Liberals’ bail reforms won’t mean much

When the federal Liberal government unveils its latest round of bail law changes next week, you can bet on two things.

First, the government will tout them as bold new measures to make communities safer. And second, before the ink is dry, there will be fresh outrage when another accused offender released on bail commits a violent crime. It’s pretty much a guarantee.

The outcry will come, as it always does, regardless of government’s tinkering around the edges.

Granted, the public is frustrated. But here’s the reality: these latest bail law reforms will do little, if anything, to reduce crime or prevent repeat offending.

The centrepiece of Ottawa’s new package is an expansion of what’s known as “reverse-onus” provisions for bail in the Criminal Code. It’s a legal term that means an accused must convince a court why they should be released on bail, rather than the Crown having to prove why they should be kept in custody.

It’s being pitched by the Liberals as a new, tougher approach to deal with repeat offenders and violent crime. But it isn’t new.

Reverse-onus provisions have existed in Canadian law for years. They already apply to a number of serious offences, including organized crime, terrorism, certain firearms offences and cases involving repeat violent offenders.

In fact, just two years ago, the Liberals expanded the list of reverse-onus offences after months of political and public pressure from opposition parties, provinces, municipalities and police forces demanding that Ottawa strengthen bail and crack down on repeat offenders.

So what happened after those changes? Did violent crime go down? Did repeat offending drop? Did our communities become any safer?

Nobody knows. That’s because neither the federal government nor any province collects or publishes data on how often accused people reoffend while on bail, what types of crimes they commit or whether reverse-onus provisions have any meaningful impact on reoffending rates.

This data vacuum is astonishing. Lawmakers across the country have been demanding tighter bail rules for years, yet no one in government — federal or provincial — has any solid evidence on whether the measures they’re introducing actually work.

The Liberals’ approach is a case study in legislating by press release. They’re expanding measures that already exist, calling them new and claiming they’ll make Canadians safer, all without a shred of research or evidence to back it up.

Bail reform has always been more about optics than outcomes. The federal government is under immense political pressure to be seen to be doing something about crime, particularly after a series of high-profile cases in which accused offenders released on bail went on to commit serious or violent acts. Each of those tragedies rightly sparks public anger and grief. But they also fuel a cycle of reactive policy-making.

When it comes to bail reform, the problem may not even be the Criminal Code. It’s often how the bail system is administered. And that’s where governments could actually make a difference, if they were serious about results instead of headlines.

We’ve heard repeatedly from Crown prosecutors across the country, including in Manitoba, that they are overwhelmed. Bail hearings are often rushed. Prosecutors don’t always have the time or information to properly assess a person’s risk or argue for detention. In some cases, the police reports are incomplete or late, meaning prosecutors go into hearings unprepared.

The result? Some accused offenders who shouldn’t be released are freed — not because of some flaw in the law, but because the system is underfunded, understaffed and stretched thin.

That’s an administrative problem, not a legislative one. No amount of tweaking the Criminal Code will solve it.

What’s needed is more investment in the people and processes that make the system work: more prosecutors, more bail supervision programs, better co-ordination between police and Crown attorneys and improved data-sharing about offenders’ histories and risk factors.

But that kind of work doesn’t lend itself to a flashy press conference. It’s slow, complicated and expensive. It also doesn’t score the same quick political points as announcing another “tough-on-crime” reform package.

So instead, Ottawa keeps recycling the same approach — expanding existing measures, renaming them as new and hoping voters won’t notice the lack of measurable results.

Meanwhile, police forces, provinces and communities continue to struggle with the very real consequences of repeat offending, while the federal government pats itself on the back for “acting.”

If the federal government were serious about public safety, it would start by investing in the collection and publication of national bail data — something experts have been calling for years.

It would fund research into how and why reoffending happens, and which interventions actually reduce it. And it would ensure provinces and prosecutors have the resources to make sound, informed decisions at bail hearings.

Until then, nothing will change. We’ll get more headlines, more political theatre and more finger-pointing every time a tragedy occurs. The public will continue to lose faith in the justice system and the federal government will continue to confuse activity with achievement.

» Tom Brodbeck is a Winnipeg Free Press columnist.