Bail & Release

A surety is someone who agrees to take responsibility for a person accused of a crime while out on bail. The surety supervises the accused, makes sure they attend court and obey their conditions, and pledges an amount of money that can be forfeited if they do not.

Anyone the court finds suitable. The judge or justice looks at the surety’s finances, character, background and ability to supervise, and the surety may have to testify and be cross-examined. Since July 15, 2026, a person convicted of an indictable offence in the previous ten years can be named only if no other suitable surety is available and it is in the interests of justice (Criminal Code s. 515(2.11)).

No. Outside reverse-onus cases, a surety may be required only where no less onerous form of release would do (s. 515(2.01), (2.03); R v Antic, 2017 SCC 27). In reverse-onus cases the 2026 reforms switched that ladder rule off, and a surety is often the heart of the release plan.

An accused person who qualifies for bail but has no surety may be supervised by Ontario’s Bail Verification and Supervision Program, which verifies information for the court and supervises people in the community.

Not always. A court can make living with the surety a condition where it is needed to address a real risk, and it often is. Like every bail condition, it must be necessary, reasonable and the least onerous that will do (R v Zora, 2020 SCC 14).

Yes. Accepting a fee or being paid back in return for acting as a surety is against the law and a person found engaging in such behavior can be charged with the crime of obstructing justice (Criminal Code s. 139(1)), which carries up to two years in prison.

Your responsibility as a surety continues until the case is completely over: until the trial ends or, if the accused is found guilty, until sentence. In some cases, this may take many months or even years.

A surety is not charged with the accused’s breach, but can lose the money pledged. A surety who takes a fee or indemnity can be charged with obstructing justice. And if a forfeiture judgment cannot be collected, a judge can, after a further hearing, order the surety imprisoned (s. 773).

Usually not. In most cases, a person signing bail need only promise to pay the money they are pledging at a future date if the accused fails to comply with the bail order. A cash deposit is ordered only in exceptional circumstances.

A pledge is never paid unless a judge orders forfeiture, so there is nothing to get back. A cash deposit is returned once the case is over and the bail terms have been followed, but it goes back to the accused, not to the surety who posted it, so agree in writing that the accused will repay the surety.

Bring the accused to court and ask to be relieved, or apply in writing for an order for the accused’s committal (Criminal Code ss. 766–767). The court may instead substitute a new surety (s. 767.1). If you believe the accused is a threat to your safety, do not try to bring them to court yourself.

The accused may be charged with another criminal offence, and the Crown may apply to forfeit the surety’s pledge, whether or not the accused is convicted of a new charge.

The hearing on the Crown’s application to forfeit a surety’s pledge. You receive at least 10 days’ notice, can explain why you should not lose your money, and the judge may order you to pay all, part or none of it (s. 771).

A peace bond is an official promise made by someone to the Court to abide by certain rules. Usually those rules require a person to “keep the peace and be of good behaviour” and may also require them to refrain from contacting an individual, attending a particular location or from possessing a weapon for a specified period of time.

In the Criminal Code it is a recognizance ordered under section 810. The court does not decide whether you committed an offence; it decides whether someone has reasonable grounds to fear that you will cause personal injury to them, to their intimate partner or to their child, or damage their property.

A peace bond under s. 810 of the criminal code can last up to 12 months. The specialised peace bonds in sections 810.01 to 810.2 can run up to two years where the person has a relevant prior conviction — and up to five years for a terrorism peace bond under section 810.011. A common law peace bond is not limited by any of those provisions.

No. A peace bond is not a conviction, there is no finding of guilt, and it does not create a criminal record. It is a court order, so it can appear on a criminal record and judicial matters check or a vulnerable sector check in Ontario, which both disclose court orders made against a person — though the same rules tell a record check provider not to disclose court orders made in relation to a charge that has been withdrawn. A basic criminal record check does not disclose court orders at all.

A common law peace bond comes from the court’s long-standing authority to bind a person over to keep the peace, rather than from any section of the Criminal Code. Because of that, the procedure, the conditions and the length are not defined by statute, and it is sometimes used where a section 810 bond does not fit. The practical difference is in the enforcement: section 811 creates the offence of breaching a recognizance only for bonds under sections 83.3 and 810 to 810.2, so a breach of a common law peace bond is prosecuted instead as disobeying a court order under section 127, which carries a maximum of two years on indictment.

Sometimes the prosecutor will agree to withdraw criminal charges in exchange for having the accused enter into a peace bond. This is a common occurrence in domestic assault related cases where the prosecutor decides not to prosecute the criminal charge(s). Read our article on domestic assault for more information on the topic.

It also comes up regularly on criminal harassment, uttering threats, assault and mischief charges — cases where the Crown’s concern is what might happen next rather than what can be proved about what already happened.

A person who signs a peace bond is not required to acknowledge any criminal wrongdoing before signing the bond. It is not an admission of guilt nor will it result in a criminal record.

