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Sentencing for assaults on responders

S-233 An Act to amend the Criminal Code (assault against persons who provide health services and first responders)

Requires judges to consider whether an assault victim is a health worker or first responder when deciding sentences.

What Bill S-233 would do

The bill would amend the Criminal Code to require courts to treat an assault victim's role as a health services worker or first responder as an aggravating factor during sentencing. The published material gives no further detail.

Official text

Official summary

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to require a court to consider the fact that the victim of an assault is a person who provides health services or a first responder to be an aggravating circumstance for the purposes of sentencing. Available on the Senate of Canada website at the following address: www.sencanada.ca/en 1st Session, 45th Parliament, 3 - 4 Charles III, 2025 SENATE OF CANADA BILL S-233 An Act to amend the Criminal Code (assault against persons who provide health services and first responders)

The government's summary, printed at the front of the bill as introduced.

Kind
Senator's bill
Sponsor
Leo Housakos, Senator
Introduced
in the Senate
Last activity

Where it stands

  1. ProposedSep 23, 2025
  2. Being studiedsince May 27 Exact stageAt consideration in committee in the House of Commons · Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights · since May 27, 2026A committee of MPs or senators is going through it line by line.
  3. Almost law
  4. Law

Passed the Senate; now in the House, in committee there

  1. First reading in the Senate done

    Before the Senate on 1 sitting day,

  2. Second reading in the Senate done

    Before the Senate on 1 sitting day,

  3. Third reading in the Senate done

    Before the Senate on 1 sitting day,

  4. First reading in the House done

    Before the House on 1 sitting day,

  5. Second reading in the House done

    Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

    Before the House on 3 sitting days, to · 1 debate here

    2nd reading and referral to committee - JUST: agreed to, 332–⁠0 (division 127),

  6. Committee in the House now

    Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights

  7. Report stage in the House not yet

  8. Third reading in the House not yet

  9. Royal assent not yet

Exact procedural stages

Officially: At consideration in committee in the House of Commons · Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights · since May 27, 2026.

  1. Senate
  2. House
  3. Royal assent

Debates in the House 1

Members who spoke: Conservative 5 Bloc Québécois 1 Liberal 1

Second reading 1

  1. Criminal Code

    · Sitting 121 · 10 statements · 7 graded

    7 members spoke

Discussion

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Comment rules

Status, stages and votes from LEGISinfo. Debates are linked from the House's own record of what was before it. Grades are the site's analysis of each statement.