. The life described by Mr. Kular in court and to the probation officer who prepared the Pre-Sentence Report was obviously a very difficult one, particularly financially.
[17] Mr. Kular demonstrated that he could do very well in school but in Grade 12 we can see from an exhibit filed that his grades dropped off because he felt it necessary to go to work to help support the family. After graduating high school he went to Kwantlen College for a period of time, continuing to work at a gas station. An opportunity was presented to him to become a real estate agent and he pursued that, taking a course at UBC and at the age of 21 in 2003 he became a real estate agent.
[18] Around the same time his mother's visitor status in Canada had expired and she had to return to India. That caused more difficulty within the family and Mr. Kular continued working, now as a real estate agent to help support his younger sister. He met Mr. Jattan, the co-accused previously mentioned, at an open house that was being conducted for real estate purposes. He became involved in these matters. After a year and a half the matters were discovered and reported to the police. The police intervened. Mr. Kular was aware of that. No charges were laid, however, and the matter sat in abeyance for a considerable period of time.
[19] As a result of this experience and not knowing what would develop, Mr. Kular, as he said, turned to alcohol and developed an alcohol problem. He then became involved with other drugs. This went on for a considerable period of time. In 2008 he was charged with selling drugs and he was convicted and sentenced to a nine-month conditional sentence order. He says that as a result of that intervention he stopped using drugs and took steps to overcome his involvement with drugs and alcohol.
[20] In 2009 his mother was able to return to Canada. Mr. Kular became involved as an electrician's apprentice. He had difficulty finding employment to continue with that. He started an online shopping business and that had some financial problems and in 2010 he re-enrolled at Kwantlen College.
[21] Unfortunately these matters did have to be dealt with; charges were finally laid in April 2011. He was arrested and as he says in his statement to the court he put school on hold. Since then he has continued to seek ways to find employment. He has obtained his taxi driving licence. He discovered that having a criminal record, his drug trafficking conviction, prevents him continuing with that at the present time. He has taken employment. He has part-time employment with Quest Food Exchange, but more particularly since October of 2011 he has full-time employment with Seaspan Ferries and he is continuing with that at the present time.
[22] In addition to that background, which Mr. Kular read from his own statement and which is contained in the Pre-Sentence Report, Mr. Kular is supported by letters of reference from friends and family in this, which are very positive. I have no difficulty concluding that we are dealing with a person still a young man, 29 years old, with very considerable potential. He is very bright and capable. He is industrious, responsible to his family and for the most part his efforts in the past have been impressive trying to continue with employment and further his education. That is the background of Mr. Kular.
[23] Now, going back to the matters I have to deal with in the sentencing of Mr. Kular. These offences I have described are very serious and not only are the amounts involved considerable, but the offences require considerable premeditation and planning, they were over a lengthy period of time when Mr. Kular had the opportunity to reflect on what he was doing and so the court has to be very concerned about frauds of this nature.
[24] In determining the sentence for Mr. Kular I have to look at the usual principles of sentencing. For frauds of this type one of the main concerns is general deterrence of others. There is a temptation to persons in that position where they can be involved like Mr. Kular to commit offences of this type where the rewards can be so large and so much money can be accessed. So Mr. Kular must be used as an example to others and other persons involved with mortgages and financing of real property which is so expensive these days. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, laypersons involved in purchasing real property have to understand that whatever the temptation to perpetrate the fraud and misrepresent things to a financial institution or others, if you are caught there will be very, very significant consequences. That is the general deterrence that is required here.
[25] At the same time and related to that I have to consider denunciation of this offence because of the seriousness of the offence and because of the effect it has on other persons. Particularly in this case we see other persons that end up being victims even though there was no real foreseeing of that initially. The victim impact statements show that such persons can suffer considerably and we have to denounce behaviour that results in that.
[26] I have to consider specific deterrence. That is, ensuring that Mr. Kular does not become involved in this sort of thing in the future and that he gets the message. I am satisfied he does. Everything, including his guilty plea, what he said in court and what he has done to demonstrate his remorse by offering apologies to the victims, that shows that Mr. Kular understands that this simply cannot happen again.
[27] Related to that is protecting the public from this sort of behaviour. I am satisfied that that is much less of a concern than it may be in other cases.
[28] The rehabilitation of Mr. Kular is what I have concluded is the main thing I should focus on here, somewhat more than general deterrence even. Mr. Kular was very young when he committed these offences, unusually young for a real estate agent who had so much responsibility. He had family responsibilities that were overwhelming and financial responsibilities that forced him or persuaded him to yield to this temptation, but he has otherwise demonstrated that he can function as a most responsible citizen and he needs to be encouraged in that.
