BILL STRENGTHENING AND MODERNIZING CRIMINAL LAW RECEIVES ROYAL ASSENT

OTTAWA,  June 2, 2008 – The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C, Q.C., MP for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today announced that Bill C-13, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Criminal Procedure, Language of the Accused, Sentencing and Other Amendments), which will improve and update Canada’s criminal law, received Royal Assent on May 29, 2008.

“This legislation further modernizes the criminal justice system and makes it more efficient and effective,” said Minister Nicholson. “The Bill responds to the on-going need to make technical amendments to improve procedures and correct or clarify certain Criminal Code provisions.”

Among the many elements included in this legislation are:

• improving court-related language rights provisions;
• making non-communication orders more easily available so that victims of crime can be better protected from unwanted communications from offenders serving a jail term;
• clarifying penalties for impaired driving offences;
• increasing the maximum fine for less-serious offences (summary convictions), from $2,000 to $5,000 – an amount that has not been updated in more than 20 years;
• clarifing and codifying the current state of the law with respect to the language of trial provisions; and
• creating a more efficient process for executing out-of-province search warrants.

The bill comprises some 40 amendments, including proposals that were identified and considered in recent years by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada and various Federal/ Provincial/Territorial Working Groups.

Most provisions in Bill C-13 came into force upon Royal Assent. Additional provisions involving sentencing and court-related language rights provisions will come into force at a later date.

An online version of the legislation is available at www.parl.gc.ca.

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Ref.:

Darren Eke
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister of Justice
613-992-4621

Media Relations
Department of Justice
613-957-4207