THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 10, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 4:18 p.m. [ET] to study Bill C-225, An Act to amend the Criminal Code.
Senator Rosemary Moodie (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Senators, welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. My name is Rosemary Moodie. I’m a senator from Ontario and chair of this committee.
Now I would like to do a round table and have senators introduce themselves.
Senator Burey: Sharon Burey, Ontario. Welcome.
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Senator Boudreau: Victor Boudreau from New Brunswick.
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Senator Arnold: Dawn Arnold, also from New Brunswick.
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Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc from Quebec.
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Senator Martin: Yonah Martin from British Columbia.
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Senator Cuzner: Rodger Cuzner from Nova Scotia.
[English]
The Chair: Today, the committee begins its consideration of Bill C-225, An Act to amend the Criminal Code.
Before we welcome our witness, I would like to provide a content warning for this meeting. Today, we will be discussing experiences related to intimate partner violence. This might be triggering to people in the room with us as well as to those watching and listening to the broadcast. Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 9-8-8. For those of us in the room, should you need support during this meeting, a counsellor from Homewood Health is here with us today. At any time during the meeting, please signal to the page or the clerk and we will connect you.
Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the 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.
Now I would like to proceed to introduce the witnesses in our first panel.
We have the pleasure of welcoming the Honourable Senator Fabian Manning as sponsor of the bill in the Senate, and Mr. Frank Caputo, Member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, British Columbia, sponsor of the bill. Thank you for joining us today.
For your opening statements, you will each have five minutes, followed by questions from committee members.
Hon. Senator Fabian Manning, sponsor of the bill, as an individual: I want to thank the committee for taking time this afternoon to hear from us.
As we all know, Bill C-225 is before you this afternoon, and we certainly hope that any questions and concerns you have regarding the bill will be raised here today. MP Caputo, the sponsor of the bill in the House of Commons, and I hope that you will find it in your wisdom to pass the bill.
Intimate partner violence is all about control, and that was a major factor behind the development of Bill C-225. When it comes to statistics on intimate partner violence in Canada, the numbers are staggering, even for the small number of incidents that do get reported to police. We must remember that police believe that less than 10% of incidents are reported to the police.
The total number of cases of intimate partner violence reported to police in 2024 across the country was 128,175. The number of homicides related to intimate partner violence grew in large numbers, and 79% of the cases were women and girls.
Issues of intimate partner violence are very high in Indigenous communities and in the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
I just want to remind those of the words of Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general:
Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And, it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.
This bill is not about MP Caputo or me or any of us here at this table. It is not about anyone else in the other place. Bill C-225 is all about the thousands and thousands of victims of intimate partner violence across this country who need to be protected from the cowards who inflict immeasurable harm — and, in so many cases, walk away freely and never have to pay for their crimes.
Bill C-225 is also for the many families who are victims as well, such as Bailey McCourt’s family, who are left to pick up the pieces after the low-life perpetrators dished out their violence.
My wish today is for your support for Bill C-225. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, senator. Mr. Caputo, sponsor of the bill, you have the floor.
Frank Caputo, Member of Parliament, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, British Columbia, sponsor of the bill, as an individual: Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a profound honour to be here. I never thought many years ago that I would be sitting here at a Senate committee talking about a bill that I had the honour of introducing in the House of Commons or that I would be here for the second time in two successive Parliaments. It’s just such a profound honour for someone whose parents came to Canada with nothing. I’m honoured to be here with you.
My name is Frank Caputo. I’m the member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. I will give you a history of myself, the bill and how and why I come before you today.
As somebody who grew up in a pretty normal middle-class home to immigrant parents, graduated with a criminology degree and became a parole officer at 22, I saw a lot of people serving time for intimate partner violence. I got to know the psyche of these people to a certain degree.
After that, I went to law school and completed two law degrees. I worked primarily as a Crown prosecutor, prosecuting offences from shoplifting to murder.
In fact, the last murder that I prosecuted was that of an intimate partner. She was believed to be a missing and murdered Indigenous woman. That’s why an undercover operation was funded. He eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter during the election in 2021, which brought me to Parliament. The victim’s name was Angel Fehr. I remember her now and the grief her family must still be going through, especially after not knowing where she was for 20 years.
I also taught a class in sentencing and in advanced criminal law at Thompson Rivers University in the Faculty of Law. This is an area that is very important to me.
The idea for this bill came before I was even elected. I recall talking to a friend of mine about how punching out somebody at the bar is so different from punching out somebody who is your intimate partner, saying one often happens out of anger in the moment and the other is marked by a relationship of trust, closed access, interdependence and financial, spiritual and emotional connection. Your intimate partner is the person whom you should trust most. Yet on a criminal record, those offences are reflected exactly the same. That always really bothered me.
During the last Parliament, I drafted the bill to change the name from “assault” to “assault, intimate partner.” That was eventually changed during the committee process to “violence against an intimate partner,” which I think is an accurate reflection.
Last July 4, Bailey McCourt was killed about two hours away from where I live. The perpetrator who was accused of her homicide left the courthouse. He had just been convicted of a serious assault against her. He left, bought a hammer and, three hours later, Bailey was dead. I had prosecuted in that courthouse. I lived just two hours away, and it hit home.
I remember the NDP Premier of B.C. saying that we need to make the murder of an intimate partner murder in the first degree. I thought that if that’s good enough as a Conservative and if that’s good enough for our NDP Premier, this should be good enough for Canadians and good enough for me. That’s why I brought that forward.
I want to remember Bailey’s family today because this is colloquially known as “Bailey’s Law”: her dad, Shane; her mother, Karen; her stepmom, Trish; her aunt Debbie, whom you will be hearing from; her sister Paige; her children; and also Carrie Wiebe, who was in the car at the time that Bailey was killed.
I want to thank my staff, some of whom are here today, the minister’s staff and the minister for stepping up and recognizing the importance of this bill. If you go to look at Hansard, you will see this bill was not initially supported by the government. I was appalled by the comments that were made during my second reading speech. It was only through the sheer determination of the family that we got this through. There were wholesale commitments that were made for substantial amendments.
The last people I want to recognize are the people who stopped me on the streets, the people who have sent me letters and emails — both people I know and don’t know — the women who stopped me and said thank you and the young man in his late teens or early twenties who cried on my shoulder because his mom was a victim of intimate partner violence. This is for them. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Caputo. We will now proceed to questions from committee members.
For this panel, senators will have four minutes for their questions, and that includes the answer. Please indicate if your question is directed to a particular witness or witnesses.
Senator Burey: Mr. Caputo, thank you for being here and for sponsoring this bill. Thank you, Senator Manning, for sponsoring it here in the Senate.
