Translate Politics Parliament in plain language.

IndigenousCrime & safety

First Nations lottery control

S-241 An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Indian Act

Allows First Nations governing bodies to run, manage, and license lotteries on their reserves after giving notice to governments.

What Bill S-241 would do

The bill would amend the Criminal Code to give a First Nation's governing body exclusive authority to conduct, manage, and license lottery schemes on its reserve. To use this power, the governing body would have to provide notice to the federal government and to any province where the reserve is located. It would also amend the Indian Act to allow band councils to pass by-laws regulating those lottery schemes.

Official text

Official summary

This enactment amends section 207 the Criminal Code to provide that the governing body of a First Nation has exclusive authority to conduct and manage a lottery scheme from or within its reserve and to license the conduct and management of a lottery scheme by other persons and entities from or within its reserve, if the governing body of the First Nation has provided notice to the Government of Canada and the government of any province in which the reserve is located of its intention to exercise that authority.

This enactment also amends the Indian Act to grant the council of the band authority to make by-laws for the purposes of regulating the operation, conduct and management of lottery schemes permitted from or within the band’s reserve under section 207 of the Criminal Code . 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-241 An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Indian Act

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

Kind
Senator's bill
Sponsor
Scott Tannas, Senator
Introduced
in the Senate
Last activity

Where it stands

  1. ProposedNov 20, 2025
  2. Being studiedsince Mar 12 Exact stageAt consideration in committee in the Senate · Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs · since March 12, 2026A committee of MPs or senators is going through it line by line.
  3. Almost law
  4. Law

In a Senate committee since March 12

  1. First reading in the Senate done

    Before the Senate on 1 sitting day,

  2. Second reading in the Senate done

    Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs

    Before the Senate on 5 sitting days, to

  3. Committee in the Senate now

    Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs

  4. Report stage in the Senate not yet

  5. Third reading in the Senate not yet

  6. First reading in the House not yet

  7. Second reading in the House not yet

  8. Committee in the House not yet

  9. Report stage in the House not yet

  10. Third reading in the House not yet

  11. Royal assent not yet

Exact procedural stages

Officially: At consideration in committee in the Senate · Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs · since March 12, 2026.

  1. Senate
  2. House
  3. Royal assent

Debates in the House 0

No debate on this bill is in the record we hold yet (Senate debates are not covered).

Discussion

No comments yet

See the full discussion

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.