Honourable senators, I rise today to speak as critic of Bill S-205. Senator Boisvenu, since the horrors of the horrible murder of your daughter, you have done your utmost to ensure that these issues remain at the forefront of our discussions and that you do everything you possibly can to protect the rights and the interests of victims. For that, all of us salute you and thank you for your work.

Like you, most of us want to support efforts to address and prevent violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence. As such, the impulse to support bills like this one, as well as others, is strong and genuinely driven by extreme care and concern. Unfortunately, I have to say that Bill S-205 proposes legislative changes that, if implemented, would provide little more than promises of action in law; incomplete, inadequate and ineffective interventions and, therefore, a truly dangerous false sense of security for far too many who are already vulnerable and victimized.

As numerous witnesses attested to before the Legal Committee, the provisions proposed would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce in most parts of this country. That is because the primary issue for women is that misogynist attitudes mean that they are too often not believed when they bring forward allegations of abuse. On top of this, the inadequacy of broadband coverage and the unreliability and expense of electronic monitoring equipment could result in the diversion of resources much needed to prevent and combat gender-based violence.

Indeed, as the Mass Casualty Commission stated in Part C of its recently released report, there is a “Collective and Systemic Failure to Protect Women.”

The report goes on to say that:

Gender-based, intimate partner, and family violence is an epidemic. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a public health emergency that warrants a meaningful, whole of society response.

We have been told that this bill was virtually written by survivors, and I don’t doubt that. And yet, as so many of us know from decades of doing this work, and as we heard from witnesses, in a context where so little has been provided to assist survivors over the years, it is not surprising that they might grasp at any gesture that seems supportive, no matter if it is inadequate.

Electronic monitoring is being offered as a solution to victims and survivors of intimate partner violence who are desperate for anything that may help them regain a sense of safety and security. It is part of a long trend of offering less than what is needed to assist and protect the most vulnerable and marginalized. Instead of inadequate and ineffective responses, isn’t it time we all decided to address the root causes of these vulnerabilities and marginalization rather than continuing to pass laws that are deficient and thereby allowing situations to continue — unfortunately — unabated?

Colleagues, the main issues with this bill are that, one, electronic monitoring is being touted as an effective tool that would prevent violence against women when, in fact, the evidence depicts quite the opposite. Electronic monitoring has been proven to be unreliable, inconsistent and ineffective when it comes to addressing causes of violence against women.

As Senator Boisvenu reminded us earlier when speaking about the Mass Casualty Commission, we need an urgent and comprehensive government response to address, redress and prevent violence against women and intimate partner violence. Regrettably, the measures proposed in this bill are redundant and may serve as a distraction and a diversion of desperately needed resources that could otherwise be allocated to services and interventions that have been proven time and again to more effectively support and prevent violence against women.

Bill S-205 places an emphasis on the use of electronic monitoring devices for men who have committed violence against women. It’s a plan to use these devices when people are not in custody, as a method of keeping women safe. Bill S-205 does not do the necessary work of unweaving the fabric of misogyny, racism and class bias, which fuel violence against women and are perpetuated in and intensified by the criminal legal and penal systems.

Bill S-205 does not address the economic, social, racial and gender inequality, which abandons women to violence, poverty and racism. Nor does it deconstruct the values and attitudes that reinforce it. The significant global rise of violence against women and femicides during the COVID-19 pandemic points to the clear and direct correlation between economic and social pressures and normalized gendered and racialized violence. Investing in services that enable safety and support must instead be prioritized.

Physical violence is only one aspect of a wider net of coercive and controlling conduct. The tactics used against women include intimidation, isolation and control, and these factors are “more predictive of intimate homicide than the severity or frequency of . . . physical violence.”

Social and cultural messages that privilege patriarchal ideas and attitudes and hyper-responsibilize women from childhood to consider themselves responsible for preventing their own victimization — combined with behaviours that control, isolate or intimidate via emotional, physical, social, financial abuse of inequities, and often a combination of these — contribute to gross under-reporting of violence against women.

When women are only offered a criminal legal enforcement model, particularly in the face of millennia of inadequate responses, it should not surprise us that they may agree to grasp for the only option provided rather than the effective and comprehensive approaches to address violence against women that are needed. This is a case where the inadequacy of options makes the illusion of choice and safety just that — illusory illusions.

