Status of Women Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 87 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English, or French. For those in the room, please use your earpiece. You will find—you may already see this—your English, French and floor options as well.

Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to our interpreters, so I'm going to remind everybody to be careful with their mikes and be careful with their earpieces. Take all of those things into consideration on their behalf.

This is a reminder that all comments should come through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, just raise your hand. For those on Zoom, use the “raise hand” function.

Today we're going to be continuing with Bill S-205. I am going to give a trigger warning, because after my husband watched our meeting the other day, he said it is mandatory that we give a trigger warning.

Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide this trigger warning. We will be discussing experiences related to violence and assault. This may be triggering to viewers with similar experiences. If you feel distressed or if you need help, please advise the clerk or look at me and we will do whatever we can to help. Let's get through all of this.

Now I would like to welcome our witnesses. It is wonderful to have our witnesses here today.

I would like to welcome Emilie Coyle in the room. She is executive director for the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. We have Sarah Niman, the senior director of legal services at the Native Women’s Association of Canada, who is also right here. We also have Roxana Parsa, who is a staff lawyer with the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, and we welcome her online.

What we will be doing is providing everybody with five minutes for their opening statements. I ask that you keep them to those five minutes so that we can have as much time for questions and answers as possible. When you see me start to move my arms, please bring your remarks to a close within about 15 seconds.

Today, as we continue with Bill S-205, I would like to invite Emilie for the first five minutes.

Go ahead, Emilie.

[Emilie Coyle, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

Thank you, honourable members and Chair. It is such a pleasure to be with you today, although, as you said, this is a very difficult topic.

I work as the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. Our work is situated predominantly here on the territory of the Algonquin nation, although our work takes place across Turtle Island.

We work primarily to address the persistent ways that criminalized women and gender-diverse people are denied their humanity and excluded from community.

To begin, I wish to delve into the recommendations emanating from two recent inquiries that relate to intimate partner violence: the Renfrew inquiry, which happened not too far from here, and the Mass Casualty Commission from Nova Scotia.

Both inquiries advocate treating intimate partner violence as an epidemic, emphasizing the necessity for a comprehensive, all-government effort to eradicate this pervasive form of violence. They also underscore the urgency of epidemic-level funding for gender-based violence prevention and interventions and urge a society-wide response.

The Mass Casualty Commission report, at recommendation 16, specifically highlights the vital need to shift funding away from carceral responses and towards primary prevention, including by addressing poverty and promoting healthy masculinities.

My focus today, then, is on the carceral response to intimate partner violence— that is, the electronic monitoring piece contained in Bill S-205.

Obviously, we share the goal of addressing and preventing intimate partner violence, or IPV. Women and gender-diverse people disproportionately experience IPV due to the ongoing patriarchy and misogyny that we all experience, and this is even more pronounced for the indigenous women and gender-diverse people we work with who are contending with colonial oppression and also experiencing higher rates of intimate partner violence.

Many of the people we work with and alongside have experienced such violence. Data from the Correctional Service of Canada indicates a higher prevalence of physical and/or sexual abuse among the women and gender-diverse people we work with in prisons. These people represent some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Despite these stark realities, those we work with are not considered ideal victims, and that circumstance can lead to insufficient contemplation of the consequences of implementing carceral solutions, such as electronic monitoring, in their lives.

Legislative changes aimed at protecting vulnerable populations necessitate a critical examination of potential unintended consequences. In pursuing our goals of eradicating intimate partner violence, we must ask whether our efforts could inadvertently render already vulnerable individuals more susceptible.

With regard to this legislation, I question whether it will effectively curtail intimate partner violence in Canada or divert necessary resources that could be invested in prevention. Will it genuinely address the root causes of intimate partner violence, namely misogyny and patriarchy? I'll leave you to answer these questions for yourself.

Historically, well-intended legislation rooted in carceral responses has backfired, causing more harm than good. For instance, I'm sure you've heard of mandatory charging policies in intimate partner violence cases, which were obviously initially lauded by the sector advocating against violence against women. However, these policies resulted in dual charging—punishing both parties due to the perceived inability to determine the instigator, even though the “weapon” that may have been used by one party could have been a child's toy thrown as they were fleeing.

Similarly, there's a tangible risk that if this bill passes, the most vulnerable individuals may be the ones who end up wearing the electronic monitoring bracelets, further exacerbating their marginalization. The stigma associated with wearing these bracelets could intensify the challenges faced by individuals who are already overly surveilled and overly punished.

