The Conservative "stand your ground" bill is fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Here's the actual law.

[u/mantafloppy]

Before anyone says "finally we can defend our homes", you already can. Let me save you the rabbit hole.

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1. The burden of proof is already on the Crown.

The accused never has to prove self-defence was reasonable. The Crown must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This is basic criminal law, confirmed by the Supreme Court.

> Source: R v Cinous, 2002 SCC 29

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2. There is no duty to retreat from your home. None.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled multiple times that a jury isn't even allowed to consider whether you could have retreated from your own home. We already have a de facto castle doctrine, it just doesn't have a catchy name.

> Source: R v Forde, 2011 ONCA 592

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3. Our law is already MORE permissive than U.S. Stand Your Ground.

McGill law professor Noah Weisbord, who literally wrote the academic papers on this, says Canadian law lets you "claim defensive force more easily than in the U.S." The Harper Conservatives already reformed this in 2013 (Bill C-26).

> Source: Weisbord, McGill Law Journal

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4. The Collingwood case they keep citing? The law WORKED.

Cameron Gardiner shot two armed masked home invaders and the charges were dropped, under the existing law. The real problem was prosecutorial overreach and a messy situation (drug-dealing from the house, evidence removed before police arrived). A "presumption of reasonableness" in the statute wouldn't have prevented his arrest anyway. Only a prosecution immunity provision would do that — and that's not in this bill.

> Source: CBC News

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TL;DR

The proposed change is legally redundant. The Crown already has to disprove reasonableness, that's not changing. What Cobena's bill won't do is stop homeowners from being arrested and charged while under investigation. Only a US-style prosecution immunity provision would do that, and nobody's proposing that.

You're being sold a solution to a problem that Harper already solved in 2013.

> Full DOJ legal breakdown: justice.gc.ca

[u/Cre_AK47]

Usually, this would go into the politics thread, but I'm going to keep this on the main page as I kind of want to see how this discussion would evolve outside the Politics and Debates Thread.

[u/Lumindan → u/Cre_AK47]

I personally think this kind of stuff is fine if presented properly (ie minimizing bias) as long as it doesn't devolve into another "conservatives bad" discussion, given the framing of this and the previous comments made by this user in the other thread I don't have high hopes for that.

I'm on mobile but there's already plenty of problems with how this thread is presented narrative wise and legally (citing single cases as prongs to try to break down the act when it doesn't actually address the core problem the act is solving).

[u/mantafloppy → u/Lumindan]

Bias? Everything is backed by source and academic even made research on the subject.

Single case? Here is the full reseach with multiple source, i did not think anyone would read something that long.

P.S. I did point the good job of Conservative in the past :

The Harper Conservatives already reformed this in 2013 (Bill C-26).

P.P.S. The research is AI assisted, but all the source is backing the find, and technically contradict personal bias.

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The original post is an extract from the result of search to find fact about an article writen by The Canadian Press : https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/conservatives-introduce-bill-to-create-stand-your-ground-law-for-home-invasions/article_8f98ce21-f4e4-57ad-85b7-450a10b2f0ca.html

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I got interested in it by 2 popular post on the main page that were not re-located the the weekly politic thread :

https://old.reddit.com/r/canadaguns/comments/1rsb379/the_canadian_castle_law_petition_deserves_more/

https://old.reddit.com/r/canadaguns/comments/1rs0ain/stand_on_guard_conservative_party_of_canada/

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The Conservative "stand your ground" bill — a full legal breakdown

Long post. TL;DR at the bottom.

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THE COLLINGWOOD CASE THEY KEEP CITING

The case is real and it is genuinely troubling. In January 2019, three masked men broke into Cameron Gardiner's Collingwood townhouse. One had a sawed-off shotgun. Gardiner and his girlfriend were zip-tied. His 8-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs.

His son (who sold marijuana from the house) got a camera alert on his phone, rushed home, and surprised the intruders. A fight broke out. Gardiner slipped his zip ties, grabbed the dropped shotgun, and in the chaos two intruders were shot dead in the backyard snow. A third escaped out a second-storey window.