Rather than repeat the issues I raised at second reading, allow me to share the perspectives of witnesses, particularly women’s groups, police and legal organizations who appeared at committee for this bill.

Rosel Kim of Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, better known as LEAF, reminded us that electronic monitoring already exists as an option for judges to impose as a condition of bail. It’s already a part of our law. It’s also part of our sentencing, probation and parole options. While this may help people feel safer and protect some survivors, electronic monitoring can be ineffective and even harmful, especially for survivors who are Black, Indigenous and racialized.

For survivors living in rural areas and remote communities, including Indigenous communities, poor connectivity issues and the lack of access to geolocation services decrease the effectiveness of monitoring. Many women fleeing violence face the risk of being electronically monitored themselves. Electronic monitoring is also costly. In Ontario, electronic monitoring devices cost between $400 and $600 a month. The Quebec government has committed $41 million to implement its electronic bracelet program.

Meanwhile, LEAF told us:

Right now, we are seeing a crisis in shelters, and we are generally seeing a lot of shortcomings in resources that the survivors really need. Those would be the priorities that I would point to, where the survivors really need support, before considering things like electronic monitoring.

Senator Boisvenu rightly points to the Quebec experience as a model, but as recent media coverage of the Quebec experience revealed, in addition to the lack of internet or policing capacity in many rural and remote communities, survivors face the additional challenges of not having the economic and social supports to enable them to even leave a violent situation. Witnesses urged us to consider devoting resources to directly supporting and therefore empowering survivors instead of purchasing expensive and ineffective electronic monitoring equipment and infrastructure.

Alain Bartleman of the Indigenous Bar Association said:

. . . 21% of the women who exited the shelter system in Quebec, according to a 2018 study, felt they had no option but to return to their home where the abuser or the accused lived.

He spoke about the many communities that he knows and works in where there is no cell coverage and a concern with respect to geofencing, saying:

I’m not sure what value would be placed for a geolocation service if an individual was provided with a location that was only accurate to about a kilometre and a half, which could cover the entirety of the reserve . . . .

He and other lawyers also raised concerns with respect to false alerts created by:

. . . for example, extreme cold or extreme weather events, where these monitors or monitoring systems will often fail . . . .

He gave examples of situations where equipment failures such as dead batteries trigger a system alert and put additional stressors upon under-resourced, underfunded and understaffed police, like the officers I had the privilege of meeting with this afternoon from the Canadian Police Association who talked about some of these very issues.

He stressed that requiring or expanding the use of monitoring services within Indigenous communities, whether through a provincial or a federal initiative, could prove to be just an additional burden upon police services, which could unintentionally restrict the resources and police availability to provide actual support, protection and interventions that the victims of domestic violence may need when they call.

He also urged us to consider — rather than purchasing electronic monitors — that governments allocate the estimated $400 or more cost per device to increasing the supply of shelters within the First Nations context, where the need for additional housing requires not just a sense of urgency but a sense of crisis or calamity. He said:

This $400 may not go far enough. I would, however, note that in many cases, therapy and other treatments for unresolved mental illnesses could be alleviated by, frankly, the provision of a subsidy in the amount of that $400 for the accused. . . . I do think it would go some ways to reducing if not the prevalence then certainly the severity of the predicament that many Indigenous women and girls find themselves in when confronted with domestic violence.

He went on to say:

I’ll speak particularly in the First Nations context. We’ve endured centuries of systemic racism and abuse, which culminated, in many cases, with the horrors of the residential school system, which only recently ended. It’s trite, but it is true to say that hurt people hurt people. . . .

Breaking the cycle of trauma through the provision of mental health and other resources, I’d suggest, is probably the most effective way of preventing domestic violence, not through monitoring of individuals.

Daniel Brown of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association agreed and added that the bill is not only:

. . . unnecessary because the tools already exist in our justice system . . . .

This bill runs afoul of Supreme Court jurisprudence . . . . Creates insurmountable practical hurdles to implement . . . . It will negatively impact an overburdened system, which in turn will impact the public’s confidence in our justice system. . . . It will disproportionately impact racialized, Indigenous, vulnerable communities and low-income accused . . . .

He further said:

From a practical perspective, the ability to sort of implement ankle bracelet monitoring at that early stage is near impossible. Even when we have clients of means who can have these conditions imposed, it takes days, sometimes even weeks, to put a plan like this together and to ensure that the plan is implemented. . . .