By signing the bond, the accused person is only agreeing that in the circumstances of the case, the alleged complainant had reasonable grounds to fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her intimate partner or child, or to fear damage to his or her property. The Criminal Code used to refer to a spouse here; since 2019 it refers to an intimate partner, which covers a current or former spouse, common-law partner or dating partner.

You cannot be forced to enter into a recognizance, but refusing has a consequence. Where the court is satisfied that the applicant has reasonable grounds for the fear and you fail or refuse to enter into the bond, section 810(3.01) allows it to commit you to prison for up to 12 months. The same applies under each of the specialised peace bond sections.

If the peace bond has been offered as a way of resolving a criminal charge, refusing it usually means the charge proceeds instead. Whether that is the right call depends on the strength of the case against you and on what a conviction would cost you — which is a conversation to have with a lawyer before the court date.

Less than for a conviction. The court has to be satisfied, on the evidence put before it, that the person who laid the information has reasonable grounds for their fear. The fear must be genuinely held and it must be objectively reasonable in the circumstances; it does not have to be shown that any offence was committed, and nothing has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Where a peace bond resolves a criminal charge, the grounds are normally put before the court as a short agreed statement rather than through witnesses.

It can be varied. Section 810(4.1) lets either the person who laid the information or the person bound by the bond apply to the justice or the summary conviction court to vary the conditions fixed in the recognizance. In practice that is how a no-contact condition is relaxed after a reconciliation, or how a no-go area is adjusted around a workplace or a child’s school.

What cannot happen is for the two people involved to agree between themselves to ignore it. Until the court varies or ends the order, the conditions bind you exactly as written.

Nothing further is required of you. The bond ends at the end of its term, the conditions stop applying, and any money posted on the recognizance is released provided there has been no default. Because there was never a conviction, there is no criminal record to clear and no record suspension to apply for.

A peace bond is not a conviction, so on its own it is not a criminal ground of inadmissibility to another country. Two practical limits remain. The bond’s own conditions may restrict your movements — some require you to remain within a specified area or to be at your residence at set times — and a foreign border officer makes their own decision on the information available to them. Check the terms of your recognizance before you book anything, and get advice first if you are not a Canadian citizen.

Usually not. The check most employers run is a basic criminal record check, which under Ontario’s Police Record Checks Reform Act, 2015 must not disclose court orders. A criminal record and judicial matters check and a vulnerable sector check are different: both disclose court orders made against a person, subject to the rule that orders made in relation to a withdrawn charge are not to be disclosed. If your job, your licence or your volunteering depends on a particular kind of check, raise it with your lawyer before agreeing to a bond.

A peace bond is a court order and it is a criminal offence to intentionally violate any of the terms contained in the order. Those alleged to have violated a peace bond may be charged and prosecuted for the crime.

The offender may also be required to pay the monetary amount stipulated on the bond. That is decided separately: the default is certified to the court, and a judge fixes a hearing, on at least ten days’ notice to you and to any sureties, at which you can show cause why the amount should not be forfeited. Typically the monetary amount attached to the bond ranges from 500-2000 dollars.

Yes. The maximum penalty for violating a peace bond is four years in jail where the Crown proceeds by indictment. Where the Crown prosecutes the case by way of summary conviction, the maximum is two years less a day, a fine of up to $5,000, or both — section 811(b) sets no special penalty, so the general summary maximum in section 787 applies. Older sources, including earlier versions of this page, give 18 months for the summary route; that figure has been out of date since 2019.

Unlike the peace bond itself, a conviction for breaching one is a criminal conviction and does create a criminal record.

A peace bond is a criminal court order made under the Criminal Code, and it can be sought against anyone. A restraining order in Ontario is a family court order under section 46 of the Family Law Act or section 35 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, and it is available only between spouses, former spouses, people who have cohabited, or in respect of a child. Both can restrict contact; they are made in different courts, on different applications, and breaching them engages different provisions.

For most people, yes. A conditional discharge follows a guilty plea or a finding of guilt: you are deemed not to have been convicted, but the finding of guilt exists, it is recorded, and it is disclosed on the broader Ontario record checks for three years. A peace bond involves no plea, no trial and no finding of guilt at all. A discharge is also unavailable where the offence carries a minimum punishment or a maximum of 14 years or life.

Diversion — now called alternative measures — was rebuilt in 2026. Section 717 of the Criminal Code was repealed and replaced by Part XXII.2, sections 715.44 to 715.6. Police must consider taking no further action, issuing a warning or making a referral before laying a charge, and prosecutors must consider the same before starting or continuing a prosecution. To take part you have to consent, be advised of your right to counsel and accept responsibility for the conduct, and the Crown must have enough evidence to prosecute. If you fully comply, the court must dismiss the charge; if you partly comply, it may dismiss the charge where a prosecution would be unfair.

The difference from a peace bond is the admission. Diversion requires you to accept responsibility for what you did; a peace bond requires you to accept only that someone had reasonable grounds to be afraid.