Gardiner was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and spent 6 months in pretrial custody before being released on house arrest.

> Source: CBC News — full case coverage

Why was he held so long? The situation looked complicated to prosecutors: two men dead, a drug operation running from the house, and Gardiner's son had removed a safe and a bag before police arrived. That muddied the waters significantly. It wasn't the Criminal Code that kept him in — it was the messy facts of the case.

How did it end? The murder charges were reduced to manslaughter at the preliminary inquiry in November 2020, then all charges were withdrawn in March 2021. The Crown concluded there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

Under the existing law. No reform needed.

> Source: Global News — charges withdrawn

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WHAT SECTION 34 ACTUALLY SAYS

The current self-defence law was completely rewritten in 2013 under Harper's Conservatives (Bill C-26, the Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act). It replaced nine overlapping, contradictory sections that dated back to 1892 — sections so confusing the Supreme Court once called them "little more than a source of bewilderment and confusion."

The new Section 34 has a simple three-part test. You are not guilty if:

1. You believed on reasonable grounds that force was being used or threatened against you or someone else
2. Your act was done for the purpose of defence
3. Your act was reasonable in the circumstances

Nine factors guide the "reasonableness" assessment — nature of the threat, weapons involved, proportionality, whether retreat was possible, etc.

> Source: Section 34, Criminal Code — full text

> Source: DOJ technical guide to the 2013 reforms

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THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ALREADY ON THE CROWN

This is the big one that the Conservative framing gets completely backwards.

The accused only needs to clear a low "air of reality" threshold — basically, is there enough evidence that self-defence is even plausible? Once that bar is cleared, the Crown must disprove at least one element of self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused never bears the persuasive burden.

The Supreme Court of Canada was explicit about this:

> "The jury must be told that the burden of proof in relation to this defence is on the Crown, who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defence does not apply." > — R v Cinous, 2002 SCC 29

So when Cobena says "the onus is on the homeowner" — that is simply incorrect as a statement of Canadian law.

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THERE IS NO DUTY TO RETREAT FROM YOUR HOME

Canada has no codified duty to retreat anywhere, and inside the home it goes further — a jury is not even permitted to consider whether you could have retreated. The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled on this multiple times:

• R v Forde (2011): jury "not permitted to consider whether an accused could have retreated from his or her own home"
• R v Docherty (2012): new trial ordered because the jury was incorrectly told that failure to retreat was a relevant factor
• R v Cunha (2016): confirmed an accused defending his home "is not obliged to retreat"

> Source: R v Forde, 2011 ONCA 592

We already have a castle doctrine. It just isn't called that.

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OUR LAW IS ALREADY MORE PERMISSIVE THAN U.S. STAND YOUR GROUND

McGill law professor Noah Weisbord has published peer-reviewed academic work specifically comparing Canadian and American self-defence law. His conclusion:

> "Canadian law allows you to use force and get off the hook and claim defensive force more easily than in the U.S."

And in his McGill Law Journal article:

> "With little public discussion, the Canadian law of self-defence has become, in important respects, more permissive than Florida's Stand Your Ground law."

> Source: Weisbord, McGill Law Journal (2018)

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SO WHAT WOULD THE COBENA BILL ACTUALLY DO?

The bill creates a statutory presumption that force used against a home intruder is reasonable, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

The problem: the Crown already has to disprove reasonableness. A presumption of reasonableness restates what the law already requires. Multiple legal experts have said they aren't sure it changes anything substantively.

More importantly — it wouldn't have helped Cameron Gardiner. A presumption of reasonableness doesn't stop police from arresting you or prosecutors from laying charges while investigating. The only mechanism that would do that is a prosecution immunity provision (like Florida's Stand Your Ground law), where a homeowner can seek a pre-trial hearing and have charges dismissed entirely before trial. That is not in this bill.

> Source: CBC — law experts respond to the bill

> Source: Canadian Lawyer — opinion on castle law proposals

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ONE REAL RISK THE BILL CREATES

The Supreme Court's 2021 decision in R v Khill established that self-defence analysis must consider the accused's "role in the incident" — all conduct from start to finish, not just the moment of force. A blanket statutory presumption of reasonableness in home invasion cases could conflict with this framework and create unpredictable results in ambiguous cases.

