THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, June 15, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met with videoconference this day at 1:02 p.m. [ET] to examine the subject matter of Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures).
Senator David M. Arnot (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good afternoon, honourable senators, and welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. My name is David Arnot, a senator from Saskatchewan and the chair of the committee. I now invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Batters: Senator Denise Batters from Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
Senator Oudar: Manuelle Oudar from Quebec. Welcome.
[English]
Senator Hay: Katherine Hay, Ontario.
Senator Clement: Bernadette Clement, Ontario. Welcome.
Senator Prosper: Paul Prosper, Nova Scotia, Mi’kma’ki.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, Alberta, Treaty 6 Territory.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate. Welcome, everyone. I live here in the unceded, unsurrendered, unreturned territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg.
Senator Osler: Flordeliz (Gigi) Osler, Manitoba.
[Translation]
Senator Dalphond: Pierre J. Dalphond, De Lorimier division, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Dhillon: Good afternoon. Baltej Dhillon, British Columbia.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are continuing our study of the subject matter of Bill C-16, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters (child protection, gender-based violence, delays and other measures).
Please be advised that sensitive subjects, including trauma related to intimate partner violence, may be discussed. This content may be triggering for those present as well as individuals watching or listening to the broadcast. Mental health support help for all Canadians is available by phone or text at 9-9-8. For youth and children, confidential support is available at 68-68-68. Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that Senate’s Employee and Family Assistance Program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for both personal and work-related concerns, as well as crisis counselling.
Colleagues, for our first panel, we have Emilie Coyle, Co‑Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies; Heather Campbell Pope, Lawyer, Elder Justice Coalition; Shakir Rahim, Director, Criminal Justice Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and Lincoln Caylor, Partner and an economic crimes litigator, Bennett Jones LLP.
I ask each witness to take five minutes to provide a brief overview, and then we will move to questions. It will be in that order: First, of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Ms. Coyle.
Emilie Coyle, Co-Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies: Thank you, and hello, chair and all members of the committee.
In considering a bill that is framed as increasing protections for victims, we ask the basic question: What will this bill actually do in practice?
Our organization, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, or CAEFS, brings 50 years of experience of working alongside criminalized women and gender-diverse people across the country. Our work illustrates that sentencing is a piece, but not the end, of the justice continuum. In our daily work, we see the effects of a prison system impacted by two decades of poor policy, rampant with overcrowding, unsafe conditions, ongoing solitary confinement, and lacking adequate mental and physical disability supports. Sadly, most who experience these conditions also have significant prior victimization, violence, poverty and trauma in their lives prior to their incarceration.
In five minutes, I obviously can’t speak to all of the various parts of this enormous piece of legislation. However, there are some pieces that we want to underscore and a few we want to expand upon in order to add to this analysis elements we believe are missing.
First is an observation on the criminalization of coercive control. All people who have come before this committee have agreed that gender-based violence, including coercive control and femicide, is real and urgent. Others have spoken to this clearly when the question has not been whether action is needed but what will actually make people safer.
As researchers and experts alike have already said, many people, particularly women, come into conflict with the law in the context of surviving violence, coercion or inequality. We, like them, unequivocally recognize coercive control as a serious harm; yet we offer, as they do, that criminalizing it comes with real risks: It is difficult to define and prove, and is vulnerable to misuse.
However, a core issue in this bill is its reliance on a rigid and false “victim and offender” divide. In reality, the majority of the criminalized women and gender-diverse people we work with are both: Many have been victims of homicide in their lives, as well as other serous crimes, and have long histories of intimate partner violence. Once labelled as “offenders,” they will have their own victimization ignored and punished. The separation of the victim and perpetrator is a narrative that punishes the very people one would seek to protect.
Related to this, this bill also expands disclosure obligations by correctional authorities to registered victims. Yet, increasing victims’ rights unchecked leaves no consideration of the real risks to the criminalized women who are also victims. Registered victims are already gaining broad access to very sensitive information about criminalized women right now, and increasing influence on the personal outcomes of the lives of these vulnerable women and gender-diverse people will leave them even more vulnerable.
We know criminalized women on parole who are currently experiencing harassment by registered victims and are being placed in danger. Therefore, we ask for caution.
I turn now to life sentences. Life sentences are the most severe and inflexible form of punishment. They already limit courts’ abilities to consider context, and the individual’s needs make it harder, not easier, for courts to respond fairly.
I’m going to offer a brief glimpse of what this bill would mean in practice. Many of you have already been in prisons, as well, but when I go into prisons, I see very young people. As a mother, I find it devastating to see people who are the same age as my own children living in such harmful conditions — young people aged 18 to 19 who are never truly given a chance.
Expanding punishment through tough-on-crime omnibus bills like this one, including by increasing the use of a life sentence as a mandatory minimum penalty, applies blunt tools in a system that already struggles to respond to people’s individual circumstances. This bill has direct, uncontemplated impacts on young people, especially since the overwhelming majority of those sentenced to life in Canada are under the age of 25 at the time of sentencing.
Nearly 30% of all of Canada’s federally sentenced population has life sentences, posing incredible challenges related to the costs and conditions of Canadian prisons. Providing judges with tools to respond to femicide is important, obviously; however, forcing them to impose a sentence of first-degree murder raises serious concerns about proportionality, fairness and human dignity.
Canada has already tested the efficacy of mandatory minimum penalties. Under the Harper government, Canada significantly expanded the use of mandatory minimum penalties, and they did not reduce crime. They did increase incarceration. They did worsen inequities within the system. Much of the dysfunction we see in prisons today is a direct result of this type of legislative change.
I can come back to some other points around restorative justice if there is time, but I would like to say that rather than advancing failed approaches, like increasing mandatory minimum penalties or relying on false victim-offender binaries, the government actually has an opportunity to build on what we already know works. Across the communities that are often criminalized, we continue to see strength and resilience in models rooted in prevention, care and accountability. Community-based supports, transformative justice and responses that foster healing, safety and long-term well-being are the most important for real change.
The Chair: Heather Campbell Pope, please proceed.
Heather Campbell Pope, Lawyer, Elder Justice Coalition: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members. I’m a lawyer and the founding chair of Dementia Justice Canada, a small non-profit dedicated to advocating for the rights and dignity of people with dementia. Today, I’m here on behalf of the Elder Justice Coalition, an ad hoc group of 17 organizations from across Canada who are calling for the coercive control offence to protect elder abuse victims. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to your study.
It is particularly meaningful to have this discussion today on the twentieth anniversary of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. This year’s theme at the United Nations calls upon all of us to move beyond awareness and respond effectively when elder abuse happens.
Bill C-16’s coercive control offence presents the opportunity for Parliament to do this, but it is an opportunity that can only be fulfilled if it is amended to include family members.
Now, before I turn to that recommendation, I would like to acknowledge that we understand what is at stake for victims of intimate partner violence, and we are not here to slow that progress. In its current form, Bill C-16 is asking elder abuse victims to wait five years — five years before Parliament would be required to start studying whether to include their abuse in the offence.
To help illustrate the urgency of this concern, I would like to share two civil cases from the Court of Protection in England and Wales, a jurisdiction that has recognized a coercive control offence in both intimate partner and broader family contexts for over a decade.
The first case was in 2024. Local authorities were concerned that a 79-year-old woman with probable dementia was being coercively controlled. She was shouted at, called a senile old woman and told her dog had died, which was a lie. A wet pad was held up to her face, and she was asked, “Have you pissed yourself again?”
Her care was monitored by video. There was an attempt to force feed her pizza, and she was shaken by the shoulders. Lasagna was thrown over her head. She was made to walk unaided and forced to exercise while in pain. There was also a threat to take her to Switzerland for assisted dying.
The second case is unreported, and some identifying features have been changed to protect the victim. Here, an 83-year-old woman with dementia was called a dog and forced to eat from a bowl on the floor. She had bruises on her body. Her clothing, social interactions, diet and finances were controlled. Caregivers were denied entry into her home. When she disobeyed, violence followed.
Now, in one of these cases, the abuser was a spouse. In the other, it was an adult child. Yet under Bill C-16, that pattern of control by the adult child would fall outside the scope of the offence, solely because of relationship status.
Now, we agree that police and prosecutors need time to get ready for the new offence, but Bill C-16 already includes a two-year delay before the offence would come into force. We suggest that that same window can be used to train the justice system for both the intimate partner and elder abuse contexts.
Importantly, we are not asking for everything to be included at once. Rather, we recommend an incremental approach that would include family members at this stage in the bill now, followed by a parliamentary review that considers informal caregivers and others two years after implementation. We believe this is a reasonable and timely compromise that strengthens protections for older Canadians.
Thank you, and I look forward to the committee’s questions.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Rahim?
Shakir Rahim, Director, Criminal Justice Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association: Good afternoon. I will begin by outlining the serious constitutional problem with Bill C-16: ousting stays as the minimum remedy for a section 11(b) violation. I will then suggest a narrow and targeted amendment to the alternative remedy framework.
In the section 11(b) context, a stay is a remedy granted under section 24(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which reads:
Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such a remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.
In 1987, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Rahey that a stay of proceedings was the minimum remedy for a section 11(b) violation. I will quote from that decision.
