OTTAWA — Members of Parliament will have the chance this fall to debate two different pieces of legislation intended to make it harder for people accused of certain crimes to get bail.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday his party’s bail reform bill would create a new category of major offences that includes things like sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking, home invasion and firearms charges.
The Conservative bill would impose a reverse onus on people accused of such crimes requiring that they prove they should be released on bail.
“We will strengthen bail laws by mandating judges also consider the accused’s full criminal history, and prevent anyone with prior major convictions from getting bail,” Poilievre said at a press conference in Vaughan, Ont.
He said he does not expect the Conservatives’ bill to gain the support of either the Bloc Québécois or the NDP, parties he accused of supporting “the catch-and-release, soft-on-crime criminal justice system.”
The Conservative leader was joined at the press conference by several crime victims and their family members. They included Naeem Farooqi, whose 46-year-old brother Abdul Aleem Farooqi was shot and killed on Aug. 31 as he tried to defend his family from a home invasion.
“I just want people to recognize that this can happen to anyone. And my brother died a hero in the most noble way,” Farooqi said.
Poilievre, taking the podium shortly after, said the “three cowardly scumbags who carried out that attack, I bet you anything they have already been arrested in the past.”
Police associations and several premiers, including Ontario’s Doug Ford and Alberta’s Danielle Smith, have been calling for stricter bail laws for months.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the minority Liberal government will introduce its own bail reform bill in the fall.
He met with Ford on the issue in recent weeks.
“I agree with Premier Ford on these issues, and that’s why we’re moving on them,” Carney told reporters last week after a meeting of the federal cabinet.
Speaking to reporters at the Liberal caucus retreat in Edmonton Thursday, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said several major pieces of legislation will come out of his department this fall.
Fraser said legislation on hate crimes and the obstruction and intimidation of faith-based institutions should be introduced in the “very near future,” likely within the first few weeks after Parliament returns.
He added the government is looking to table its bail reform bill sometime next month, and legislation on intimate partner violence and online exploitation sometime after that.
“It’s important that we not only advance these measures to improve the public safety outcomes for communities, but … ensure that people actually have faith in the justice system,” Fraser said.
Fraser said the Liberals would be happy to work with the Conservatives “if they are willing to work alongside us to advance reforms that will help keep communities safe without necessarily aiming solely to gin up dissent for a political purpose.”
During the spring election campaign, Carney said the Liberals would make bail laws stricter for people accused of home invasion, car theft and violent and organized crime.
The Liberals passed a law in late 2023 that expanded the reverse onus bail provisions to include more firearms offences, serious repeat offenders and cases involving intimate partner violence.
Poilievre said things are getting worse and he claimed Liberal laws are too lenient on criminals.
He said Canadians are “terrified” of crime that “is raging in our streets,” citing a survey released this week by polling firm Leger that found 51 per cent of respondents said they were worried about safety in their communities.
He also cited data from Statistics Canada that shows the rate of police-reported violent crime is up 55 per cent since 2015, when the Liberals took power.
StatCan’s latest data shows violent crime in Canada dropped slightly in 2024 from 2023, and was 34 per cent lower than its peak in 1998.
This week, Toronto police said they have recorded a 40 per cent drop in shootings and a 51 per cent drop in homicides compared to 2024. Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim released data on Tuesday showing violent crime in that city is at a 23-year low.
Tough-on-crime policies were a central theme of the Conservative election campaign in the spring.
Poilievre pledged to introduce sweeping legislative change and said if his party formed government, he would use the notwithstanding clause — a section of the Constitution that allows the government to override certain Charter rights for a limited period of time — to do so.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees anyone charged with an offence the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause, and people who are charged with crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty.
On Thursday, Poilievre said his party’s private member’s bill would not make use of the notwithstanding clause and argued that the Charter in fact “requires” the reforms he is proposing.
Numerous high-profile recent cases involved suspects who were out on bail — including the recent stabbing attack in Hollow Water First Nation in Manitoba that left a teenage girl dead and seven others in hospital.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said there is no standardized data collection to show whether granting bail is a driving factor in crime.
“No government currently tracks alleged reoffending by people on bail,” said Shakir Rahim, director of the CCLA’s criminal justice program, in a statement on Thursday.
Rahim said the group has written to Fraser urging the government to collect that data and use the evidence to inform future decisions about the bail system.
— With files from Sharif Hassan in Vaughan, Ont., Kyle Duggan in Edmonton and Catherine Morrison
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2025.
Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press
