Bill C-364 changes how judges assess sentences by adding a new aggravating circumstance when an offence is directed at people or property that were vulnerable because of long emergency-service response times or remoteness from established communities, and by treating the presence of a weapon or imitation as an aggravator for certain offences. It also requires courts to take into account the recorded reason a person was held in pre-sentence custody when exercising discretion over custody credit.
These are procedural and substantive tweaks to sentencing law: one widens the factors that can increase a sentence in cases involving remote or slow-to-respond victims, and the other narrows judicial discretion around how much credit an accused receives for time spent in custody before sentencing. Both changes are likely to affect prosecutions and sentencing outcomes in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities and in offences involving weapons.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill inserts a new aggravating circumstance into sentencing law tied to victims’ vulnerability from long emergency response times or geographic remoteness, and adds the carrying, using or threatening of a weapon or imitation as an aggravator for enumerated offences. It also amends consideration of pre-sentence custody credit so a court must account for the reason the accused was detained as recorded under subsection 515(9.1).
Who It Affects
Prosecutors and defence counsel in cases involving remote or isolated victims; judges determining sentence length and custody credit; accused persons held pre-sentence; and communities—particularly rural, remote and Indigenous—that experience long emergency-service response times.
Why It Matters
The change expands the list of aggravating factors that can justify higher sentences in a targeted set of offences and removes some judicial flexibility when awarding remand credit. That combination can produce longer effective sentences in cases involving remoteness or weapons and will demand new types of evidence about emergency response times and reasons for detention.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill edits three parts of the Criminal Code. First, it replaces section 348.1 with new text that makes certain circumstances aggravating when a person commits specified offences against an occupied place and knew or was reckless about that fact.
The new wording also explicitly treats carrying, using or threatening to use a weapon or an imitation of a weapon as an aggravating element when present in those offences.
Second, the bill amends the list of aggravating circumstances in section 718.2 by adding a subparagraph that lets courts treat as aggravating evidence that an offence targeted persons or property that were vulnerable because emergency medical or police services would take a long time to arrive or because the person or property was remote from those services or from an established community. That ties vulnerability to measurable factors—response times and geographic remoteness—rather than to other vulnerability definitions.Third, the bill changes section 719 by adding subsection 3.01: when a court decides how much credit to give for time served in pre-sentence custody under its discretion, the court must take into account the reason for the detention as it appears in the record contemplated by subsection 515(9.1).
In practice this directs sentencing judges to consult the formal remand record when evaluating whether and how much to reduce an imposed sentence for time already served.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill replaces Criminal Code section 348.1 so that, for certain offences, an occupied place being targeted and the offender’s knowledge or recklessness about occupancy is an aggravating circumstance.
It expressly adds carrying, using or threatening to use a weapon or an imitation of a weapon as an aggravating factor in the amended 348.1 text.
Section 718.2(a) is amended with a new subparagraph (iii.11) allowing a court to treat evidence of victim vulnerability tied to long emergency response times or remoteness from services or community as aggravating.
Section 719 gains subsection (3.01), which requires courts to consider the recorded reason for pre-sentence detention under subsection 515(9.1) when exercising discretion over custody-credit determinations.
The new aggravating framework applies only to the offences listed in the replacement 348.1 text (offences under section 98 or 98.1, subsection 279(2) and sections 343, 346 or 348).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Makes occupancy and weapon-use aggravating for listed offences
This provision removes the old text of section 348.1 and substitutes language that forces courts to treat as aggravating the fact that an occupied place was targeted when the offender knew or was reckless about occupancy. It also adds an explicit clause that the offender’s carrying, use, or threatened use of a weapon or imitation counts as an aggravating circumstance. Practically, this narrows judicial discretion by putting these facts squarely on the aggravating side of the sentencing balance for the enumerated offences and signals prosecutors to plead and adduce evidence on occupancy and weapons as sentencing enhancers.
Adds victim vulnerability based on response times or remoteness
The bill inserts subparagraph (iii.11) into the sentencing factors list to permit courts to treat an offence as more serious where the victim or property was vulnerable because emergency medical or police services would face long response times or because the victim/property was remote from those services or an established community. This frames vulnerability in operational, geographic terms—response time and remoteness—rather than demographic or situational vulnerabilities, which changes what kinds of evidence prosecutors will need to adduce at sentencing (for example, service records, maps, or expert evidence on response intervals).
Directs courts to consider recorded reasons for pre-sentence detention when awarding credit
By adding subsection (3.01), the bill requires sentencing judges, when they exercise their discretionary power under s.719(3) to grant credit for pre-sentence custody, to take into account the reason for detention as recorded under s.515(9.1). That ties the custody-credit analysis to the official remand record and may limit the latitude judges currently exercise when assigning credit amounts, particularly where detention was for flight risk, public safety, or lack of bail options rather than for culpable conduct.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Victims in remote or isolated communities — the bill makes it easier for courts to treat offences against them as more serious by tying vulnerability to long response times or geographic remoteness, which can increase sentences and recognition of harm.
- Prosecutors — they gain a clearer statutory aggravator to plead and rely on at sentencing in cases involving remoteness or slow emergency response, and an explicit weapons aggravator to bolster sentencing arguments.
- Emergency services planners and community advocates — the statutory recognition of response-time vulnerability creates an evidentiary pathway to highlight systemic gaps (e.g., long response times) during sentencing, potentially influencing public-safety priorities.
Who Bears the Cost
- Accused persons from rural, remote or Indigenous communities — because the law treats remoteness as an aggravating circumstance, people from these areas may receive longer sentences when offences target local persons or property.
- Defence counsel and courts — they will need to litigate the factual issues the bill creates (response-time evidence, remoteness assessments, contents of 515(9.1) records), increasing litigation complexity and evidentiary hearings at sentencing.
- Crown prosecutors and police — they must assemble new categories of evidence (service logs, geographic analyses, 515 records) to support aggravating-factor and custody-credit assertions, creating additional investigative and disclosure work.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill confronts a hard trade-off: it seeks to protect victims in remote or slow-to-serve locations by giving courts a statutory basis to impose tougher sentences, but doing so raises fairness and implementation issues because remoteness and response time are operational facts that can be unevenly distributed and proved, and because the changes reduce judicial flexibility in accounting for pre-sentence custody—potentially increasing sentences for those least able to access bail or services.
The bill trades clarity for new evidentiary burdens. Tying vulnerability to “long response times” and “remoteness” gives judges statutory grounds to increase sentences, but it also imports factual disputes into sentencing proceedings: what counts as a long response time, which service’s response matters (police, ambulance), and how to prove remoteness relative to an "established community." Those are not self-evident metrics and will require expert or institutional evidence, which lengthens and complicates sentencing hearings.
Requiring courts to consider the recorded reason for detention under subsection 515(9.1) when awarding custody credit threatens uneven application because remand records vary in completeness and framing across jurisdictions. Some records may state administrative or bail-system reasons rather than conduct-based reasons, and courts will have to decide how much weight to give those entries.
Finally, treating remoteness as an aggravator risks disparate geographic effects: communities already disadvantaged by limited services may see harsher sentences imposed on local offenders, raising concerns about net widening and impacts on populations already overrepresented in custody, such as Indigenous peoples.
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