Chief Justice Dickson and Justice Lamer said, “A stay . . . is the minimum remedy . . . .”
Justice Beetz and Justice Le Dain said, “. . . I am of the view that a stay of proceedings is the appropriate and just remedy . . . .”
Justice Estey and Justice Wilson said, “I believe that only one remedy — a stay of proceedings — is available under s.24(1) . . . .”
In 2017, in a report on trial delays, this committee recommended that any legislated consideration of alternative remedies requires a constitutional reference to the Supreme Court, precisely because stays are a judicial remedy. A stay under section 24(1) is not the result of a common law rule or the interpretation of ordinary legislation. It is the constitutional protection of a right guaranteed under the Charter for persons who are presumed innocent.
To our knowledge, Bill C-16 is the first time since the adoption of the Charter that Parliament seeks to explicitly legislate the test for a judicial remedy under section 24(1) in contradiction to binding Supreme Court precedent. It will lead, invariably, to intense litigation and uncertainty in the courts for both the accused and complainants.
The precedent will also undermine the power of judicial review and the protections available for rights and freedoms under the Charter. Any suggestion before this committee that such an approach is sanctioned in the case law is incorrect. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that it may wish to revisit the Rahey decision, but the court has also been clear that Rahey remains binding constitutional law until that time.
The Chief Justice explicitly made this point in the case you heard about before this committee, Vrbanic. However, if Parliament proceeds with the alternative remedy framework, the CCLA suggests including one more factor under the new proposed test. The new factor would be prejudice of unreasonable delay to the administration of justice.
The current proposed factors include the prejudice that has been or would be suffered by the accused or an offender as a result of unreasonable delay. This kind of prejudice was part of the test to establish unreasonable delay prior to the Jordan decision. It was jettisoned in Jordan because, as the Supreme Court noted, it was confusing, hard to prove and subjective and because:
. . . the public’s interests in a trial within a reasonable time does not necessarily turn on how much suffering an accused has endured. Delayed trials may also cause prejudice to the administration of justice.
The CCLA’s suggested amendment would recognize that prejudice to the administration of justice overall is also a legitimate consideration.
Regardless of the specific effect on any single accused, where the justice system permits excessive delays, that should also inform what an appropriate and just remedy is in the circumstances. This amendment would not oust the other enumerated factors but simply be one more relevant consideration. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rahim.
Mr. Caylor.
Lincoln Caylor, Economic crimes litigator, Bennett Jones LLP, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me today.
I am representing myself as an individual, and I offer these comments in that capacity alone. My comments today are limited to proposed section 718.4(1) dealing with mandatory punishments.
The issue that Bill C-16 addresses arises from the analysis at the Supreme Court of Canada and the application of reasonable hypotheticals in undertaking a section 12 analysis of certain mandatory minimum sentences in the Criminal Code. The Supreme Court of Canada’s analysis and use of uncommon, unlikely hypotheticals which have no or little relation to the case being decided and are beyond the typical judicial experience, in my view, that analysis has become unmoored from the court’s previous decisions, where the court accepted guardrails with respect to hypothetical analysis. In my view, this analysis and reasoning have unduly narrowed Parliament’s room to legislate on sentencing and create a constitutional imbalance with the resulting loss in trust by the public in the court on this issue.
It is important, in my view, to remember that neither Parliament nor the courts have unlimited powers in sentencing; rather, there’s meant to be a balance between the two. In my submission, that balance has been lost.
Ideally, the Supreme Court would, in my words, return to its lane to restore that constitutional balance that it has created with this more conservative or activist approach; that’s the way that I would characterize it.
Now, given the recent decision in Senneville, it appears obvious that that is not going to happen. Given the continued use of hypotheticals and, in particular, with the way the majority in Senneville has articulated them, in my view, a case-by-case or safety valve approach appears to be the most straightforward way to legislate mandatory minimums while maintaining that legislation within the constitutional framework.
This approach would preserve a better balance between Parliament and the court, while remaining consistent with Parliament’s desire to reflect the public’s moral views on certain crimes and to maintain greater certainty and predictability in punishment.
However, I would highlight for you and your committee, this approach does create a risk of ad hoc treatment of mandatory minimum sentences and the possibility of an erosion of mandatory sentences over time. However, in my view, the Supreme Court has left very little room for Parliament — given the constitutional imbalance it has created — and the public and, possibly, Parliament’s loss of trust in the Supreme Court on this issue.
Any safety valve proposed in legislation must be narrow, and the legislative remedy proposed be tight and narrow. All in all, I am supportive of the proposed amendments in section 718.4(1), which will serve to respond to what I characterize as the corner that the Supreme Court has pushed Parliament into.
Again, I repeat that we need to be mindful of the risks, namely, the erosion of mandatory minimums and their inconsistent application over time through courts overusing the safety valve that the proposed section provides.
Mandatory minimums have been in the Criminal Code since we have had a Criminal Code. In my view, mandatory minimums are and should remain a non-partisan issue. Both parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, over the decades have legislated mandatory minimums. I again emphasize that mandatory minimums, in my view, should be a non-partisan issue. Mandatory minimums deal with some of the most serious and morally blameworthy offences in criminal law and reflect Parliament’s judgment that certain conduct requires a minimum level of denunciation and punishment.
Now, reasonable people can disagree about the proper scope of such a law, but the underlying concern is not, as I say, partisan. It is rooted in a shared public interest in ensuring that the law speaks clearly and consistently when Parliament has determined that certain offences warrant a minimum custodial response.
Mandatory minimums are also something that people become passionate about and for good reason, because they deal with some of the most morally blameworthy offences in the Criminal Code. However, given the resulting passion, we must be very careful in critiquing the courts that we only critique their analysis and legal reasoning behind any decision. In my view, any gratuitous comments about any particular judge, and personal comments about any judge, are uncalled for and demean the debate.
We’re lucky in our democracy to have a very strong judiciary. While members of Parliament, the fourth estate and independent lawyers may critique our courts’ analysis, they must not be personal attacks, as my submissions here today are with respect to the analysis and the decisions, not any particular court or judge.
In my view, Parliament’s proposed section 718.4(1) offers Parliament a practical and constitutional response to address the problem that I characterized that has been raised by the Supreme Court’s analysis when dealing with reasonable hypotheticals. If enacted narrowly and applied carefully, it can preserve Parliament’s role in setting sentencing policy, while allowing courts to prevent truly exceptional cases of cruel and unusual punishment.
In my view, that is the right constitutional balance between Parliament and the courts. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Caylor. Thank you to all of the witnesses. We know that you have been given short notice of this hearing. We really do appreciate your coming today to assist us in our work.
Senator Batters: Thank you to all of you for being here today. It is particularly appropriate. Ms. Campbell Pope, thank you for bringing up World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. That is important.
Mr. Caylor, I wish to start with you. Thank you for helping us out today on short notice and your important perspective you gave us today.
In a previous paper you wrote about mandatory minimums, you said, “. . . if properly deployed, mandatory minimum sentences are an important tool for ensuring — not inhibiting — justice in sentencing.”
Mandatory minimums, as you indicated, are an important signal sent by Parliament about what an important sentence range should be.
Dealing with the safety valve, as has been employed in Bill C-16 — I have called it an escape hatch because I don’t really see much about it that potentially provides safety for victims. The thing is that there are very few restrictions on it. The only existing restriction is that it is unable to be employed for offences where life imprisonment is the sentence, of which there are only two, as I confirmed with justice officials. They are murder or treason.
That leaves all these other sentences out, including aggravated sexual assault with a firearm, human trafficking, extortion with a firearm and drive-by shootings. All of those are currently excluded, and it is possible to have a judge give a considerably lower sentence than the current mandatory minimum with only the ability to appeal, which would require that they show that it be a manifestly unfit sentence.
Given that and given your assertion today that you think that the safety valve should be as narrow as possible, would you think that it may be potentially appropriate to allow for a wider exemption than just murder and treason, and to potentially include some of those types of offences as well — very serious offences where the mandatory minimum would be a more appropriate situation and where it shows the will of Parliament or the will of the people?
Mr. Caylor: Thanks, senator. The issue is the balance between maintaining the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum given the Supreme Court’s analysis using reasonable hypotheticals. The issue that would happen if you moved more offences into the exception so they don’t apply to section 718 would be the risk that those sentences would be struck down in their entirety.
When I say “deployed narrowly,” if you push too many into the exception, the risk is they will be struck down entirely. However, with the safety valve idea, where a sentencing judge has to find cruel and unusual punishment on the facts of the case before her, that, in my view, is the narrow part. What I would encourage legislators to consider is the further narrowing wouldn’t necessarily be to move more punishments outside the scope of section 718 but to revisit any ones that you have particular concerns about to make them more specific and granular in detail, which is difficult.
If there was a proper balance, we would leave that to the courts to find the balance between what Parliament has said and what the Constitution has. In my view, the only way to really deal with that is to keep the scope the same, but if there are particular offences that the legislators have concerns about, you have to be more granular in what the offence is.
Senator Batters: Thank you.
