Granted Bail In Ontario? The Money May Be Due Within Days

Ontario has changed how bail money works. Until this month a pledge was a promise: you or your surety named an amount, and if the accused followed the conditions, nobody paid anything. Under the provincial amendments the amount named in the release order now has to be paid in cash within a short window after the accused is released. Failing to pay is itself a provincial offence carrying a fine.

One Detail Matters More Than The Rest

On the province’s own position, argued in court, the deposit is not a condition of release. A judge or justice of the peace still decides whether you are released and on what terms. The money becomes payable afterwards.

If that holds, nobody should be sitting in custody because their family cannot produce cash on the day. Whether it works that way in practice is a different question, and it is one of the things now being litigated.

What Federal Law Says About Cash

Bail is federal. The Criminal Code sets a ladder: begin with the least restrictive form of release and climb only where the Crown shows a more restrictive one is necessary. Each rung has to be considered and rejected before the next.

Cash sits near the top of that ladder. The Supreme Court has said it should be relied on only in exceptional circumstances, where release on a recognizance with sureties is unavailable. The reasoning is worth having. A recognizance is treated as functionally equivalent to cash, carrying the same coercive effect. Someone who has promised to pay a substantial sum already faces a real consequence. The belief that cash grips harder than a promise was described by the Court as erroneous.

And where cash is ordered, the amount cannot be set so high that it operates as a detention order. It has to sit within the readily available means of the accused and the sureties. The judge is under a positive obligation to inquire into the ability to pay. Not to assume it. To ask.

Where This Actually Bites

Not on the wealthy accused. On sureties.

Someone willing to pledge an amount is not necessarily willing, or able, to produce that amount in cash two days later. Some will decline to come forward at all. Others will agree but need time to free up the money. Either way it is the accused who waits, or who ends up without a surety and so without a plan of release.

The Challenge

Two legal organizations have brought a constitutional challenge on two grounds. That criminal procedure belongs to Parliament and a province cannot rewrite it. And that the requirement offends the Charter right not to be denied reasonable bail, because it makes pre-trial liberty turn on access to money.

As of the end of August 2026 a Superior Court judge in Toronto has heard argument on whether to freeze the regime while the challenge proceeds, and has reserved. The rules remain in force in the meantime. Check where this stands before relying on any of it.

If You Are Facing A Bail Hearing

The argument is not that cash can never be required. The Criminal Code permits it. The argument is that cash calls for exceptional circumstances, an individualized assessment of why a less onerous form of release will not do, and an amount that is genuinely within reach.

If nobody asked what your family could realistically pay, raise it at the hearing, where the record gets made. Raising it afterwards is harder and slower, and the person waiting is in custody the whole time.

This article is general information about Ontario Criminal Law procedure and is not legal advice. It does not describe any specific client’s matter. For advice on your own situation, speak with a lawyer or set up a consult with us today.