There is a crisis, a state of emergency, in intimate partner violence and coercive control across Canada. Our laws and the implementation thereof have been failing us and our children. I’m a pediatrician. I have seen this up close: the victims — mothers mostly — children and families.
Not only that, the system surrounding supports for victims and children and families is failing them. It’s failing us as a country.
Do you think that this bill is enough to halt the scourge and epidemic of intimate partner violence and coercive control? What more needs to be done to truly address this crisis?
Second, you mentioned the committee process and the fact that, in the end, you received support but that there were a lot of amendments.
Can you assure those of us on this committee and Canadians that there will be no unintended consequences of this bill coming into force, along with Bill C-16, which will be considered in the Senate as it interrelates?
Mr. Caputo: Thank you, senator. I’m happy to take that question.
When you speak about consequences and negative consequences, it’s my view that this bill does not make anything new criminal. When we look at the consequences, we’re talking about behaviour that is potentially or likely otherwise criminalized right now. It changes second-degree murder, and murder can be either first or second degree. First-degree murder is murder that is planned and deliberate, the murder of a peace officer or murder in the commission of an underlying offence, like robbery.
This adds a fourth category: It makes what is ordinarily second-degree murder of an intimate partner into first-degree murder if it’s in the process of coercive control or where there has been a history.
Therefore, I do not see that as a negative consequence. I also don’t see any unintended or negative consequences for calling it what it is. It is not assault; it is violence against an intimate partner.
We have heard from many stakeholders on this. Frankly, I didn’t agree with some of the things I was told or heard, but we always looked at them and listened.
Is this enough? No, it’s not. Anecdotally, as a prosecutor, I can tell you that we used to have a person a day — usually women — come to the office and say they want to drop charges. We would sometimes literally have to play their 9-1-1 tape for them when they would say that it wasn’t a big deal.
This is the cycle of violence that we have to fight against. Senator Manning spoke about how this is severely under-reported. To me, there is a scourge of intimate partner violence in this country that we have to confront and address. We have to change attitudes. This is one small step on a very long journey.
Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
Senator Martin: First, I wanted to acknowledge my colleague Senator Manning and his long-standing, extensive work in dealing with this issue and the bills he has put forward. Thank you for that, senator.
I have limited time, so in some respects, I want to ask you to expand on the provision that is being added and why this intimate partner offence pathway is so important. What are some of the practical differences that you expect that it will have in charging, sentencing and the message the law sends to the families, like Bailey’s family?
Mr. Caputo: Thank you very much, Senator Martin. I equally thank Senator Manning for stepping up, both when it comes to this bill and the past bill.
Just to be clear, Senator Martin, are you referring to the provision of assault on intimate partner? I think it sends a message. If you look at the Criminal Code, there are a few victim groups that we specify. This isn’t something most people wake up and think about, but if you look at it, what does the Criminal Code specify? Assault of a peace officer. Now we’re talking about assault of first responders.
The Criminal Code generally doesn’t differentiate. The sentencing provisions are the same. Assault and assault peace officer both have a five-year maximum by indictment, I think.
However, the message we’re sending here is that when you assault your intimate partner, it is fundamentally different, and that is for the reasons I outlined earlier: that relationship of trust, that relationship that happens behind closed doors and that cycle of violence that we don’t see in other types of relationships. We don’t see a cycle of violence between friends that repeats itself with an “I’m sorry; it won’t ever happen again” — those types of things and that degree of manipulation.
In working with the minister’s office, this bill will ramp up sentencing. Currently in the code, there is a statutorily aggravating factor if you assault an intimate partner. This takes it one step further. Rather than just saying it is a statutorily aggravating factor, it is not just aggravating; it is punishable more harshly.
One of the biggest issues with aggravating factors is that the judge can decide what weight they wish to put on them. By Parliament stating and the Senate affirming there should be a harsher punishment, we’re speaking as Canada’s elected representatives and appointed senators that we are stating that if you abuse your intimate partner, you will pay a higher price, and you won’t just have assault on your criminal record; you will be somebody who abuses their intimate partner.
That’s a key destination for me.
Senator Osler: Thank you both for being here today. My question is for Mr. Caputo.
In the development of this bill, I know you consulted multiple stakeholders, especially with regard to the bill’s viability. Were there any dissenting, contrary or cautionary opinions that you heard? If so, were any of those opinions addressed through any of the amendments?
Mr. Caputo: Certainly. I’ll try to give you my unvarnished point on this.
The biggest issue was making the homicide of an intimate partner first-degree murder, because in the original iteration of the bill, it said that if you kill your intimate partner, it is first-degree murder, just like if you kill a peace officer; it doesn’t matter whether it’s planned or deliberate in that if you kill an intimate partner, it’s in the first degree. That’s what the bill said.
I was asked about people who are victims of intimate partner violence — women who are victims of intimate partner violence? It was said, “You’re going to incarcerate innocent people.” I asked, “Right now, what happens?” Right now, the law of second-degree murder operates. What is the sentence for second-degree murder? Life imprisonment. It’s a difference of parole eligibility.
I’ll be candid with you, Senator Osler: I didn’t necessarily agree with that objection. I asked, “Are you comfortable putting somebody in jail who is innocent for second-degree murder?” If the point is that people are going to jail for a crime of which they are not legally guilty, then there is a bigger problem; that’s a huge problem.
The point I was trying to make is that this bill does not criminalize anybody who would not otherwise be criminalized. I hope that’s clear. If you were guilty of second-degree murder, then you are potentially guilty of first-degree murder.
So, I didn’t agree with that objection, to be candid with you. However, it was an objection we heard repeatedly. That was why the first-degree murder element was amended to a history of or in the process of coercive control. That was the main thing.
I’m thinking of one person in particular who did talk about victims becoming accused people. When I was a defence lawyer for a brief period, I had what I believed was a wrongful conviction on a really minor offence, and it still sticks with me. As a prosecutor, I remember somebody coming to me saying, “I don’t think this person is guilty, even though they pleaded guilty.”
My biggest fear is sending somebody to jail who is not guilty, but if the issue is that we are sending people to jail for second-degree murder who aren’t guilty, then we have a greater issue that I think we have to address.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
Senator Muggli: Thank you for being here. I have worked in this realm for a good part of my career, and I played a role in establishing the Domestic Violence Court in Saskatoon, so I’m familiar with what it takes to get convictions, and I’m hopeful.
I’m curious about feedback from police and prosecutors, and the whole idea of the establishment of patterns and the confidence you have in establishing history.
I have worked with a lot of women over my career. I’m a social worker by trade. I have heard stories of offenders who will mark mileage on cars, do a lot of isolating activities, mark tires so they can tell if they have been moved, removing phones, not allowing family member contact, disabling vehicles to make them undriveable, brainwashing children against a parent — and I remember one instance of a woman who talked about having Russian roulette played with her with a gun. She was killed.
