An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures)

How it changed on the way

27% of the text as introduced was changed or removed by the time it became law (218 words introduced, 212 passed).

moderate changeintent kept

The bill's purpose and core text stayed the same. Dates and session years were updated from 2025 to 2026.

How precisely it is written

mostly preciseChallenging the law: EasyDisputing a charge: Moderate

The bill supplies an objective definition listing specific actions plus a results-based catch-all for sterilization procedures. The operative clause then directly equates those procedures to wounding or maiming under the existing Criminal Code subsection.

Open to argument

• “any other procedure performed on a person that results in the permanent prevention of reproduction”

  This clause requires factual determination of permanence and causation, which may invite argument in individual cases.

Clear-cut

• “the severing, clipping, tying or cauterizing, in whole or in part, of the Fallopian tubes, ovaries or uterus of a person”

  This enumerates concrete physical acts that can be verified by direct observation or medical records.

• “For greater certainty, a sterilization procedure is an act that wounds or maims a person for the purposes of subsection 268(1).”

  The phrase supplies a narrow, mechanical link to an existing statutory test without adding new discretionary language.

Discretion. No power is delegated to ministers, officials or regulations; the provision operates as a direct definitional amendment to the Criminal Code.

Challenging the law itself. The breadth of the catch-all definition could be attacked under section 7 of the Charter as vague or overbroad.

Disputing a charge under it. An accused could dispute whether a given procedure satisfies the 'permanent prevention' test or falls inside the listed actions.

Read by a language model from the royal assent text; every quoted phrase appears in the bill. A reading of the drafting, not legal advice.