(OTTAWA) The Senate voted Thursday to approve the government’s extreme intoxication bill after the House of Commons rushed its passage the day before.
Posted at 12:17 a.m.
The senators had adopted a motion Thursday afternoon for Bill C-28 to go through all the stages by the evening.
As with the House’s expedited process, the Senate’s motion calls for its Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to study and report on the matter by the March 2023 deadline.
Passage of the Bill and its Provisional Royal Assent means the Criminal Code will be amended to create criminal liability for violent crime cases where the defendant can prove they were “in a state of extreme negligent intoxication” .
This follows a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down section 33.1 of the Criminal Code prohibiting the plea of extreme intoxication when defending a person charged with certain offenses of a violent nature.
Justice Minister David Lametti had called for the bill to be passed quickly so that the legal loophole could be filled before Parliament took its summer recess.