No, Canada does not have the death penalty. Capital punishment was removed from the Criminal Code in 1976 and eliminated from military law in 1999, and the harshest sentence any Canadian court can now impose is life imprisonment. For the most serious offenses, including first-degree murder and high treason, that life sentence comes with a mandatory 25-year wait before the offender can even apply for parole.1Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – Sentence of Life Imprisonment
What Life Imprisonment Means in Canada
With execution off the table, life is the ceiling, and it genuinely means life. Anyone convicted of first-degree or second-degree murder receives a mandatory life sentence.2Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – Punishment for Murder High treason carries the same mandatory life sentence.3Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – High Treason
Parole eligibility depends on the offense. For first-degree murder, high treason, and certain repeat offenders convicted of second-degree murder, parole cannot be considered until 25 years have been served.1Justice Laws Website. Criminal Code – Sentence of Life Imprisonment For other second-degree murder convictions, a judge sets the parole ineligibility period between 10 and 25 years.
Eligibility is not release. It only means the offender can start applying. Many lifers serve far longer than their minimum, and some never receive parole at all. Even those who are released remain under Parole Board supervision for the rest of their lives, and their parole can be revoked at any point.
When Canada Abolished Capital Punishment
Canada’s last executions took place on December 11, 1962, when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin were hanged at Toronto’s Don Jail. No one has been executed since. Through the 1960s and early 1970s, successive governments imposed informal moratoriums and commuted death sentences rather than carrying them out.
In 1976, Parliament passed Bill C-84, removing the death penalty from the Criminal Code for all civilian offenses and replacing it with mandatory life imprisonment. The vote was close — 130 to 124. A 1987 free vote on reinstating capital punishment failed decisively, and Parliament has not seriously revisited the question since.
The death penalty technically survived in military law for another two decades. The National Defence Act still allowed execution for offenses like mutiny and desertion. Parliament closed that gap through Bill C-25, which eliminated the death penalty for all military offenses. The legislation passed in December 1998 and came into force on September 1, 1999.4Parliament of Canada. Bill C-25 – An Act to Amend the National Defence Act From that point forward, Canada was a fully abolitionist country under every measure of international law.
Why Reinstatement Is Extremely Unlikely
Parliament could, in theory, pass a law bringing back capital punishment. Three separate barriers make it almost impossible in practice.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Section 7 of the Charter guarantees “the right to life, liberty and security of the person” and prohibits deprivation of those rights except in accordance with fundamental justice.5Department of Justice Canada. Charterpedia – Section 7 – Life, Liberty and Security of the Person Section 12 guarantees that “everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.”6Government of Canada. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on whether a domestically imposed death sentence would violate Section 12, because no such sentence has existed since the Charter took effect in 1982. But in United States v. Burns, the justices noted that the death penalty is “irreversible” and that “its implementation necessarily causes psychological and physical suffering,” engaging “the underlying values of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”7Department of Justice Canada. Charterpedia – Section 12 – Cruel and Unusual Treatment or Punishment The 2022 decision in R. v. Bissonnette reinforced this reasoning.
Parliament does hold one blunt tool: Section 33, the notwithstanding clause, which allows federal or provincial legislatures to override Sections 2 and 7 through 15 of the Charter for renewable five-year terms.8Department of Justice Canada. Charterpedia – Section 33 – Notwithstanding Clause Once invoked, no court can strike the law down on Charter grounds during that period. The clause has been used sparingly and never at the federal level for criminal law. Using it to authorize executions would be an unprecedented step.
International Obligations
Canada acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in November 2005.9United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. UN Treaty Body Database Article 1 of that protocol is unambiguous: “No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed,” and each party must “take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.”10United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The only permitted reservation is for wartime military offenses, and Canada did not make one. Bringing back capital punishment would put Canada in breach of its international commitments and require withdrawing from the protocol.
Political Reality
No major federal party currently advocates for reinstating the death penalty. Individual politicians occasionally raise the idea, but it has not been on a serious legislative agenda since the failed 1987 free vote.
Canada Will Not Extradite People to Face Execution
The abolitionist position extends beyond Canada’s borders. When a foreign country requests that Canada hand over a person who could face execution, the Minister of Justice has the authority under the Extradition Act to seek guarantees that the death penalty will not be imposed. The Supreme Court has made those guarantees effectively mandatory.
In United States v. Burns (2001), two Canadian citizens faced potential death sentences in Washington state. The Supreme Court ruled that surrendering someone to face execution generally violates the Charter, and that the Minister of Justice must seek assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed before extraditing anyone.11Supreme Court of Canada. United States v Burns The Court left open a narrow exception for truly extraordinary circumstances but did not define what those might look like. In practice, Canada does not hand people over to be executed.
What Canadians Actually Think
Public opinion is more complicated than the legal consensus suggests. A February 2025 poll by Research Co. found that 54% of Canadians support reinstating capital punishment for murder, with 32% opposed and 14% unsure. The number shifts when the question is framed as a choice: asked to pick between the death penalty and life imprisonment without parole for convicted murderers, 53% chose life imprisonment and only 35% chose execution.12Research Co. Ambivalence on Death Penalty for Murder Endures in Canada Canadians express abstract support for capital punishment, but when presented with a concrete alternative, the majority prefers keeping people alive. Combined with the constitutional and treaty barriers, that pattern helps explain why no serious legislative push has emerged in nearly four decades.