Are these factors that would be considered in history, especially if there are no witnesses to these behaviours? I was told, as a counsellor, that these things happened. What have you heard from prosecutors and police about how to process these histories?
Mr. Caputo: We could talk for a great deal of time. First, I’m a University of Saskatchewan law graduate, as is my wife. She runs six legal clinics for women, a lot of whom have been abused and are trying to get protection orders.
When you talk about the mileage thing, every year, I would get one or two — we called them K files in British Columbia. That’s how they’re designated as intimate partner violence. We would get one or two a year that just caught your eye. I would tell the defence lawyer, “Your client got my attention.” This isn’t just an assault. The level of manipulation, the changing of passwords, the waiting until they got just in the door and honking the horn, stuff that just was so insidious and yet so pernicious that it was meant to terrorize the victim. That is something I saw. That is something police see.
Right now, my wife told me that there is such a strain on resources. It used to be that when there was an arrest, if there was a non-contact breach, that was the most serious type of breach of bail under the Criminal Code. I would guess that it was probably a lights-and-sirens call. That is an offence against the administration of justice, which is a very serious offence. My wife says now, sometimes her clients don’t even get a callback or a visit.
When we talk about this — and you spoke about somebody who died — very rarely does this just happen. There are antecedents, like what you just described, and breaching or choking. I’m getting a bit fired up here. But this is —
Senator Muggli: — prosecutors how they feel they might be able to establish these patterns when there are maybe no witnesses.
Mr. Caputo: They have to establish it through evidence. Sometimes we have an evidentiary standard as prosecutors, but if you have somebody who says, “I experienced this,” to me, that’s enough. In fact, I have seen convictions on just that even when the accused took the stand and the judge preferred the evidence of the victim.
Senator Muggli: But not if she is dead.
Mr. Caputo: Not if she is dead, yes.
Senator Muggli: Who can speak to that?
Senator Arnold: Thank you both for being here and for your passion in getting to this point. I was touched by what you said about how frequently victims want to drop the charges. My father-in-law was OPP for many years, and he talked about going to the same door over and over again and how hard that was. Is there anything in this bill that will help make the change come about? Do you feel this is going to be more of a deterrent?
Mr. Caputo: Oh, boy. I think that sentencing has a number of roles, one of which is deterrence. Denunciation and deterrence are two aspects. I believe that the greater punishment will be a deterrent, but a lot of what we do in the system is reactive. The damage has been done. It is about dealing with that damage that has been done and preventing future damage.
The first iteration of the bill had a risk assessment in it, and I will be very candid here. The risk assessment said that an application of a victim or a prosecutor or the judge themselves could detain somebody for up to seven days in order to perform a risk assessment. The purpose of that was a bail decision has to be made then and there oftentimes, but the judge is often in a vacuum. They have what the Crown says and what the defence says. They don’t have someone who is trained to do an assessment and say, “How many breaches have there been? Is there a history of choking?” — things like those risk factors that we know about.
There was disagreement about the constitutionality of that and the way it was written. I thought it should be a contested application, like bail, as in it doesn’t just get granted. We should look at that in the future. As we often hear, victims often end up killed. So sentencing is usually the primary mechanism of deterrence, and because we are amping that up, that’s an aspect of this bill that I would agree with, senator.
The Chair: Sorry. Were you wanting to —
Mr. Caputo: I was going to Senator Manning. But you are the chair, so —
Senator Manning: Talking about change, I know almost a decade ago now, I spoke for the first time in the Senate on intimate partner violence, and the conversation has grown. Education has grown among people, and people are more aware of intimate partner violence and more aware of the support programs that are out there, even though we need much more than what is there. Also, 30 years ago, we weren’t talking about mental health the way we talk about it today. The collectivity of everybody bringing forward bills such as MP Caputo’s creates more awareness. I think because of the awareness, there will be change as we go forward, but there still remains a lot of work to be done.
Senator Cuzner: Thank you so much for the bill. Obviously, you are passionate about it. Being driven by your own personal experience adds a lot to the presentation of the bill. Of course, our friend and colleague Senator Manning has long been a champion on this topic.
Going a little bit off what Senator Osler had asked, you indicated that there was apprehension or some hesitance initially when the bill was brought forward. But you believe that the minister embraces it now. Was there something in particular — was there an “aha” moment or something — that just sort of clicked? What got you to this point where you had confidence in the bill?
Mr. Caputo: I don’t want to tell too many tales out of school here. What I will say is this: We had a meeting with Minister Fraser. Let’s face it: Getting a meeting with the Minister of Justice isn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially on short notice. I believe that Debbie Henderson had been invited to the committee on another issue and was present. That’s my recollection, but this is going back a few months. We had a meeting, and she may tell you more details about it. It was within that meeting that there was discussion about it — that perhaps the government could just legislate on this. The family was very candid and said that, no, that wasn’t good enough.
I will tell you something else, and I have not spoken about this publicly — and I will be fairly vague — but there were one or two people who were quite critical of the bill in things that they had said. And when they had to look the family in the eyes and be confronted with that, it was very uncomfortable. And, frankly, it should be. We are all accountable for our words. Partisanship can get in the way — and I believe there may have been some, though I don’t know.
I think the minister’s personal willingness to intervene and listen — this meeting happened very quickly, on one or two days’ notice — was the turning point, to be very candid.
Senator Cuzner: Why would the children not be covered under this as well? It is the partner, but this doesn’t include the children in a violent relationship or a violent household.
Mr. Caputo: No. That is a valid question. I know that we designate files in British Columbia that way. Right now, that’s a fair point. There is no charge of, say, assaulting family members, for instance. This is simply intimate partner violence. One thing I will say, senator, is, in terms of assaulting children, I probably saw maybe, in my eight years as a prosecutor, two or three corporal punishment cases cross my desk. They were quite rare.
That is not to say that we should diminish it or anything; I’m not trying to do that. That was as opposed to intimate partner violence offences, which crossed my desk daily. I primarily prosecuted internet offences against kids. That was my area, but I probably saw intimate partner violence seemingly every day. That’s what it felt like.
Senator Senior: Thank you both for being here, and thank you for your work on this. I come from the gender-based violence space, and I worked in that sector for decades. The thing that worries me is the upstream work — and the funding and support of that upstream work — to prevent needing to have such laws.
I worry that by the point a perpetrator — an abuser — gets to the point of murdering his intimate partner, lives have been lost. I want to see efforts put upstream.
I will be frank with you, Mr. Caputo, because I’m not quite sure that when a perpetrator gets to the point of murdering his partner, he is necessarily worried about jail time. It is not that this particular legislation is a bad thing; I just wonder about the impacts.
