Status of Women Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I think I misunderstood what you meant when you talked about France as an exception. I thought that France already had that as an exception. Thank you for clarifying.

I recently attended a conference on violence against women. It was put on by women's groups in my region, and obviously, the important issue of coercive control was discussed. Violence doesn't always take the form of bruises on a person's arm. It is actually much more than that. I remember hearing as a teenager a slogan to raise awareness among Quebeckers about violence against women. It stuck with me: Violence doesn't always involve hitting, but it always hurts.

Right now, we have a bill that addresses coercive control, Bill C-332. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights studied the legislation.

I want to go back to that study. I'm not sure whether you've had an opportunity to examine Bill C‑332 and form an opinion.

Ms. Silverstone and Ms. McManus, would you care to comment on the legislation Canada is currently studying?

[Andrea Silverstone]

We actually had an opportunity to work with Laurel Collins on the development and writing of that bill, so we are very familiar with it.

We do have some recommendations around the length of time that the bill should be applicable post relationship, as well as what types of relationships the bill should cover. We also generally think that coercive control should also cover incidents of sexual exploitation, which the bill does not currently cover.

We've written a brief around the changes and additions that we think need to accompany the bill. We also think that it's critical that any bill that's passed in Canada have wraparound supports, services and training that come with it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Wraparound services are essential. In Quebec, non-partisan work on the issue culminated in a report, and that's the message that stood out. Not only is it necessary to train and educate those who work in the court system, but it is also necessary to make sure that victims have supports and services. It is absolutely paramount that the bill go hand in hand with measures to ensure that those wraparound services are available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

If you could wrap this up in about a 10- or 15-second answer, that would be great. Thank you.

[Andrea Silverstone]

I don't know if there was a question, but we 100% heartily agree.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I just wanted you to confirm that it's important for coercive control measures to go hand in hand with wraparound services. You said that, but I just wanted to reiterate the point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

I think I see a nodding “yes” for the analysts.

Leah, you have six minutes. Thank you.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much. I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here today.

I want to fully disclose that I totally believe that coercive control exists. I think it's a very misunderstood violence, and the onus is often placed on the victim to prove that it's occurring.

I really appreciate what you said, Madame Zaccour, and everything you said, I agreed with. I think it's made difficult by the way that victims of violence often minimize the violence. We know this through stats. We know which groups are more represented in violence, and there's still a lot of discrimination in the courts. I would say Black, indigenous and people of colour.... Something needs to happen about violence. We need to deal with this violence.

I asked in the last round about coercive control specifically. I want to actually go back to parental alienation. Do you think that having a bill about coercive control without first dealing with this non-scientific reality, often used primarily against women on parental alienation, places them more at risk?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

We do have those concerns. There are two things that are important, maybe three. First, any criminal bill will not help victims who don't go and report or if there are no charges or no convictions. It can be even worse if there are no convictions, because then there's the suspicion that she lied.

The other thing is that even when there's a conviction for family violence, the courts are still using that parental alienation trump card and finding that in spite of the conviction or a guilty plea, the mother needs to move on and the child needs to love the father. That's happening, including in cases where we've been involved.

The third thing that might happen is that abusers will claim that the mother's protective behaviour is alienation and that it's itself a form of coercive control. We're seeing abusers reusing that language, which they often do, using equality language to twist it. The priority for many women who have children is first to separate safely, and the criminal justice system doesn't interact directly with the family justice system, so it's not enough to help them separate safely from the abuser and protect their children.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I think that's why I'm asking all these questions. I want to know, if there was a bill that was put in place in support of changing the Criminal Code to include coercive control, how could that be done, in your mind, in a way that is safe and doesn't further marginalize victims?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

In our opinion, because of the concerns with the criminalization of coercive control, there are priority interventions that need to come before. That would be ending women's financial dependence, making it safe for women to leave, reforming family law and removing those accusations of parental alienation, because now we're telling women that they need to report the coercive control, but then, if they do, they might lose their kids.

First we need to address these priority issues and make women safe. Otherwise, we fear that it won't help as many women as it could, and it could even backfire in some cases. That's why we're focusing on some priority issues, because if the system is ill equipped to deal with this new crime, and if charges are dropped or abusers are found not guilty, then women have to pay and are punished for this disclosure. That will be a real problem that could make the situation either not better or even worse for some victims.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you very much. I'm not going to talk about it too long, but I always have to ask. I have a bill that I'll be speaking to tomorrow for a guaranteed livable basic income for that very reason. Is that one of the pieces, yes or no?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Yes, absolutely.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Going back to eventually getting to a bill on coercive control, I do have a concern about parental alienation, and we heard from a witness just today about their experiences with the parental alienation accusation and how it was used. These are my concerns.

The other one is that—and maybe I'm wrong and you can correct me—the onus to prove coercive control is still left on victims, who are often, when they're doing it, dealing with a lot of psychological and emotional trauma and scars that make it difficult. Is that right?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Yes, it can be very difficult to demonstrate coercive control if the actors are not properly trained and don't know what it looks like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much.

