Law360 Canada (July 15, 2026, 1:46 PM EDT) --
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| Aubrey Harris |
The date July 14, 2026, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most consequential human rights decisions in Canadian history: Parliament’s 131-124 vote to abolish the death penalty from the
Criminal Code in 1976. In a striking historical contrast, less than two weeks earlier, on July 2, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court had cleared the way for executions to resume (
Gregg v. Georgia | 428 U.S. 153 (1976) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court), ending a four-year period where the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS (
Furman v. Ga., 1972 U.S. LEXIS 169).
Efforts in Canada to abolish the death penalty were not new. Many trace our early efforts to those by MP Robert Bickerdike and Rev. William Irvine from 1914-1925. From 1954-1963, a bill was introduced in every parliamentary session to abolish the death penalty. Almost every prime minister, from John Diefenbaker (in office 1957-1963) to today (with the single exception of Stephen Harper), publicly opposed capital punishment.
Andrew S. Thompson, in his book
In Defence of Principles: NGOs and Human Rights in Canada, notes how significant relations with the United States had been in affirming abolition:
The year 1976 proved to be significant in the effort to advance abolition for another less pronounced but no less significant reason. On 22 March of that year, the Canadian government ratified a new extradition treaty with the United States.… One question to settle was what to do about foreign fugitives charged with capital crimes. In 1971, when the treaty was being negotiated, the United States was in the midst of a moratorium of its own use of the death penalty. Washington had insisted that an abolitionist state be allowed the discretion to seek assurances that the death penalty will not be carried out should the individual extradited be found guilty of a capital offence. If assurances were not granted, the state holding the person in question had the right to refuse extradition.
This extradition principle (combined with other considerations, such as international progress on abolition) eventually led to the Canadian Supreme Court decision on Feb. 15, 2001,
United States of America v. Burns, 2001 SCC 7, finding that extradition of a prisoner from Canada to face capital charges abroad, without obtaining assurances that the death penalty would not be applied, is a violation of the Charter.
Pre-Confederation Canada’s death penalty was a unique combination of colonial home government practices, tempered by the influence of First Nations and Inuit practices. The exact numbers of those executed prior to Confederation is not known. From Confederation in 1867 until abolition, Canada hanged 710 people as a criminal punishment.
By 1976, Canada had already divided the crime of murder into capital and non-capital murder in 1961 (prior to 1961, murder carried a mandatory death penalty), restricted the death penalty to the killing of on-duty police officers and prison guards (Bill C-168, 1967 — not related to the
National Defence Act), and introduced and maintained moratoriums on executions in the lead-up to abolition.
The third debate on Bill C-84,
An Act to amend the Criminal Code in relation to the punishment for murder and certain other serious offences, opened on July 13, 1976, with opponents of the bill raising questions about the motivations of those voting in favour, and raising the familiar arguments often made by death penalty proponents citing opinion polls, predicting a surge in police killings and citing a per capita rise in homicide from 1962 (when Canada last executed any prisoner) to 1975, and fears of “air piracy” (which begs the question of deterrence). With some irony in retrospect, Sinclair Stevens (MP for York-Simcoe) also asked:
How does Canada stand in comparison with the rest of the world on this question? If we become an abolitionist nation, will we be in step with the rest of the world, or will we make ourselves a veritable island among nations which have retained the death penalty? There can be little doubt about the facts. United Nations’ figures show that the world trend is increasingly to retention. More and more states are retaining the death penalty. It is clear, if one examines what is happening in the United States, that the trend in that country is to reimpose the death penalty. It is not in favour of more and more abolition.
Stevens went on to cite which states in the U.S. had reintroduced capital punishment from 1972 until that day. Today it is clearly the U.S. that was heading out of step with the world. Now, more than two-thirds of the world’s countries have abandoned the practice, including more than half of the world’s countries fully abolishing the death penalty in law. Since 2007, the United Nations General Assembly has passed, with increasing support, 10 resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions.
History also proved Stevens’ fears unfounded: neither homicide rates nor police killings increased following abolition. In fact, since 1975, the per capita homicide rate has steadily dropped. In 2024, our per capita homicide rate was 1.91 per 100,000 compared to the peak of 3.03 per 100,000 in 1975. The U.S. was at 9.7 per 100,000 in 1975, peaked at 10.2 in 1980. In the United States, there continues to be no evidence that the death penalty has any unique deterrent value or even any unique deterrent value with respect to the murder of a police officer.
A cursory review of the 30th Parliament
Hansard debates shows that some MPs in 1975 had even been advocating for capital punishment for drugs offences — a measure that now would be illegal under international human rights law. Today, a minority of countries apply the death penalty to drugs offences, and unfortunately the recent surges in numbers of executions includes significant surges in executions for non-violent offences such as drugs trafficking.
Public opinion surveys, which may still be difficult measures on this topic (as compared to opinion polling of experts such as criminologists), have shown various swings in support for or against the death penalty. In the U.S., where the death penalty continues to be used, support for the death penalty is at an all-time low, and juries have shown greater and greater reluctance to impose the death penalty, despite being death-qualified.
The last and final attempt to reinstate the death penalty in Canada was defeated in the House of Commons on June 30, 1987, by a vote of 127-149. In 1998, Canada removed all remaining references to the death penalty from the
National Defence Act, making Canada fully abolitionist and joining the growing tide of completely abolitionist countries. Following the
Burns decision, Canada further secured abolition of the death penalty ratifying the
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an instrument designed to prevent a return to executions and without a withdrawal mechanism.
In July 1976, the U.S. and Canada took separate paths on the death penalty. While the fears of those opposed to abolition have not materialized, the U.S. has seen itself increasingly an outlier, chained to a financially and logistically costly political punishment and being routinely grouped with countries such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen as the countries with the highest number of known executions in the world. In 2025, for the 17th consecutive year, the U.S. was the only country in the Americas to execute.
Today, more than half of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty fully, and combined with countries that have abolished for ordinary crimes or who are
de facto abolitionist, more than two-thirds of the world. Each year a handful of countries continue to execute (usually fewer than 23), with the gross majority of executions being carried out by a small number of regular countries, e.g. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. As of the time of writing, the U.S.-based Death Penalty Information Center database on U.S. executions shows 1,670 people have been executed in the U.S. since the 1970s (and 16 this year). While it could have gone differently at the time, in 1976, Canada joined a small group of countries leading the way for abolition.
Fifty years after Canada chose abolition, that decision stands not only as a defining moment in our own human rights history, but as part of a growing global movement toward ending the archaic and inhumane practice of capital punishment everywhere.
Aubrey Harris is the co-ordinator in the Amnesty International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty, Canadian Section (English-Speaking Branch). He can be reached at dpacoordinator@amnesty.ca.
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