Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a suite of changes to Canada’s Criminal Code on Oct. 16, promising Canadians that the basic rights of citizens to be safe in their homes, their cars, and their places of work.

In his announcement, the prime minister said that the criminal code would be strengthened to address concerns over violent repeat offenders who engage in crimes such as violent auto theft, breaking and entering, human trafficking, violent assault, and sexual assault.

As part of the changes, the government would be introducing a reverse-onus for bail for major crimes, allowing for consecutive sentencing, introducing greater penalties for organized retail theft, and restricting conditional sentences for a number of sexual offences.

“In Canada, you should be able to wake up, get in your car, drive to work, come home, and sleep soundly at night. When laws repeatedly fail to protect those basic rights, we need new laws,” said Prime Minister Carney.

Under the reverse-onus, individuals accused of serious offences such the use of firearms in illicit activities or organized crime activities would be detained while awaiting trial, unless they could demonstrate to the court why they should not be denied bail. Under an onus system, it is up to the Crown to demonstrate why an accused individual would need to be remanded before trial.

Prime Minister Carney also said that his government is planning on hiring 1,000 RCMP officers, as part of a $1.8 billion expenditure over four years. The plan is for 150 of those new officers to combat financial crimes, including money laundering networks, organized crime, online fraud, and the recovery of illicit assets.

Addressing the needs of Calgarians

Canada’s Minister of Justice Sean Fraser said that the changes which will be tabled in front of Parliament next week, came about as a result of extensive consultations with the provinces and territories, municipal governments, and local law enforcement agencies.

“I’m actually currently in Alberta at the federal provincial territorial meeting of Public Safety and Justice ministers to go over a number of things, including the criminal law reforms that they’re seeking,” he said.

“We started from a point of view where, unless there was clear constitutional concerns, if it came from law enforcement or from provincial government, we wanted to include it in the bill. They should expect to see a range of different measures that directly reflect the feedback that they’ve provided to us in the development of this legislation.”

Minister for Arts, Culture, and Status of Women Tanya Fir said that she was pleased to hear the federal government preparing to table legislation for criminal code changes.

“I know my colleagues, Minister [for Public Safety and Emergency Services] Ellis and Minister [of Justice] Amery and our Premier, have all been advocating to the federal government for this for years. So I’m really pleased to hear this, and again, I hope they actually follow through with it,” she said.

Having greater provisions against crimes that disproportionately affect women and against human trafficking, was also something she was pleased to see from the Prime Minister, said Minister Fir.

“Being the status of women minister, and having we just released a few months ago our 10 year strategy to end gender based violence, this is something that’s so important. We hear again and again from survivors of domestic violence the importance of having stricter penalties and punishments for offenders.”

Jon Yee, Vice President for External Relations for the Centre for Newcomers and a member of the Alberta Centre to End Trafficking in Person, Operational Advisory Committee, said that addressing human trafficking was a big issue that would address a wide variety of criminal activity in Calgary.

“We’ve been told that human trafficking, whether it’s labour or sex trafficking, is increasing, especially in our construction sector. We just had a meeting with ACT and they reported that the number one labour trafficking is through hospitality, and 100 per cent of their clients have been newcomers,” he said.

The poor economic position of newcomers and many Calgarians has put them into positions where they are vulnerable to trafficking, he said, and that in turn leads to other crimes being committed.

“Right now, a lot of Calgarians and Albertans are paycheque to paycheque, and if you don’t get that paycheque, it puts you into could put you into a situation that is unsafe and you may struggle to find work, and it puts you in a place where you have to seek out illegal work, which constitutes maybe labour trafficking or sexual trafficking, and this could turn into a cycle of violence that you can’t escape from,” said Yee.

“When you crack down on organized crime, you crack down on a lot of the petty crimes that we see around Calgary, and that can vastly reduce crime within our city.”

Getting serious on crime, but also addressing the need for help

Minister Fraser said that there was a serious desire on behalf of the government to reduce crime, and that means serious deterrents—but that there was a need for social supports as well to address the social determinants of crime.

“We also know that there are people who are potentially dangerous in our communities that have been released on bail in circumstances that ordinary Canadians are right to question,” he said.

“When you look at the evidence, you’ll find that the socio economic status a person is raised in has a strong correlative link to the likelihood that they will engage in criminal activity, part of the solution has to be ensuring that there are social supports in place, not necessarily for the individual offender in a given set of circumstances.”

He used the example of youth who grow up in extreme poverty and with housing insecurity.

“Similarly, we know that there is enormous links between mental health and addictions and high volume offenders. Some of the things that we can do will be boosting resources to help ensure that that our health care system has the capacity to meet the needs of the public,” said Minister Fraser.

Despite safety and crime being one of the top election issues for the 2025 municipal election in Calgary, and elsewhere, Minister Fraser said that the bill that would be introduced was about reducing crime, and not interjecting into another order of government’s electoral process.

“Far be it for me to predict what issues will motivate voting behaviour in an election at a different level of government. To me, this is not about trying to insert ourselves into another level of government’s politics. It’s about trying to improve community safety,” he said.

“Calgary is a city that I know well, I care about. I called it home for five years. It’s been good to me, and I want to take every opportunity I have in public life to be good to the city that’s done so much for me and my family. It’s very challenging when you see violent crime, when you see organized crime, and when you see high volume crime, that impacts people’s ability to feel safe in the communities that they love.”