Anyone who fears on reasonable grounds that another person will cause personal injury to them, their intimate partner or their child, or will damage their property, can lay an information before a justice of the peace. In Ontario that usually starts at the courthouse or with the police. The justice then causes both people to appear, and the court decides whether the fear is reasonable. You do not need to have been the victim of an offence and no charge needs to have been laid.

What usually occurs when a person misses court is that the judge issues a warrant for their arrest. In the circumstance when the person misses their appearance for photographs and fingerprints, the police will issue the warrant.

Strictly, it is a justice who issues a warrant for a missed fingerprint date, usually at the request of police (Criminal Code ss. 512.1 and 512.2). Either way, the next step is the same: call a criminal lawyer rather than waiting to be arrested.

It is possible (depending on when the warrant was issued) to have the warrant cancelled. Usually after two or three days, it will no longer be possible to have the warrant cancelled by the judge. In this instance, the defence lawyer will make arrangements to have the accused person surrender themselves to police to have the warrant processed.

A judge who issues a bench warrant can also postpone it to give the accused a chance to come to court voluntarily, and a voluntary appearance counts as the warrant being executed (s. 597).

Not necessarily - in some instances, a defence lawyer may be able to convince the police officer that the accused person simply forgot the date of their appearance and that the charge of failing to appear in court should not be laid.

Since 2019, police also have a middle option: where the missed date caused no harm to a victim, no property damage and no financial loss, they can send the person to a judicial referral hearing instead of laying a charge (ss. 496 and 523.1).

In almost every instance, a person charged with failing to appear will be required to attend the police station for processing and will then be brought to the courthouse for a bail hearing. If a charge of fail to appear has not been added by the police officer, the accused person will likely be released back on the terms of their previous release associated to their underlying offence (for which they failed to appear). In other cases an accused person may have to go through the process of obtaining bail on the new charge and also risk the possibility of losing their bail on the underlying charge for which they failed to appear.

If the Crown asks to cancel the earlier release under s. 524 and the court finds it was breached, the accused must show why they should be released again, by clearly demonstrating that their release plan addresses the court's concerns. Our bail lawyers prepare for that hearing, and sureties may need to be ready to attend.

A judicial referral hearing, added to the Criminal Code in 2019 (s. 523.1), is an alternative to a failure to appear or breach charge. It is available where the failure did not cause a victim physical or emotional harm, property damage or economic loss. The justice reviews the person's release conditions and can take no action, replace the release with a new release order, order detention if the prosecutor shows it is justified, or send the person for fingerprints. Any charge for the failure is dismissed, and none can be laid later.

No. The act of failing to appear for court or at the police station for prints and photographs must be intentional. Therefore the crown must prove that you KNEW you had to attend and you chose not to. Forgetting your court date (even if you were negligent by not writing the date down etc.) will not meet the standard necessary for a conviction.

The Supreme Court of Canada confirmed in R v Zora, 2020 SCC 14, that these offences require subjective fault. Recklessness is enough, though: someone who knew of the date and saw a real risk of missing it, and carried on anyway, can still be convicted, and a judge will decide whether a claim of forgetting is believable.

In some circumstances, the court will accept a lawful (read: very good) excuse from an accused person as to why they missed their court date. Attending a job interview or being “hung over” are not likely considered lawful excuses. A lawful excuse usually requires that it would have been impossible for the accused person to attend the appearance. An example of a lawful excuse might be that the accused person was in the hospital with a significant medical condition that prevented them from being able to attend the court appearance. Another example of a lawful excuse may be that the accused person was in jail on another charge and couldn’t physically attend the appearance as required.

It can be. Failing to attend for fingerprints and photographs under the Identification of Criminals Act is an offence under s. 145 where the date was set by an appearance notice or undertaking that a justice confirmed, by a summons, or by a court order. The same defences apply: you did not know of the date, or you had a lawful excuse.

In some cases, it is possible to be found guilty of failing to appear and not receive a criminal conviction. However, judges can impose jail sentences up to a maximum of two years for the offence. Regardless of what the penalty is, a finding of guilt for failing to appear in court will be a significant factor at any future bail hearing when deciding whether or not the accused person should be released on bail.

The two-year maximum applies when the Crown proceeds by indictment. On a summary prosecution the maximum is a $5,000 fine, two years less a day in jail, or both (s. 787). A finding of guilt without a conviction is a discharge (s. 730).

Missing court can lead to jail in two ways. You can be held in custody after arrest on the warrant if bail is refused, and a sentence for failing to appear can include jail of up to two years. A judge sets any sentence on the facts of the case and the history of the person being sentenced.

Being charged with failing to appear while on release for another offence puts the burden on you at the bail hearing (s. 515(6)(c)). The Crown can also ask to cancel your existing release under s. 524. Missing court is one of several ways of breaching a release order; see our page on failing to comply with bail conditions.