I would like to ask Ms. Coyle a question. Bill C-16 does expand the restorative justice framework. We heard from a witness this morning who was quite an expert in the coercive control aspect and who suggested that, regarding restorative justice, one portion of a section of this bill should be removed because, she said, in cases of intimate partner violence, there is the risk that it is absolutely not an appropriate situation for victims of intimate partner violence. Would you support such an amendment to remove that restorative justice part for that component?
Ms. Coyle: I’m not sure which component you are speaking about, but I probably would not agree. We know people who have experienced intimate partner violence who have chosen alternative remedies, including restorative justice, to find accountability for those who harmed them. This is not a circumstance where everybody wants the exact same thing. There are several victims of intimate partner violence who have come to us to ask: Can we talk about finding true accountability because punishment is not something that gives me the healing I’m looking for?
Senator Batters: Wouldn’t you agree, though, that perhaps there is a very small number of victims who might feel that way but that the vast majority of victims of intimate partner violence would not want to be part of a restorative justice framework with their perpetrator?
Ms. Coyle: I do think, in this particular bill, the restorative justice pieces are clearly articulated as being voluntary, so I’m certain that if someone didn’t want to participate in a restorative justice process, they wouldn’t have to. But if there is a piece of it that is not voluntary, then that’s something that Parliament would need to look at.
I do think that — and I applaud the restorative justice —
Senator Batters: I think that’s what we would be trying to do by amending it because I think that’s the reason it is in the bill, and that’s the reason that Professor Gill suggested that we take out that part. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I want to stay on that subject for a moment, Ms. Coyle. The problem with alternative measures is that there is a significant power imbalance between the victim and the aggressor. However, when a woman does not have the power to say no, or does not feel like she has that power, it’s hard to apply that kind of alternative measure. It’s like mediation. There needs to be a balance of power. I don’t really understand your reasoning.
[English]
Ms. Coyle: When it comes to restorative justice, I will use the example of one of my colleagues. She was a victim of abuse as a child, and her whole life, she thought she would get healing if she could bring her abuser to justice by bringing him to court and having him plead guilty and going to jail. As an adult, he did plead guilty and did go to prison, and she thought to herself, “Finally, I will have an opportunity to heal. This is what I have been looking for my whole life.” He obviously had a lot of power over her when she was a child, which is different from the power imbalance in intimate partner violence that we’re speaking about here, but the example remains similar in that when he was convicted and went to prison, she realized that the healing wasn’t what she anticipated, and she would have, potentially, been happier with a restorative process.
I agree that in intimate partner violence situations, there is a huge power imbalance, which is why it has to be based on consent. Obviously, I applaud the inclusion of the restorative justice pieces in this bill. I also think that their effectiveness depends on flexibility and on context. Both of which are undermined when we have rigid, punitive legal systems. We have to be really careful about how we implement restorative justice in this larger context that we are in as well.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Generally speaking, on this particular bill, I’ve heard you say one thing and then the opposite. Do you think it’s a good idea to create a new offence of coercive control? Do you support that? You also said that it was difficult to define and enforce. Ms. Coyle, can you clearly state where you stand on this?
[English]
Ms. Coyle: Clearly, we are not for criminalizing coercive control at this time.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: But what about the victims? What about the — it has been asked for by so many groups, women’s groups, to help out because, until now, the only thing we have is physical violence to —
I understand what you are saying. Criminal law doesn’t solve everything, but it is seen by so many as a tool for justice.
Ms. Coyle: I understand that, and we have had these conversations in feminist spaces quite a bit. The challenge, of course, is that we have a larger system that continues to harm the very people it seeks to protect, so even in situations of intimate partner violence, where you would have a crime of coercive control, you would potentially have a partner who would misuse, as they currently are, the current legislation to harm their partner. It is a very complicated —
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So why not try something? I’m a little shocked by what you are saying.
Ms. Coyle: Of course. There are many things — I’m actually — it is interesting to have conversations like this in the context of understanding how we can support each other to protect each other in a country like this.
I’m sure you heard from LEAF that they are not in support —
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Sure, but there are feminist groups in Quebec that are for it, and I am for it. I consider myself a feminist, but I have to stop now.
Ms. Coyle: We should talk more later. This is an important conversation for all of us to have: What does real protection look like?
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: I, too, would like to continue along the same lines. Upon reading the gender-based analysis and all the documents provided to us, it’s clear that the very people we want to protect are the same people you are concerned could become victims of this offence. I’d like to read some excerpts from the study because it is worth looking at.
Indigenous women face disproportionately high rates of violent crime. Some 61% of Indigenous women reported experiencing intimate partner violence compared to 44% of non‑Indigenous women. They were three times more likely than non‑Indigenous women to have an intimate partner who had threatened them with a weapon, choked them, beat them or strangled them. I can go on: 28% of victims of intimate partner homicide were Indigenous.
We also have a responsibility as legislators to ensure that the justice system protects these victims, especially since the fear you raised. . . . When we heard from the women’s groups that had taken part in missions, specifically in England, they told us that their British counterparts confirmed that the fear of criminalizing victims through the offence of coercive control had not materialized.
Could you tell us what study you are basing this concern on in expressing this fear to the committee? I would reiterate that, given the statistics, the real danger lies precisely in failing to fulfill our duty to protect these victims.
[English]
Ms. Coyle: Yes, you have a hard task ahead of you because legislation is a blunt tool to solve really complicated social issues, like coercive control. I think when we are talking about the experience of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, we see criminalized women and gender-diverse people who have had the very tools meant to protect them used against them.
You know the statistics of women who are incarcerated in our federal penitentiaries, which is 50% Indigenous women, and in our provincial jails, it is even higher, sometimes up to 90%, and more in Saskatchewan.
We have to ask ourselves, because since the 1980s we have been starting to criminalize the issues around intimate partner violence because we recognized that there was very little protection for women under the law. You have Dr. Pamela Cross, who has written an entire book called, And Sometimes They Kill You, in reference to the people that she worked with who were experiencing intimate partner violence in family law. But she has, over the last 40 years of her career as a feminist, watched how we have implemented, time over time, legislation to ostensibly protect women from violence in their lives, and it has not changed. Legislation is not the answer. The answer is way more attention ahead of time. How are we actually going to prevent people from being harmed? Is legislation going to be that tool? Is the government going to say, we have legislated this, and now we are done with it all? We are not going to invest in communities that need support or actually support the people for whom more surveillance in their lives is going to lead to more criminalization and more people in our prisons. That’s the caution that we are bringing forward.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: I have a question for Ms. Campbell Pope about including seniors in the act. Other groups have told us that we need to take, and I quote, “one bite at a time,” given the international comparisons they have also made. Including seniors right away could even pose a risk.
Today, however, they said that the experience and expertise that police officers would gain over the years through training in how to enforce the offence of coercive control would help in the drafting of future legislation to include seniors, but they still advised against including them at this stage, telling us precisely that there is a good chance it could backfire. I would like to hear your comments on that.
[English]
Ms. Campbell Pope: Thank you for the question. I think if there wasn’t the two-year delay for coming into force, that would be a principled position to take, to only do intimate partners now. But given that that provision would not come into force for two years, we have the time to prepare police, judges, prosecutors and the wider justice system for the elder abuse context. We have jurisdictions like England and Wales that have been doing this for over a decade, so we can draw on their experience in the next two years to get the justice system ready for the elder abuse context.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Prosper: Thank you to all of our witnesses here. Mr. Rahim, thank you for your submission. I want to get into a bit of your suggested amendment to include a factor dealing with prejudice or unreasonable delay to the administration of justice. It is not a replacement. It is just in addition to an additional factor. We heard testimony that delays are largely with the Crown or with the courts, and even testimony from the Criminal Lawyers’ Association and the Canadian Bar Association that don’t think that these alternative measures to a stay would withstand constitutional scrutiny and that they would not withstand a constitutional challenge. Can you explain why you think this particular section would remedy a constitutional challenge and maybe make it more in line with the Charter and a potential challenge in that regard?
Mr. Rahim: Certainly. In our view, the addition of this factor would not remove the main constitutional problem, which I described, which is Parliament legislating to overrule the Supreme Court of Canada on a judicial remedy under section 24(1). However, it would ensure that there are a set of factors proposed that are more inclusive and protective of Charter rights. We see in the test that’s been enumerated a number of factors that would likely weigh against the imposition of a stay or a serious remedy, such as the impact of a stay on the victim of an offence, society’s interest in having a final decision on the merits and so on. By including this factor, which was recognized as extant by the Supreme Court in Jordan, we are ensuring that broader concern around unreasonable delays in the justice system overall is still a valid consideration. If you have a system, for instance, where trials regularly take six, seven, eight years, whatever it might be, at some point that itself is a form of prejudice that should be considered when fashioning the remedy. I don’t think it is breaking any type of controversial ground, and is noted in response to the concerns with the individual privileges factor that existed prior to Jordan.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Ms. Campbell Pope, if I can elaborate with respect to the follow-up from Senator Oudar about having consideration for elderly people and the two cases with elders with dementia, underscores the need for consideration in this regard.
I take it that because we heard the reasons why not now, maybe later. You just provided, in your exchange with Senator Oudar, that this two-year period could be sufficient time to have considerations with respect to elderly persons. Are there any other factors that you think provide a distinction for not considering elders within the context of this bill?
