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Amendments come into force that create an authorization scheme to permit the government to deliver property and services to the benefit of terrorist groups.
The name of the inferior court of Alberta changes from Provincial Court of Alberta to Alberta Court of Justice. [1]
Bill S-4 amending various provisions relating to COVID, including the use of remote proceedings, came into force.
The Criminal Law Notebook is among several winners of the 2022 Clawbies!
Two new offences relating to trafficking in human organs came into force.
Amendments come into force that removes minimum jail sentences for various firearms, weapons and drug trafficking-related offences and expands conditional sentence eligibility to include most previously ineligible offences. It also introduced Part I.1 to the CDSA, which directs police and Crown to consider non-criminal options for all drug possession offences.
Supreme Court of Canada in R v Ndhlovu, 2022 SCC 38 (CanLII), per Karakatsanis and Martin JJ strikes down the provisions requiring offenders convicted of multiple sexual offences to be put on the sexual offender registry for life. The law violated s. 7 of the Charter for being "overbroad".
Supreme Court of Canada in R v JJ, 2022 SCC 28 (CanLII), per Wagner CJ and Moldaver J upholds the constitutionality of the statutory protections to complainants' personal information found in s. 278.92 to 278.94 of the Code.
Amendments coming into force rewriting s. 33.1 of the Code concerning the extreme intoxication defence for certain violent offences.
Supreme Court of Canada in R v Bissonnette, 2022 SCC 23 (CanLII), per Wagner CJ declares s. 745.51 of the Code unconstitutional, removing the statutory requirement that the periods of parole ineligibility for multiple murders be served consecutively.
Supreme Court of Canada in R v Sullivan, 2022 SCC 19, per Kasirer J declares s. 33.1 of the Code unconstitutional, removing the statutory prohibition against self-induced intoxication defences for certain offences.
Amendments creating a new offences relating to impeding health care services came into force.
Amendments creating new offences relating to conversion therapy came into force.
An amendment, adding s. 278.98 to the Criminal Code, came into force.
Feature Update: Look up offences quickly using the "Quick Access" link on the Navigation sidebar.
Feature Update: Quotations from most legislation now include an option to note up the provision on CanLII.
Government adds to Regulation SOR/98-462 deeming a list of over 1,000 firearms to be prohibited.
Supreme Court of Canada releases R v Friesen, 2020 SCC 9 (CanLII), per Wagner C.J. and Rowe J that provides detailed guidance on sentencing for child sexual offence including the need to increase penalties.
The last portion of bill C-75 is now in force. It includes major changes to the detention and release provisions.
A large portion of bill C-75 is now in force, including removal of preliminary inquiries for certain indictable offences.
Bill C-75 given royal asset. This bill adopts the Antic decision broadening bail, reduces the amount of court order breach prosecutions, removes pre-emptory challenges in jury trials, expands penalty for summary election offences, removes preliminary inquiry on certain eligible offences, removes certain unconstitutional provisions, and other changes. Most provisions come into force 90 and 180 days later. [2]
Bill C-46 on "Conveyances" affecting Criminal Code offences relating to driving, including drug impairment, has now come into force.
The Supreme Court of Canada in R v Boudreault, 2018 SCC 58 (CanLII), [2018] 3 SCR 599, per Martin J, finds mandatory imposition of victim fine surcharges on persons convicted of crime was found invalid as "cruel and unusual" punishment.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act has come into force. It removes and modifies numerous provisions of the Code, including unconstitutional provisions, sexual assault provisions, and some rules of evidence.
The "Discussion" tabs for each article can now be editted anonymously. Any constructive feedback on articles would be appreciated.
Bills C-45 and C-46 are given royal assent relating to marijuana decriminalization and new offences relating to drug impaired driving. Most provisions will not come into force until October and December 2018.
Happy 2018, everyone! Thanks too to those who have provided feedback and support.
Supreme Court of Canada releases R v Marakah, 2017 SCC 59 (CanLII) extending privacy rights to communications when found on a recipient's electronic device.
Search results now sourced by Google, making for much easier access to relevant articles.
Senate Releases their report, "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied" on court delays in criminal matters.