My question, to accompany my comments, would be this: Is there anything being put into place to attempt to measure the impacts in terms of prevention? My concerns lie with prevention. I would like to address both of you with that question.
Mr. Caputo: Senator Manning, feel free to go ahead.
Senator Manning: Thank you. One thing I learned very early on — very quickly, I will go back. When I first dealt with the issue in Newfoundland and Labrador, I could never understand that if you arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound or knife wound, the local police were called immediately, but if you arrived with your nose or jaw broken from an intimate partner violence situation, they were not called. I really had a problem with that.
Then, when I started having my meetings and round tables, I found out that it was the support systems that were lacking out in the community. Many times, the victims would return to the same home, whether it was because of children, fear, financial issues — whatever the case may be.
While we move along on the judicial side of things, we are making some advances. There is much more work to be done. In my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the government has just put forward a task force to look at not only the issue of intimate partner violence but the support systems — or lack thereof — that are out there.
It is all a part of keeping the conversation going. Things are not going to happen overnight, as much as we would sometimes like them to, but there is a much greater awareness in the community now of the fact that we have a judicial side of things but we also need supports, especially for the victims, in so many cases.
Mr. Caputo: I would echo Senator Manning’s comments.
In putting this bill forward, and even in changing the name of the offence, addressing sentencing and having this discussion, we are bringing this to light. I firmly believe that open and candid discussions and acknowledgement of the problem will pay dividends down the road.
I had people come to me and say, “In my community, we were just told to be quiet and accept this.” My hope is that there are people watching or listening about it who say that, no, that’s crap — that they aren’t going to keep quiet and know they don’t need to because this is something that is on the minds of legislators.
By having these discussions, bringing this to light and recognizing that this is 90% under-reported, I think we are going to be dealing with upstream elements. Is it a panacea or a cure‑all? Heck, no; it probably moves the needle just a little bit.
If you look at the law, two things come to mind: sexual assault and impaired driving —
Am I out of time? Okay.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you both for your work and for being here. You may have a chance to continue what you were saying because it was in the same line of questioning that I have.
You had those examples a few minutes ago about contact breaches that happen very often, if I understood correctly, and all kinds of insidious harassment issues. I was listening to that, and resources — I think colleagues have said this — are limited.
In the context of this happening, how is the bill going to help — again, in line with what you were saying, Senator Senior — in terms of preventing the extreme from ever happening?
I’m going to try to turn this into a bit of a different question, but is it your view that knowing about this bill and the changes, if the bill passes, will act as education — of course, we hope — and even as a deterrent? Is it something you have heard in committee? Did you have witnesses saying that this bill could play that role at some level — as a bit of a side effect, I suppose?
Mr. Caputo: We had three meetings at committee. I was there for one or maybe one and a half. It went to the Status of Women Committee, and I’m Vice-Chair of Public Safety, so I can’t recall if I was there for every meeting. I don’t know that I was.
Part of this is having the conversation. It is unfortunate, because both you and Senator Senior have hit on something very important, and it was a point I was trying to make to Senator Arnold earlier: Criminal legislation is all reactive; the damage has been done. However, by discussing intimate partner violence and raising the sentencing, I think it signals to the courts to take a different approach to this. It actually tells them they have to take a different approach to it in the penalty phase. That’s very important.
When we state that we are changing how we even refer to this — that it is violence against an intimate partner — there is a “twigging” that happens. The prior bill I championed was to change the name of “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material.” One of the judges whom I quoted said that term really sanitizes it — “child pornography.” Even “assault” sanitizes what is happening behind closed doors. It is not assault; I’m sorry. It is so far beyond that.
Again, I’m not going to say that this will change everything leading up — criminal law, by its nature, is reactive. I hope this bill will inform conversations, judges and police officers. I hope the sentencing increases will act as deterrents. Those are all of my hopes. This is a much bigger picture within which we are operating.
Senator Boudreau: Thank you to our two guests for sponsoring this very important bill.
I certainly agree with the bill. However, as my colleague Senator Senior pointed out, we’re talking about punitive measures. The damage has been done, unfortunately, so it doesn’t address those upstream elements, and there are still some very real need there to do more upstream to avoid the necessity of having to apply a bill like this.
We talked about the cracks or the gaps, but we didn’t really verbalize what some of those might be. I’m just wondering: In your consultations leading up to the tabling of this bill with the various IPV groups that you met with, were there particular support services or programs that were mentioned as being musts? Are there areas where governments — provincial, federal and territorial — could invest more money to try to avoid the necessity for a bill like this?
Mr. Caputo: Everywhere, to be very candid. It’s just whether it be in counsel for protection orders.
I’ll use my wife as an example. She doesn’t charge for her services, but that’s a rarity. She has only been doing this for five or six years. Somebody will come to her and say, “I need to get away from my partner right away.”
She’ll say that they’ll get into court that afternoon and get a protection order under the provincial family legislation that we have in British Columbia.
I don’t know about any other provinces, but it is fortunate that this legal position is funded.
But then where does that leave that person? They usually need to find a safe house. Then they need access to victims’ services and somebody who will walk with them through the trial process. It’s not to say there aren’t people now. The victim services people I’ve dealt with were top-notch, but I don’t think that it would hurt to have more safe houses and more services.
You talked about upstream. I’m still very committed to this idea of risk assessment. If any senators around this table are interested, please let me know. I will work with you if you want to sponsor a bill because I firmly believe a bill can be made completely constitutional if somebody is charged, particularly if they have a record of intimate partner violence, they go before the court and the judge says, “I want to ensure this person won’t go kill their intimate partner on a breach.” Again, there are those antecedents we often see. “The police aren’t strangers to this address,” things like that.
I would be happy to work with a senator on something like that to ask if we could carve something out in the bail provisions to make sure they are not such a high risk that they can be released. That is a gap that needs to be addressed. I would love to contribute to doing so.
Senator Manning: When you talk about protection orders, and I know about this through experience dealing with victims, you can drive a truck through most of them. That’s a big concern for victims out there.
I gave an example yesterday in my speech in the chamber of a man in Newfoundland who was up on 12 different charges, including confinement, assault and strangulation, and he walked out of the courtroom without any restrictions whatsoever. Maybe we should be looking at ankle bracelets. There are all kinds of things we can look at for prevention because, a couple of days after he walked out of court, he killed his wife, the mother of five children. There are things that can be put in place, like housing and all these supports; however, protection orders are, in a lot of cases, not worth the paper they are written on from what victims have told me.
Senator Muggli: I appreciate what Senator Senior said with regard to upstream. To me, upstream is dealing with the attitudes and values that allow somebody to think it’s okay to harm an intimate partner. Maybe Minister Michel’s men’s mental health work will tap into some of those attitudes and whatnot. I don’t know.