Ms. Campbell Pope: The bill, as drafted, is appropriate for the elder abuse context. Many of the elements that are outlined in terms of the actions or the pattern of conduct would apply well to the elder abuse situation. So looking at control or attempting to control finances or property, that is one of the main techniques used by elder abusers: emotional manipulation, control and access to medication and health care. So all of those apply to a different degree in terms of if we were to sort of put them in what is most likely to happen — there are differences there. But the actions that would make that pattern are currently in Bill C-16.
I fail to see the principled reason why we are not including relatives at the outset.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Senator Simons: I have what I hope will be a quick question for Mr. Rahim and then a longer one for others.
You outlined very clearly in your remarks that a judicial stay is the minimum requirement, but what this legislation has for us is that it must be the remedy of last resort and that the courts are supposed to do something else.
Did I understand you to say that your analysis is that that “something else” would need a reference to the Supreme Court to figure out what the “something elses” might be?
Mr. Rahim: It would be necessary because the test, as it stands, which is binding constitutional law in Canada, is that a stay is the minimum remedy. If the government wishes for that to be revisited, it can either send off a reference or litigate the matter in section 11(b) cases as a party or intervener. That is a legal route available to take, in our view.
Senator Simons: Then I have a question that none of you addressed.
In terms of mandatory minimum sentences, the workaround there is that judges are not obliged to impose the mandatory minimum in cases where the sentence would be cruel and unusual punishment. That’s a very high bar. As I understand it, in Canada, a punishment is only considered cruel and unusual if it is grossly disproportionate, so severe and excessive that the average Canadian would find it abhorrent, intolerable and an outrage to the standards of decency.
How much latitude does this provision actually give the courts to not impose a mandatory minimum in a case where, as the hypothetical in Senneville was, it would obviously be a bad sentence, but it might not be an outrage to the standards of decency?
Mr. Rahim: In our view, it does give the court some latitude, as it corresponds to the language that is presently used when it is, let’s say, concerning a reasonable hypothetical under section 12.
Our view is that the main challenge with the safety valve — which has been proposed as a way to end the ping-pong between Parliament and the courts — the court was very clear when it suggested that the safety valve can’t prohibit, for instance — the court is able to impose any lesser sentence that might be appropriate, but because the safety valve still has a one-day imprisonment requirement, it is conceivable that that will lead to another round of litigation around the application of that standard to those kinds of situations. In prior jurisprudence, the court has held that a non-custodial sentence would be fit and proper. Our fear is that this is an attempt to resolve this issue, but that it will actually lead to another round of litigation on the standard.
Senator Simons: Ms. Coyle, do you have an analysis of this?
Ms. Coyle: Actually, we fully support CCLA’s suggested amendment on this particular piece, especially given what Mr. Rahim just said around the custodial requirement.
Senator Simons: Thank you both.
Senator Dalphond: Welcome to all the members of the panel. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us. My question is for you, Mr. Rahim.
In the brief that you presented in the House of Commons, you suggest that the government should amend the bill to ensure they refer the issue about delay to the Supreme Court, especially the stay orders. Before us now, you’re saying that you’re not asking for that anymore because it was not adopted by the other place. It’s interesting because often people come knocking on our door when things are not accepted in the other place.
What is the rationale behind it? Do you think that maybe it’s not that unconstitutional anymore or that it could fly if we had the suggestion of adding a new factor to the list?
Mr. Rahim: We certainly still support the idea of having a reference. If this committee wished to take that up, that is not something that we have changed our view on.
To be frank, it is a matter of, in part, political reality and calculus, knowing how, after an amendment comes from the other place to the Senate, as a body, and then be adopted, in our view, adding this factor is a way to improve the Charter orientation of this new proposed test. Certainly, I think what would have made a lot of sense here is allowing for that reference, in part because that would have avoided the inevitable confusion and litigation that will certainly result. We will have some courts saying this about the new proposal, other courts saying that, and appellate courts disagreeing. People are going to be in a state of flux.
Senator Dalphond: Thank you. My next question is about your position about access to therapeutic records.
You suggest that we keep the current test instead of the most stringent one proposed in the bill. What is the success rate for these applications to have access to the therapeutic records of the complainant? I think it is low.
Mr. Rahim: It is low, and we do cite some examples in our brief where courts have rejected those applications. I can even tell you, when I was in private practice, I did complainant side representation, and courts took a very thoughtful and nuanced approach to any of these applications being successful.
Senator Dalphond: We put that higher threshold here. Aren’t we making a major mistake if we consider that, on the other hand, many complainants don’t file complaints? A survey of 1,000 survivors of sexual assault showed that 12% were advised not to speak to a therapist because there could be an access to their records, and 20% wanted to speak to a counsellor but felt they shouldn’t because their records could be asked to be produced in court. Another group of survivors did not go to court; they did not file complaints or pursue their complaints because they were afraid of their therapeutic records being asked for and tabled in court. Sometimes that becomes a way for the defence to ensure that the complainant desists.
Do you think maybe we should revise the threshold and ensure that we will admit as little as possible and send a message to survivors that the trial will not be about them but about the accused?
Mr. Rahim: In our view, that is what the current regime does. For example, one of the factors in the current regime is determining what the effect on people’s willingness to come forward in situations where they have experienced sexual assault would be.
Our view is that you could codify additional factors, and you could modify the language if there is an issue, for example, with how victims or their counsel are perceiving the risk. But, of course, when we also look at the right to make a full answer in defence and the section 7 right that flows from that, Parliament has struck a good balance. There are ways to tinker with it, but raising it to this threshold carries the risks that we have alluded to, and I know others have as well.
Senator Dhillon: Ms. Coyle, I was going to start my question with you around pro-arrest and pro-charge approaches, but given your testimony so far, I think I will step back a little and come back to that, depending on where we land.
I want to pick up from my colleague’s commentary as well. Do you see any role the Criminal Code could play in protecting victims of intimate partner violence?
Ms. Coyle: I guess the challenge that we have right now is, on the side that we work on, which is in the prisons and the jails, we know that we have a system that is really not working, and it is not protecting the vulnerable people that we work with. In fact, it is harming them. I start from that perspective first.
Let’s say we had a magic wand, and we were able to wave it and say, actually, this whole system is working really well now, including how we criminalize our behaviour toward each other. Perhaps in that world, we could have really concrete conversations about what the role of the Criminal Code is in delineating how we talk to each other about how we cause harm.
Right now, we don’t have that. We have seen attempt after attempt to try to use the Criminal Code to address intimate partner violence. We have seen that is failing.
I look at, for example, the Mass Casualty Commission, which really examined coercive control in great detail, and they came up with many recommendations. A key recommendation for me is the government needs to move away from relying on carceral responses in dealing with coercive control and go toward primary prevention, which is what we’re all talking about here. Don’t we want to have a world in which people aren’t actually getting hurt so that we don’t have to respond to it, so that we can actually say the victims are in our minds first and foremost, and so we would rather that you were not a victim, right?
If you were a victim, then we need a system that works well, and currently, we don’t have that.
Senator Dhillon: On the basis that we don’t have a good system — I think everyone on this committee would agree with you, especially me — that not having anyone suffer violence in a relationship would be the ideal place. That is where we want to be.
Ms. Coyle: Yes, exactly.
Senator Dhillon: That is not the world we live in. So who comes to protect that partner who is living through violence in their daily life?
Ms. Coyle: Well, I wish we had days and days to discuss this. I would bring us back to several recommendations from the Mass Casualty Commission, which include things like risk assessments and taking steps to ensure that women are resourced so that they can leave.
If you are talking about immediate response at the moment when something is happening, there are a multitude of suggestions that have been made that do include police, but because police are the only resource that we have right now, that is what we default to. What are the other ways that we can bring true healing and safety to people?
We have seen examples in Indigenous communities where people have created safety circles. If they know a woman is experiencing intimate partner violence, they call on their safety circle and that person is taken to safety in a real way that is resourced.
But for communities where police don’t signal safety, they’re probably not going to call in the first place. We’re trying to figure out ways to ensure people are safe outside of the system that is currently harming them.
We don’t have a lot of time to talk about this, but there are answers that are out there if we were to examine them outside of the status quo. We just keep going back to the Criminal Code to solve these major, complex, social issues.
Senator Pate: My questions are for Mr. Rahim and Ms. Coyle. I want to zero in on CCLA’s brief. Both of you have already talked about some of the mandatory minimum issues.
Government witnesses acknowledged last week that there is no credible evidence that mandatory minimum penalties deter crime. We have that on the record. They’ve emphasized that, even though they don’t improve public safety, they’re needed, for reasons of denunciation, to send a message to Canadians.
Ms. Coyle in particular, you will know this story from going into the prisons. When we look at the fraction of perpetrators of violence against women who end up criminalized, most of them tend to be the most marginalized; and among Indigenous women in particular, the majority of the women criminalized for violent offences are responding to violence first perpetrated against them.
Can you think of more appropriate ways? I know that you may want to point to the amendments you have suggested to address this in more effective ways to send the message of denunciation, but also to ensure what you have already spoken about in terms of fairness of sentencing.
