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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on the federal government to amend the Criminal Code so that use of force is presumed reasonable against a person who illegally enters a home and poses a threat to those inside.
“After 10 years of Liberals, the system treats victims like criminals and criminals like victims,” Poilievre said during a news conference outside a home in Brampton, Ont.
Under current law, Canadians are not guilty of an offence if they believe on reasonable grounds that force (or the threat of force) is being used against them or another person.
Their act of defence must also be for the purpose of defending or protecting themselves and must be reasonable in the circumstances.
Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking from Brampton, Ont., on Friday, announced the proposed ‘stand on guard’ principle. The proposed amendment would clarify the Criminal Code provisions regarding use of force and self-defence when someone illegally enters a home and threatens the people inside.
In determining whether the act of defence is “reasonable,” courts consider nine factors — including the nature of the threat, the physical capabilities of the parties to the incident, the history of the parties to the incident and whether any party used or threatened weapons.
The Conservative leader said Canadians who are defending their homes “don’t have time to think about nine conditions” and it’s wrong for the law to apply “a complicated, indecipherable legal doctrine when you were only doing what is right.”
Poilievre also said the federal government can implement his “stand on guard” principle or else a Conservative MP will push the idea forward in a private member’s bill.
In a social media post, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said “Canadians already have the right to defend themselves under a law [former prime minister Stephen] Harper brought in, with Poilievre’s support.
Canadians already have the right to defend themselves under a law Harper brought in, with Poilievre’s support.
Now he’s chasing a photo op by attacking police for doing their jobs. I trust police to lay charges and judges to consider evidence over Pierre playing cops & robbers. pic.twitter.com/2Kwp544y2N
“Now he’s chasing a photo op by attacking police for doing their jobs.”
In 2013, Harper’s Conservative government passed the self-defence law that laid out the nine conditions Poilievre criticized in his news conference.
A technical guide posted by the Department of Justice at the time said the conditions “should also help judges in instructing juries and allow both judges and juries to come to determinations about the success or failure of the defence in any given case more easily.”
‘Your home is your castle’
Poilievre said “your home is your castle” — a reference to a legal principle called the castle doctrine, which says homeowners have the right to protect themselves from an intruder.
The Conservatives’ press release highlighted Cameron Gardiner, a man from Collingwood, Ont., who shot and killed two masked men who zip-tied and held him at gunpoint in a chaotic home invasion in 2019.
The Crown charged Gardiner with manslaughter, but then withdrew the charges in 2021.
“This was yet another case of the Liberals’ two-tier justice system: where monsters get sympathy and endless second chances, while Canadians defending their families are treated like criminals,” the Conservatives’ press release said in reference to Gardiner.
Criminal defence lawyer Tonya Kent describes what would be ‘reasonable’ and what could be considered excessive force when it comes to defending yourself against an aggressor. She says there is a right to self-defence in Canada — it simply needs to be proportional.
A more recent case in Lindsay, Ont., has sparked widespread reaction and debate over Canada’s self-defence laws. Jeremy David McDonald, 44, has been charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon after a man allegedly broke into his home wielding a crossbow.
A fight ensued after the break-in. Police said the alleged intruder, Michael Kyle Breen, 41, was so badly injured that he had to be airlifted to a Toronto hospital, located about 100 kilometres away.
Legal experts have clarified that self-defence is legal in Canada, and some have expressed concern about misinformation over the case in Ontario.