[29] So those are the principles of sentencing and how I see they come into play in this case.
[30] Looking at the circumstances of the offence and Mr. Kular's involvement in it, I see that there are some aggravating and some mitigating circumstances that should be emphasized here. First of all, with regard to aggravating circumstances, we do have to be concerned about the very large amount of money involved here; $800-and-some-odd thousand dollars was the actual loss. The damage to other persons involved, the straw buyers as they have been called, was something aside from the dollar value.
[31] The number of persons involved in this is an aggravating circumstance the courts have to consider. It is one thing to perpetrate a fraud by yourself, it is another aggravating situation when many other people are involved in a scheme.
[32] The sophistication of the scheme must be commented on and Mr. Gillett for the Crown has characterized the scheme as sophisticated. In one way that is quite correct. It required some considerable manipulation of documents and dealing not only with financial institutions but individual persons to persuade them to be involved in this that required a fair amount of sophistication. At the same time I have to conclude that as with most schemes that are called Ponzi schemes or a similar situation as a pyramid scheme, they can work well and without detection as long as they can keep going, but there reaches a point where they cannot keep going. With this scheme that Mr. Kular became involved in I conclude that there had to be a point where discovery was inevitable and that point was of course reached and everything came apart at that point. So aggravating the matter was a fair element of sophistication with that qualification to my comment on that.
[33] Also, this did take place over a protracted period of time and operating the scheme for a year and a half or so does make it worse than if it is what has been described as a one-shot fraud as we have seen in some of the cases that counsel have discussed.
[34] Now, mitigating this case are some factors that I must equally emphasize or perhaps give more cognizance to.
[35] The early guilty plea of Mr. Kular is notable here. This matter had been hanging there before him for a matter of years and we know that a person in that situation would be hoping that it would go away. It did not. When the charge was finally laid Mr. Kular pled guilty at a very early opportunity and has followed through on that by processing the matter, seeing a probation officer, getting a Pre-Sentence Report, speaking to the police about how he can assist in the further investigation of the matter, and all of that goes very considerably to his credit. As far as assisting the police I have mentioned that Mr. Kular became involved because he was introduced to the possibility of this by Mr. Jattan, an older former real estate agent.
[36] Mr. Jattan is still before the court. His trial is apparently set for sometime in November. The Crown is still proceeding against him. No arrangement has been made with Mr. Kular concerning his giving evidence. Mr. Gillett said that the Crown is looking for ways to prove the case against Mr. Jattan and the possibility of Mr. Kular giving evidence is something certainly worthy of consideration in that regard. Mr. Kular read a statement to the court and is on the record as committing himself to a narrative that certainly does involve Mr. Jattan. I conclude the Crown will be very interested in what Mr. Kular has to say and the possibility that Mr. Kular could give evidence to that effect and could be held to it by the statement that he made in court. So Mr. Kular, without the prospect that it will accomplish anything particular, has commendably put himself in a position where he can be of assistance to the prosecution of Mr. Jattan. I have to consider that as considerable mitigation of this matter.
[37] I do consider it as mitigation that he was brought into this by Mr. Jattan. Had Mr. Kular hatched this scheme himself, which was the initial impression I was given when I first was listening to the agreed statement of facts, that would have been quite another matter. But it is clear now and I accept and the Crown accepts that Mr. Jattan had the idea for this, may well have committed similar offences in the past, got Mr. Kular as a very young real estate agent involved in this and initially it is clear that Mr. Kular had various rationalizations for what he was doing before it became clear exactly what he was doing and that he was committing a fraud. His involvement was gradual and once he became involved he said that he to some extent felt trapped and kept going along with that. So I consider that as some mitigation I should look to in this matter.
[38] It has been mentioned and I should say that there was no breach of trust involved in the fraud by Mr. Kular. That is not particularly mitigating, but it is often an aggravating factor in cases of breach of trust.
[39] One further matter I should mention and I discussed that with counsel earlier, and that was the very considerable delay in bringing these charges. I do conclude that is something significant I should consider. The delay is understandable as Mr. Gillett had said the investigation of such matters requires police obtaining production orders, examining documents, moving on to more production orders, and it is a lengthy process to get all of the documentation and to sort out exactly what has happened in transactions such as this. The result, however, has been that Mr. Kular has gone for a very considerable period not knowing what would happen concerning these matters.