Mr. Rahim: Certainly, our view would be that a court is capable of sending a message of denunciation and deterrence without having a mandatory minimum sentence. The CCLA has always opposed and continues to oppose mandatory minimum sentences because we think that proportionality and case-specific analysis have to be at the heart of any sentencing defence.
Our view is that the present tools are there for those sentencing objectives to be achieved. For that reason, if there is an attempt to have this dialogue, which is an example of — I think — the appropriate dialogue between Parliament and the courts, then, at the very least, it should be one where we are not creating a new provision that will be the subject of a new round of constitutional litigation.
Senator Pate: Before you answer Ms. Coyle, would you propose extending the safety valve to include murder?
Mr. Rahim: At the moment, we don’t have a position on that. But our view is, at the very minimum, there should be any lesser sentence included.
Given our principles generally, regardless of the offence, our view is that mandatory provisions about sentence length are not the way to go.
Ms. Coyle: I agree with what Mr. Rahim has said in terms of the prior comments before the last question that you asked.
In particular, looking at this legislation, what concerns us is the first-degree mandatory minimum penalty for femicide. It takes away the judge’s ability to look at context. I think we’ve all talked about this a lot. We’re very concerned that, for the people we work with, this could have detrimental effects on them. There may be cases where manslaughter would have been more appropriate, but because it is not included in the safety valve currently, they would not be able to utilize that.
Senator Clement: Thank you all for your testimony and your careers.
Thank you, Mr. Rahim and Ms. Campbell Pope, for making strong arguments. I wish to signal to the committee members that I will be supporting any amendments that are made based on those arguments that you have made today.
Back in my days as a Legal Aid lawyer, I taught substitute decision making in the dementia studies program in college. Elder abuse and patterns of control are definitely linked and linked to what we’re talking about today. Thank you for that.
My question is for Ms. Coyle.
The gender-based analysis is heartbreaking when you look at this. You talk about the divide and the false binary between victim and accused. In your exchange with Senator Dhillon, you got into what we should be doing.
We are going to be legislating. This is going to go through. I have been here for five years. The government keeps legislating. It is going to keep doing that.
What isn’t the government doing most urgently? We have an Indigenous Justice Strategy, a Black Justice Strategy, and a Mass Casualty Commission report.
Ms. Coyle: Yes.
Senator Clement: We have a mounting number of reports that are giving specific recommendations. What is most urgent for the government to be doing in addition to legislating? Because we can walk and chew gum at the same time in this country.
Ms. Coyle: When it comes to coercive control and the lives of women and gender-diverse people, there is a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence that we took considerable time to develop as feminists in this country. We want to ensure that the National Action Plan is fully resourced and that there is a way to analyze how it is being carried out across the country. At the moment, the National Action Plan is being carried out with the provinces and territories, but there is no federal mechanism of accountability toward those specific recommendations.
There have been recommendations to have the gender-based violence commissioner, for example, take on the National Action Plan recommendations and ensure that they are being followed because all of the conversations that we had with Senator Oudar and Senator Miville-Dechêne, these are considered in the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.
We can get at what works. We have had these conversations before. So if we could, certainly I would also recommend that this committee consider an observation when you bring this bill back to the House of Commons that victims’ rights legislation, like this bill purports to be, has to reflect the lived realities of those most impacted, including the significant overlap between victimization and criminalization among the women and gender-diverse people that we work with. That would be one recommendation that I would recommend as well.
Senator Clement: Thank you.
The Chair: Colleagues, that brings to a conclusion the evidence from this panel.
Thank you to all of the witnesses who attended here today to help us and for sharing your experience and observations. Your testimony is immensely helpful to us as we consider this government legislation.
For our second panel, we have with us in the room Miriane Bergeron, Project Manager for a Rapid Response Team. Thank you for coming. Via videoconference, we have Alison Irons, as an individual; and Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Research, from the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan, PATHS.
I am going to ask the witnesses to give a four-minute overview. The most important thing is the questions from the senators overall. You can set your context in that way. I would ask you to be succinct.
First we will hear from Ms. Bergeron, Ms. Irons and then Ms. Giesbrecht.
[Translation]
Miriane Bergeron, Project Manager for a Rapid Response Team, as an Individual: Good afternoon, senators. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.
I experienced the criminal justice system first-hand seven years ago. I was a victim of assault, forcible confinement and death threats. Those charges were very real and serious, and yet, they represent merely a snapshot from a long horror film that unfolded over several years.
What gradually eroded my freedom and security during that period of my life was not limited to a few isolated incidents, quite the contrary. It was a daily reality characterized by violent, deliberate, calculated and strategic behaviours. Coercive control is not a series of dramatic acts. When taken individually, these behaviours may seem insignificant or innocuous. Taken together, they become a powerful system of domination.
When you’re a victim of controlling behaviour, you question absolutely everything. You adapt to the other person. You watch what you say, what you do and even what you think, because every part of you can become a source of conflict. Bit by bit, you just stop being yourself. You set aside your personality, your independence and your freedom. You fade away, not by choice, but out of fear.
Violence experienced in these contexts often goes unnoticed, without those close to the victim being fully aware of it, without the authorities always being able to properly assess it and without the system being able to intervene before it’s too late. Coercive control kills, and our system needs to recognize it for what it is, namely, a form of violence in its own right.
I currently work on the front lines in homicide prevention within the context of domestic violence. This experience allows me to see, on a daily basis, the importance of coercive control in assessing homicide risk. Behind every risk factor lies a history, often a long and complex one, that does not always leave visible marks or produce evidence that is easily proven.
I was able to survive my own personal experience. My professional experience reminds me every day just how essential it is to pass Bill C-16 to bring those measures into our system if we want to save those women who are still alive.
Behind every femicide lies a history that began long before the fatal act. Today, I would like to give a voice to those women who recognized the danger, who put their fears into words, but whose reality was not acknowledged in time. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you. We will now hear from Ms. Alison Irons.
Alison Irons, as an individual: Good afternoon. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak today.
I am the mother of 26-year-old Lindsay Margaret Wilson, born on July 30, 1986, my precious daughter and best friend, stalked and shot to death by her ex-intimate partner in a murder-suicide on April 5, 2013, in Bracebridge, Ontario, just two weeks before completing her Nipissing University graduating exams. I received her degree posthumously, and drove home from North Bay with a degree but no graduate.
This is a story of coercive control that did become a femicide in Canada. My daughter’s killer was never violent with her until the day he killed her. He was clean-cut, articulate and from a well-to-do family of professionals. He was also frequently manipulative, deceptive and controlling with my daughter. He’d call her the love of his life but undermine her self-confidence by criticizing her looks, her career and clothing choices.
She left the relationship for the first time when she caught him drug dealing behind her back; another manipulation: a massive lie. He was not who he purported to be.
He lured her back with apologies and manipulative letters declaring his love for her, with inevitable promises of changed behaviour. Three times he threatened suicide by a firearm to keep her with him.
She hid two of his suicide threats from me, as she knew how I’d react. We must understand that threats of suicide to keep someone in a relationship are a form of coercive control, since they terrify the recipient of the threats into staying. She then caught him drug-dealing again and broke off the relationship for good in 2011.
In January 2012, he threatened to commit gun suicide over a period of three hours on the phone with her. She severed all contact with him. She was terrified of going to the police for fear of reprisal. We were afraid of getting a restraining order, because I knew, as an ex-police officer, that its service on him might be the very thing that tipped him over the edge into violence. I also knew that if he showed up at her door with a gun, it would be too late to get help.
She never imagined he’d actually harm her. The police later told me that he’d have found her wherever she lived.
The week of her murder, he stalked her to find out where she was living. On Friday, he hid behind the house and confronted her with a shotgun in the driveway. While she pled for her life, he shot her with both pellets and slugs at close range, centre body mass — an obviously fatal injury, and what the Crown and the police called a clear case of first-degree murder. She survived for only about 20 minutes. She told paramedics that she knew she was dying, which is a horrifying thing for a mother to live with.
My daughter’s murder has caused me to lobby for more first-degree murder charges to be laid in cases of femicide. Far too many femicides in Canada are charged as second-degree murder because these often result in an easy guilty plea, sometimes bail, a shorter sentence and earlier release. This increases the risk of recidivism. I know of two cases currently where the killer will eventually get out and will, in all probability, kill another woman.
As far as I’m concerned, this tendency to charge second-degree murder in femicide cases in Canada, for the justice system’s convenience, is discriminatory to women as a collective. It also concerns me that systemic sexism plays a part. It’s all too easy, especially in a stabbing or beating death, for the killer to say, “She provoked me,” “She made me do it,” or “I lost it,” and be believed, resulting in a second-degree charge of murder, when the only person who can actually confirm this defence is the deceased victim herself.
I’ve also lobbied for a criminal coercive control offence, since I learned that England, Scotland and Wales each have one. Initially, while police were laying charges, 50% of coercive control cases were failing in court because judges and defence counsel demanded evidence of prior violence. This completely mischaracterized coercive behaviour, which is typically non‑violent.
