🍁 civid v1

Status

Bill S-236 was introduced in the Senate and received first reading on October 1, 2025. It would amend the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and require a framework for implementing victims’ rights.

Part 1 — Changes to victims’ rights

The bill would:

• Change existing information rights so victims are entitled to information without requesting it. These rights concern general information, investigations and proceedings, and the offender or accused.
• Give victims a right to access legal, social, medical and psychological services suited to their needs and circumstances.
• Establish a right to reparations for harm resulting from an offence, including access to restorative justice programs and consideration by a court of a restitution order against the offender. Victims with a restitution order would also have a right to assistance in entering and enforcing it.
• Add that the Act does not take away from victims’ rights to access justice and procedural fairness in the criminal justice system.
• Allow a victim dissatisfied after exhausting a federal department’s, agency’s or body’s complaints process to complain to an authority designated by the Governor in Council to review complaints about it.

Training

The Minister of Justice would have to develop training on rights under the Act within 180 days after the training provision comes into force, consult specified groups, and review the training at least every three years.

Federal criminal justice authorities would have to ensure relevant employees receive training within three months of starting work and at least every three years thereafter. Existing relevant employees would have to be trained within one year after the provision comes into force. The minister would also have to make the training available to employees of provincial criminal justice authorities.

Part 2 — Implementation framework

The Minister of Justice would have to develop a framework for implementing and upholding victims’ rights in matters within Parliament’s legislative authority, after consulting the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime, provincial justice representatives, victims’ groups and other stakeholders.

The framework would have to address:

• Assessment of assistance services and information rights, remedies when rights are not upheld, and minimum standards for support services.
• Public awareness and stronger victim participation in criminal proceedings, sentencing and parole.
• Mechanisms to strengthen the ombudsperson’s independence, including by establishing its existence in legislation.
• Additional federal legislative amendments the minister considers necessary to implement the rights or framework.

The minister would have to prepare a framework report within one year of royal assent, table it in both Houses according to the bill’s sitting-day timetable, and publish it within 10 days after tabling. Within five years after tabling, the minister would have to table a report assessing the framework and setting out findings or recommendations.