🍁 civid v1

Status and scope

• The provided text says the Act received royal assent on June 15, 2026. It changes criminal bail and sentencing, youth justice and military justice law.
• It affects accused people, people serving sentences, young people, police, prosecutors, courts and others involved in the justice system.
• The source is truncated before the coming-into-force provisions, so it does not establish all effective dates.

Criminal Code: bail

• Clarifies that the principle of restraint does not require release. Release conditions must be the least onerous appropriate to address the relevant risks; detention must be ordered where legally justified.
• Expands reverse-onus bail, under which the accused must show why detention is not justified, to specified charges. These include violent or organized-crime motor vehicle theft, violent extortion, breaking into a dwelling, certain trafficking and human-smuggling offences, certain assaults involving alleged choking or strangulation, and some repeat violent offences. It also expands an existing reverse onus for serious weapon-related violence where there was a qualifying conviction within 10 years.
• Requires a justice to consider alleged random and unprovoked violence when deciding release or detention, and the number or gravity of separate outstanding charges when assessing public confidence in justice.
• Generally bars a person convicted of an indictable offence in the previous 10 years from acting as a surety. An exception applies if no other suitable surety is available and the appointment is in the interests of justice; reasons must be recorded.
• Extends weapon-prohibition and other bail-condition rules to extortion and criminal-organization charges. The weapon prohibition is subject to an exception where the justice considers it unnecessary for safety. For specified vehicle-theft and home-breaking charges, the justice must consider conditions such as geographic restrictions, restrictions on break-in tools and a curfew.
• Expands circumstances for arrest and cancellation of release documents following an alleged breach or offence, and sets out when the accused or prosecutor bears the onus on reconsideration. After a guilty finding for certain offences, an accused must justify continued release if the prosecutor applies to cancel it.
• Allows certain bail cancellation and detention decisions to be reviewed, including by a court of appeal.

Criminal Code: sentencing and procedure

• Adds sentencing aggravating factors concerning repeat violence, offences against first responders and public transit employees, theft for resale or fraudulent retail return, and specified offences affecting essential infrastructure.
• Adds consecutive-sentence rules for specified vehicle-theft and breaking-and-entering offences and for extortion and arson arising from the same events. It also adds a consecutive-sentencing provision involving repeat violent offending.
• Requires primary consideration of denunciation and deterrence for repeat violent motor-vehicle theft, repeat breaking and entering, and criminal-organization offences.
• Restricts conditional sentences for specified sexual offences and indictable sexual offences involving a victim under 18. Restores discretionary driving prohibitions for manslaughter and criminal negligence causing bodily harm or death.
• Raises the specified Criminal Code contempt penalty to a maximum of $5,000, two years less a day in jail, or both.
• Expands remote appearances in mental-disorder proceedings, including orders without the accused’s agreement in compelling circumstances, subject to stated safeguards and written reasons.
• Allows agreements to share federally collected fines with provincial or local authorities, and permits certain licences or permits to be withheld or suspended over unpaid federal fines.

Annual bail report

• The Justice Minister must prepare an annual report on judicial interim release and table it in each House within its first 15 sitting days after January 1.
• It must include data on release outcomes and disparities between groups, and an analysis of release conditions.

Youth justice

• Changes the definition of “violent offence” to include offences causing bodily harm and offences involving firearm use or trafficking. Time unlawfully at large will not count toward a youth custody and supervision order.
• Allows police, without a court order, to publish identifying information about a young person in tightly defined urgent circumstances involving imminent public danger. A court order is required if publication must continue beyond 24 hours.
• Clarifies release procedures for young people held over alleged breaches of custody or supervision conditions.
• Sets two-year access periods for specified records of extrajudicial measures and investigations that did not result in charges or measures. Access to the latter is restricted, and investigation evidence cannot be used to