My question is this: If a victim is dead and there is no prior police record of calls regarding coercive actions, does this bill maybe not instruct but provide for prosecutors looking for history?
Mr. Caputo: No, it doesn’t. I would have to think if there is a back-channel way of doing that, so to speak, because that’s an evidentiary question. The rules of evidence are governed by the Canada Evidence Act, or common law.
I would have to think about whether you could legislate something like that.
Senator Muggli: I just worry about victims who suffer in silence, and then they are dead.
Mr. Caputo: Your point is that there is no record. How do we establish first-degree murder if there is no record to establish the history of coercive control?
Senator Muggli: Exactly.
Mr. Caputo: It’s a fair point.
Senator Muggli: Do you know if there is any evidence regarding first-degree convictions versus second-degree convictions for murder reducing recidivism?
Mr. Caputo: I would have to look at that. I know that for people doing life sentences generally, because of the degree of incarceration and the length of time after they get out, rehabilitation can often take place, but I don’t have a statistic on recidivism.
I believe, though, that talking about first degree versus second degree, when we specify victim groups, whether it be by a police officer or in the commission of an offence, that, to me, is society — and this is in Bill C-16, which the government is bringing forward as well — saying that we believe in protecting vulnerable victim groups. Not only that, we will say to the world, “If you commit violence on a vulnerable victim, you will be punished more harshly.” That is an important message.
Senator Muggli: I don’t think this bill is really about deterrence. I think it’s more a bill for victims.
Senator Manning: Stats tell us that it’s the sixth or seventh time a victim is assaulted before they find the courage — and I do not mean courage as much as an avenue — to report.
I met with physicians in Newfoundland and Labrador a couple of years ago. Even though they see signs when the victim arrives at emergency, they can’t report it as an assault of intimate partner violence because of things we touched on earlier regarding having the support to go back to the environment. But maybe somebody could make a report that they suspect it because then, at least, when the court case comes up down the road, there is some record of the victim’s assault in the past.
It’s a dicey issue when it comes to physician-patient confidentiality issues.
Senator Muggli: It’s the same in terms of being a counsellor or therapist. If I went as a counsellor and said, “I have a whole file of history . . .”
Senator Senior: I’d like to continue with Senator Muggli’s question somewhat and the whole idea of a woman being afraid to report because she wants to keep her family together, especially if there are children involved to be sheltered, fed, et cetera. There is so much shame attached to the experience of being abused over and over.
There are circumstances where a woman has reached a point of no return and lashes out. I’m aware of cases where women have, in fact, killed their partners in reaction. There may not have been any reporting, especially if the situation is such that she may have a precarious immigration status.
Could you clarify for me whether, in such circumstances, that be would seen as intimate partner violence? Would there be a charge against her for that reaction, even though the evidence may not have been there to prove that she has endured abuse for a very long time?
Mr. Caputo: This is a difficult question, to be very candid. It’s a very fact-specific question.
I would often say to students when I was teaching the famous lawyer’s phrase, “It depends.”
Senator Senior: I bet you received a lot of money for that.
Mr. Caputo: Sometimes, we see evidence as extraneous or as external. We might call that independent evidence, but evidence can come from the person, as in a person saying, “I was walking down the street and I saw this.” No one else may have seen it. That is evidence from the person.
So, in the situation you’re describing, somebody who is accused or even arrested — they have no obligation to assist — could give that evidence that they experienced X, Y and Z.
In the case of intimate partner violence, there is a body of case law — I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on it — with respect to the defence. It started with the Lavallee decision, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, and has grown from there. It talks about what somebody is experiencing and whether — it has been 10 or 15 years since I looked at this — they had a degree of fear and whether that degree of fear played into their reaction. If that’s the case, then that is a valid defence and they are not liable in law.
It is a very complicated aspect. It would depend upon the nature of the threat, the perceived threat — things like that.
This is not something that is contemplated by this bill — and I get where you’re going with this. That might be something for the Senate to look at in terms of defences. You can have defences that are statutory or common law. The Lavallee decision established a common law defence; maybe it should become statutory. I leave that to you.
The Chair: Senators, this brings us to the end of the first panel. I would like to thank you, witnesses, for your testimony today.
Senators, joining us for our second panel, we welcome Suzanne Zaccour, Director, Legal Affairs, National Association of Women and the Law; and, as an individual, Debbie Henderson. Thank you for joining us today.
For your opening statements, you will each have five minutes followed by questions from committee members.
Suzanne Zaccour, Director, Legal Affairs, National Association of Women and the Law: Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today on Bill C-225.
My name is Suzanne Zaccour, and I am the Director of Legal Affairs at the National Association of Women and the Law, or NAWL.
We are a non-profit organization that works to advance women’s rights through feminist law reform advocacy, including in the areas of gender-based violence and women’s economic security.
Given the short notice for this appearance, I will limit my comments to clause 1 of the bill, which concerns the murder of an intimate partner.
Clause 1 creates a form of constructive first-degree murder, allowing someone to be convicted for first-degree murder — even where the Crown cannot prove that the murder was planned and deliberate — if the victim was the intimate partner of the accused and the murder occurred in the context of coercive control.
As you’ve probably noticed, the offence is entirely gender-neutral; it does not depend on the gender of the victim. This matters because women’s use of lethal violence against an intimate partner is often very different and occurs in different contexts from men’s. Women who kill their male intimate partners may do so after years of violence, coercive control and entrapment, when killing becomes the only way to escape. Obviously, murder is already a criminal offence — it’s the most serious offence in our Criminal Code. The question here is not whether murdering an intimate partner should be a criminal offence. The question is whether non-planned murders should be criminalized as first-degree murders and in what circumstances.
For us, it’s important to consider the situation of abused women who kill an intimate partner.
In theory, women who kill their abuser because it is the only way to survive violence should not be convicted of murder, whether in the first or second degree. They should be acquitted based on the concept of self-defence.
However, the reality is more complicated.
A self-defence claim is not guaranteed to succeed. As documented by research — including Professor Elizabeth Sheehy’s book Defending Battered Women on Trial, which has several examples of this — Canadian courts have historically struggled to recognize abused women’s self-defence, in part due to gendered and racial stereotypes and the fact that women’s self-defence may not present in the same way as men’s.
As a result, women who have acted in self-defence may be reluctant to actually raise this defence and rely on it at trial because if the defence fails, they face the possibility of a murder conviction and a life sentence. They may, therefore, accept a plea deal where, even though they should be acquitted on self-defence, they don’t want to take that risk. They plead guilty to manslaughter to avoid the risk of a murder conviction.
