'We have to toughen up': Premiers expect Ottawa to table bail reform legislation this fall

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canadians can expect his government to table bail reform legislation in the fall, and premiers will be holding him to his word.

At the closing press conference of the Council of the Federation on Wednesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is ending his term as chair, said Carney heard from premiers that they need “real bail reform that keeps criminals behind bars and keeps our communities safe.”

“We will be holding him accountable on bail reform,” insisted Ford.

Carney vowed in the last election, which saw the Liberals elected to a fourth term, to “toughen the Criminal Code and make bail laws stricter for violent and organized crime, home invasions, car stealings and human trafficking,” especially for repeat offenders.

The need to restrict access to bail to curb car theft and home invasions has been raised consistently by premiers and police chiefs, particularly in Ontario, but Liberals have truly made it a priority after they lost seats in the Greater Toronto Area due to crime issues.

Carney spent Monday evening and part of the day Tuesday with the premiers during their summer retreat in Ontario’s cottage country. He said last week bail reform would be one of the elements on the agenda and that legislation on it would be coming in the fall.

Ford said Wednesday that while he has “a great deal of respect” for Carney and believes the prime minister is going to “get it done,” the federal government’s last attempt at bail reform was “kind of pokey-pokey” and he wants a “full-fledged bail reform” this time around.

In 2019, former Justice Minister David Lametti passed Bill C-75, which was meant to address delays in the criminal justice system and help reduce the overrepresentation of Indigenous and vulnerable populations, including people with addictions, in prisons.

Three years later, Lametti passed Bill C-5, which removed mandatory minimum sentences for certain offences related to firearms and drugs, and allowed for more conditional sentences, and established alternative measures for simple drug possession offences.

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have vowed to repeal both laws, which they say have contributed to a “catch-and-release” bail system which lets criminals back on the streets.

Lametti, a close friend of Carney since university, is now acting as his principal secretary.

In an attempt to respond to the criticism, the federal government presented some amendments to the Criminal Code’s bail regime, that were passed in 2024, to address serious repeat violent offenders and address risks posed by intimate partner violence.

But the premiers said they want to see mandatory minimum sentences restored and much stiffer penalties for repeat offenders and criminals involved in drug trafficking.

“We have to toughen up,” said Ford. “We can’t release people the next day after they kick people’s doors in, put guns to people’s head, terrorize the neighbourhood, terrorize families … and then they go to some weak-kneed judge that lets them out.”

“We need mandatory sentences. You steal cars, you break into people’s homes, there has to be a penalty, or they just keep repeating and repeating the offence,” Ford added.

“People are just fed up. I’ve never seen people more frustrated, ever.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe insisted on the need to “greatly stiffen the sentence” for criminals who are bringing in “poisonous drugs into our communities across Canada.”

“Drugs are very much the scourge of many of the social problems … that we’re having,” he said Wednesday. “It has changed over the last decade, and we need to change the Criminal Court of Canada to address the changes that we’re seeing in our communities.”

“If there was a Criminal Code of Saskatchewan, we would have made those changes already,” he said.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said he wants to make sure that any future bail reform from the federal government will act further to prevent intimate partner violence.

“It’s been an ongoing piece of work for us, but at the end of the day, in terms of the criminal justice system, we do look to the federal government for assistance,” he said.

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said she was “encouraged” to hear from Carney that his government is working on that piece on legislation now and that it is “in the works.” She said is was also her hope that legislative changes be introduced in the fall session.

“The ball is in the federal government’s court.”

National Post calevesque@postmedia.com

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