Bill S-205, an act to amend the Corrections and Correctional Release Act, also known as Tona's Law, was introduced in the Senate of Canada by Senator Kim Pate in 2025. Bill S-205 is a product of over ten years of work on the human rights of federal prisoners in the Senate. In the spring of 2026, Bill S-205 was passed by the Senate. In May 2026, MP Leah Gazan introduced Bill S-205 in the House of Commons. S-205 is currently awaiting a second reading vote in the House of Commons.
Bill S-205 aims to end practices of isolation in federal prisons by ensuring oversight, remedies and alternatives to solitary confinement and segregation. Segregation and solitary confinement have been called out in international law as a form of torture, and the Government of Canada committed to ending these practices in 2018. But key gaps remain in current legislation, which continue to allow harmful, unlawful and unconstitutional isolation in federal prisons today. Bill S-205 proposes vital amendments to try to safeguard and uphold constitutional rights protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Bill S-205 proposes 4 measures to end isolation and uphold the human and Charter rights that protect all of us, including incarcerated people:
- A requirement that if a person in a federal prison has disabling mental health issues, they be transferred to a hospital in the provincial health system;
- A requirement that a superior court approve any isolation of a person for longer than 48 hours;
- The extension of measures allowing prisoners to be transferred from prison to the care and custody of Indigenous communities, to include other marginalized groups; and
- In situations where the Correctional Service of Canada breaks the law and unfairly interferes in the administration of a sentence, individuals may apply to the sentencing court for a remedy, be it a reduction in sentence or in parole ineligibility period.