After years of criminal justice reform that included a lighter touch for some offenders, the federal Liberal government has done an about-face and enacted stricter policies to tamp down on crime rates that have become a political liability in some vote-rich parts of the country.

While much of the public's attention has been focused on the U.S. trade dispute and persistent affordability concerns, the Liberal government's legislative agenda in the most recent parliamentary sitting was heavily weighted toward a crime crackdown.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser restored some mandatory minimum sentences, mostly targeting firearms and child sex crimes, and tightened bail laws designed to keep more repeat, violent offenders locked up for longer.

In all, the government over the last year has made some 80 changes to the Criminal Code with sweeping measures intended to curb hate crimes, sexual predation, retail theft and violence against transit operators, among others.

It also voted for a Conservative private member's bill, Bailey's Law, to hit some known domestic abusers who commit murder or manslaughter with life sentences.

And Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree moved to give police new online crime-fighting tools long demanded by law enforcement but pilloried by privacy rights advocates.

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These new lawful access provisions were a bridge too far for the traditionally crime-focused federal Conservatives, who argued forcing internet companies to retain a user's metadata, even temporarily, is an unjustifiable overreach.

All of these measures are part of a concerted effort to dispel the notion that the Liberals are soft on crime, which critics argue was hardly a notion at all given the last government's efforts to keep more alleged offenders out of jail and reduce possible penalties for some criminal acts.

"We've put in place the most robust crime agenda in a generation, maybe in history," government House leader Steven MacKinnon said in an interview with CBC News, referencing the half-dozen or so crime bills he has shepherded through Parliament.

"The Liberal Party is the party of law and order.… The Conservatives voted against all of our bills and they've moved into this conspiracy theory rabbit hole."

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Speaking to reporters this week on a cross-country tour promoting the government's agenda, Fraser relayed that the first thing Prime Minister Mark Carney asked him to do when he took the top job at Justice was get a handle on crime and pursue "a massive sea change."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, isn't buying it.

"Are you more or less safe in your neighbourhood? In reality, people are worse off," Poilievre said at a recent news conference.

"Under Mark Carney, it's more crime, more costs, more drugs, more of the same. Mark Carney is just another Liberal," he said, pointing to an increase in some offences like extortion even as national figures show a dip in the overall crime rate.

"The tough talk is all an illusion."

The Liberals' perceived weakness on the issue sank party fortunes in some parts of the Greater Toronto Area at the last general election, Conservative sources said.

"Crime, that one issue, that's how we surged in York Region and throughout the 905," said a senior Conservative campaign operative.

"There's a reason our message was so focused on Liberal catch and release policies in the last two weeks of that campaign," said another campaign operative, referring to the last government's more lenient approach to bail for some offenders.

"It was a winner."

CBC News agreed not to name the campaign operatives because they were not authorized to speak about internal party dynamics.

The Conservatives secured key suburban ridings like Vaughan-Woodbridge, Newmarket-Aurora and Markham-Unionville, among others, thanks in part to an emphasis on crime in areas where home invasions, carjackings and auto theft have become more frequent.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre speaks about his car theft policy during a news conference at the Port of Montreal in 2024. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

Liberal MP Vince Gasparro, the parliamentary secretary focused on combating crime, said his Toronto constituents have demanded the government take a harder line.

"I heard it at the doors in my riding here of Eglinton-Lawrence: have a greater focus on some of the public safety concerns and, in turn, enhancing our national security," Gasparro said. "So, that's what you're seeing."

He said Carney's push for a tougher stance is a "deliberate shift" from the previous Trudeau-era approach, which attracted Conservative attacks that resonated with parts of the electorate.

"You have a prime minister and MPs like myself and others who are very much focused on trying to get a handle on some of these public safety concerns that were out there," he said.

"I don't think I'd be the first Canadian to say the previous Trudeau government had different priorities than Prime Minister Carney and our new government."

Toronto MP Vince Gasparro says it's clear the Carney government has different priorities than the previous Trudeau government. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Amid pressure from reformists, former prime minister Justin Trudeau's government enacted sweeping changes to criminal law aimed at reducing inequalities and prioritizing rehabilitation over punishment.

Trudeau's government codified the "principle of restraint," which encouraged police and judges to release alleged criminals from jail at the "earliest reasonable opportunity" with the "least onerous conditions."

The death of Minnesota man George Floyd at the hands of police in the U.S. prompted calls for police reform throughout the Western world.

It's in that context that the Trudeau government moved to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for specific drug and firearm-related offences that critics say disproportionately affected Black people.

That bill, C-5, gave judges greater leeway to impose conditional sentences so that more offenders could serve time in the community (like on house arrest) rather than behind bars.

There were also provisions that instructed corrections officials to consider a person's Indigenous ancestry and social history when deciding on whether to release prisoners, a change designed to reduce the overrepresentation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit in the Canadian penal system but one that has been criticized as allowing for too much leniency.

Trudeau touted these reforms at the time as a way to "turn the page on failed Conservative Party policies."

These changes — some of which were later dialled back near the end of that government — coincided with a post-COVID crime surge. Violent crime rates spiked to levels not seen in decades, according to Statistics Canada's crime severity index, which tracks both the amount and relative seriousness of crime.

The index tracking violent crime was at a multi-year low in 2014-15, the last year of the Conservative government, before surging some 30 per cent over the next 10 years and then dropping slightly in 2024.

Recent data suggests crime rates for some offences are headed in the right direction, notably in a few of Canada's big cities.

The Toronto Police Service reports double-digit drops in homicides and robberies so far in 2026. Vancouver Police data shows a nearly 10 per cent drop in crime last year compared to the one before.

Still, even if the empirical data shows there's been some improvement, police-commissioned surveys indicate many still perceive their communities as unsafe.

In Edmonton, for example, police data shows only a quarter of respondents there say they feel "very safe." About six in 10 residents say crime has increased in their city, even though data shows there was a very slight drop last year.

Police in Edmonton say 2022 saw the highest number of violent criminal events ever reported in a single year. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

That's why crime is such a salient political issue, said Kate Puddister, a political science professor at the University of Guelph who studies criminal justice.

"It's easy to be tough on crime because the average person doesn't know very much about how the criminal justice system works. But they have feelings about how it should, and those feelings are based on emotion and fear," she said.

"Tough on crime is easy politics to play. This has worked really well for the Conservative Party of Canada for a really long time and now the Liberals are wading into those waters."