Epilogue

• Author: Gary T Trotter
• Pages: 99-102

99

Epilogue

When the Bail Reform Act came into force on 3 January 1972, it

changed the law in ways that were thought to be quite dramatic.

As the legislation was making its way through Parli ament, the Jus-

tice Minister at the time, John Turner (who went on to become the

Rt. Hon. John Turner, Canada’s 17th prime minister), said that the

new law was “directed at making the rst contact between c itizens

and the criminal justice system less abrasive.” Many judges were im-

pressed with the changes. In 1983, one of the great Canad ian judges

of all time, the Honourable G. Art hur Martin, declared that the Bail

Reform Act created a “ liberal and enlightened system of pre-trial re-

lea se.”1

Among other things, both men were referring to t he fact that the

Bail Reform Act placed the onus on the Crown, largely scrapped cash

bail, and encouraged police ocers to release arrested persons when-

ever they could. In short, the Act was aimed at reducing unnecessary

detention.

But that was more than forty years ago. Many changes have

occurred in the meantime. Numerous provisions created by the Act

have been repealed, rened, amended and added to, in addition to

being interpreted in thousands of court dec isions over the years. e

result is a body of law of bewildering complex ity. I have attempted to

draw a straight line through a ll of this to oer a simplied account.

As discussed in C hapter 1, we now seem to have more prisoners

held without bail (and awaiting tria l) than those who are in jai l serv-

ing sentences. It may be that society, and crime itself, has changed a

lot in the last forty years. For example, we never had a problem with

handgu ns back t hen2; now gun v iolence is almost a daily occur rence

in large urban centres. Simil arly, when the Bail Reform Act was passed,

terrorism was something t hat occurred elsewhere and had little impa ct