To give the power to the police to impose such a harsh condition but not the ability, for example, to impose any other type of judicial supervision, like a surety — it is just incongruent . . . .

Sarah Niman, representing the Native Women’s Association of Canada, advised that:

NWAC supports and advocates for Indigenous women’s safety through violence prevention strategies and services. . . . To prevent domestic and intimate partner violence, Canada should not rely on legislative amendments to make a difference for Indigenous violence victims. Addressing systemic racism . . . .

Addressing the MMIWG report’s 231 Calls for Justice is an imperative. . . .

Electronic monitoring devices set more Indigenous people up for escalating criminal sanctions rather than address the root cause.

She went on to say:

The Native Women’s Association of Canada does not support electronic monitoring as a means of addressing intimate and domestic partner violence. . . .

. . . With all due respect to Senator Boisvenu and the work that he’s doing — and we understand that in building this bill, he heard directly from victims who said they would like to see electronic monitoring — but where Indigenous women compose such a large proportion of domestic violence victims, that is not what the women we represent are asking for.

She also added:

One of the things we learned from NWAC’s work and from the National Inquiry is that there are high instances of dual arrests when the police are called for domestic violence. So that perpetuates Indigenous women’s over-incarceration and involvement in the criminal justice system. . . .

Where NWAC is interested in balancing victims’ rights, we are equally concerned with keeping Indigenous people —

— especially women —

— out of jail . . . .

Based on what NWAC knows about the myriad of reasons that inform hesitancy to disclose family violence . . . maybe [the perpetrator is] the primary breadwinner, maybe that means they have to leave their home, oftentimes wider cultural, familial and community concerns — if those all play into the reasons why a woman would fear calling the police or disclosing violence to somebody, like a third party, those would also inform her hesitancy or vulnerability . . . .

 . . . from the women we hear from that when there aren’t those healing resources, they often feel like it’s incumbent upon them to mend fences . . . .

The voice we’re also not hearing is, of course, the children’s. NWAC’s hope is that when Indigenous children see that their parents or aunties and grandmothers are experiencing violence, they see that someone is coming to help them and that that person does so in a positive, respectful, culturally appropriate way.

Emilie Coyle, with the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, stated:

In the case of this legislation, we must ask, will this legislation stop intimate partner violence from happening in Canada, or will it utilize necessary resources that could be spent on prevention? Will it address the root causes of intimate partner violence: misogyny and patriarchy?

These questions point us to examples where well-intentioned legislation has gone awry in the past and caused further harm rather than preventing it . . . .

I’m sure you’ve heard of the woman fleeing violence who throws a toy [a plate or a pan] in self-defence; this toy becomes the weapon in the assault-with-a-weapon charge that is then laid on her . . . there’s a very real possibility that, should this bill pass, [victimized women] would be the ones who would be wearing the electronic monitoring bracelets.

Addressing gender-based and intimate partner violence cannot [only] be reactive. It must be a multi-pronged approach. Action needs to be taken by introducing a swath of initiatives aimed at getting at the root cause of the harm.

We argue that in order to do this we need to shift our focus away from a carceral response to a more sustainable and long-term approach. We need national awareness-raising efforts. We need a robust mental health care system where everyone can access the support that they need to be healthy.

We need basic universal income to ensure people do not remain with their violent partners for economic reasons. We need readily available counselling services. After all, intimate partner violence is a social issue and not just a private one.

Survivors often list services like social workers, financial assistance, housing, culturally specific resources, mediators, domestic violence specialists, peers, community prevention or de-escalation — and the list goes on — in the services that they ask for.

We know that we must and we can interrupt intimate partner violence, keeping the survivors of intimate partner violence at the centre of all of our efforts.

Ultimately, electronic monitoring is an expensive undertaking that does not touch on the underlying cause of intimate partner violence.

Mary Campbell, a retired expert and former senior public servant with Public Safety Canada, underscored that:

 . . . I would leap at anything that would keep people safely out of the hellhole of prison, so you might be surprised to hear that I am not a fan of electronic monitoring.

 . . . the research really is, at best, inconclusive that EM, electronic monitoring, adds anything. . . . there will be anecdotes, but overall, the research is not there to support it.

[Electronic monitoring will not] give you . . . the kinds of results that you would like to see for that kind of money. We’re aware of many other programs that will, in fact, give you a much greater return.

