With Ottawa promising bail reform, what’s driving the debate?

OTTAWA — Premiers are putting pressure on Ottawa to implement tougher bail rules. With the federal government expected to table bail reform legislation in the fall, critics are expressing worries already about Ottawa’s plans.

So what’s driving the debate on bail reform?

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What the government has promised

During this spring’s federal election, the Liberals promised to “move aggressively” to implement stricter bail laws by introducing a reverse onus for a number of offences. A reverse onus moves the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the accused — meaning they would have to justify being granted bail.

The Criminal Code already has a reverse onus for bail in place for many serious offences, including murder. The Liberals would add new offences to that list, including car thefts involving violence or those conducted for a criminal organization, and home invasions and some human trafficking and smuggling offences.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser told The Canadian Press he plans to bring forward a crime bill in the fall. It’s not clear what will be in it — Fraser said the government will consider including additional reforms but “at minimum” it will implement the crime policies the Liberals promised during the election.

Didn’t the Liberals already reform bail?

Yes, through amendments to the Criminal Code in 2023. They expanded reverse onus bail provisions to include more firearms and weapons offences, and more crimes involving intimate partner violence. In 2019, the government established a reverse onus for those charged with a violent offence involving an intimate partner if they have a prior conviction for a similar offence.

The 2023 amendments followed calls from provincial premiers and police chiefs for the federal government to bring in stricter bail rules for repeat violent offenders. It followed some high-profile cases — including that of Ontario Provincial Police Const. Greg Pierzchala, who was killed while responding to a vehicle in a ditch.

In 2024, Ontario police associations called for further reform, saying there are many cases “of accused persons out on bail who are rearrested shortly after being granted bail,” including some that don’t make the news.

They said the public “expects that in the name of public safety, violent and repeat offenders will not be released on bail unless there is a compelling reason and a sensible plan to ensure that they are not at risk of reoffending while awaiting trial.”

Pressure from the premiers

Premiers said earlier this month they expect the federal government to follow through with its promised reforms.

At a press conference following a premiers’ meeting in Huntsville, Ont., last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the provincial leaders “talked about the need for real bail reform that keeps criminals behind bars and keeps our communities safe.” He said the premiers would be holding Prime Minister Mark Carney “accountable” for delivering “full-fledged” and not “half-baked” reform.

Ford said he’d “love to see mandatory sentencing so when someone breaks into your home, puts a gun to your head, terrorizes your neighbourhood,” that person doesn’t “get out on bail after being out on bail … five times.”

The federal government is responsible for setting bail laws under the Criminal Code, but provincial and territorial governments prosecute most criminal offences, conduct bail hearings and enforce bail conditions.

A spokesperson for Fraser said the federal government is “working with provinces and territories to reform bail and sentencing, with a focus on repeat, violent offenders. This was a key topic at the recent First Ministers’ Meeting, and minister Fraser has made it a top priority.”

Why is bail such a hot political issue?

The Conservative party has long campaigned on a promise of “jail not bail” and has accused the Liberals of being “soft” on crime and of implementing “catch and release” policies. During the recent federal election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre campaigned heavily on crime and said he would prohibit those convicted of three serious offences from getting bail.

Anthony Doob, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal studies, said calls to toughen up bail law are based on the false assumption that large numbers of dangerous people are being released.

“Of course, the ones we hear about in particular are the ones who committed a serious and a violent offence,” he said.

“So we are hearing about those cases. But the assumption that we have a lenient system is questioned by the fact that 80 per cent of our prisoners in Ontario, in the provincial prisons … are now awaiting trial.”

Calls to make bail tougher to get are bad policy but easy politics, he argued, because politicians can always point to someone who committed a crime while on bail.

“If you’re going to be detaining another hundred people or a few hundred people in order to reduce the likelihood that one person is going to commit another offence, I think we should be a little bit cautious,” he said.

What are the concerns about tougher bail rules?

Shakir Rahim, director of the criminal justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said that approximately 70 per cent of those in provincial remand centres are waiting for trial — up from about 20 per cent in 1982.

The consequence of tougher bail rules is that they erode “what is a core safeguard of liberty for the innocent,” he said.

“In an environment where we have record levels of bail being denied, and we have further erosions, whether through reverse onus provisions or otherwise, we really dilute the strength of that protection.”

Rahim said there is a trend toward “immediately” viewing people who have been arrested “as guilty of it, or talked about in that way,” even though only half of cases in Canada result in criminal convictions.

“The more people that you deny bail to, it is a foreseen consequence that some of those people will have been factually innocent,” he said.

Rahim said provincial jails are overcrowded, with conditions that include 23-hour-a-day lockdowns and a lack of medical care.

“When you take people and you deny them bail, it can be up to 30 months before they have their day in court,” he said. “So one of the issues that we’re concerned about is people feeling the pressure to plead guilty to certain offences just to get out of the terrible conditions that they are subject to.”

Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, said pretrial detention rates are “way too high.”

That is “the canary in the coal mine to suggest your system is really seriously flawed … It’s not enough to think that the answer is to put more people in there by using more reverse onus provisions.”

Latimer said “we haven’t even analyzed whether the last set of reverse onus provisions have done anything.”

In 2023, when the federal government introduced the previous bail reform legislation, then-justice minister Arif Virani called on provinces and territories to collect better data on bail and share that with the federal government.

Rahim said we don’t have any data about the number of people who reoffend while out on bail, or whether they’re ultimately found guilty.

“So how can we know about … the state of the bail system, about whether reverse onuses or other policy changes work, without this information?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press