There are also documented equity concerns. Cases like the acquittal in the Colten Boushie shooting have shown that expansive self-defence reasoning in Canada does not affect all communities equally.

> Source: R v Khill, 2021 SCC 37

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TL;DR

• The burden of proof is already on the Crown — not the homeowner
• There is no duty to retreat from your home under Canadian law already
• Canadian self-defence law is already more permissive than Florida's Stand Your Ground, per the academic who literally studies this
• The Collingwood case resolved correctly under the existing law
• The Cobena bill wouldn't prevent the thing everyone is upset about (arrest and charges during investigation) — only a prosecution immunity provision would, and nobody's proposing that
• Harper's Conservatives already fixed this in 2013

You're being sold a solution to a problem that was solved 13 years ago — by Conservatives.

[u/Lumindan → u/mantafloppy]

Bias? Everything is backed by source and academic even made research on the subject.

Just because you posted sources doesn't mean you don't have a slant. Even the title of your thread is already a jab at the conservatives. Your comments in the other thread said just as much. I don't know why you're linking to other threads either, it doesn't really change what you've said previously or change the inherent bias of "the conservatives aren't doing anything, this bill does nothing" when that's not correct at all.

I also don't know why you're dumping another set of answers to respond to this comment but sure okay.

You can re-link and re-explain your sources but it doesn't really attack the core point. The majority of your generated points keep pointing back to the outcomes of the cases when that hasn't been the discussion point at hand.

it's always been about reducing the burden on the victims, full stop. It's not talking about the outcomes of the cases, it's talking about the months of court, the insane amount of fees and the stress it places on victims. Cherry picking a handful of cases and trying to web them together doesn't really mean much. It just kind of exposes how little you know about how our legal system actually works.

Your generated summary literally discusses the reasonableness factor which is the problem. The current iteration of the criminal code section 34 and 35 ARE vague and the prongs of reasonableness during a home invasion are left upto interpretation by the crown and the cops. This is the core issue in all of it, the stand on guard act is meant to amend the existing criminal code (which clarifies the stuff that previously attached to it, I don't get the fascination of citing harper era work as if that makes you less biased).

You can keep generating the same points / answers but it doesn't actually have any substance behind it because you and your LLM don't follow the core issue.

The burden of proof is already on the Crown — not the homeowner

So you're telling me Canadians aren't being dragged through court, forced to spend a ton of money to defend themselves? Pressing X to doubt here. Your sources literally confirm this btw.

There is no duty to retreat from your home under Canadian law already

Does not matter again, it's not relevant to the discussion because cops will still pin you to a wall whether you demonstrate this prong or not.

Canadian self-defence law is already more permissive than Florida's Stand Your Ground, per the academic who literally studies this

This is a hallucination from AI, we're not importing Florida's laws.

The Collingwood case resolved correctly under the existing law

No one said that the case was resolved correctly or incorrectly. People take issue with how poorly it was run and how people were dragged through the mud for months. The CBC article you link literally says that. Again, has nothing to do with the Stand your ground act.

The Cobena bill wouldn't prevent the thing everyone is upset about (arrest and charges during investigation) — only a prosecution immunity provision would, and nobody's proposing that

This is just a flat denial and doesn't mean anything. The stand your guard act gives clarity to the criminal code which in turn adjusts the way the crown and cops can apply the law. Less vagueness = less problems, not to mention it effectively ensures that people don't need to worry as much about the calculus of force in the heat of the moment.

Harper's Conservatives already fixed this in 2013

They really didn't. Harper combined and simplified the system but the crown and cops still apply the law to victims to the maximum extent because of the vagueness of the 'reasonableness' prong.

Single case? Here is the full reseach with multiple source, i did not think anyone would read something that long.

I'm just out here saying that your post is basically incorrect. It's not really hard to parse an AI summary, I'm all for using whatever tools you have at hand, but it's clear you don't quite understand the actual act or the criminal code or why people have an issue with it because you keep focusing on what happens at trial.