Ontario's Cash Bail Deposit Rules: Suspended by Court Injunction

Update, September 2026: These rules are currently suspended. On August 31, 2026, Justice William Chalmers of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted an injunction suspending Ontario’s cash bail deposit requirement while a constitutional challenge brought by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Criminal Lawyers’ Association is decided. Bail courts have returned to the pledge-based system described below: no money up front, and forfeiture only if a court later orders it after a breach. The injunction is a temporary order, not a final ruling, so this could change. The rest of this article explains what the paused legislation says and what the injunction did; confirm the current status with our office before relying on either version at a hearing.

As of Monday, August 17, 2026, the money that gets pledged at a bail hearing in Ontario briefly stopped being just a promise. Under changes brought in by Schedule 2 of Bill 75, the Keeping Criminals Behind Bars Act, 2026, an accused person or a surety who agreed on a release order to forfeit a sum of money had to actually deposit that money, in full, within two business days of the accused being released from custody — until a court put those rules on hold.

For anyone who has been through a bail hearing in this province, that was a fundamental change, and it may not be the last word. It is worth understanding both versions of the rules before you find yourself standing in a bail court.

How Bail Money Worked Before

Bail in Canada is governed by the Criminal Code, and the Criminal Code has always drawn a distinction between two things:

• A pledge, where the accused or a surety promises to pay a specified amount if the accused breaches a condition or fails to attend court
• A deposit, where money is actually handed over to the court up front

In Ontario, the pledge has been the norm for decades. A surety would sign a recognizance promising, say, $5,000. No money changed hands. If the accused breached, the Crown could apply to have the recognizance estreated, and only then would the surety be on the hook for the money, subject to a hearing where a judge could reduce or forgive the amount.

Deposits were the exception. The Criminal Code allows a justice to order a deposit of money or other valuable security (s. 515(2)(d)), and specifically contemplates it for accused persons who do not ordinarily live in the province or who live more than 200 kilometres from where they are in custody (s. 515(2)(e)). But it is near the top of the release ladder, and section 515(2.02) directs the justice to favour a promise to pay over a deposit where the accused or surety has reasonably recoverable assets. The reasoning is straightforward: release should be set on the least onerous terms that address the risk, and cash requirements operate harshly against people without money. In R v Antic, 2017 SCC 27, the Supreme Court said exactly that, and reaffirmed that a justice must work up the release ladder rather than defaulting to the most restrictive form of release.

For more background on how the process works from the ground up, see our guide on what a surety is responsible for and our overview of bail conditions and what happens when they are breached.

What the New Rules Said

The province added a new section 8.0.1 to Ontario’s Bail Act. The injunction discussed below is directed at this cash deposit requirement. Bill 75 also made other changes to the Bail Act, described after it; if one of those matters to your situation, ask a lawyer about its current status. In plain terms:

If the release order says an amount of money is pledged, that amount would have to be paid. Section 8.0.1(1) requires payment “to the person specified in the regulations, at the time and in the manner specified in the regulations.” The Act itself does not set the deadline. The two business days figure comes from the province’s announcement of the accompanying regulation, so confirm the current requirement rather than relying on a news report, including this one.

The obligation follows whoever made the pledge. The section is written as two parallel paragraphs: if the order sets out the accused’s promise to pay, the accused pays; if it sets out a surety’s promise to pay, the surety pays. If both are named for separate amounts, both obligations apply.

Not paying is itself an offence. Section 8.0.1(2) provides that a person who fails to comply is guilty of an offence, and section 8.3 gives the Crown five years from the date of the offence to commence a prosecution. This is separate from any forfeiture or collection consequence.

The money comes back if the bail is complied with. The province has said the deposit is returned when the case concludes or when the surety’s obligations end, assuming the accused followed the terms of release. If there is a breach and a court orders forfeiture, the money is already sitting in provincial hands.