Now, with experience and education, these cases are faring better in English and Welsh courts. From its inception in 2016, when fewer than 200 charges were laid, approximately 5,000 were in 2024. In that year, 853 persons were convicted of the offence and 832 were men — leaving only 2% that were women or otherwise gender-identified. However, these numbers represent only a small proportion of the total number of police cases reported.
This demands that the education of the Canadian criminal justice system regarding coercive control be an absolute necessity before the implementation of this bill. Abused women are at greater risk of harm or fatality if such charges fail in court because the justice system doesn’t understand non-violent coercive control as a stepping stone to eventual violence.
I firmly believe, as an ex-police officer, that a conviction for coercive control in one’s criminal history will serve as an evidentiary building block to corroborate any future pattern of behaviour that might progress to violence, or worse, femicide, with first-degree murder charges able to be charged.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Irons.
We will now hear from Ms. Giesbrecht from the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan, or PATHS.
Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Research, Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan: Good day. I’m pleased to add the perspective of PATHS, which is the member association for domestic violence shelters and services in Saskatchewan.
PATHS and our member agencies support legislating a Criminal Code offence of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner and wish to see Bill C-16 pass to bring about this necessary change in Canadian law. I will focus on the coercive control provisions in Bill C-16.
I conduct research with survivors of intimate partner violence and coercive control and service providers in Saskatchewan. Without exception, PATHS member agencies, as well as survivors and professionals who have participated in PATHS research, have expressed support for criminalizing coercive and controlling conduct in the context of intimate relationships.
We suggest expanding this definition to include engaging in a combination of repeated instances of any of the other forms of conduct listed if the victim states that they believe, or that the behaviour could reasonably be expected to cause the victim to believe, that their safety or the safety of someone else, including their animal, is threatened or they have experienced distress, disruption to their life or an adverse effect on their day-to-day activities. This would allow accountability for coercive or controlling conduct that disrupts victims’ daily lives, regardless of whether the behaviour could be expected to cause victims to believe that there is a threat to safety.
Second, we recommend including manipulation of the victim’s vulnerabilities as another possible form of coercive or controlling conduct as opposed to being considered separately under circumstances. Although this provides guidance on an area that may be considered rather than a mandatory element that must be present, we feel this change would keep the focus on the behaviour of the perpetrator and limit the evaluation of the victim’s circumstances of vulnerability in the court’s determination of whether the perpetrator engaged in coercive control.
Third, we recommend an amendment to state that, when a person is convicted of an offence under section 264.1, the court will make an order prohibiting the offender from contacting the intimate partner or any child or other person affected by the conduct unless satisfied that the order is not necessary for the safety or protection of the victim, any child, other person or animal affected by the conduct.
Fourth, we recommend an amendment to establish training guidelines and programs for legal system professionals in consultation with provinces and territories, police, intimate partner violence and coercive control experts and organizations that work with victims and survivors, and to require monitoring and reporting on training implementation.
The section pertaining to coercive or controlling conduct is set to come into force two years after Royal Assent; therefore, training for professionals must take place during this period to ensure effective and informed responses when the legislation comes into force. Professionals who will require training on coercion or control of an intimate partner and the new offence will include police and lawyers. Training should also be made available to judges.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate PATHS’s support and the support of our member agencies for Bill C-16. It is urgent and necessary that Canada legislate a Criminal Code offence of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner, and we hope to see the protecting victims act become law in Canada.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Giesbrecht.
Senator Batters: Thank you to all of you for being here and your compelling stories. It adds a lot to our understanding of Bill C-16 to see the real faces of people who are impacted. Thank you for all your work in not only helping victims but also continuing the legacy of people like Ms. Irons’ daughter.
My first question is to Ms. Irons. Thank you for your compelling testimony and for all of your work in your daughter Lindsay’s memory.
My Conservative caucus colleagues and I have supported strong consequences for abusers. How important do you think it is for victims to see clear and consistent sentencing outcomes? Do you think that allowing courts to go below mandatory minimum sentences would undermine victims’ confidence in the justice system?
Ms. Irons: Thank you for your question. It occurs to me, and it may not be a direct response, but when the previous panel was speaking, everybody was talking about life sentences as something perhaps inappropriate as a mandatory minimum in the case of femicide, but not one of them mentioned the fact that there are conditions attached to that in Bill C-16. So, in fact, a first-degree murder charge could only be laid if evidence could be established that there had been a prior pattern of abuse, harassment, violence or injury. I just didn’t want anyone left with the impression that there aren’t already qualifiers written into the legislation for that requirement.
Again, not quite directly, but I can tell you of a case that is ongoing right now in St. Thomas. It was a femicide of a young woman of 22. Her boyfriend — I hate to call him that — her partner — what has come out in court this week is that he used a hammer, and the pathologist said that she had 200 injuries to her body. Because of the nature of it — he beat her to death — he was charged with second-degree murder. He left her body in the house for two days without reporting to anybody. After those two days, somehow 911 arrived at the house. I’m not quite sure how. But he was able to produce several little notes that he had written, since he had killed her to say, “I killed my best friend. How did I do this? Oh, my god. I’m so shocked. She did this —”. Of course, a lot of victim blaming. There was an “apparent” suicide attempt in which he cut his wrist, went to the hospital, was discharged with a bandage, and then was subsequently arrested.
Forgive me for my skepticism and as an ex-cop, but he had two days to fabricate that evidence. You tell me, because, again, he has been charged — I’m sorry; I am emotional. It is very difficult for me to talk about my daughter.
So he is charged with second-degree murder. Depending on how good a job the prosecutor does, he will probably get 10 to 15 years. He is one of the people who will get out and kill another woman. I am sure of that.
I have probably strayed far from your question, Senator Batters.
Senator Batters: Ms. Irons, I very much understand a little bit of what you are going through. I was the critic for Bill C-14, and, at second reading, I gave a speech in the Senate Chamber, where I spoke about a personal experience of my former legal assistant, who was murdered by her ex-husband. His conviction was also for second-degree murder, though he strangled her for two minutes before he killed her. So I very much understand what you are speaking about, and I agree with you. Thank you very much for appearing here today.
I probably don’t have any time left. Second round, if there is a chance, so I could ask the Saskatchewan witness a question. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I would like to begin by thanking Ms. Irons for her very moving testimony. My questions are for Miriane Bergeron. You talked about the physical violence that you endured, but also the accusations of psychological violence. In this context, we are talking about coercive control, which obviously goes beyond physical violence. Can you tell us, if it’s not too painful, how many years that lasted? How did the physical violence unfold? How did you realize that none of it made sense?
Ms. Bergeron: It went on for seven years. I can describe the physical violence, simply because I know that, in the eyes of the law, that’s the kind of violence that is visible and recognized. It’s the one that is detectable and punishable under the law. However, it’s quite clear that if physical violence occurs, it is because coercive control is already deeply ingrained in the relationship.
How did it unfold? It builds up over many years. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s insidious. It really unfolds as one behaviour at a time. Perpetrators try one behaviour and if it’s accepted, they try another. It’s really about restricting freedom. It’s as simple as that. It’s about preventing someone from going certain places. I was isolated from my family. It wasn’t a matter of him saying, “You can’t go there.” It was more about convincing me that my family wasn’t necessarily good for me. He would tell me that my family thought he wasn’t a good partner for me. He led me to certain conclusions that weren’t my own. He’s the one who got me to think certain things. There were all kinds of behaviours, such as public belittling and humiliation, which led me to restrict my own behaviour. You suffer reprisals for everything you say and do, so you simply stop saying and doing anything.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Did you realize what was happening at the time? How long did it last? How did the sequence of events unfold?
Ms. Bergeron: I think some victims don’t realize until years later. Many victims don’t understand the full extent of the situation they’re in. It takes a great deal of reflection to realize the extent of the control. I didn’t realize it until years later when I had to recount the behaviours linked to the events I was reporting. For example, the night I was forcibly confined, I wasn’t allowed to get dressed, or sleep or drink, even though I was thirsty. He asked me to go get a glass of water, but I wasn’t allowed to take a sip, because I had to bring that glass of water to him. I was thirsty, but I was so afraid of the consequences if he realized I’d had a sip that I didn’t drink any. It’s really because of the fear of dying that we don’t take action or do anything, but we don’t realize that until years later.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Did the physical violence start right away, or did it follow after the psychological violence?
Ms. Bergeron: The physical violence started later. If there is physical violence, there is definitely psychological violence. That is undeniable. Physical violence occurs once you’re already under someone’s control. If you weren’t under their control and an incident of physical violence occurred, you’d leave that person. The control is already in place by the time physical violence occurs, which is why victims stay and go back.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: You filed a complaint. How did you find the strength to decide and say to yourself, “I can’t take it anymore, I’m filing a complaint”?
Ms. Bergeron: I very nearly died that night. I think I could have been another femicide statistic. I was threatened with a weapon and assaulted for nearly eight hours. Fortunately, there were witnesses in the house where everything happened. I think that’s why it didn’t end in homicide. I’m sorry if I’m losing my train of thought a bit.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I understand. Once the case was before the court, were your psychological injuries taken into account or only your physical injuries?
