Peace Bonds in Ontario Criminal Cases

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the same rules tell a record check provider not to disclose court orders made in relation to a charge that has been withdrawn.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.