Will women now be pressured to plead guilty to second-degree murder, instead of manslaughter, to avoid the risk of being convicted of first-degree murder? That is our concern with clause 1 of the bill.
I believe it is in part to avoid this issue that the bill is written in a way that coercive control is required and not just the murder of an intimate partner, as was the case in the first version of this bill, before it was amended to comply or be consistent with Bill C-16. However, that precaution, in our view, will not be sufficient to protect women against that wrongful criminalization.
We now have a few years of experience in seeing how family courts deal with the concept of coercive control since the 2019 Divorce Act amendments. What the research shows is that victims of family violence are, in some instances, themselves characterized as engaging in coercive control, and this can often occur when women raise concerns about abuse and seek to protect themselves and their children, and are accused of interfering with the father-child relationship and being controlling with the children and the father, and engaging in so‑called parental alienation. There is a lot of literature and case law on this.
So this reversal of the roles of perpetrator and victim is something that NAWL has observed for years, during which we have received hundreds of survivors’ testimonials, where they tell us about how family courts have treated them as the problem and as the abuser, even though they were the victim of family violence based on how they have reacted to that violence. That’s a problem that was recently acknowledged just a few weeks ago by the Supreme Court of Canada in its recent Ahluwalia decision following an intervention by NAWL.
NAWL is concerned that the same trends will influence the criminal courts, either because abused women are convicted of first-degree murder, because they are found to have committed coercive control, or because they plead guilty to manslaughter or second-degree murder to avoid this heightened risk of being convicted of first-degree murder. Either way, it’s a failure of justice.
For us, a legal system that sometimes mistakes victims for perpetrators in one setting — family law — should be pretty hesitant about attaching the most serious criminal consequences to those determinations in the criminal context.
Our recommendation is that you either amend and gender clause 1 of the bill or vote against it because of the risk that it poses for those women who are victims of long-term abuse.
Thank you for your attention to the perspective of the National Association of Women and the Law.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Zaccour.
Debbie Henderson, as an individual: Thank you for having me here today. I’m Bailey McCourt’s aunt. I’m here to represent our family.
The anniversary of Bailey’s murder is approaching on July 4. Bailey was brutally murdered by her ex-husband just three hours after he was found guilty of uttering threats to murder both her and her children. He was released on bail, tracked her down and attacked her repeatedly in a parking lot with a hammer, causing catastrophic injuries that ultimately took her life. She was unrecognizable. Her eyes were so swollen, I was worried her eyes were going to pop out of the sockets, which wouldn’t have been unreasonable given that her brain was herniating out of her skull.
No one should have to live with the trauma of that being that last way they see their loved on. No one should become a murder victim at the hands of someone who claimed to once love them.
Bailey’s murder was 100% preventable.
We are here today to advocate for Bailey’s Law, to ensure that Bailey’s legacy lives on. We want her daughters to know that their mother did not die in vain and that her story helped create meaningful change that will help save the lives of others.
We have received overwhelming support from across the country. Bailey’s story has received national attention. Survivors continue to reach out to us, many telling us that they are living in fear and cannot speak publicly because doing so could put their lives at more risk. They tell us, “Thank you for being our voice. We don’t want to become another Bailey.”
We owe this to those survivors. We owe it to Bailey, her daughters and to the countless families who have experienced the same unimaginable loss.
It is deeply important to our family that Bailey’s Law be completed before July 4. We are planning a memorial in Bailey’s honour and inviting the community who was also affected by Bailey’s murder. Her murder happened in broad daylight, in public, with many, many witnesses who were also traumatized and who support Bailey’s Law.
Carrying this forward in her name means a lot to our family and our community. A key provision in Bailey’s Law is the presumptive first-degree murder designation where evidence of coercive control exists. This provision was included because of Bailey’s case and reflects the reality of the violence endured before she was murdered.
If Bill C-16 is completed first and these provisions are removed from Bailey’s Law, it will no longer be Bailey’s Law, as those were what our family fought to have included in Bailey’s Law.
We understand, under the current legislative process, presumptive first-degree provisions could be removed if Bill C-16 is enacted first. However, we have been greatly encouraged by the consistent support shown by the Minister of Justice and his office. From the beginning, they have made it clear that they want to see Bailey’s Law pass first, and they have supported it moving forward in its current form. The minister has been fully supportive of Bailey’s Law and understands the importance of ensuring that the presumptive first-degree murder designation for killings involving coercive control remains part of Bill C-225.
We strongly believe these provisions must stay in Bailey’s Law. They are not an incidental part of the bill. They are at the heart of why Bailey’s Law was created and essential to preserving Bailey’s legacy and protecting future victims experiencing coercive and controlling violence.
Today, we are asking the committee to help make that happen.
We are fighting for Bailey, we are fighting for her daughters, we are fighting for survivors whose voices cannot safely be heard and we are fighting for women like Laura Gover and Pamela Jarvis, who were both murdered in my province after Bailey and whose families know all too well the devastating consequences of intimate partner violence.
We hope to see that when lives are at stake, the government acts quickly. We appreciate your support with this.
The Chair: Thank you both. We will now proceed with questions from committee members. For this panel, senators, you will have four minutes for your question, and that includes the answer. Please indicate if your question is directed to a particular witness or witnesses.
At any point, should you wish to stop, Ms. Henderson, please let us know.
Senator Burey: Thank you. Ms. Henderson, thank you so much for being here, for sharing the unimaginable trauma that you and your family have experienced and for being the voice of so many other families. I am a pediatrician, so I — and many others around the table — have worked in this area. Thank you for talking and sharing about this.
I’m going to put my questions to Ms. Zaccour. You made some recommendations. One of the functions of this committee is — well, the Senate is sober second thought. Can you speak more about what you were saying about that clause and the unintended consequences that could occur? I will give you the floor.
Ms. Zaccour: Thank you for the question and for the opportunity to expand.
We have seen several cases, some of which have gone all the way to the Supreme Court, where it is a woman who is a victim of intimate partner violence who is entangled in the criminal justice system. That is a very common issue that is documented. It also happens in cases where the victim of intimate partner violence kills her abuser.
As someone mentioned in the previous panel, this is not Plan A for anyone. When women try to escape intimate partner violence, they try many, many times. Often, it is very difficult for all kinds of reasons, including material reasons. In some cases, they have to resort to killing to —
Senator Burey: Sorry to interrupt. Regarding the interaction with Bill C-16, which is what you were alluding to, what is it that we need to know in this committee about this bill interacting with Bill C-16?
