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C-231 — An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act
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C-231
An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act
CPC
In progress
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BILL C-231
An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act
Last activity : At report stage in the House of Commons
CPC
In progress
Commons · 1st2025-09-19Commons · 2nd2026-04-15Commons · 3rdSenate · 1stSenate · 2ndSenate · 3rdRoyal assent
Sign-in required — one request per person, no anonymous requests
What it does, in plain language
- Amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act to build addiction treatment programs into how young people are handled.
- Requires police to consider referring a young person, with their consent, to an authorized addiction treatment program when the alleged offence is linked to a controlled substance or cannabis.
- Confirms that extrajudicial sanctions (out-of-court measures) can include an addiction treatment program authorized by the Attorney General or by a provincially designated person.
- Lets a youth justice court, after a guilty finding tied to drugs or cannabis, delay sentencing so the young person can take part in a treatment program, with the consent of both the Attorney General and the young person.
- Requires the court to weigh the young person's participation in such a program before handing down a sentence.
- Allows treatment program attendance to be added to intensive support and supervision orders, non-residential programs (up to 240 hours over six months), and release conditions.
- Bars a court from placing a young person in custody solely because they failed or refused to attend the required treatment program.
- Introduced at first reading on September 19, 2025, by Mr. Berthold as a private member's bill.
🤖 AI-generated from the bill’s official text as introduced — may not reflect amendments adopted since.
✋ What does “challenging” mean?
Clicking “Ask for an explanation” is a citizen request for the bill's sponsor to explain it in plain language — and for us to keep an eye on it together.
An account (email) is required — one request per person, no anonymous requests. 🔥 At 1,000 requests on the same bill, a public post is made, in the hope an MP agrees to sponsor a petition to the House.
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On the “who voted what” detail — the House of Commons publishes each member's name for every recorded (nominal) vote (Yea / Nay / paired). The by-member breakdown above (the "+" button on each row) comes directly from that official source (ourcommons.ca), not an estimate. The party shown next to each name is taken from the current House roster; people who have since left the House appear separately under "Former members".
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Recorded vote
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Passed is not law
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Paired is not absent
In the Commons, two members from opposing sides can agree not to vote: their voices cancel out. It is neither an absence nor an abstention.
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Hi! My name is
Martin Archambault
I'm 45, and dossiercanada.ca is your first step into democracy!
If we want people to understand politics, it has to be brought down to their level.
When I first tried to take an interest in it, on top of not knowing the jargon, bills came as two lines… and fifty PDFs. Most people would simply walk away.
So I had an idea: use artificial intelligence first to read through all of it, then to put it in plain words. That's how DossierCanada was born.
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