You are all very aware of the statistics regarding the overincarceration—or what some refer to as the mass incarceration—of indigenous women and gender-diverse people in this country. It is a crisis and it is shameful.

Electronic monitoring, as a reactive carceral response, falls short in addressing the deeper issues surrounding this violence. Tackling gender-based and intimate partner violence requires a multi-faceted approach that delves into the root causes of harm. Our focus should shift from a carceral response to a more sustainable, long-term approach.

Survivors have emphasized the need for social workers, financial assistance, housing, culturally specific—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have only 10 more seconds.

[Emilie Coyle]

Thank you.

I think these also involve national awareness campaigns, basic universal incomes, easy access to counselling services and acknowledgement that intimate partner violence is a societal issue, not a private one.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're going to continue with Sarah Niman.

Sarah, you have five minutes.

[Sarah Niman, Senior Director, Legal Services, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Hello. Bonjour. Boozhoo.

Honourable committee members and Chair, thank you for inviting NWAC to bring indigenous women's voices into your study on Bill S-205 here on unceded Algonquin territory.

The indigenous women, girls, two-spirit, trans and gender-diverse people NWAC represents remind us that it is one thing to be heard in these hallowed halls, but it's another to see change in their communities.

Indigenous women are much more vulnerable to domestic violence than other women in Canada. They face the highest, most disproportionate rates of domestic violence and are targeted in an ongoing MMIWG genocide.

In this committee's study of Bill S-205, I want to talk about power. Bill S-205 gives victims more power, but it does not account for indigenous women's systemic disempowerment. Here is what I mean.

Bill S-205 would not have helped the Inuk woman and domestic violence survivor in R. v. L.P. at the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2020. She was displaced from her community by colonial policies. She was unhealthy because she lived in poverty and without supports to get well. She was dependent on her abusive partner and was vulnerable to his repeated and increasingly aggressive physical and sexual assaults.

If Bill S-205 had been enacted at the time, she would not have gone to the police for help or would not have asked a court to lay an information to protect her.

Violence is one of the key means through which abusers control women's agency and power. This Inuk woman was not empowered to ask for help, because in her lived experience, and in that of most indigenous women, the police are not there to protect them, and the trust is broken.

Indigenous women recently told NWAC that on the one hand, police are always watching them and are ready to catch them violating a condition or to alert social workers to remove their children from their care. On the other hand, when they are being abused within their homes, the police don't seem to be watching closely enough to be able to step in. This distrust poses a significant barrier that will prevent indigenous women from accessing the victim supports intended by Bill S-205.

This bill must incorporate indigenous justice principles. Many indigenous legal orders hold specific laws against gender-based violence. They hold offenders responsible and they aim to repair relationships between the victim and the community.

Victims also have a role in determining the abuser's punishment while receiving healing services of their own. Indigenous communities need indigenous-led approaches to resolving gender-based violence, and they need resources and supports to do this work. Much of this need is reflected in the findings of the MMIWG calls for justice.

NWAC recommends that this committee amend Bill S-205 by adding conditions under subsection 515(4) that are recommended by indigenous governing bodies with the authority to govern the accused. Where this bill allows a provincial court judge to lay an information before any physical family violence occurs, it could go further and could mandate judges to consider the available indigenous support services.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples directs legislators, including this committee, to work with indigenous people to protect indigenous women from all forms of violence.

Before I conclude, I want to raise the point that it is very important for this committee to study Bill S-205 in a way that does not worsen indigenous women's mass incarceration. Canada's correctional investigator's recent update noted that indigenous women make up more than half the adult prison population. In some prisons this is as high as 75%.

We heard in the other place that indigenous women often face double charging when police attend a domestic violence call. That means the police charge both the aggressor and the victim. At bail hearings for those charges, courts are still using unnecessary and unreasonable bail conditions against indigenous people at disproportionate rates.

NWAC agrees with the amendments to Bill S-205 that remove some reliance on electronic monitoring bracelets but presses this committee to remove all references to them.

As a grassroots organization, NWAC walks with indigenous women who seek help. We can provide resources, tool kits and supports, but there are systemic forces at play that are much too powerful for our organization to remedy on its own.

Bill S-205 must go further to account for indigenous women's lived realities if it is going to help reduce violence for all victims, especially the marginalized and vulnerable within this group.

Thank you, and NWAC remains available for further questions.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We're now going to move online, where we have Roxana Parsa with LEAF.

