Happy 50th Anniversary!!

14 July 2026: Celebrating 50 years since abolition of the death penalty from Canada's Criminal Code

EDITORIAL BY AUBREY HARRIS, COORDINATOR, CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

On 14 July 1976, Canada’s Parliament passed bill C-84 by a vote of 131-124 to remove the death penalty from the Criminal Code. Since that historic day, Canada has strengthened our stance for abolition including defeating the final attempt at reintroduction in 1987, removing the final references to capital punishment from the National Defence Act in 1998, ceasing to extradite prisoners facing death sentences following the 2001 Burns decision by the Supreme Court and ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR in 2005. Internationally Canada has supported motions at the United Nations General Assembly calling for a universal moratorium on executions.

While a minority in 1976 (a year later in 1977, when Amnesty International adopted universal abolition as a fundamental goal, there were just 16 abolitionist countries, Canada is now part of the more than 2/3 of the world’s countries that have abandoned capital punishment in law or practice (over half of the world’s countries (113) have abolished it in law). Less than two weeks before the vote to pass C-84, the United States Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty and are this month marking 50 years of the resumption of the death penalty.

Despite these gains, in recent years the world has seen increasing numbers of recorded executions (particularly for drugs crimes – contrary to international human rights law), and in some jurisdictions expansion of the death penalty. Countries that continue to execute today are in the minority. Only ten countries have consistently had recorded executions each of the past five years (China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, USA, Viet Nam and Yemen), only 17 countries in total are known to have executed people in 2025.

The world therefore must depend on the leadership of abolitionist countries, such as Canada, human rights defenders and organisations like Amnesty International, to help bring an end to the death penalty everywhere.

If you have not already, you can help support efforts to support abolition and to speak up for the rights of those facing execution by joining our fight through amnesty.ca or your local section of Amnesty International.