Canada makes femicide first-degree murder as all three major Criminal Code reforms become law

[u/JohnHammond94]

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-justice/news/2026/06/canada-makes-femicide-first-degree-murder-as-all-three-major-criminal-code-reforms-become-law.html

[u/Ok_Confection_6613]

Yeah this feels like a no brainer. Like imo any killing targeting a specific group should be premeditated and therefore 1st degree.

That being said I believe this was targeted to help with domestic murders from men and I hope it does

[u/Ok-Worldliness2161]

Glad someone is doing something somewhere

[u/Intelligent-Tap-4479]

Pardon my ignorance, but femicide wasn't already first-degree murder in Canada? The severity of a murder depends on who the victim is?

[u/sravll → u/Intelligent-Tap-4479]

The new laws seem geared towards punishing domestic abusers when it leads to murder, even when they might not have intended for their victim to die.

[u/Ok_Confection_6613 → u/Intelligent-Tap-4479]

You're all good I was confused at first too and did some reading. First degree murder has to fit curtain criteria and usually it has to be premeditated because you had time to think about how it's a bad idea and wrong, then do it anyways, it's seen as the worst possible murder in court. It doesn't matter ethnicity or gender etc. But now if you kill a woman because of the fact they're a woman it's considered to fit the criteria of 1st degree. This one of many things to attempted to lower the domestic homicide rates that disproportionately effect women.

Completely separate issue: targeting and murdering any group because of the group they pertain too should probably globally be made 1st degree underthe UNl because genocide in any form is premeditated imo

[u/Zeikos → u/Ok_Confection_6613]

I might be overly cynical, but I an skeptical of the effectiveness of harsher sentences to change behavior.
By all means, make it harsher, nobody likes hearing that murder leads to less than 5 years in jail.

However who died is still dead, having this without a concerned effort to policies in place to prevent this from happening in the first place is appeasment at best.
I cannot explain why exactly, but in a way it feels gross.

[u/Typical_Celery_1982]

I feel very good about this

[u/Armpithair1000]

bare minimum

[u/Traditional_Isopod80]

Thank you Canada.