Protecting Canada's Essential Infrastructure Metals Act

Summary#

Bill C-271, the Protecting Canada’s Essential Infrastructure Metals Act, would amend the Criminal Code. Its stated goal is to create offences involving scrap metal obtained by crime and mischief involving essential infrastructure; those outcomes are not guaranteed. The supplied text is a proposal and does not establish that the changes are in force.

• It would replace the Criminal Code definition of “traffic” for specified offences. The definition includes selling, transferring, transporting, importing, exporting, delivering and other dealings, as well as offering to do these things.
• A person who knowingly traffics in scrap metal obtained from a federal offence, or possesses it to traffic, would face a new offence. Penalties would depend on whether the case proceeds by indictment or summary conviction, and whether it is a first or later offence.
• A scrap-metal dealer who trades in or possesses metal for sale or trafficking while reckless or wilfully blind about whether it was obtained by an offence would commit a separate summary conviction offence.
• Courts sentencing someone for the scrap-metal offences would have to consider as an aggravating circumstance (a factor that can increase the seriousness of the sentence) whether the metal came from public or private infrastructure, especially systems for public safety or critical services.
• A person who commits mischief involving an essential-infrastructure component, knowing or reckless that the infrastructure cannot function as intended without it, would face a new offence. Courts would have to consider specified aggravating circumstances, including service interruption or danger to the public.

What it means for you#

• Scrap-metal dealers: The proposed offence could apply even without proof that you knew the metal was stolen, if you were reckless or wilfully blind about whether it came from an offence. The bill does not define “dealer.”
• Anyone handling scrap metal: The knowing-trafficking offence would apply only to the metals listed in the bill, including copper, aluminum, brass, bronze, steel, iron and their alloys or derivatives, when dismantled, altered or prepared for recycling or resale. Mere possession is not enough under that offence unless it is for trafficking.
• People who damage infrastructure: The proposed mischief offence would require mischief involving a physical component and knowledge or recklessness that the infrastructure cannot function as intended without it.
• Infrastructure operators and the public: The bill would change criminal offences and sentencing factors. It does not require infrastructure operators to take specific protective steps or create a new front-line service.
• There is no proposed general ban on scrap-metal trading, new licensing system, or direct change to taxes or benefits.

Money#

No publicly available information on the bill’s estimated public cost.

• The bill sets maximum fines and prison terms but gives no estimate of revenue from fines, enforcement costs, or other public costs.
• The text does not set out an appropriation or a staffing requirement.

What is unclear#

• The supplied material does not include the existing Criminal Code, so it is not possible to verify what the current law already covers or the full effect of replacing the definition of “traffic.”
• The bill refers to “essential infrastructure” as defined elsewhere in the Criminal Code, but that definition was not supplied. Its scope cannot be confirmed here.
• The bill does not define “dealer in scrap metal” or set out how that status would be determined.
• The supplied text gives no start date or commencement rule. It also does not provide cost estimates or new procedures for applying, investigating, or reviewing cases.

Case for#

• A possible argument for the bill is that knowingly trafficking in stolen scrap metal could create a specific offence covering a wide range of dealings, including transport and offers to traffic.
• A separate offence for dealers who are reckless or wilfully blind could address cases where a dealer avoids confirming whether metal was obtained through crime.
• Treating infrastructure metal as an aggravating circumstance could let courts account for the added seriousness of taking metal from systems people rely on.
• The proposed mischief offence could address damage to a component when the person knows, or is reckless about whether, the infrastructure cannot function as intended without it.

Case against#

• The dealer offence uses “reckless” and “wilfully blind” without defining those terms in the supplied text. It is unclear how the line between those states of mind and innocent dealing would be applied.
• “Dealer in scrap metal” and the scope of “essential infrastructure” are unclear from the supplied material, making it hard to know who or what would be covered.
• The bill sets new offences and penalties but supplies no information about enforcement costs, staffing, or how the changes would fit with current law.
• The bill does not set out how its added offences would be investigated or applied in practice.