Roxana, you have the floor. You're a little more difficult to get hold of, so I'll probably interrupt before the end to say that you have 15 seconds left.

[Roxana Parsa, Staff Lawyer, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund]

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Roxana Parsa. I am a staff lawyer at the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, also known as LEAF.

I’m grateful to appear today from what is now known as Toronto, which is on the traditional land of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Wendat, Anishinabe and Haudenosaunee nations.

LEAF is a national charitable organization that works to advance the equality rights of women, girls, trans and non-binary people through litigation, law reform and public education. For the past 38 years, LEAF has advocated for the need to improve the justice system’s response to gender-based violence. We are grateful for the opportunity to be here today to share our views on this bill.

I’d like to start by expressing appreciation for Senator Boisvenu’s efforts to address intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence accounts for 45% of all violence reported by women. These risks are greater for women who are indigenous, Black and racialized, as well as for women with disabilities and migrant women. These risks are also greatly increased for people who are 2-spirit, non-binary, trans and gender non-conforming.

Responding to intimate partner violence requires an immense systemic approach that considers the needs of diverse survivors of violence. However, we encourage committee members and all parliamentarians to resist focusing on the criminal law as the sole response. Taking a carceral approach and expanding provisions in the Criminal Code do not address the systemic issues that underlie violence. We are concerned today that the focus on electronic monitoring in this bill diverts resources that could instead be spent on preventive measures and direct support of survivors, while also increasing surveillance and promoting a false sense of security.

Before sharing our concerns, we would like to first commend this bill for its provisions on sharing information with survivors during the legal process. As we have all heard numerous times, for many survivors of violence, the process of reporting an incident and engaging the legal system is retraumatizing. It often does not offer what they need to move forward with justice and safety. Survivors are often left in the dark, unaware of their own rights during the process. Requiring judges to ask prosecutors whether the intimate partner of the accused has been consulted, as well as providing them with a copy of the bail order, can have a positive impact by providing survivors with much-needed information. This is a positive step towards an approach that considers survivors to be integral parts of the criminal legal system.

However, we remain very concerned about this bill’s focus on electronic monitoring. We understand the desire and the intent behind exploring more paths to safety for survivors. However, in our opinion, electronic monitoring serves as a band-aid. Electronic monitoring does not necessarily function as an effective means to increase safety. Reliance on this technology can lead to malfunctions, such as false alarms and delayed notifications. This risk is heightened in remote and geographically isolated communities, where a lack of connectivity and sometimes extreme weather conditions can also cause monitoring systems to fail. These failures lead to the inability of law enforcement to effectively respond. In effect, while some survivors may feel an increased sense of safety, this does not translate into reality.

Electronic monitoring was also already available to judges as an option when, through Bill C-233, it was recently introduced into the law, specifically in the context of intimate partner violence. This proposed legislation is redundant and serves to increase surveillance of offenders and their families, many of whom may already be from oversurveilled and marginalized communities. As Senator Pate pointed out, studies in the U.S. show a disproportionate use of electronic monitoring on racialized and low-income families.

Finally, electronic monitoring devices are expensive, costing hundreds of dollars a month. When we are thinking about how to best spend resources, we need to think about what will have the most meaningful impact. We urge the government to reconsider spending valuable resources on criminal legal solutions that have not proved to protect women. These are resources that could be allocated to services that provide direct support for survivors and the mechanisms to seek safety.

While new laws can give the illusion of concrete action, the criminal law is not the solution. Repeated legislative amendments and expansions have not reduced the number of deaths. Moreover, when policing is seen as the primary solution to intimate partner violence, it inadvertently excludes survivors from marginalized communities, who may not seek the support, and only deepens the existing inequities in seeking safety.

The answer, we suggest, is properly supporting and funding education, prevention and frontline services that respond to the needs of survivors while working to end gender-based violence. It is time we look beyond the criminal legal system and focus our resources on developing the social systems that are necessary for violence prevention.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We'll start with our first round of questions. It's for six minutes each, and we'll pass the floor now to Dominique.

Dominique, you have six minutes.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the three witnesses who have made themselves available today.

I am going to come back to the testimony of the two victims of spousal violence who addressed the committee at the start of the week.

I am a bit amazed at what I heard this morning. I have the feeling that tools that could be put in place if Bill S-205 was adopted are being treated as an either‑or situation. This morning, a lot has been said about therapy, but also about the revision of section 810 of the Criminal Code, with which we are familiar and which really needs a good crank, as they say in Quebec. There was also discussion of the possibility of adopting electronic bracelets, an experiment that is being conducted in Quebec at present.

