DossierCanada — who sits and votes in Canada's Parliament
Challenged bills
✋ Challenge a billFederal MPs
Who represents you, how they vote, how often they sit.
The federal Cabinet
Who decides what, since when, and how they vote.
Up to date. These ministers come directly from the official Cabinet page on pm.gc.ca, scraped live — not a hand-maintained list.
C-242 — An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act
Every bill summarized in plain language. Not clear enough? Ask for an explanation.
C-242
An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act
CPC
Defeated
▾
BILL C-242
An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act
Last activity : Bill defeated
CPC
Defeated
Commons · 1st2025-09-22Commons · 2ndCommons · 3rdSenate · 1stSenate · 2ndSenate · 3rdRoyal assent
Sign-in required — one request per person, no anonymous requests
What it does, in plain language
- Replaces the principle of restraint in bail decisions with a principle of public protection and safety, making it the primary consideration for police officers and judges.
- Adds several violent offences (such as aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping involving violence, robbery, extortion, arson, and violence against a police officer or first responder) to the list of charges where the accused must prove they should be released.
- Creates a category of "major offence" and bars police officers from releasing a person arrested for one of these offences.
- Requires that only a superior court judge decide release, and orders detention, when an accused is charged with a major offence while already out on release for another major offence and was convicted of a major offence in the past ten years.
- Bars anyone convicted of an indictable offence in the last ten years from acting as a surety, and ends interim release once an accused pleads guilty to or is found guilty of an indictable offence, unless they show detention is unjustified.
- Requires courts to consider whether an accused is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and whether they might leave the country, and makes surrendering all passports a mandatory release condition in those cases.
- Lowers the test for risk of reoffending or interfering with justice from "substantial likelihood" to "reasonably foreseeable," and requires the accused's criminal history to be weighed.
- Requires the Minister of Justice to table an annual report on bail in Canada within the first 15 sitting days after January 1, covering compliance, reoffending, accessibility and disparities between groups.
🤖 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.
It works on any bill, including one that has already received royal assent — that is often the one people want to understand.
Votes in the Commons
Every recorded vote — who voted what, and by what margin.
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".
How to read a vote
Recorded vote
Members vote one by one and each choice is entered in the public record. That is what lets us say exactly who voted what — no interpretation.
Passed is not law
A passed vote clears ONE stage. A bill must pass both chambers and then receive royal assent before it becomes law.
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.
DossierCanada updates
What changed on the site, newest first
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.
Alongside the AI recap, I've given people a lexicon that explains the basics of political jargon. Plain-language law exists — think of this as its equivalent for politics!
Parliament glossary
Parliamentary jargon, translated into everyday language.
Account and follows