An Act respecting Jury Duty Appreciation Week

Designates the second week of May as Jury Duty Appreciation Week. Symbolic recognition bill with no legal effect beyond official observance. Passed third reading in the Senate. The bill targets the second week of May annually. Jury service is one of two civic duties Canadians can be compelled to perform under federal law (the other being responding to a Statistics Canada census), and the Criminal Code (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46) at Part XX (sections 626 through 670) governs jury composition and conduct. Each year roughly 30,000 to 40,000 Canadians are summoned for jury duty across the provinces and territories, and the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly affirmed the centrality of jury trials in R. v. Sherratt, [1991] 1 S.C.R. 509 and R. v. Davey, 2012 SCC 75. A purely symbolic statute, but one that complements ongoing provincial reform of juror pay (which still sits below provincial minimum wage in most jurisdictions).