Ms. Zaccour: The provision on constructive first-degree murder appears both in this bill and in Bill C-16. It is exactly the same. That was a decision made by the government for reasons explained by Ms. Henderson, the order in which the bills would pass. So, if the Senate makes amendments to the first-degree murder provision, I assume the same ones need to be made in Bill C-16. The recommendations that we have made include the possibility of saying that there is constructive first-degree murder if the victim is an intimate partner and a woman, in which case, if the provision is gendered, it would protect against the issues that we have mentioned, and in which case, we might not even need to have the requirement to prove coercive control, which is going to be extremely difficult in some cases, depending on what external evidence is available because the victim has been killed. So that is the recommendation.
In Bill C-16, the government has talked a lot about recognizing femicide. It is not a bill about femicide because femicide is the murder of a woman. There are different definitions. I think it would do justice to victims, whether they are the ones who are murdered or whether they are the ones who kill in self-defence, to recognize that issue as a gendered issue where the victim is a woman and the intimate partner of the accused.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
Senator Hay: Thank you. Ms. Henderson, I’m just so sorry for the loss of Bailey, to you, her children, her family and her community. I’m so sorry. I will tuck Bailey in my heart. I thank you for your courage. I’m sure it makes Bailey very proud.
You have called Bailey’s Law a good first step. It is a good first step to take the weight off. What would you like to see as the second or third steps to keep taking that weight off?
Ms. Henderson: I have been working with my local MLA. We are out in British Columbia, and I had the opportunity to go to Victoria two weeks ago. I met with the public safety minister, looking at GPS monitoring with geofencing.
I used to be a nurse, so when I look at a lot of these things — and speaking with Laura Gover’s friends while I was in Victoria, we talked about different avenues and organizations that could help make a difference, provide support and provide an avenue for women to go to get out of the homes that they are in so that they are in a safe space. I absolutely think this is important. But I have also had the opportunity to be at many round table discussions with people in the thick of it, and when we talked about GPS monitoring with mobile geofencing and real-time victim alerts, you could literally hear them take a breath.
That is something that I want to work on in our province next. I would love to see it across Canada as well. I think it will save lives. I have looked at research in other countries. Spain is doing a fantastic job with it, and if you look into it, you will see that there are very few murders that have occurred within that program. Typically, from what I have seen, it is because the victim is not carrying the alert with them.
That’s number one: triage. If you look at triage, you look at life, limb and threatened organs, and this is life. I really am advocating for people in my province to implement that as well.
Senator Hay: Thank you. That’s an excellent next step.
Senator Martin: Thank you both for your testimony. I know that there are coordinating amendments in Bill C-225 and in Bill C-16. We’re at this very end stage of both bills. We’re expecting Bill C-16. It went through rigorous study and debate in the House. I am aware of meetings with the minister and these concerns that you are raising, but I want to say that self-defence must be disproved by the Crown. It is a very high bar.
So if there is even a 1% chance that the person acted in self-defence, then they are entitled to an acquittal.
There are unintended consequences and things that we need to look at, but the fact that we are at this stage, it has gone through such rigour and we are listening to the testimony — I want to use my time, Ms. Henderson, to say that I know the anniversary of Bailey’s death is July 4 and you are here. Your courage has been something that’s really touched all of us.
Would you just speak to the importance of this bill? If there is anything that you left out in your testimony or — in light of the fact that we are at this stage — would you speak to the importance of this bill for the victims and for the families of the victims?
Ms. Henderson: The whole process after a loved one is murdered is so incredibly hard. You have no idea how many avenues you have to go down. In Bailey’s case, she has daughters. There is family court. There is court for her murderer. ICBC, which is our insurance company in British Columbia, was involved, as well, because he hit Bailey’s car first in order to take her out of that vehicle.
There are numerous avenues that we have to go down and deal with that are overwhelming.
One of the aspects that was so incredibly hard for our family was going to court proceedings, waiting and waiting to see if the charges would be upped to first-degree murder. These behaviours that happened are not one-off behaviours. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many victims’ families that I have had the opportunity to speak with, we view that as premeditation: They were working their way up to killing their partners. He strangled Bailey in front of her daughter. She was holding her 3-year-old daughter, and he strangled her, which is a 750% increase in the likelihood of future homicides.
There needs to be accountability. There needs to be deterrence.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you both for being here, and my deepest condolences to you and to your family, Ms. Henderson. You are both right: None of this should be happening. Everybody who has been here has said that.
Ms. Zaccour, I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about women who suffer from battered woman syndrome and strike out. I would not want to lose them. You encouraged us to think about gender in this clause. I would like you to speak a bit more about that — or voting against it as it is — and I guess I would wonder how that, then, would impact Bill C-16, because we are going to get that other bill.
Can you talk to me a bit more about how you would gender that? You are with a women’s organization, but there are multiple genders, so I’m just curious if you could speak a bit more about that.
Ms. Zaccour: Absolutely.
The issue I raised is not hypothetical; there are documented cases and Supreme Court cases about women who have killed their abusers and spent years in prison. There is documentation of them also pleading out. It is not hypothetical.
The Supreme Court has recognized that self-defence has not really worked out well for women. That’s where our concerns stem from.
A secondary concern is the difficulty of proving coercive control even for those cases where it is appropriate. Time will tell because the literature is divided on how easy or hard it would be to prove coercive control. That’s part of the broader debate on criminalizing coercive control.
One thing I repeat all the time, including when I do interviews on this, is that murder is a crime. It is always a crime. So, if we say we want to recognize femicide as a particularly egregious crime that requires its own label and/or its own punishment, by having recognition of femicide as the killing of a woman, it doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill a man or a non-binary person. This is not what it is about. That’s really important to keep in mind.
That’s why one solution that we raise is saying that this would become, then, a femicide offence, and it would be the killing of a woman who is also the intimate partner of the abuser.
We have particular offences that are about sexual violence against children. It is not to say that adults are not also sexually assaulted or that it is okay. It is just a different offence — if that is the issue that Parliament wants to tackle.
If this is done, then the requirement to say that we’re going to put the really high bar of coercive control in place to avoid catching the false positives would not be as necessary and the bill could even go back to the previous version, which was much broader and which was the killing of an intimate partner who is a woman. That would mean a lot less time in court and a lot fewer issue of proving coercive control.
This threshold of coercive control was added to the bill. I believe the government went in that direction because if you just say the murder of an intimate partner is always first-degree murder, you have that likelihood of catching the women who kill their abusers.
These are some issues for you to consider. As the chamber of sober second thought, it is a little bit unusual that those two bills are so connected. I’m hearing that Bill C-16, which is 150 pages, is going to be studied in just a few days with virtually zero notice to organizations —
An Hon. Senator: It is being pre-studied.
Ms. Zaccour: Exactly. It is unfortunate that it is going so fast. This bill is much shorter. That’s why we brought these concerns to this committee.
