New data from the Ontario Court of Justice show that bail denial is a long-established trend across the country, one that Ontario has led in recent years.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The number of people denied bail in Ontario last year spiked to its highest level in data going back to 2018, and has more than doubled over the past two years.
The new data from the Ontario Court of Justice are the latest indication of how the justice system applies the law of bail on a day-to-day basis. The 2025 numbers are more evidence that courts across the country are denying bail to an increasing number of people. It is a long-established trend, one that Ontario has led in recent years.
Other evidence also shows that people accused of crimes in Ontario are being denied bail in record numbers. As of last September, according to Statistics Canada, more people in the province’s jails were there on remand after being denied bail than at any point since the late 1970s, when those records began.
Opinion: Ottawa should lift the shroud on bail hearings
This is happening under federal bail laws that are about to become stricter. Last fall, the federal government introduced Bill C-14 to make it more difficult for people accused of serious crimes to get bail. People denied bail must remain in custody. They have been charged with crimes but have not yet had trials and are presumed innocent.
Provinces from conservative-led Ontario to NDP-led British Columbia have for several years urged Ottawa for tougher bail rules. Polling of Canadians last year also indicated strong and widespread support for denying bail to more people accused of serious crimes.
While rates of violent crime reached a statistical peak in the early 1990s and have fallen since then, they have risen again in the past decade. This reversal is widely understood to be driving public concern and increasing political pressure.
In mid-February, the House of Commons passed Bill C-14. The governing Liberals still had a minority of seats at that time and there weren’t any recorded votes. The bill is poised to pass the Senate soon. Royal assent is expected in May and the law comes into force 30 days after.
According to the new bail data from the Ontario Court of Justice, the bench that handles most of the bail hearings in the province, judges and justices of the peace denied bail to 4,897 people in 2025. That was 4.7 per cent of all cases completed last year.
In 2024, courts denied bail to 3,987 people, or 4 per cent of all cases. In 2023, it was 2,322 people, or 3.4 per cent of all cases.
Bail-reform bill clears key House committee after co-operation deal with Conservatives
The Statscan figures from last September showed a record 8,024 people in jail on remand in Ontario in 2023-24 because they were denied bail. (The Statscan data are not directly comparable with the Ontario court figures because they don’t distinguish between people who were denied bail in a particular year and those who remained in jail after being denied it in a previous year.)
“This data underscores that we do not have an overly lenient bail system,” said Shakir Rahim, a director at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has opposed a range of the changes set to become law in Bill C-14.
The Ontario government said it supports federal changes to the bail law and wants the rules toughened further.
“Dangerous criminals belong behind bars,” Jack Fazzari, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Doug Downey, said in a statement in response to questions about the escalating number of people denied bail in Ontario.
About 40 per cent of bail denials in Ontario in 2025 were for accusations such as murder, sexual assault and other assaults. Close to 30 per cent were for violations of bail conditions. Property crimes such as car theft, and breaking and entering, accounted for roughly another 20 per cent.
Alongside the increased denial of bail, more cases in Ontario at the onset are being sent to bail court for adjudication. In 2023, it was 34 per cent of cases – 69,092 – that started in bail court; two years later, in 2025, it was 42.6 per cent – 104,386.
Nicole Myers, an associate professor of criminology at Queen’s University, analyzed the new data and observed that about one in three people who were denied bail had all charges against them dropped. That means more than 1,500 people were jailed in 2025 but in the end were not convicted of a crime.
“That’s a huge number of people,” Prof. Myers said. “It may alter the trajectory of their entire life.”
During the federal election campaign in the spring of 2025, the Liberals proposed a stricter bail law for violent criminals. Ottawa has also said it is responding to public sentiment and calls for change from the provinces.
Last October, when Bill C-14 was tabled, Justice Minister Sean Fraser evoked what he described as the peaceful early 1990s of his boyhood: “We never worried about our safety, and neither did our parents.” Of the present, he said, “Across the country, Canadians are feeling strained,” and further said the justice system “has failed to keep up with what they’re feeling and what they’re seeing in their communities.”
Crime data present a more complicated picture. Total crime in Canada, measured as a percentage of the population, peaked in 1991 and has fallen more than 40 per cent since.
Violent crime peaked in 1992 and is down 11 per cent since then. But after a low a decade ago, it has shot higher by more than 30 per cent.
The goal in the new federal bail law is to instruct courts to lean more toward denying bail than granting it.
A primary change centres on what is called the “principle of restraint” in the Criminal Code.
A 2017 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on how the law of bail should be applied in the lower courts emphasized the importance of the presumption of innocence and highlighted the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause. This right is part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The top court said this is “an essential element of an enlightened criminal justice system.”
In 2019, Ottawa codified that 2017 ruling. The new principle of restraint stated, using words from the Supreme Court, that lower courts give “primary consideration to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity,” while also looking at reasons why bail should be denied, such as threats to public safety or the severity of the alleged crime.
The new version of the principle of restraint – set to be in force by the end of June – emphasizes the importance of denying bail in situations of potential repeat offenders and allegations of more severe crimes. The changes also focus on other reasons to deny bail and to impose release restrictions if bail is granted to ensure public safety.
The Civil Liberties Association, in a submission to the Senate this month, said the law is “not the result of a careful and deliberate evidence-based proposal to address perceived shortcoming in the bail system.” The group pointed to federal data that show provincial jails are already full of people who have been denied bail.
In Ontario, 86 per cent of people in provincial jails are on remand, having been denied bail. Jails in the province are over capacity. The Canadian Press this month reported Ontario plans to spend $4-billion to expand jails in the next six years, enabling it to imprison more people.