Bill C-235 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentencing)

This bill was last introduced in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in September 2008.

This bill was previously introduced in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session.

Sponsor

Jay Hill  Conservative

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of Oct. 16, 2007
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

The purpose of this enactment is to ensure that certain offences, particularly violent offences, are excluded from consideration for conditional sentencing.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Criminal CodeRoutine Proceedings

April 28th, 2006 / 12:05 p.m.
See context

Conservative

Jay Hill Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-235, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentencing).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to reintroduce a private member's bill that I have introduced in the three previous parliaments, the first time on May 26, 1999.

This legislation is designed to address the frequent misuse of the conditional sentencing provision in the Criminal Code of Canada.

The former Liberal government passed section 742.1 of the Criminal Code into law in 1995, despite warnings that without clear instructions to judges, killers and other violent offenders could literally get away with murder. Time and again that is precisely what has happened.

If passed, this bill would ensure that certain serious and violent offences, such as murder, assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, drug trafficking, manslaughter, et cetera, would be excluded from consideration for conditional sentencing, meaning the convict would have to serve jail time.

For the first time since I introduced this legislation seven years ago, we have a Prime Minister and justice minister that understand the need to close this conditional loophole to violent offenders. I look forward to working with the Prime Minister and justice minister to rectify that problem in this Parliament for the sake of victims and all law-abiding Canadians.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)