Justice Minister Sean Fraser, shown on April 22, sent a letter to his provincial counterparts urging them to be ready for the new rules.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Justice Minister Sean Fraser is calling on the provinces to adequately fund their courts and other parts of the justice system to ensure new, stricter federal bail laws are successful.
Ottawa’s Bill C-14, which toughens bail and sentencing rules in the Criminal Code, received royal assent late Monday. The stricter approach seeks to address issues of repeat and violent offenders in cases such as car thefts, breaking and entering, and extortion.
The legislation, promised by the Liberals during last year’s federal election campaign, responds to several years of political and public pressure amid rising levels of violent crime. Calls for change came from across the country and the political spectrum, from the NDP government in British Columbia to the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario.
While the federal government decides details of the Criminal Code, the provinces fund and run the daily workings of the justice system in their jurisdictions. The new rules take force mid-July.
Bail denials rising sharply in Ontario amid national clampdown
Mr. Fraser, as the bill became law, dispatched a letter to his provincial counterparts urging them to be ready.
“Effective and timely implementation across the justice system will be essential,” he said in the letter to provincial justice ministers.
He highlighted the importance of provincial funding for bail courts and bail supervision programs.
“Your leadership will be essential to ensuring these reforms achieve their intended impact,” Mr. Fraser wrote. “Canadians will now be looking to all orders of government to ensure these news laws are implemented effectively.”
The new bail laws instruct courts to lean more toward denying bail than granting it. The new version of what is called the “principle of restraint” in the Criminal Code 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, if bail is granted, to impose release restrictions to ensure public safety.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause. The Supreme Court of Canada underlined this right in a 2017 ruling called Antic. The federal government in 2019 codified Antic as the principle of restraint in the Criminal Code. The code already included several reasons why judges can deny bail, such as serious alleged offences or public safety.
Granting bail is the release of a person accused of a crime – who is presumed innocent of any wrongdoing – before they appear at trial. The latest 2025 bail data from Ontario indicate that about one in three people who were denied bail had all charges against them dropped, meaning they were jailed but then never found guilty of a crime.
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But the push for stricter bail laws comes amid a trend of increased violent crime.
According to Statistics Canada, police-reported violent crimes reached a recent low of 736 per 100,000 people in 2014, the lowest since 1985. Then it rose to 976 in 2023, the highest since 1998 (it peaked in 1992). In the latest available data, it ticked down to 967 in 2024.
As Ottawa, supported by the provinces, makes it harder to get bail, data from recent years also indicate that more people than ever are already being denied bail.
In 2023-24, in the latest numbers from Statscan, there was an average count of 19,335 people across Canada jailed on remand, mostly people awaiting a bail hearing after arrest or awaiting trial. This was the highest figure on record in data back to 1979. It was up 19 per cent from the year before. Ontario led the increase, with a 26-per-cent spike.
The latest bail data from Ontario, for 2025, also show a record high on available data back to 2018. Judges and justices of the peace on the Ontario Court of Justice, which handles most bail hearings in the provinces, denied bail to 4,897 people in 2025. That is more than double the figure of two years earlier, in 2023, when 2,322 people were denied bail.
Advocates such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argue bail data in Canada need to be much more detailed.
As part of Bill C-14, the House of Commons, in a move led by the Conservatives, requires the Justice Minister to produce an annual report on bail each year. This includes what happens when people are on bail – the bill cites “recidivism by accused at large on release orders and incidents requiring public attention” – as well as effectiveness of release conditions, and bail data, according to the bill, on “disparities between different groups.”
The federal government plans to provide $250,000 to each province to collect, report and analyze more data on standardized measures over the next two years. Ontario is set to lead the initiative. Its current data are the most detailed available among the provinces.
“Better national data will help measure what is working, identify gaps, and support public safety,” Mr. Fraser said in his letter to the provinces.