In 2012, Adam Campbell was out at an Ottawa nightclub when a very intoxicated Justin Williams approached his younger sister (names and some details have been changed to protect their identities). Campbell was taking a break from the dance floor and let Williams know his sister was not interested in talking to him.

“We’re cool,” Campbell recalled Williams saying when he recounted the night to Amber Montgomery, a restorative justice facilitator in Ottawa. The two men, both in their early 20s, shook hands. Campbell did not remember any signs that the situation would turn violent, but moments later Williams smashed the beer bottle he was holding repeatedly across Campbell’s face. A witness told police, “He kept hitting him without stopping, multiple times, until he was bleeding excessively.” Campbell’s sister watched in horror as her brother was beaten unconscious.

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Campbell spent the next four days in the hospital. A deep cut ran down the length of his face, crossing his nose and coming dangerously close to his eye. He received 31 stitches in his face and 21 more on his elbow.

Williams, on the other hand, woke up the next day in a police cell with no recollection of the night’s events. He only learned what he had done a day later when the details of the attack were read out during his first court appearance, where he faced an assault charge.

While police statistics show overall crime has dropped recently across Canada, violent crime has been rising steadily since 2014. After a brief drop during the first years of COVID-19, Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index shows that in just three years, violent crime rose 13 percent. At the same time, confidence in the criminal justice system is low. A 2025 National Justice Survey found that nearly half of Canadians had little or no confidence in the fairness of the justice system, and 39 percent were not confident it was accessible to everyone.

Much of the recent public debate around crime has centred on arguments for increasing jail time and stricter parole conditions, but research-based evidence points to an alternative pathway for reform: restorative justice.

Victims often feel anxious and isolated after a crime; they wonder why they were targeted and worry that it will happen again. But restorative justice programs use facilitated dialogues to bring together victims, offenders and, in some cases, community members to discuss the impact of the crime and jointly agree on actions that will address its harms. Offender accountability and healing for victims are priorities, with many finding that meeting the offender can help them both make sense of what happened and regain their sense of safety. Restorative justice practices have been implemented in more than 80 countries around the world. These programs look different from place to place, but they tend to have similar outcomes: offenders are less likely to reoffend, and victims often feel satisfied with how things are resolved.

Restorative justice programs are already operating across Canada, but sustained support beyond youth programs is limited. Organizations scramble for funding, many projects end after the pilot stage and investments in training, outreach and promotion are lacking.

At the same time, Canada’s criminal justice system is facing unprecedented strain. Costs for policing, courts and correctional services are ballooning, and delays are plaguing the system.

But systemic strain can also open the door to systemic change. As Kamil Ahmed, restorative justice practitioner at Community Justice Initiatives in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., recounts, his organization’s 50-year history began when a crown prosecutor and a judge asked themselves a simple but powerful question: “What else is possible here?”

In 2015, Jody Wilson-Raybould, then federal justice minister and........

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