On Friday, Pierre Poilievre said he
would change
Canada’s self-defence laws so that “the use of force, including lethal force, is presumed reasonable against an individual who unlawfully enters a house and poses a threat to the safety of anyone inside.” It’s a reform that would nudge the needle to favour victims, but it probably wouldn’t change much. 

Right now, the
law of self-defence
in Canada will absolve self-defenders who reasonably believe that force or the threat of force is being made against them, and who take defensive action that is found to be “reasonable in the circumstances.” This would include break-in victims.

All Poilievre’s amendment would do is shift the default position of a court, which isn’t saying much. The default position of a court in any criminal trial is that the accused is not guilty, a position that can change to guilty with evidence. With regard to bail and various crimes —
firearms-related charges
, for example — our courts also presume the accused to be non-releasable. These, too, can be rebutted.

Indeed, reverse-onus bail (that is, the creation of presumptions of non-release) for repeat offenders, woman-beaters and gun-criminals has been one of the
focal points
of Liberal justice reform. And yet, we hear near-daily news about repeat violent offenders being caught — while out on bail — committing more
armed robberies
. Last year, one Ontario gun trafficker was released on bail
three times
, only to not show up to his sentencing. New presumptions aside, judges are still releasing.

Most vile was the tragic mid-day parking lot killing of Bailey McCourt in Kelowna, B.C., who was beaten to death with a hammer on July 4 by her estranged husband, James Plover, hours after he was
convicted
for choking her by B.C. Judge David Ruse. Plover had previously been out on bail for his 2024 charges; after conviction, the judge let him out on pre-sentence release. Now, Plover’s been charged with second-degree murder. McCourt’s family is now
asking
for justice reforms, including a reverse-onus bail rule for domestic violence — but such a rule has
existed since 2019
. Tragically, judicial discretion was used to overrule this presumption, and it ended in death.

Should our self-defence law find itself with a new presumption that a break-in victim’s actions are reasonable, we should expect judges to override it too. Many judges in Canada tend to favour criminals with
zealously unsound applications of the Charter
, throwing out incriminating evidence whenever they can. In sentencing, they see their duty as rehabilitators first, crime-deterrers second, following the example of the Supreme Court of Canada. And when a criminal finds himself at the bloody end of an instant karma delivery, the victim ends up getting dragged through a process of heightened scrutiny.

What does a substantial change to self-defence law look like? Something that firmly gives the property resident the right to respond with force. You could add a subsection to the Criminal Code provision on self-defence that contains a non-exhaustive list of actions that property residents can take in a home invasion or trespassing scenario. Lethal force can be expressly permitted in a home invasion scenario; statute can clarify that victims do not have a duty to call 911 before taking defensive action and that the lack of such a call cannot be used against the defender (one factor that contributed to Peter Khill’s conviction for shooting and killing a truck burglar who he mistook for brandishing a gun).

Alternatively, home defence could be worked into Section 25, which is the
provision
that permits lethal force by police and those assisting them.

Poilievre has framed his proposed amendment as “reasonable and prudent” because it “applies only to the unlawful entry of a home and preserves proportionality.” But the preservation of proportionality brings us exactly to where we were before, because it means charges for home defenders who put their invaders in hospital (as police will want to leave it to judges to decide whether a defensive action is reasonable), and possible convictions by judges who apply intense scrutiny to individuals in their most vulnerable moments. If that’s what you want to get rid of, certain self-defence actions need to be authorized from the get-go.

But the bigger-picture problem comes down to the judges. Canada’s legal culture is one of criminal permissiveness that elevates the justice system’s role in rehabilitation to the point of community endangerment. It’s one that sees the safety interests of everyday Canadians as an impediment to the Charter rights of criminals. It’s one that will sentence an Indigenous man to three years in jail for randomly killing a
retired journalist
walking down the street after taking the obligatory
racial discount
into calculation. You can blame Liberal laws only to a small extent — most of our miscarriages of justice come from judges applying old laws in new and creative ways. 

Fixing this requires an ambitious wave of judicial appointments who believe in deterring crime and protecting community safety, who don’t buy into leftist beliefs about systemic oppression and who can stomach putting the very worst members of our society behind bars. This requires working contacts and crafting a long list of eligible appointees now, and building a viable student-to-professional pipeline that will funnel more common sense to the bench. That currently doesn’t exist, and without it, any attempt at justice reform is hopeless.

National Post