Amendment buried in 2022 federal budget bill extends Canadian criminal jurisdiction to the cosmos
“A Canadian crew member who, during a space flight, commits an act or omission outside Canada that if committed in Canada would constitute an indictable offence is deemed to have committed that act or omission in Canada,” reads the measure included inBasically, the amendment means that if a Canadian commits a criminal offence while in space, they’ll be met by handcuffs once they return.
Astronaut Anne McClain was accused by her estranged spouse, Summer Worden, of unlawfully using an ISS computer to access Worden’s online bank records — which Worden contended was a form of identity theft. The allegations were subsequently found to be false, and Worden now stands accused of lying to U.S. investigators.
But the legal framework of space is changing as it becomes more populated with private space travellers. Earlier this month, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy was aboard Axiom Mission 1, history’s first fully private crewed mission to the International Space Station.Article contentPhoto by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
In 1970, a U.S. citizen living in a research station aboard a floating ice sheet shot a fellow researcher to death over a dispute involving a stolen bottle of homemade wine. Both the accused and the victim were U.S. citizens living in a U.S. facility, but the iceberg happened to be within Canadian territory at the time of the crime.Article content