Ms. Bergeron: I see myself as a perfect victim, because I had photos of my physical injuries. I also had lots of text messages containing explicit death threats. I was fortunate to have evidence that was undeniable. However, some charges were dropped because of a lack of concrete evidence. Even when some evidence exists, we’re all aware of the burden of proof in criminal cases.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have one last quick question. Now that you’re working on issues relating to violence against women, you’ve no doubt come across the offence of coercive control. Does this remind you of what you went through? Do you think it’s realistic or is anything missing?
Ms. Bergeron: I think it’s very realistic. I think it will require a huge amount of documentation. Everyone knows that so much needs to be documented in order to build a case. I think it will certainly help victims who are afraid to come forward. I believe that, for most victims, even if they haven’t yet experienced physical violence, what they are experiencing is entirely valid. Yes, I think Bill C-16 will save lives.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you.
Senator Oudar: Ms. Bergeron, as the sponsor of the bill, I too wish to commend you for what you are doing today. I also want to commend Ms. Irons. I admire your courage. You have both gone through extremely difficult situations. You are here with us today. Ms. Bergeron, you work on the front lines in the area of domestic violence.
Ms. Irons, you said earlier that it’s horrible for a mother to lose her daughter, but that it’s what drives you to continue to advocate, to try to save lives. Thank you very much.
I’d like to ask both of you about an opinion expressed by the third witness, who said that it was urgent and necessary to pass Bill C-16.
Ms. Bergeron: Yes, absolutely, it is urgent. I work for a rapid response unit specializing in the prevention of domestic homicides. In our homicide risk assessment, what we often find is that the level of monitoring and control is incredibly high, and it’s hard to recognize.
For example, it’s hard to identify criminal harassment. It takes a lot to lay criminal harassment charges, and yet it’s really easy for an abuser to harass their partner without it necessarily being considered a criminal offence. So yes, most definitely, there is an urgent need to pass the bill.
Control is the primary risk factor for homicide in cases of domestic violence. When a risk assessment form is completed, often if control is identified, we consider there to be a risk of homicide. It’s that simple. So yes, the bill needs to be passed quickly.
Senator Oudar: Thank you, Ms. Bergeron. Ms. Irons?
[English]
Ms. Irons: I, of course, am of the same view. In my personal capacity, I help a lot of young women in this situation as well as bereaved parents getting ready for court on the trial of their child’s murderer. A young woman reached out to me last night because she will have to testify in court against her abuser, and she sent me photographs of her face that would horrify you.
As the previous witness just said, that type of behaviour had to have been preceded by other forms of control and violence. Hearing the piece about the two-year implementation of this portion of the bill deeply concerns me. At the same time, I recognize, for example, one tool that we already have on the books but have not yet implemented is the protection order provision that was contained in Bill C-21 and was subsequently enacted. Apparently, regulations have to be developed. The Canada Gazette announcement has gone out, but two years after that bill was enacted, we still have not operationalized the provision that if the abuser is the subject of a protection order — and we hope to include other kinds of orders, like peace bonds and so forth — there will be an immediate check as to whether that person is a gun owner and holds a gun licence; and if so, the gun and the gun licence will be immediately forfeited for the duration of the protection order. A protection order can be up to two years. We now have that tool at our disposal that the government has not yet implemented. That infuriates me. I gave evidence on that bill. When I hear, again, this two-year implementation period for the coercive control criminal offence here — I had overlooked that part in the legislation — I’m very concerned because I know so many young women already in this situation.
Senator Prosper: Thank you to all of our witnesses. Ms. Irons and Ms. Bergeron, being here takes strength and courage, and sharing your stories and experiences helps not only senators around this table but so many others who are listening in. It allows them to reflect. It amazes me how resilient the human spirit is and how it thrives on helping people overcome similar challenges. I just want to recognize that.
There were words, I think, Ms. Bergeron, you mentioned about systemic sexism. Ms. Irons, you mentioned victim blaming. It is one thing to have a law, and let’s hope this isn’t like Bill C-21 that you mentioned earlier, Ms. Irons, that it is enacted, as it should be, as drafted.
In terms of implementation, obviously, there is a need for law enforcement and other relevant courts and things of that nature to be informed about coercive control, one of which is the substance of this bill. Ms. Bergeron and Ms. Irons, are there one or two things that you would like to highlight with respect to the need to ensure that there are appropriate training and things of that nature?
[Translation]
Ms. Bergeron: Thank you for your kind words. It really is important to support the cause. I often use my story to help advance the cause; it’s really one of my personal challenges.
The police forces and health care system already provide training for the rapid response units. The criminal and penal prosecutions department have people who are trained in the prevention of intimate partner homicides.
I believe that our main focus should be the judiciary. Obviously, I think that training the judiciary would be very beneficial for victims. I understand the role of judges and also all the issues that come with it.
However, I truly believe it is important for the judiciary to at least be aware of the main risk factors in cases of intimate partner homicide, because there are many. I also believe that it is the accumulation of several factors that creates a high-risk situation, and that is what makes it difficult to detect.
There will never be enough training; there needs to be even more. Everyone in the system should be trained. Police forces are already in the process of undergoing training, but there certainly needs to be more. We need to be more alert to these situations, because we’re talking about coercive control, and it’s invisible. It takes time to recognize and identify coercive control. It’s unrealistic to think that everyone will be able to spot it. There really will need to be much more training, but ultimately, I would say that our main priority is the judiciary.
[English]
Ms. Irons: There was another case in which a little three‑year-old girl was with her non-custodial father. He took her to a conservation area where there is a bridge over a large gorge, and somehow the little girl ended up dead with her father at the bottom of the gorge. The police investigation that happened with the Jewish Children’s Aid Society’s involvement after the fact found that it was an accidental death. The mother, who is a peer of mine, had tried very hard to convince the police and the Children’s Aid Society that, in fact, this was a custodial dispute and that he had deliberately jumped off the bridge with his three‑year-old daughter that day.
As a result of that case, there was a new law — and I’m sorry, I can’t cite the number or name of that act — called Keira’s Law, which demanded that, in cases of custodial disputes, that judges, Crown counsels and defence counsels must be educated on the fact that, very often in a custody case, a judge will find, right now, that just because the male was abusing his wife doesn’t necessarily mean he would harm the child.
We have seen too many cases in Canada — including a case one or two years ago in Harrow — where the man murdered his wife and killed all three children. We saw the same thing happen up in Sault Ste. Marie.
So judges — and I think they’re still predominantly male — have to be made to understand this dynamic of coercive control.
As my peer on the panel just said, that’s a very, very big task, but if we don’t do it well and properly, we will see what Britain had in the first year, where 50% of the cases were failing in court.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Senator Simons: Ms. Irons, I cannot thank you enough for your courage in speaking to us today. I am the mother of one daughter, and your testimony just gutted me.
I want to draw not just on your expertise as a mother and a survivor, but as a police officer. You mentioned your daughter tried to go to the police for help and was told that because there was no history of violence, there was nothing they could do, and she was afraid to get a restraining order.
What needs to be done? Charging people with first-degree murder is significantly less satisfying than protecting women before a homicide occurs. What needs to be done to educate police officers — your former peers — to understand how to respond to cases of coercive control? If police officers don’t understand the new offence, and if they don’t understand the steps that lead to disaster, we won’t get arrests, much less convictions.
Ms. Irons: It occurred to me a few moments ago that the Domestic Violence Review Death Committee in Ontario, which is a body of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, had a tool — developed in consultation with experts — that identifies that there must be about 28 different risk factors.
Another parent of a murdered daughter in Muskoka, Dawn Novak, would go out and train police officers and prosecutors on the use of that risk assessment tool. I don’t know if she still does that. That’s the sort of thing that would be a very good indicator of possible future violence.
The coroner’s report on my daughter’s death was very hard reading. I must tell you, my daughter and I were talking all the way through this relationship. The number of times I pointed out to her the risk of firearms and alcohol in the house and what were purported to be mental health problems, although none were established at the time of her murder. The police did speak to her doctors, and there was no indication of mental health issues or intoxication of any kind.
The restraining order piece, as I said, I had the experience, as a police officer, of knowing clients or members of the public, women, who got a restraining order. As I say, the service of that restraining order on the abuser was the very thing that tipped them into further violence.
It was interesting, when I testified in the lead-up to Bill C-21, the first piece was red flag orders, if you remember. An emergency risk order is only good for 30 days. I kept insisting that that’s not going to help a woman who is experiencing violence in the home; not only that, you couldn’t extend that order; you had to go back to court and make a new application.
That’s when the Ministry of Public Safety Canada came up with this notion around protection orders — what in my day were called “restraining orders” — whereby if the male has a restraining order or a protection order against him, then, for example, there is an immediate search for any guns and gun licences. Those are the sorts of concrete tools that can actually help women.
I’m just making a suggestion to the committee that you may want to contact the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee in Ontario and take a look at the tool they use to assess risk.
It was very difficult for me to read. There was a grid in that report with the boxes ticked off for all the prior indicators that were there before Lindsay’s femicide.
Senator Simons: Ms. Giesbrecht, I have time for one question. One of the other challenges — I know this being from Alberta — is in rural communities, and especially northern communities, there simply aren’t shelter beds or social workers to help women fleeing domestic abuse. What more needs to be done — from the point of view of transition houses and battered women’s shelters — to ensure women have a safe place to go, a way to get out of a domestic violence situation and have a safe place to live?
