Bail reform needed

St. Norbert-Seine River

The urgent need for bail reform in Canada strikes at the very heart of our collective sense of justice and public safety, demanding a sophisticated and dual-pronged approach that is both stern and empathetic.

The current system’s failure is most glaring in its handling of repeat violent offenders, whose cyclical re-entry into communities through a revolving door justice of pre-trial release erodes public trust and endangers citizens.

For this specific cohort, the principle of “reasonable bail” has been catastrophically misapplied, prioritizing expediency over the paramount concern of protecting society. When individuals with extensive violent histories are repeatedly arrested and swiftly released, only to commit further serious crimes, it signifies a profound institutional failure.

This reality rightly fuels public outrage and demands a recalibration where the presumption of innocence is balanced by a rigorous assessment of concrete risk, ensuring that those who demonstrably pose a clear and present danger are incarcerated while awaiting trial. However, a truly effective and just reform must simultaneously acknowledge that the bail system is also a floodgate for a much larger population whose incarceration is often a symptom of deeper social failure. The courts must place the onus of responsibility for bail release on the offender to deem why bail should be allowed, rather than ticking boxes allowing repeat violent offenders among the general public while they await trial.

An intelligent reform agenda must also look upstream, recognizing that poverty, inadequate housing, mental health crises, and substance use disorders are powerful social determinants that propel individuals, particularly from marginalized communities, into the justice system for low-level, non-violent offences. For these individuals, pre-trial detention is not a tool for public safety but a catastrophic life event that can cost them employment, housing, and family ties, often leading to guilty pleas out of desperation and perpetuating a cycle of disadvantage and recidivism.

Consequently, meaningful reform must be twofold: it must empower the courts to deny bail to truly dangerous repeat offenders with clearer, stronger tools, while simultaneously diverting those impacted by poverty and addiction away from incarceration and toward community-based supports, treatment, and social services. This balanced strategy — being unflinchingly tough on the dangerous few while being smart and compassionate about the root causes affecting the many — is the only way to restore public confidence, enhance community safety, and create a system that is not merely punitive but fundamentally more just and effective for all Canadians.