Falling crime numbers raise questions about Ottawa’s tough-on-crime bills

Parliament passed three bills last month that introduced new offences to the Criminal Code, made it more difficult to get bail for a variety of crimes and restored mandatory minimum prison penalties.

“They’re lacking the evidentiary base to establish that what they’re trying to correct is, in fact, a serious problem,” said Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada.

“They’re also lacking the evidence to suggest that the measures that they’re adopting would do anything to actually increase public safety in the long run. And that’s a problem.”

Latimer said the politicization of criminal policy has led some Canadians to believe crime rates are higher than they are.

“The politicization of crime has led to an inflated idea of how much crime is actually occurring within Canada and raising real strong public concerns about it that don’t match the reality,” she said.

The Liberals introduced the three bills after a 2025 federal election campaign which saw the Conservative party campaign heavily on cracking down on crime.

Multiple political parties have concluded that “being tough on crime is a winning strategy that has public appeal and will gather them votes and so they are leaning into it,” Latimer said.

“Rather than correcting misperceptions about the actual levels of crime, they’re feeding the misperception.”

Shakir Rahim, director of the Criminal Justice Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said the data showed the crime rates dropped before the bills, including bail bill C-14, came into effect.

He said that casts doubt “on some of the narrative that we’ve heard from the government and others that it’s really the availability of bail that is the pivotal factor influencing the rate of crime.”

Bill C-14 made it more difficult to get bail for a variety of crimes, including some vehicle theft, extortion and human trafficking offences. It imposed a reverse onus on bail for those offences, moving the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the accused, meaning they have to justify being granted bail.

Rahim said the new data shows some of those offences are on the decline.

The reduction in the crime severity index was driven by the rate of break-and-enter cases falling for a third year in a row, StatCan said. There was an 11-per-cent decline in rate of breaking and entering last year.

Motor vehicle theft was down in 2025 for the second consecutive year, after three years of increases. The rate of car theft was nine per cent below 2015 levels and 64 per cent lower than the peak in 2023, StatCan said.

Rahim noted both offences now have a reverse onus provision attached to them. He added that the homicide rate also continues to decline.

“I think it’s important when we talk about how safe are Canadians, and how are we doing in terms of our public safety, to ensure that important metrics like that are front and centre of the conversation,” he said.

Bill C-16 restored mandatory minimum imprisonment penalties and criminalized coercive control and non-consensual sexual deepfakes. Hate crime bill C-9 created new offences for intimidating or obstructing someone outside a religious or cultural institution.

Those were only some of the provisions included in the three bills, which contained a sweeping set of new crime measures. University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach said in a previous interview the new legislation includes some of the most significant changes in criminal justice that he has seen in his 35-year career.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser has held press conferences since Parliament rose to promote the new legislation. They included an appearance in London, Ont., to highlight measures to target copper theft and a press conference in Halifax meant to emphasize efforts to combat retail theft and violence against transit workers.

Rahim said that at those events, Fraser is “regularly flanked by police officers and going to police headquarters. It really seems like that was the driving force behind this legislation.”

There was also “considerable” pressure from the provinces and territories, Rahim said.

At a premiers’ meeting in Charlottetown Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed to last year’s meeting of provincial and territorial leaders in Ontario.

“We had a robust discussion, a series of reforms that were needed to the Criminal Code, measures to improve community safety,” Carney said.

He said the federal government has strengthened the Criminal Code and passed a number of new laws to combat crime and give law enforcement agencies tools they need.

“Today, we endorsed a practical joint action plan to continue to make communities safer, building on the progress we’ve made over the last year,” Carney said.

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Fraser stood by the bills in a statement Thursday.

“In less than a year, our new government passed three major criminal justice bills. These sweeping reforms deliver on our commitment to strengthen the Criminal Code, support the front lines, and invest in long-term prevention,” the statement said.

The spokesperson said the new crime statistics are good news for Canadians and while they “reflect the work of law enforcement and provincial partners,” that work is not yet done.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2026.