We will also bring these concerns to the committee about Bill C-16, if we get invited to testify. I think the agreement is that this one goes first, so that’s why I raised these concerns in this forum for your consideration of this bill.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Muggli: Thank you both for being here today. Debbie, thank you for your courage. I know this is not easy. As somebody who worked in this area as a therapist, I lost a client. I asked myself for years if I could have done something different so that tragedy wouldn’t have happened.
I’m interested in your thoughts on that as it relates to this bill. Is there a way to use this bill as a point of education for the public, for example, to try to encourage family members and friends to make reports to the police when they see something happening in a relationship so that there is some kind of record in advance of a tragedy? I’m interested in your thoughts on that.
Ms. Henderson: I often find that when I am talking about the bill, it encompasses education. I don’t think you just talk about a bill and then don’t talk about anything else surrounding it. There are those pieces where we are talking to people, the message is out there, and we need to share what is going on. So many conversations that I have had with survivors are regarding the need for evidence around what is going on.
I was actually reached out to two weeks ago to attend a court case of somebody in my community whom I did not know. They reached out to me because of the advocacy work we are doing.
So, I don’t think it necessarily directly relates to the bill. I think it accompanies the bill and the advocacy work that we’re doing around the bill.
Senator Muggli: Did you want to add anything to that?
Ms. Zaccour: Thank you. I would love to. All of these murders are preventable. All of them. There is always a way that this could have been prevented, and it is rarely the first time that something happens. Prevention is going to take the form of education, as you mentioned, but there are also so many legal remedies that could be put in place that are not currently in place, including when offenders go through the criminal system.
One of the recommendations that we made in relation to Bill C-16, which was not adopted — but we’re going to try again at the Senate — is in regard to peace bonds and automatic firearm prohibition. That’s an example. There are so many loopholes in the firearms legislation, which is something we have been working on for many years. There are still so many loopholes in protection orders, where there are tools to support survivors and make them safe.
We also work in family law. Family law also keeps survivors trapped in those abusive relationships because survivors are told by their lawyer that if they leave, they might lose their kids, and if they report violence, they might lose their kids. I’m sure I will come back to talk to you about it on Bill C-223, if it comes to the Senate.
I believe in education 200%, and there are legal avenues that can be used to prevent intimate partner violence. Sometimes, prevention doesn’t necessarily turn on the offender knowing and understanding the difference between constructive first degree and regular first degree. I honestly don’t know that many offenders think about that distinction, but it is about identifying risk. They lose access to their firearms. They lose access to using their children as a tool of control.
It is really important to remember that all of these murders are always preventable.
Senator Senior: Thank you to you both. I just want to acknowledge that there is an unfortunate juxtaposition with having both of you on the same panel. I want to acknowledge that because it is not a situation that we designed. The time frame in which we have to work is what caused this, so I think it is important to acknowledge that as you, Ms. Zaccour, are advocating for what you think is right and you are doing the same, Ms. Henderson.
I also want to acknowledge, Ms. Henderson, the importance of advocacy, because I actually think that’s going to save lives. The tools that you mentioned, like GPS monitoring and geofencing, will provide real-time victim alerts and will also save lives. We live in a society that requires punishment, and it is important, but it doesn’t necessarily save lives. Nevertheless, I think it is important that you do what you need to do. I want to support you in that.
Based on my experience in the sector, I want to see more advocacy, education and real life-saving tools. If we gave women the option, they would not necessarily choose jail for their partners. They will choose being able to avoid and prevent abuse and battery. That’s what they would choose. I’m speaking as someone who has experienced it.
I just want to acknowledge that and say it is important that you do what you need to do.
It is also important, I think, Ms. Zaccour, based on the work of NAWL and decades of research and expertise, that you are saying what you need to say. Advocacy is very important, and speaking the truth based on the evidence is also very important. I would really like to see that we go from a point of reacting to putting in place tools to support women and their children. I think that’s what I would like to see. Would you agree?
Ms. Zaccour: Absolutely. I think this is similar to the debates we’re having about coercive control, where a lot of survivor advocates are advocating for that because it is so important to recognize the harm that is being caused.
Some advocates ask, “Is this going to work? Is this going to backfire?” The position NAWL has taken has been to say, “Let’s do it. Here’s how we can ensure it doesn’t backfire.”
That’s also what I wanted to do here today. I wanted to say: Here’s an option that makes it both easier to convict the real perpetrator of femicide and harder to convict the one who is not a perpetrator of femicide and is a survivor.
As a legal organization, that’s what we try to do. We all have the instinct to act on an issue. We ask this question: How can we make this legal tool as efficient as possible? When things are passed and don’t work out super well, it is so hard to come back from that. We have almost zero chance. We tried that with Bill S-12 from the last Parliament. We are seeing issues with its implementation, and we have heard from survivors that it is not working. We advocated for the government to include that in Bill C-16. But it is just so difficult to come back, so that’s why we want to be sure.
We can do both things. I don’t believe in choosing between protecting survivors with strong messaging, including criminal law where appropriate, and avoiding unintended consequences. We need a system that recognizes that this violence is gendered, and there is a way to do both, in my opinion.
Senator Martin: First, thank you both for your advocacy and for your passion. We all appreciate you being here with us.
As I said earlier, this is at the stage when a private member’s bill goes through quite a process in the House, and we have received it in our chamber. We are also expecting Bill C-16, which is being pre-studied by the committee.
I also want to go back to what Senator Greenwood asked regarding the concept of gender and the idea that there could be gay couples or a transgender partner. Amendments are not, as we know with the law, black and white.
I want to ask Ms. Henderson this final question. Based on your conversations with the minister and the work that has been done on Bill C-16 and this bill, is there anything that you wish for us to know? We are moving toward a very important clause by clause.
Ms. Henderson: I used to work as a nurse. I have seen men abused. I have seen an elderly gentleman beaten every day and woken up with a baseball bat. He looked emaciated. He was only allowed to eat a can of food a day. It took me over a year to help to get him out of that situation.
I fully do not support it being just women only. This happens to men, and we need to step up and do something for the population of people who are being abused. That’s my opinion on that.
I would have to say I’m also a little bit confused. I just wanted to make a statement or maybe someone can clarify. I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that.
Senator Martin: It is your time.
Ms. Henderson: I feel a little bit confused. We are asked to trust the justice system. How many cases have we seen where it has been manslaughter or second-degree murder. Are we supposed to trust maybe they will get to first-degree murder but maybe there is not enough evidence for that?
But we’re not supposed to trust the justice system when it comes to self-defence. That’s concerning to me, and I think that needs to be addressed at a different level because if self-defence isn’t working, maybe we need to take a look at that framework. It is supposed to be there for protection.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, everyone. This brings us to the end of this meeting’s testimony.
(The committee continued in camera.)