The comment function in the "Discussion" tab of each article is now available for reporting errors. Unrelated postings will be deleted.
Supreme Court of Canada releases court case statistics from 2006 to 2016. Over that period of time 41% of appeals heard were criminal cases.
Statistics Canada udpates national criminal case statistics. It includes information such as the frequency of convictions, frequency of penalties, and length of time to complete cases.
Happy 2017! This website is now averaging about 34,000 pageviews a month. An impressive increase from previous years.
The Supreme Court releases R v Jordan, 2016 SCC 27 (CanLII), [2016] 1 SCR 631, that created a new framework for calculating whether an accused's matter was brought to court in a timely manner.
The Supreme Court releases R v Lloyd, 2016 SCC 13 (CanLII), [2016] 1 SCR 130 which rules that some mandatory minimum penalties for drug trafficking under s. 5(3) of the CDSA are unconstitutional. R v Safarzadeh-Markhali, 2016 SCC 14 (CanLII), [2016] 1 SCR 180 is also released, which rules that s. 719(3.1) restricting enhanced credit for pre-trial custody is unconstitutional.
This website was migrated to a new service provider with increased user performance.
The Victims Bill of Rights and related Acts (Bill C-32) comes into force. It creates greater entitlements to victims to participate and be informed of criminal proceedings. As well it amends several parts of the Criminal Code relating to victims.
The Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act (Bill C-26) comes into force. The Act increases mandatory minimums on sex offences involving children and creates a public database of child sex offenders under the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act. Additionally, Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act comes into force, criminalizing certain exploitative practices relating to children.
The Supreme Court releases R v Nur, 2015 SCC 15 (CanLII), [2015] 1 SCR 773, which rules that certain mandatory minimum penalties under s. 91(2) are unconstitutional.
The Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act (Bill C-13) comes into force. The Act creates the offence of Distribution of Intimate Images, refurbishes other telecommunication offences, and redrafts the provisions relating to the production orders and accessing digital records.
The Supreme Court in R v Fearon, 2014 SCC 77 (CanLII), [2014] 3 SCR 621 affirms a common law police power to perform limited searches of cellphones incident to arrest without a warrant.
Criminal Code amendments removing procuring offences (s. 212), creating Commodification of Sexual Services (s. 286.1-4), and other related amendments in response to Canada v Bedford, 2013 SCC 72 (CanLII), [2013] 3 SCR 1101 are now in force.
The Supreme Court in R v Hart, 2014 SCC 52 (CanLII), [2014] 2 SCR 544 limits the use of confessions arising from "Mr. Big" undercover operations by ruling them presumptively inadmissible.
The Supreme Court in R v Spencer, 2014 SCC 43 (CanLII), [2014] 2 SCR 212, states that subscriber information held by Internet Service Providers are subject to an expectation of privacy and can only be obtained by police through a production order.
The trilogy of cases of R v Clarke, 2014 SCC 28 (CanLII), R v Carvery, 2014 SCC 27 (CanLII), [2014] 1 SCR 605, and R v Summers, 2014 SCC 26 (CanLII), [2014] 1 SCR 575 are released by the Supreme Court of Canada, affirming that the loss of remission in remand will justify 1.5:1 credit at sentencing.
The SCC releases the decision of Bedford v Canada, 2013 SCC 72 (CanLII), [2013] 3 SCR 1101 striking down ss. 213(1)(c), 212(1)(j), and 210 of the Criminal Code.
The Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act comes into force requiring victim fine surcharges for all convictions. The fines would be 30% of any fine order, or at least $100 or $200 depending on election.
The Citizen's Arrest and Self-Defence Act comes into force. This re-writes the self-defence provisions under s. 34 to 42 as well as the citizen's arrest provision under s. 494.
A divided Supreme Court in R v TELUS Communications Co, 2013 SCC 1 (CanLII)], [2013] 2 SCR 3 finds that an anticipatory search warrant to seize prospective text messages stored by a service provider amounts to a Part VI wiretap.
The remaining parts of the Safe Streets and Communities Act comes into force, most notably the removal of a number of offences from eligibility for a conditional sentence.
The Safe Streets and Communities Act provisions regarding penalties for sexual offences against children come into force.