[40] During that period of time there has been an evolution and a maturing of Mr. Kular, I have to conclude. I noted that following his commission of these offences he developed an alcohol problem, he became involved with other drugs, he even was trafficking drugs for a period of time. There was a change in the family circumstances, his mother was able to return. When nothing happened, Mr. Kular worked at and was able to overcome the alcohol problem and the drug addiction and made considerable efforts to obtain employment and further his education and generally, in spite of the charges still possibly hanging over him, move forward with his life as well as he could.
[41] He is now at a stage where after such a lengthy period of time he has employment he wants to pursue and I have to keep in mind that if I am going to focus on rehabilitation as I previously concluded I should I should also try to interfere as little as possible with what Mr. Kular has done in a positive way over the lengthy period of time these charges have been outstanding.
[42] Ms. Smith-Gander asked me to consider imposing a conditional sentence order. If I did that I could permit Mr. Kular to continue with the positive steps he has been taking.
[43] The Crown's position is that what is required here, because of the seriousness of the offences and the nature of the offences, is a penitentiary sentence of something like two and a half years.
[44] Now, with regard to the Crown submission Mr. Gillett says, and I conclude that he is correct in this, that the range of sentence that is generally indicated for frauds of this magnitude is something like three to five years in the penitentiary. That is the range of sentence a court should look at, and then depending on the exact circumstances of the offence and the background of the accused and whether there is a criminal record and that sort of thing, determine where in that range or perhaps a little below or above that range a sentence should be located.
[45] There are many, many cases dealing with serious frauds. Mr. Gillett has cited five in particular: R. v. Chamczuk. That is a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2010. We have also R. v. Chowbay. That is a decision from 2011 of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. R. v. Cunsolo, also the Ontario Superior Court of Justice from 2011. The decision was early in 2012. And finally from the same court, R. v. Dwyer, a decision from 2011.
[46] Now, in particular Mr. Gillett says, and it certainly seems to be the case, the closest case on the facts and also one from our own jurisdiction is R. v. Semeniuk from the Supreme Court. The decision was from Madam Justice Stromberg-Stein, confirmed by our Court of Appeal and the decision we have is a 2004 decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, Mr. Justice Finch, the Chief Justice, and Mr. Justice Donald and Madam Justice Saunders.
[47] Now, in that case the accused was sentenced to two and a half years and Mr. Gillett, noting the similarity, said that is the sort of sentence we should be looking at here. The similarity can be seen from looking at the circumstances of that case. In the Court of Appeal decision they quote from Madam Justice Stromberg-Stein, her paragraph 4:
On behalf of the borrowers, the accused acted as a sub mortgage broker and submitted loan applications with supporting documentation to two mortgage specialists, one who represented the CIBC in one transaction and one who represented the Royal Bank in four transactions. The accused knowingly created and provided false information and forged documents as part of the loan application process, perpetrating fraud by causing the placing of mortgages and the advancement of mortgage funds on the basis of mortgage loan applications which contained false information which was supported, in some cases, by false letters of employment and income, false gift letters, false asset and debt information, and/or forged contracts of purchase and sale. In all five transactions, the banks relied on the false information provided by the accused, which information materially affected the assessment of the loan applications and the decision to grant the mortgages.
[48] Now, that is strikingly similar to the factual situation we have in the present case. The circumstances of the accused in that case were somewhat different. The accused was older, but I do have to conclude that that sentence imposed by Madam Justice Stromberg-Stein of two and a half years should be regarded as perhaps the indicated penalty in this case for our accused, Mr. Kular.
[49] In particular, with regard to Mr. Kular, there are some differences. The most notable is the youth of Mr. Kular when he committed these offences. I continue to be struck by the fact that a 21-year-old man got involved in a situation such as this and it is clear that, like most 21-year-old men, he was still quite immature and struggling with his new responsibilities as an adult.
[50] I also will emphasize once again that I am concerned about the delay in this matter. Not concerned about the fact that it may take that long to process and get a matter set down, but the fact remains that it does have an effect on the ability of a young man to get on with his life and I have to be concerned about our continuing to interfere with his doing that. Also in this case I think it is of particular significance that Mr. Kular has put himself in a position where he is apparently prepared to be, and could even be forced to be if he were not prepared to be cooperative with the authorities in prosecuting Mr. Jattan. That is something that is significant here.
[51] So I do conclude that I should make every effort to accommodate a conditional sentence order for Mr. Kular. I have examined the circumstances of the situation here and Mr. Kular's background and I am satisfied it would not endanger the safety of the public as contemplated by the provisions required when I look at that issue. I also note that if Mr. Kular were sentenced to two and a half years or 30 months as I say the indicated penalty suggests, he would serve a penitentiary sentence that could result in his getting day parole within five months. With his background, he would certainly be seriously considered for full parole after 10 months and he could be released with relatively little control or certainly less control than he would have on a conditional sentence order after a period of time of a little less than a year. That would be the effective time in custody he would spend and the sentence would be phased out.