Sureties have new information obligations. Sureties are required to keep their identification and contact information current, and failing to do so can result in a provincial offence charge. Ontario is also building a surety database intended to let police and Crowns check whether a proposed surety has been a surety before, and how that went.

Prior defaults are now tracked. The amendments add, to a list in section 8.1(2) of the Bail Act, a person named as a surety on a release order for which a certificate of default has been endorsed under section 770 of the Criminal Code. Read alongside the surety database the province says it is building, the evident purpose is to make a previous default visible to the Crown when that person is proposed as a surety again.

Unpaid bail debts can be collected like tax debts. Where money has been ordered forfeited under section 771 of the Criminal Code and not paid, the Minister of Finance may use the collection measures in sections 11.1.1, 11.1.2, and 11.1.4 of the Ministry of Revenue Act: garnishment of wages and bank accounts, liens, and seizure and sale of property. This is conditional on a memorandum of understanding between the responsible Minister and the Minister of Finance, so how quickly it becomes real in practice remains to be seen. A certificate of lien registered against land expires on the sixth anniversary of registration unless a writ of fieri facias is filed before then.

What This Would Mean at a Bail Hearing If the Deposit Rules Come Back

The provincial legislation does not change who gets bail. That decision is still made by a justice of the peace or a judge applying the Criminal Code, and Ontario has no authority to change the grounds for detention. What the legislation would change, if it survives the constitutional challenge, is what happens to the money once a release order is made. None of the following applies while the injunction is in force, but it is worth understanding in case the deposit requirement is reinstated.

That would have three practical consequences.

The quantum of the pledge would matter a great deal

For years, the amount on a recognizance was treated as a fairly abstract number. A surety who agreed to $10,000 was making a serious commitment, but it was a commitment on paper. Under the suspended rules, that number becomes a cheque that has to clear within two business days.

If the deposit requirement returns, the quantum becomes a live issue at every contested bail hearing. Defence counsel should be prepared to make submissions on the amount, not just the conditions, and to put evidence before the court about what a proposed surety can realistically produce in liquid funds. A surety who owns a home but has $800 in a chequing account would be in a very different position than under the current pledge system.

Release without a monetary amount would be worth fighting for

The release ladder in section 515 starts with an undertaking without conditions and works upward. Not every form of release requires a sum of money at all. Where the Crown’s real concern can be met with reporting conditions, a residence term, or a non-communication order, a deposit requirement would give a concrete reason to argue that no monetary pledge should be attached at all.

That argument is not a technicality. Section 493.1 of the Criminal Code directs justices to give primary consideration to release at the earliest opportunity on the least onerous conditions, and section 493.2 requires particular attention to the circumstances of Indigenous accused and accused from vulnerable populations who are overrepresented in the system. A deposit requirement that a person cannot meet is, in substance, a detention order.

The money would need to be arranged before the hearing, not after

Two business days is not long. If a bail hearing lands on a Friday afternoon, the deposit would be due Tuesday. Anyone preparing to act as a surety should still think through, in advance, where funds would come from and how quickly they could be moved, in case the deposit requirement is reinstated while your case is ongoing. If the money is locked in a GIC or an RRSP, or is sitting in a joint account with someone who does not know about the charges, that is worth sorting out early regardless of which rules are in force.

If you are lining up a surety, our article on what sureties need to know before agreeing covers the rest of the job description.

The Constitutional Challenge and the Injunction

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Criminal Lawyers’ Association filed a constitutional challenge to the new regime in the Superior Court on August 17, 2026, the day the rules took effect. Their position, in broad strokes, is that:

• Criminal procedure, including bail, is federal jurisdiction under section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The Criminal Code leaves it to the judge or justice to decide whether a deposit is required, and the province cannot rewrite that federal scheme
• A mandatory deposit engages the section 11(e) Charter right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause, because it makes liberty turn on access to cash rather than on the risk the person actually presents

The Ontario Bar Association raised similar concerns during the legislative process, along with a practical one: pre-trial detention driven by inability to pay tends to produce more guilty pleas, more enhanced credit at sentencing, and more delay applications, which is not what the legislation is nominally trying to achieve.