She also reminded us that we don’t know the personal stories of most of the witnesses who appear before the committee, and thus urged us to not make simplistic assumptions about who has or has not experienced serious victimization, and that:

The bottom line is that we’re all united in the same goal. I think prudent governance is that the people’s money be invested in what will give real results.

The National Association of Women and the Law reiterated the need for other solutions and systemic change. Women’s groups have long demanded that responses address root causes of violence against women:

. . . the legislative framework required to prevent and respond to VAW must be framed to also recognize and redress women’s poverty and economic insecurity, which structures and shapes women’s experiences of violence, and especially those of groups of women that are particularly vulnerable to VAW in its many forms. Ensuring that the historic and current context is well understood is essential to informing this analysis, particularly in relation to colonialism and the ongoing impacts . . . on violence against Indigenous women.

Women’s groups have also noted that:

All VAW law reform in Canada must reflect intersectional feminist analysis, and be grounded in human rights and specifically women’s human rights.

Any meaningful change must address the underlying cognitive and behavioural issues that lead to violence against women. Strapping an electronic monitor to a person’s ankle does nothing to stop a person from continually committing violence both while the device is attached and after it is removed. Experts urge that we should not confuse technological aid with meaningful intervention and treatment. Meaningful treatment must address why a person is violent in order to truly address root causes and break the cycle.

I want to acknowledge that is also part of the aim that Senator Boisvenu hopes will come out of this bill, but the central component is the electronic monitoring.

Addressing the economic inequality of women is a critical aspect. UN Women and the World Health Organization have noted that the links between poverty and violence against women are well-established. According to research from the group, Surviving Economic Abuse, 95 percent of domestic abuse victims experience economic abuse.

Nearly all victims of violence have had the common experience of economic abuse. In order to address the root of this issue, it is paramount that women have alternatives to remaining in dangerous family and community situations. Housing and economic supports must be both adequate and accessible. Most importantly, unlike most current programs, they should not result in women facing threats of their removal when they seek help for themselves and their families.

The role of economic resources in facilitating access to physical safety is clear, underscoring the critical need for a guaranteed liveable basic income, which would reduce the financial burden on women and allow them to make decisions about how best to care for themselves, their families and look further than short-term safety. We need to first do everything possible to prevent women being at risk of violence instead of routinely focusing on inadequate after-attack interventions such as electronic monitoring.

A recent Globe and Mail article states that in Quebec:

. . . amid a surge in hotline calls and texts from victims seeking support this year, women are being turned away from shelters that are stretched beyond capacity.

This illustrates that, even in Quebec, there is a drastic need for proper supports to address and end violence.

It is essential that women have the resources to leave violent relationships, not that we merely attach inadequate approaches after the fact. Chronic underfunding of services for women keeps them and their children at increased risk and pushes them back into dangerous situations — too often lethally. Bill S-205 does not address this.

More specifically, Bill S-205 does not address these issues for Indigenous, Black and other racialized folks in Canada. Instead, it puts increased emphasis on the use of a system that is already distrusted, already failing these groups and asks that they once more simply trust this system. The potential for inadequate, even horrific results of stand-alone measures which create a false sense of security that they will result in the protection of women is quite frankly terrifying.

To conclude, honourable senators, allow me to summarize the five main reasons why this bill will fail to achieve its sponsor’s very worthy objectives, and ones I wholeheartedly support.

First, as ineffective as it is as a tool to prevent violence against women, electronic monitoring is already available and used in some jurisdictions. It’s already in the Criminal Code. This bill is not necessary. In any event, adding statutory authority for imposing electronic monitoring is not the missing element nor even a key to preventing violence against women.

Second, the bill ignores the continuing technological problems with electronic monitoring and thus runs the clear and predictable risk of promoting a false sense of security for those believing it might protect them.

Third, it ignores the inability of police to respond immediately when an alarm is triggered, be it due to geographical remoteness, insufficient police resources, competing emergencies, or stereotypes, biases or conclusions regarding the efficacy of responding — for instance, in situations where there may have been repeated calls, including some judged by the authorities to be false alarms.

Fourth, it assumes that a man who has ignored all other social and legal norms will suddenly become compliant due to the affixing of a band to their ankle.

Lastly, it does nothing to address the central systemic issues that give rise to and perpetuate misogynist violence, much less ensure modification or management of the rage and other factors that fuel individual men when they perpetrate acts of violence against women.