Ms. Giesbrecht: Yes. Absolutely. Shelters, domestic violence services and outreach programs are providing a necessary service and keeping victims and their children safe, but there are often waiting lists. We know there is a significant distance for rural, remote and northern women to travel to those services.
At the same time that we’re considering legislative provisions to prevent and to better deal with intimate partner violence and coercive control, we need to be funding more of those services that will provide support in the interim when the emergency is happening. More funding and more provision of services, but also thinking more creatively about how we can have outreach available in more areas, especially those areas where it is a further distance from shelter.
Also, thinking of how survivors can be supported to stay in their homes, with their children and their animals, close to their community, their extended family and their cultural support, while perhaps the perpetrator is the one who leaves the home. I think so often the default assumption is that survivors have to leave to be safe. Sometimes it is the only option, but we really need to consider how survivors can stay at home, where they are not the ones being penalized and further disadvantaged because the assumption is they must leave if they want to be safe.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
Senator Pate: Thank you to all of our witnesses. It is heartbreaking to hear about all of these realities and the losses, especially when it involves loss of life, loss of spirit and emotional, mental and physical integrity, as you have described, Ms. Bergeron.
In the work I mentioned earlier that I did — particularly with Professor Elizabeth Sheehy, a professor emeritus, and probably one of the leading scholars on sexual abuse and coercive control — one of the things we developed was a course on defending battered women on trial. We recognize that poor women, racialized women, and women who have had, relatively, the least amount of privilege were also — all women, as you have all mentioned — often did not experience support and protection. The more they were seen as not fitting into a White, middle-class-norm victim description, they were more likely to not be protected and, when they acted to protect themselves and/or their children, were more likely to be criminalized. So we developed this course to deal with that.
One of the things that became very clear very quickly — as the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls outlined — the only thing we generally offer those of you who have been victimized is criminal law responses. And yet the MMIWG, the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime, and all of the women we worked with, talked about what they needed were housing and income supports, and social and health supports. And I’m just curious as to how much of those kinds of supports have been offered to your organizations as ways to address these issues, in addition to this criminal law response? Ms. Bergeron, would you like to start?
[Translation]
Ms. Bergeron: I’d like to better understand your question. Could you please repeat the last part of your question so that I may better understand what you want to know?
[English]
Senator Pate: Sure. Oftentimes, when we’re talking about violence against women, the response that’s offered is a criminal law response when, in fact, there is ample evidence that the criminal law has not responded well in the ways that you’ve all described. If you know something is happening and you try to get a restraining order, you may not get it. There may be a presumption that you are at fault. You may feed that, not intentionally but because you have been socialized, as so many women are, to believe that you’re partly responsible. How often have you been offered other responses, as Ms. Giesbrecht identified?
There are some examples in some Indigenous communities where the person is taken out of the home. When you are kept in your home, you have housing and income supports and the sorts of things that allow you to more likely escape those situations than just having the criminal law response. How often has that been offered to you?
[Translation]
Ms. Bergeron: Thank you very much. The fact is that very few victims go to court, precisely because they so rarely receive a positive response. We run into refusals from law enforcement, for example. If we wanted the man to leave the home. . . . That’s not possible. There’s definitely a lack of services for these victims if we want to get them to safety quickly. We were talking earlier about how shelters are underfunded and how few places are available. I currently work at a shelter, and I can tell you that we’re always at 97% capacity, all the time. There’s no room. We have to turn women away. When women call, it’s because they need a place immediately — not next week or in two months; they need a place right now.
What can we offer them? We can offer them support and refer them to CLSCs. However, they need to leave the home. That’s what will ensure their safety. We often recommend civil protection orders, but those come with a fee. We often come across women who are victims of financial abuse and who can’t afford a civil protection order because of the costs involved. I’m not really answering your question, in the sense that we have very few solutions to offer if the justice system isn’t handling these issues. Thank you.
[English]
Senator Pate: Would Ms. Irons or Ms. Giesbrecht like to add?
Ms. Irons: In Ontario, we had a movement to have femicide or intimate partner violence declared an epidemic in Ontario when over 100 municipalities had already done so. The Premier of Ontario refused to even make that statement.
We had a day at the legislature, when about 300 of us went to try and influence the vote on the motion. The person who was speaking for the Premier, who wasn’t in the house, cited the number of dollars that the government had provided in the last year for these women’s organizations and shelters and so forth but, in doing so, of course, did not accurately represent the fact that what they had really done was cut the funding. Funding is a major issue, at least here in Ontario.
Often, in Durham Region, where I live, there are no beds available. The shelters or social services provide hotel rooms for women who need to get out of their situation. One of those women happened to be one of my daughter’s best friends, whom I counselled and helped a lot when she was in a coercive control relationship. She was very afraid. She had three children. They put her up in a hotel. She said, “I have to get out of here. I can’t stay here because I can’t live in a hotel room with my three children,” one of whom was a baby. That was a completely inadequate and temporary solution, so funding is key.
Frankly, I have to say that, many times in Ontario, when the current government has not stepped up to address a critical need, the federal government has stepped in. This may be one area that the federal government has to take a look at, whether there is supplementary or other funding. I can’t speak as to whether there already is. It can be given to the provinces — although we don’t necessarily trust that at the moment — to provide for more beds.
There are no beds in this region for women who need to get out of their houses. In saying that, by the way, I wholeheartedly support what Ms. Giesbrecht has said: that the woman should have never had to leave her home in the first place.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Clement: Thank you to all the witnesses.
Ms. Irons, thank you for saying your daughter’s name. It is important to have her name said on the record — Lindsay Margaret. Clearly, she was a brilliant person, a graduate from Nipissing University. Thank you for your advocacy with the provincial legislature as well. That was important, what you just stated in response to Senator Pate’s question.
[Translation]
I have a question for you, Ms. Bergeron. I’d also like to thank you for your testimony. You said that victims stop being themselves. Last week, the committee heard from Ms. Cooke. She spoke about the sense of loss of the joyful person she was before going through what she endured with her partner. So what you said is very powerful.
I’d like to understand, because there’s a proposal to amend Bill C-16 regarding the notice given about the accused’s potential release. Do you think it would be a worthwhile change if there were a requirement to inform the victim of the accused’s release?
Ms. Bergeron: I honestly thought that was already a requirement. I thought it was something that —
Senator Clement: It was consistent, so the amendment would be at the federal level, to ensure it is the same everywhere.
Ms. Bergeron: I think that, when it comes to victim safety, first and foremost, the danger doesn’t disappear just because the perpetrator is released. On the contrary: I think that when an offender is released, victims are victimized all over again; they are forced to relive their trauma and experience all the anxiety, fear and so on once more. I do think, of course, that it would be important — and essential — for victims to be informed when an offender is released.
What we often see in the prevention of domestic homicides is a failure to comply with conditions. For us, this is a major issue. Rapid releases are another. Arrests often occur, but the perpetrators are released the same day or the very next day. This is a very critical situation. When offenders are released, rapid response teams are forced to develop an immediate action plan, and such releases occur in most rapid response units. The priority is to ensure the victim’s safety and to put safety nets in place for the victim, the children and loved ones. This affects many people. However, yes, it is essential that victims be notified of the inmate’s release.
Senator Clement: Thank you.
[English]
I do not know if Ms. Irons or the other witness want to comment on bail notification.
Ms. Irons: I’m in complete agreement. With the notion of bail, I want to remind senators of the horrific killing of a woman that happened in Kelowna only a few months ago, where the abuser was to go to court for having tried to strangle her. He was released with conditions, and within hours he killed her using a hammer on the street while bystanders tried to intervene. So, yes, this is a big issue. These early releases or bail conditions, et cetera, don’t protect the victim from harm.
The Chair: Ms. Giesbrecht, do you have an additional comment?
Ms. Giesbrecht: I will confirm that I also agree that victims should absolutely be notified, and that provision should be mandatory.
The Chair: Thank you.
Thank you, colleagues. I wish to thank Ms. Giesbrecht for her work in prevention in the province of Saskatchewan. In particular, I wish to say to Ms. Bergeron and Ms. Irons that we really appreciate your courage and strength to come before us here with your tragic stories. I thank you for the important work you do in the community and the commitment you have to prevention and community support.
I can assure you that your compelling testimony etches in the memories of the Senate, those who heard this testimony, but all those who were watching and listening online.
Senators, you will notice I did not intervene during some of this testimony because I thought it more important not to interrupt the flow, but, more importantly, it is another symptom of trying to do a study on an expedited matter when you have such compelling testimony and so little time to actually complete the work.
With that, I thank all of the witnesses for coming today. I also thank my colleagues for their consideration here as well.
Our next meeting will be tomorrow, Tuesday, June 16 at 9 a.m., in Room 120, located in the Wellington Building. During that time, we intend to begin clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-16. I am to mention that senators should contact the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel should they wish to bring forward amendments. Please ensure you discuss any amendments as soon as possible with the counsels assigned to the bill, Ms. Anne Burgess and Mr. Philippe Giguère. Members are also encouraged to share their amendments with the clerk as soon as possible.
(The committee adjourned.)