The injunction. On August 31, 2026, Justice William Chalmers of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted the CCLA and CLA’s request for an injunction suspending the deposit rules until the constitutional challenge is decided. As reported, he found that the rules could result in people who would otherwise be released having their release denied or delayed, including because of the difficulty of finding a willing and able surety who could pay the full amount in cash. “An impact on the liberty of presumed innocent individuals is irreparable harm,” he wrote. He also found a greater risk of harm if the injunction were refused, and pointed to the pledge system that had been in place for over 50 years. Bail courts have reverted to that pledge-based system, with forfeiture only if a court later orders it after a breach.

The injunction does not decide whether the legislation is constitutional. Justice Chalmers indicated that a final ruling would take time, likely several months. The province has said it will not apologize for its approach to bail, and it remains open to the province to seek to challenge the injunction. If the constitutional challenge ultimately fails, the deposit rules could come back into force. If you have a bail hearing coming up, ask your lawyer for the current status rather than relying on either version described here; the practical rules on the ground have already changed twice in a matter of weeks.

How This Fits With the Federal Bail Changes

Ontario’s deposit rules landed about a month after a separate set of federal amendments, and the federal changes are not affected by the injunction. The Bail and Sentencing Reform Act (S.C. 2026, c. 11, formerly Bill C-14) came into force on July 15, 2026. Among other things, it:

• changed the reverse onus test in section 515(6): an accused who bears the onus must now show cause “by clearly demonstrating that their proposed release plan addresses the risks posed by the accused” under the three grounds for detention;
• added new reverse onus categories, including assaults and sexual assaults involving alleged choking or strangulation, human trafficking, violent extortion, certain motor vehicle thefts, breaking and entering a home, and a violent indictable offence that would be the accused’s third or subsequent;
• provided that the ladder principle does not apply to an accused facing a reverse onus (s. 515(2.04)), and that the principle of restraint in section 493.1 does not require release (s. 493.11);
• directed police not to release an accused where detention is necessary in the public interest, including for the safety of victims and witnesses; and
• barred courts from naming as a surety anyone convicted of an indictable offence in the previous ten years, unless no other suitable surety is available and it is in the interests of justice (s. 515(2.11)).

The combined effect, deposit requirement or not, is that more people are being held for a hearing and more people are carrying the onus of showing why they should be released. If you are facing a reverse onus situation, the preparation that goes into the hearing matters more than it ever has.

If You Are Denied Bail, or the Deposit Rules Come Back

Two routes remain open regardless of which version of the rules is in force.

A bail review under section 520 of the Criminal Code allows the Superior Court to review a detention order. It is not a fresh hearing; it generally requires an error of law, a clearly inappropriate decision, or relevant new evidence showing a material change in circumstances. A revised surety plan, including a realistic and properly funded one, can constitute a material change. We cover the process in our article on 90-day bail reviews and detention review hearings.

A bail variation can change the terms of an existing release order, including, potentially, the monetary terms. Variations are usually done on consent with the Crown, which makes early and credible communication with the Crown’s office important. See our guide on how bail variations work.

Talk to a Lawyer Before the Hearing, Not After

Bail hearings move quickly, and the terms that come out of them tend to stick for the life of the case. Right now, the pledge system applies and no deposit is due up front. But the injunction is temporary, and if the deposit rules come back into force, a release order with an unaffordable number on it will again be a problem that has to be solved in two business days. Either way, the best time to deal with the financial piece of a bail plan is before the order is made.

Mor Fisher LLP appears in bail court across Simcoe County, York Region, and the GTA. If you or a family member is in custody, or if you have been asked to act as a surety and you are not sure what you are signing up for, call 705-721-6642 or contact us. We will walk you through what the court is likely to require and what it will cost.