I think Bill S-205 will not in any way eliminate the right to rehabilitation. That is absolutely not its objective. Similarly, it will also not infringe the rights of accused persons or anyone else in civil society.

Where I come from, in Quebec, we say you cannot be too careful. If we can go for both belt and braces, we should do it, particularly when there are victims involved.

Before giving the floor back to the witnesses, and to Ms. Coyle in particular, I would like to read—if you will permit me, Madam Chair—an excerpt from the testimony we heard from Martine Jeanson at the start of the week, who had—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Forgive me for interrupting you, Mrs. Vien.

I'm sorry. The bells are going. There are lights going on in the room. We are going to stall for a second and ask. I'm not sure what the vote is on, but we do have a vote for which the bells have just gone.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It is a vote that parliamentary procedure provides for, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

One moment, please; we have to address you because your microphone wasn't open.

What I need to do is bring it to the committee, because we need to decide how to proceed. We have options, of course.

We can continue for another 15 minutes if people wish to walk across and vote in person. We can continue in the room and all vote by device. I am seeing right now that people are looking at their devices as the option. Those are the decisions we have to make. We need to be unanimous on this, so here's the choice. We can work up to another 15 minutes and end. How would we like to proceed? I'd like to hear from the committee.

Go ahead.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

If we vote with our devices, we can even push it to just five minutes before the vote and then come back with the witnesses. We have some very important witnesses to hear from.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Okay.

Is everybody okay with voting with their devices?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We will vote with our devices.

There will be a couple of minutes when we're all looking at ourselves on our phones. We apologize. We're really not that vain here—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

—and we recognize the importance of hearing from everybody today. We will suspend for a couple of minutes prior to the vote so that everybody can get in and do our thing. Once everybody has voted, it's back to work.

I'm going to pass it right back to you, ladies.

You have four minutes and 28 seconds remaining.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I was on a roll when I was interrupted, but I know where I was.

I am going to read an excerpt from the testimony given by Martine Jeanson, who said:

If my former spouse had been wearing an electronic bracelet, I would have been shielded from his attempted murder and all his other victims would have been informed.

And others had said it before her.

The way things stand, it's impossible to protect ourselves properly from a violent ex‑spouse, because we have no warning that he is coming. The group of 100 women we worked with on the project consists exclusively of spousal violence victims, at least half of whom endured an attempted murder. We all agree that the only thing that might protect us is an electronic bracelet, because there is nothing to protect us right now. Over the past 20 years, I've worked with hundreds of women who needed help. There is no way to hide them. Men can track them down at their place of work or through their family. They can follow children to school or to their friends' homes. The man will never stop stalking them, following them, harassing them and harming them. Until wearing an electronic bracelet is required, women and their children will never be protected.

The two witnesses who spoke to us are women who were stalked by their spouses for years. What they told us is not just that we have to adopt Bill S-205, but that we have to adopt it as it stands, with no amendments.

I will conclude by saying that Senator Boisvenu is not a hothead; he is a poised, calm, very moderate and very progressive person. He experienced the murder of his daughter and he came, with evidence and statistics, to beg us to support this bill.

How can it be argued today that it is not a good idea to support Bill S-205, when it also includes everything that has been mentioned, including therapy and revision of section 810 of the Criminal Code?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Who is your question to, specifically?

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

My question is for Ms. Coyle.

[Emilie Coyle]

I hope you're okay if I respond in English.

It's devastating. We all have experience in our families, in our personal lives and with our friends. Intimate partner violence, as I said at the outset, is an epidemic in this country. We all want to do something about it.

I come from the experience that most of the people we work with, who are criminalized and who are in our prisons and our jails, have experienced intimate partner violence or violence of some kind. They continue to be punished and harmed by the way our criminal law is utilized against them, rather than for them. We come to any kind of legislative reform with this in mind, especially given that most of the people we work with are the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our societies.

We want to ensure that we do this very carefully....

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Go ahead. You have time.

[Emilie Coyle]

Okay.

I also wanted to bring the Renfrew inquiry into this discussion, because the Renfrew inquiry mentions electronic monitoring as a potential solution for intimate partner violence. The recommendations do not go so far as to say it must be implemented, but rather that we should be studying it.

We want to be very careful with any kind of legislation that criminalizes or uses carceral responses. Who is it going to harm in the long run, and who is it going to protect?