Talk:Criminal law of Canada

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 September 2020 and 14 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RIPChicken, Madimacdonald.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Intoxication Defence
I think note 7 is wrong. Intoxication negates the mens rea of specific intent crimes, but not crimes of general intent. Daviault opened the possibility for intoxication to apply to general intent crimes but s.33.1 appears to have closed that possibility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.96.34.253 (talk) 06:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You're absolutely correct. That note does need fixing. Singularity42 (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

stats wanted

 * - Can someone put some stats about the general age of young law offenders-would help ALOT!!! ~Abeyeyie Kreeztalyz


 * - I'm not sure that that information is released, since the identities of Youths are protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Perhaps you could look on Statistics Canada's website (http://www.statcan.ca) and dig them up?  I would, but I'm not in the mood to attempt to navigate a complicated government (gasp!) website. Baribeau 00:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * - According to a fact sheet produced by the Law Courts Education Society in June of 2001, the stats for youth crime in 1997 were:

24% of crimes committed by youth were by 17-year-olds, 24% were by 16-year-olds, 22% by 15, 15% by 14, 8% by 13 and 3% by 12

Habeas Corpus
Is it a criminal offense to not advise a arbitrarily held prisoner of his rights to council?

In case I get lost my email is Criticalmassone@hotmail.com

No, it is not a criminal offence to fail to advise a prisoner of his/her right to counsel. However, if a police officer fails to do so and the prisoner makes incriminating statements then these statements may possibly be found to be inadmissible as evidence because the prisoner's rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated. As well, it might also be considered unprofessional conduct and making a complaint against the police officer.

-Hairytoad (hairytoad2005@hotmail.com)

Criminal law under the Constitution Act, 1867
Why do we have these two articles separate with no links to each other? Granted, they're slightly distinct, but pretty intertwined. The article wouldn't be too long if they were combined. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 04:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * True they should be linked, but they should definitely not be merged. This article in about the substantive content of criminal law, the other is about the constitutional power to create criminal law (perhaps it should be called the "criminal law power under the constitution"). The principles behind the latter are in essence a matter of constitutional law and don't really have much bearing on the application of criminal law. At most there should be a nod to the provision of the constitution in this article. --PullUpYourSocks 03:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no good reason to merge them. They should simply be linked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.20.197 (talk • contribs) 17:34, February 28, 2007 (UTC)


 * I would vote to keep them separate. It could be confusing for someone looking for information about the substance of Cdn criminal law, to find part of the article discussing federal-provincial issues. --Mathew5000 19:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I removed the merge tag. I hope there are no protests. -PullUpYourSocks 22:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"offence" not "offense"
An editor amended the article by changing all uses of the word "offence" to "offense." I've reverted them, because the Criminal Code uses "offence" throughout. See for example s. 2 of the Code, the "Interpretation" section. I've also added a "Canadian English" box to the talk page. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is this article a bit biased?
It seems to me that it seems to written by somebody affiliated with the law and is trying to put it in an official tone like a government website. Should a tag be added for this? Enthers (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It's description of a legal area; will naturally tend to have more formal, legal terms in it;  but how is that a bias? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Criminal law of Canada. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150430001252/http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html to http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:19, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Hybrid offence: is choice with prosecutor or accused?
Article states the following: Most other offences defined by the Criminal Code are triable either way, and are sometimes known as hybrid offences. In these offences the accused person can elect whether to be tried by: * a provincial court judge, * a judge of the higher court of the province without a jury or   * a judge of the higher court with a jury. But DOJ website states the following: A hybrid offence is an offence where the prosecutor can choose, based on factors such as the seriousness of the accused's actions and the harm caused, to proceed with the offence as either a summary conviction offence or as an indictable offence. While not necessarily directly contradictory, if both are correct then the article should explain how. --DanTrent (talk) 05:01, 6 May 2019 (UTC)