An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures)

This bill makes a targeted change to the Criminal Code's rules about aggravated assault. The Criminal Code already makes it a serious criminal offence to "wound" or "maim" someone under section 268. This bill adds a new provision clarifying that performing a sterilization procedure on a person counts as "wounding" or "maiming" them for purposes of that offence.

The bill defines "sterilization procedure" broadly, covering the cutting, clipping, tying, or cauterizing of the Fallopian tubes, ovaries, or uterus, as well as any other procedure that permanently prevents someone from reproducing. This applies even if the procedure could theoretically be reversed later through further surgery.

The preamble explains the purpose behind this change: it notes that sterilizing people without their consent has historically been used as a tool of systemic discrimination, colonization, and racism, disproportionately affecting Indigenous and racialized people. By explicitly classifying non-consensual sterilization as a form of wounding or maiming under the aggravated assault provisions, the law removes any ambiguity about whether such acts can be prosecuted as serious criminal offences.

This is a narrow, technical amendment. It does not create a new standalone crime, change sentencing, or alter consent rules elsewhere in the law; it simply confirms that sterilization performed on a person falls within the existing definition of wounding or maiming used in the aggravated assault section of the Criminal Code.

This bill adds a new section to the Criminal Code defining "sterilization procedure" and specifying that such a procedure counts as "wounding or maiming" a person under the existing aggravated assault offence in subsection 268(1).

• Definition created — "sterilization procedure" is defined to include severing, clipping, tying or cauterizing the Fallopian tubes, ovaries or uterus, or any other procedure that permanently prevents reproduction, whether or not it is later reversible by surgery.
• Legal classification — performing such a procedure on a person is deemed, "for greater certainty," to constitute wounding or maiming, which is an element of the aggravated assault offence under subsection 268(1) of the Criminal Code.
• Prosecutorial route enabled — this makes it possible for a sterilization procedure performed without valid consent to be charged and prosecuted as aggravated assault, using the penalty and procedural framework already set out elsewhere in section 268, rather than requiring a separate offence to be proven.
• No new body or discretion created — the bill does not establish any new office, regulator or reporting duty; it operates entirely through this one definitional clarification added to existing criminal law.
• Scope left to courts — the bill does not specify how "consent" is to be assessed in sterilization cases, leaving that determination to future prosecutions and judicial interpretation under existing assault law.