According to the Conservative Party of Canada, Canada's crime wave is the result of Bill C-75, the Liberal bail reform that became law in late 2019. This presents one obvious difficulty: Canada's Crime Severity Index began rising in 2015, reflecting an increase that started in Alberta's with its oil shock downturn in 2014.
Apparently the legislation was so dangerous it travelled backwards through time.
Crime in Canada has increased since 2015, though it remains well beneath 1990s levels. The question is whether the Conservative claim fits the evidence.
But first, some blatant misrepresentations by the CPC need to be dealt with.
Misrepresentations
Section 493.1 of the Criminal Code was added by the Bill:
“A peace officer, justice or judge shall give primary consideration to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances…”
But the CPC cites:
“at the earliest possible opportunity, under the least onerous conditions.”
Placing that in quotes is supposed to mean that it is an exact citation. It is not. The bolded phrases have been changed from what the Criminal Code actually says. The CPC doesn't cite the source, which is a hint that they don't want you checking. Now, it is plausible😒 that they aren't citing the Criminal Code, perhaps instead citing some unknown person who has what I'll charitably call a minority interpretation of the law. We don't know which—if there even is a "which" to consider—because they don't tell us. Those of us understandably less informed are left to believe it is a damning quote with accurate provenance.
Replacing “reasonable” with “possible” and deleting “appropriate in the circumstances” turns a qualified legal principle into something that sounds suspiciously like an automatic-release command.
If you have to lie to prove your point, that's good evidence your point isn't up to snuff.
The Bail Crisis
Section 11(e) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
"Any person charged with an offence has the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause."
Canada has a genuine bail crisis. When this Bill was crafted, provincial jails increasingly held more people awaiting trial than serving sentences. Bail hearings were delayed. Legally innocent people accumulated stacks of bail conditions only vaguely related to the charge. Court dates were consumed dealing with technical bail violations resulting from those conditions.
As we do have constitutional rights in this country, reforms were needed. Bill C-75 was an attempt to solve this problem.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association reported in 2024 that more than 70% of people in provincial and territorial jails are awaiting trial or bail rather than serving a sentence, with Ontario approaching 80%.
The problem has not gone away, despite claims our courts are leaking felons at an alarming rate.
Rising Crime
This is real, though it has been declining in recent years.
As mentioned, blaming it on Bill C-75 is ridiculous.
What we have been seeing are a steep increase cybercrimes, which are heavily weighed in the Crime Severity Index. There is a well-known greater willingness to report crimes traditionally stigmatized like sexual assault and fraud. There's effects from housing affordability and inflation. Organized crime soared, and let's not forget the opioid and toxic-drug crisis. many more...
I'm sure the CPC would blame the Liberals for those too; but at least note that none of those came about due to Bill C-75.
Chronology is not Causation
The real problem with the Conservative argument is that it mistakes chronology for causation—and in this case, it doesn't even get the chronology right. Canada's Crime Severity Index began climbing in 2015. Bill C-75 did not become law until late 2019. Yet readers are invited to believe that the latter caused the former. This is political storytelling, not evidence. Proper evidence would compare before and after controlling for the many factors criminologists have identified.
Travelling backwards through time is not one of them.
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