For the next round, we have Michelle Ferreri for five minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

There's so much to unpack here, because it's trying to get to the crux of the justice part of this.

In the 42nd Parliament, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould amended the Divorce Act in Bill C-78 to introduce the term “family violence”. It says:

“family violence” means any conduct, whether or not the conduct constitutes a criminal offence, by a family member towards another family member, that is violent or threatening or that constitutes a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour or that causes that other family member to fear for their own safety or for that of another person—

It goes on with “and in the case of a child”.

There's a group, the Canadian Equal Parenting Council, and I think it is really important.... We are the status of women committee, so we're here for women, but I think it's really important to put on the record that men are and can often be victims of coercive control as well, and children are often the ones who are hurt.

I guess my question is for you, Ms. Zaccour. When we talk about parental alienation, I just want to read into the record what this states. It states, “Parental alienation happens when one parent coerces or controls a child to reject the other parent without justification. It is distinguished in practice from estrangement, by evidence and professional investigation. Peer-reviewed and published academic research concludes that alienation of children from a parent is emotional abuse. The long-term effects on children are well documented as they lose the capacity to give and accept love from a parent.”

The reconciliation...or the problem is a couple of things. One, which has been brought up, is that we need the right people investigating and interviewing these children. I recently visited the Toba Centre in Winnipeg, and I highly recommend that everybody here look into that. It's a child advocacy centre.

How do we change the law? What happens is the parent could be engaging in coercive control, but once the child is 15 or so, in their teenage years, they don't know that they're in a “coercive control” position per se. This is the whole issue around coercive control. It's very challenging, because people often don't even know they're in an unhealthy relationship. The children are subject to terrible situations, but they don't know that one parent is manipulating them or doing that.

How do we put that into a legal system? How do we train judges to know what that is?

I know I'm asking a million different questions here, but I think there are two recommendations we're trying to get out of this. Should we be making parental alienation illegal, and should we be making coercive control illegal in the Criminal Code?

I'll start with whoever wants to answer.

[Suzanne Zaccour]

It's really important. What we're asking for is to ban accusations of parental alienation. If we go the route of making parental alienation illegal, we're going to end up like Brazil and Mexico, where they're seeing that women are being punished for disclosing abuse.

I don't know which definition you were reading from, but the idea that parental alienation is distinguished in practice from realistic estrangement due to violence is not the case. Parental alienation is not distinguished from family violence. In scientific literature, there is no objective, reliable instrument to distinguish the two. It comes down to just an opinion.

The problem is that every time we say that this child has been alienated by their mother—it's often the mother who is accused—it could very well be, and often is, that the child is actually reacting to the father's violence, yet it's the mother who is being punished.

I'll follow up with a brief to this committee addressing some of the frequently asked questions on what the science does and doesn't show, but it's really important to know that the accusations are being used to punish victims.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you for clarifying that. I really appreciate that.

I have only 20 seconds, so if anybody can submit written testimony to the committee, I would very much appreciate that. I know we have just a few seconds left, but does the Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society have anything to add for 15 seconds?

[Andrea Silverstone]

We think there should be criminalization of coercive control. We think it adds another tool in the tool box of the justice system, both in terms of family law—it's great that it's part of our Divorce Act now—and in the criminalization of it.

Just to address the issue you raised that men experience coercive control, one of the reasons that we think coercive control should be one of the frameworks that we look at is that it's a non-gendered framework that actually allows whoever is the victim to get the support they need, regardless of their gender.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

That's well said. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

We have Emmanuella with the Liberals.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here with us and for sharing this testimony.

I'm going to take it to a different place, because we've spoken about the fact that victims don't often come forward. They're afraid, and they don't always know that they deserve the help or that they're in a situation in which they need the help. We're talking about master manipulators here, so they're in this web, and they don't necessarily recognize it.

I think that the first place to call, if somebody is experiencing this, is likely the police. If they go to the police—given that you've likely worked with many victims, both groups here today—what is the experience that they have at that first line of contact with the police? What is their experience? Are they listened to? Is it taken seriously? Are they dismissed?

[Carrie McManus]

I'd love to jump in here and talk a bit about the experiences of our clients and what we hear from police. We often hear from police that they are looking for coercive control legislation because it would allow them to actually act and move forward on what they're seeing. They see those patterns, the fear and the things that are happening, but they are bound within the confines of what they can do in terms of those responses. Police across Alberta work very closely with social services to ensure that people are getting those connections, but they are looking for something that allows them to actually do that better and to respond better.

I draw us back to the 80% statistic. People are not necessarily calling police, first and foremost, and across the country we know that people often don't disclose to police but do talk to friends and family; they talk to people around them. That's where the ability to take something like coercive control...the criminalization gives it a validity and a movement towards starting to better understand the impact of what is happening and how it is impacting our families and our communities, so that everyone can start to say, “I notice that this thing is going on. Are you okay? I now understand what domestic abuse looks like.”

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Suzanne, would you like to add to that?