[52] A conditional sentence order runs for the full period of time that it is imposed. I could impose two years less a day for such a sentence and the conditions that could be imposed could be effectively the same as incarceration; they could be very restrictive. At the same time, they could facilitate rehabilitation and they could permit Mr. Kular to continue with his employment and his other plans for furthering his education and his employment. I am persuaded that that is worthwhile and that is the option that the court should take here.
[53] So Mr. Kular, I am giving you a conditional sentence order. On each of these counts concurrent I am sentencing you to two years less a day. You will be bound by the mandatory terms of the conditional sentence provisions, keep the peace and be of good behaviour and appear before the court when required to do so, et cetera. Remain within British Columbia and notify the court of any change in circumstances.
[54] But in particular are these conditions I am imposing. You must report in person to a supervisor at 275 East Cordova Street, Vancouver, B.C., before 4:00 p.m. on May 4th and thereafter when and where directed by a supervisor or a correctional officer.
[55] You must reside at 8650-154th Street, Surrey, B.C. That is your address, is it?
[56] THE ACCUSED: Yes, sir.
[57] THE COURT: And immediately notify the court or your supervisor if you change that address.
[58] You are to have no contact directly or indirectly, and I have named the four persons on the victim impact statement and your co-accused. So Natalie Bales, Karam Baki, Hardev Gill, Ravinder Parmar and the co-accused, Prakash Jattan. You are to have no contact with those persons.
[59] You must not attend at any Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce or First National Financial Institution.
[60] There will be house arrest, which is very restrictive, Mr. Kular. It is the substitute for going to jail and having to stay in jail. So you are not to be found outside your place of residence for the period of your sentence except for a genuine medical emergency pertaining to yourself, or except with the written permission of your supervisor, or except while travelling directly to and from or while at any location approved in writing by your supervisor for any reason deemed appropriate by your supervisor, including for counselling, community work service or for business, medical or other appointments or except for travelling to and from or directly at your place of employment or education as approved by your supervisor. So it sounds like there may be a lot of exceptions to that, but they are restrictive. It is mainly going to be for employment and they must be approved by your supervisor. Do you understand that?
[61] THE ACCUSED: Yes, sir, I do.
[62] THE COURT: Okay. You must present yourself at the door of your residence when requested to do so by a supervisor or any peace officer.
[63] You must perform 50 hours of community work service at the direction of your supervisor on or before May 31st, 2013.
[64] You are not to possess or consume any alcohol, intoxicants or drugs as defined by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, save as authorized by law. You must not go into any pub, bar, liquor store or any other licenced premises that primarily sells alcohol.
[65] You must attend for such counselling as directed by your supervisor, including for substance abuse or psychological or psychiatric disorders.
[66] You are not to possess any credit cards, bank cards or cheques, nor any identification in any name other than Sunny Kular.
[67] I will make an order that you provide a DNA sample in the usual form. You will be advised by the justice of the peace when you are signing your conditional sentence order as to when and where you will attend for the DNA order.
[68] Those are the conditions I have in mind for the conditional sentence order. I will say also that the victim fine surcharge will apply.
[69] Is there anything further from any counsel?
[70] MS. SMITH-GANDER: Your Honour, the only thing I'm wondering about is sometimes on CSOs there'll be a period of a block of hours once per week where he can go out and do shopping, what have you, a four-hour block one time per week on maybe a Saturday or Sunday.
[71] THE COURT: Well, I did say that he can apply to his conditional sentence supervisor. Where do I have it here? Except while travelling directly to and from or while at any location approved in writing by your supervisor for any reason deemed appropriate by your supervisor.
[72] MS. SMITH-GANDER: Okay.
[73] THE COURT: If he persuades the supervisor that he has to go and get groceries for the family under the circumstances the supervisor's aware of, if they think it is appropriate they can make that decision.
[74] MS. SMITH-GANDER: Okay. Thank you, Your Honour.
[75] THE COURT: It seems to me that when you are under house arrest the rest of the family is going to have to help with the situation and do some of the grocery shopping.
[76] Is there anything further?
[77] MR. GILLETT: No thank you, Your Honour.
[78] MS. SMITH-GANDER: No, Your Honour.
[79] THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
[80] MS. SMITH-GANDER: Thank you, Your Honour.
[81] THE ACCUSED: Thank you, Your Honour.
[82] THE COURT: Okay. Good luck, Mr. Kular.
(REASONS CONCLUDED)
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