As you may or may not be aware, bail provisions in the Criminal Code had not been comprehensively amended since the Bail Reform Act of 1972. There were a lot of inefficiencies in the bail system, with police release or the forms of release, so Bill C-75 tried to improve some of those inefficiencies in the bail process. One of the provisions enacted, as we discussed, was the “principle of restraint” under section 493.1. This requires judges and courts to “give primary consideration to the release...at the earliest...opportunity and on the least onerous [grounds]”. They also have to consider the circumstances of indigenous accused in making any bail decision, as well as accused from marginalized populations.
There had been many calls for reform, and many studies done on inefficiencies in the bail system. The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs did quite a comprehensive study on delays. They looked at the bail issue in their report, “Delaying Justice Is Denying Justice”. They specifically recommended the Minister of Justice prioritize reducing the number of persons on remand across Canada. The principle of restraint responded directly to that recommendation. There were also calls for reform from the Steering Committee on Justice Efficiencies and Access to the Justice System, as well as in several reports conducted.
The bail amendments were significantly informed by Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence as well. We talked about the decision in Antic, but there was a history of decisions made. In Antic, specifically—which was a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court—now Chief Justice Wagner wrote, in that decision, that there was “widespread inconsistency in the law of bail”. He stated, “the bottom line [is] that remand populations and denial of bail have increased dramatically in the Charter era”. You'll see some data in the Senate report with respect to the remand situation. They heard from a witness from Saskatchewan, who said the remand population went up 97% over several decades. That's quite significant.
I could refer you to the legislative background around Bill C-75, which is available online if you have questions about it.
With respect to the implementation of Bill C-75 reforms, these came into force in 2019. In particular, the bail reforms came into force nine months after that, I believe, so the implementation coincided with the beginning of the pandemic. As you know, there were many disruptions to the court system during the pandemic. Many jury trials were adjourned. Officials are continuing to find ways to look at the data in order to try to measure implementation efforts.
There are a number of ongoing research projects by officials from the research and statistics division at Justice Canada. If you'd like more information on those, I can certainly provide them.