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Providing Alternatives to Isolation and Ensuring Oversight and Remedies in the Correctional System Act (Tona’s Law)

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act

Summary

  • Caps confinement in structured intervention units at 48 hours unless a superior court approves an extension, effectively curbing segregation and requiring judicial oversight.
  • Mandates mental health assessments within 30 days and requires transfer to hospitals or mental health facilities when disabling mental health issues are identified.
  • Expands community-based corrections options, allowing transfers (with consent) to Indigenous and other community entities, and requires the Parole Board to provide reasons if it rejects community reintegration plans.
  • Broadens recognition of "Indigenous and Marginalized Populations" and defines disadvantaged or minority populations for correctional purposes.
  • Creates a judicial remedy allowing courts to reduce sentences if unfair or unlawful actions by correctional authorities affected the person.

Builder Assessment

Neutral

The bill primarily advances human rights and oversight in corrections, with uncertain and indirect economic effects relative to Build Canada’s growth-centric tenets. While it may improve long-run reintegration and reduce costly segregation, it adds judicial processes and mandates that could increase near-term costs and does not engage core economic levers.

  • Strengths: curbs harmful segregation, strengthens rule of law, supports mental health and community-based reintegration (potentially reducing recidivism costs).
  • Weaknesses: no direct impact on productivity, exports, investment, or taxes; potential new administrative and court costs.
  • To better align: tie reforms to measurable reductions in recidivism and corrections costs; redirect realized savings to workforce re-entry, skills training, and employment partnerships; streamline court processes with clear timelines; include performance-based funding for community corrections and mental health providers; add economic reintegration targets (job placement, apprenticeships) and public reporting.

Question Period Cards

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Principles Analysis

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Canada should aim to be the world's most prosperous country.

Primarily a justice and human-rights reform; any growth effects via reduced recidivism and improved reintegration are indirect and uncertain.

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Promote economic freedom, ambition, and breaking from bureaucratic inertia (reduce red tape).

Judicial oversight reins in bureaucratic overreach in corrections, but it also adds procedural steps; net effect on economic freedom is indirect.

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Drive national productivity and global competitiveness.

Could modestly improve productivity by supporting rehabilitation and workforce re-entry, but the linkage is indirect and not guaranteed.

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Grow exports of Canadian products and resources.

No direct connection to trade or export capacity.

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Encourage investment, innovation, and resource development.

No direct measures affecting investment or resource development; reputational benefits on rule of law are possible but diffuse.

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Deliver better public services at lower cost (government efficiency).

Shifting from segregation to treatment could lower long-run costs, but added court oversight and hospital transfers may raise near-term costs; net fiscal impact is unclear.

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Reform taxes to incentivize work, risk-taking, and innovation.

No tax policy changes.

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Focus on large-scale prosperity, not incrementalism.

A targeted justice reform with limited macroeconomic scope; potential social benefits do not directly translate to large-scale prosperity levers.

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S-205

PartySenate
StatusAt second reading in the Senate
Last updatedMay 28, 2025
TopicsSocial Issues, Criminal Justice
Parliament45