To conclude, thank you Senator Boisvenu and colleagues for your commitment to ending violence. It is no doubt that we all want a goal to which we can strive. We all want to do this work.

As the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry and now the Mass Casualty Commission have reiterated, we must tackle this issue in a way that addresses these concerns. Regrettably, as I have already detailed, the approach proposed by this bill is not what we ought to pursue. Instead, I suggest we address the ideas and attitudes that fuel this violence in society, while simultaneously implementing the sorts of robust social, health and economic supports that can truly assist women by preventing the circumstances that give rise to violence in the first place, and where those are inadequate — and they will be — that we assist victims to actually escape the violence.

Meegwetch, thank you.

I want to prevent those deaths as well. Part of what we are talking about, and part of what I was trying to underscore, is what we also heard from folks who appeared before us, one issue being that we could already provide these provisions in law.

The Criminal Code currently allows for the types of interventions that you are talking about. The fact that they are not implemented or that violence against women is not taken seriously or the fact that many people do not report it is exactly part of the problem. It is not a desire to not have support or safety for any women, whether it is the women that you have been working with or the women that I work with. It is a function of looking at what will actually move things forward in the broader sense and protect lives overall.

I do not disagree with you. But these provisions have existed in law, and the fact that they have not been used is very much for some of the reasons that you and I both know, and the biases of the system.

It is difficult. I don’t understand; I’m not in your shoes. I sympathize, and I have similar attitudes and values and desires to see these issues addressed. Having worked in that system for so long, I cannot see this doing that. I want to see some measures that will actually change what happens. Thank you.

I am not sure if this was your question, but I agree with you.

Too often, when women come forward and talk about the violence that is a very real threat for them, they know, because they live it — it is a very real threat — it is not believed. That is the crux, in my humble opinion, as to why you and all of us are continuing to try and move on these issues. It is not the fact that it is not a violent offence. It is the fact that it is brought down to a he-said-she-said situation. The violence is minimized. The woman isn’t believed. There are racial reasons why. There are gendered reasons why. There are economic reasons why. I do not think that that is fair. I do not agree with that, but that is fundamentally why these tools are not used, because they are violent offences, and who knows better than the person who is experiencing the violence, as we both know from the many, many people — too many people — whom we have walked with and too many of whom are no longer with us.

I do not disagree with you. There were some people who came before us, and as I mentioned at committee, there were many women who called who did not want to come and talk about their personal situation in front of our committee, some of whom we are meeting with to talk about, for instance, Senator Manning’s framework discussions and the legislation that he is promoting, because they very much saw the same issues that were being discussed.

The least comfortable thing about this for me is that I don’t doubt for one minute the objectives that Senator Boisvenu has. I hope you don’t doubt that I have the same objectives. The fact is that the current provisions are not used, that provisions that have been brought in place to protect women, like mandatory charging practices, have been used mostly against women, especially Indigenous and other racialized women, and have resulted in them being criminalized in the context of them trying to escape violence. But when the police come or the Crown hears a story and — you heard Senator Simons talk about Justice Sheila Greckol, and but for Justice Sheila Greckol’s decision, Helen Naslund would still be serving time in prison — 18 years — because everybody believed that she was the problem, not the man who kept her imprisoned in her home and raped her and shot at her and shot at her children for 37 years.

That is the crux of the problem. We’re not addressing it. Each time we add a new measure that heaps on more legal provisions, we increase the cost without increasing the effectiveness. That is where I think we have a responsibility in our role as senators to take this seriously.

It is with heavy heart that I stand up and talk about these things because I have no doubt that every one of us wants to stop this. However, will we have the wherewithal to actually do the hard work necessary to make this happen?

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you for the question. It’s the same thing that I have been saying here. In fact, I have spoken to those women. That was the most they felt they could get. They saw it as a way that the government could posit some support and appear to be dealing with violence against women. Some of them are from the same group who have now come forward in the CBC report that I mentioned in my comments. Those same groups are saying that this money could have been devoted to more bed spaces and might have had more effective use, because those in remote and rural communities were not being served by this.

So it goes back to the very point that I hope I have made clearly — but perhaps I haven’t, and thank you for the opportunity to rearticulate it — which is that it is not that women do not say they want this, but they say they want it when it is the only thing offered. That is the issue that I think we have to grapple with as a Senate.