When people are arrested and taken into custody, they become involved in a process to determine whether they will go home or stay in jail until the criminal charges can be brought to trial. Depending on the charges, this can take months — and sometimes years. In the meantime, the accused will either remain in a custodial institution (with few amenities), or be released into the community (sometimes with strict conditions). The fate of the accused during this critical period of time is governed by the law of bail.

Bail engages a dramatic conflict between individual freedom and society’s right to protect itself. While the conflict is straightforward and easy to understand, the same is not true of Canadian bail law. In this book, Justice Gary T Trotter, a former prosecutor and law professor, provides a straightforward account of this bewilderingly complex area of the law. In a highly readable style, Trotter draws a straight line through this legal morass, making it accessible to the legal profession and beyond.

Gary T Trotter received an LLB from the University of Toronto, an LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School, as well as an MPhil and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was a lawyer with the Crown Law Office (Criminal) in Toronto before becoming a law professor (and then Associate Dean and Acting Dean) at the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University. He was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2005, to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2008 and to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2016. In addition to other publications, he is the author of The Law of Bail in Canada.

Gary T. Trotter's profile page

"Understanding Bail in Canada explains the history and operation of Canada’s bail system as clearly and concisely as is possible given the complexity of the subject. Written in a manner designed to be accessible to laypersons, the book is straight forward and keeps jargon and “legal speak” at a minimum. Dialogue boxes answering questions from hypothetical readers are skillfully employed to address queries that logically arise from each chapter."

Donovan Molly, Q.C., Canadian Law Library Review 40:3