Status of Women Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 45 seconds.

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

I was surprised to hear you treating electronic bracelets and other tools as an either‑or situation based solely on budgetary considerations, and saying that allocating financial resources for electronic bracelets might jeopardize other tools. That needs to be explained, because I do not see how those two things can be regarded as either‑or.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Okay.

You have 25 seconds to respond.

[Emilie Coyle]

It's very simple: It is among one of the criticisms that I have of this particular tool.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

We'll now pass the floor over to Lisa. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much to all the witnesses for being here and for your testimony today.

I'll just pick up from my colleague, if you want to flesh out that answer a bit. What exactly do you mean in saying that the resources could be better used?

You said the electronic bracelets could make women more susceptible and they could do more harm than good. Flesh that out for us. What exactly are you saying?

[Emilie Coyle]

In my remarks, what I said was what we witness every time there is an attempt to address really critical issues in our society by utilizing carceral responses like dual or mandatory charging, or potentially the electronic monitoring bracelet, is how that is utilized, because we have bias in our system. We can't ignore that. We have bias. We have racism in our system. It's evidenced by the fact that there are more indigenous women and Black people in prison than there are white people, proportional to the percentage of their population in our country.

When you look at responses like electronic monitoring, you would see, for example—

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Your microphone was not on.

Now it's okay. It's all good.

[Emilie Coyle]

You would see, for example, that this could be utilized against the very vulnerable people we work with, the more susceptible people.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

To be clear on that, you're saying the victims would have the electronic monitoring, not the aggressors.

[Emilie Coyle]

Right. That's what I'm worried about. Exactly.

We looked at another bill, for example, that was looking at bail reform recently. It looked at the reverse onus provision for people who had a discharge for intimate partner violence. We see women and gender diverse people whom we work with often going to domestic violence courts and receiving a discharge because they are told, “This is going to let you get back to your family faster, because you are the main caregiver.” Those are the very people who will then have the reverse onus when they go back to court if there's another intimate partner violence charge against them.

It's very nuanced and complicated, but it harms the people we work with.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I don't know if it was you or one of the other witnesses who talked about a false sense of security. Maybe Ms. Niman can talk about that.

Is it because we're not sure how well they work and we're not sure how well they work across the country? Is it that women may feel safe when, in fact, the bracelets aren't working?

[Sarah Niman]

I'm going to defer to my colleague from LEAF. That was her point.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[Roxana Parsa]

Thank you.

It is exactly what you're saying. There are many technological faults that can occur when using these devices.

In rural areas, for example, there might not be a constant signal between a device and the receiving unit. I've read about cases where there's a battery that is losing power and causes false alarms or doesn't work properly. One of the problems that arises, too, when these false alarms happen is that there's often less attention paid to them if there are false alarms going off. Even in urban areas, there can be challenges with GPS technology. There's something called “GPS drift” that occurs when the signals bounce off buildings and cause inaccuracies.

All of these different technological issues come into play and can lead to a situation of women feeling that because they have this electronic bracelet, there is the security that police will be alerted right away, but that's not really the case. It can often lead to this false sense of security, as I was talking about.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

To follow up with you, Ms. Parsa, you were also talking about something that you liked in the legislation, in that it gives victims more of a voice in their own security, but I think this legislation also impels victims to give this advice in open court. Do you see any problems with that in terms of being trauma-informed and sensitive to what victims have been going through? Do you think victims are going to be able to speak in open court about what they need to maintain their own security?

[Roxana Parsa]

I think that's a great question, and I think it's definitely something that needs to be considered with this bill. I agree that going to court is often retraumatizing for any victim.

As well, it can be difficult to share your thoughts on security when the abuser is there. Oftentimes, the court becomes a place of abuse. I think that needs to be carefully considered with this bill.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Is there anything, then, that you would keep with this legislation, or do you not support this legislation whatsoever?

I'll start with you, Ms. Parsa.

[Roxana Parsa]

We support the idea that victims should be given the order of the bail and that victims should be involved in that process and heard, but we do not support the electronic monitoring provisions or the peace bond provision, as we also believe that it is repetitive of section 810 on peace bonds, and we question the usefulness of adding this new provision.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'll turn to Ms. Coyle or Ms. Niman.

Do you have anything else that you would add to what you like in this legislation? Is there anything here that you would keep?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have 20 seconds to respond.

[Sarah Niman]

NWAC honours that this bill gives victims a voice but questions whether this bill provides access to the benefits intended by this bill to indigenous women.

[Emilie Coyle]

I concur with everything that everyone else has said.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to Andréanne Larouche for six minutes.

Andréanne, you have the floor.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Niman, Ms. Coyle and Ms. Parsa, thank you for your testimony.

The committee held its first meeting on Bill S-205 on Monday. We heard victims testify and explain the importance of this bill, to protect them. As victims, they asked us, as legislators, to move forward. We also heard the testimony of Senator Boisvenu.

I spoke with Senator Dalphond, who collaborated on this bill. He has had serious discussions, in particular with representatives of associations of shelters for victims of spousal violence in Quebec, who asked him to work to have this bill enacted.

The Government of Quebec worked conscientiously to produce the “Rebâtir la confiance” report, which contains hundreds of pages and is the result of non-partisan collaboration. All political parties in Quebec worked on the report, taking a feminist approach, and perhaps a less partisan approach than elsewhere. It is great to see how they were able to produce this report and how they gave it a very meaningful title, one that means rebuilding confidence. The loss of confidence is at the heart of the problem in the system at present. Victims have no confidence. They need tools, they need concrete action that shows them we are acting and we want to restore their confidence in the system, we want to hear them and listen to them.

This summer, I met with a member of the provincial legislature of Quebec who told me that the ball was now in the federal government's court. The Government of Quebec has done its share of the work. It has enacted a bill concerning electronic bracelets and launched a pilot project of courts specializing in sexual violence. Listening to victims and having better trained judges can happen in tandem with using anti-approach bracelets. At present, this system is operating in various places in Quebec.

Some hesitation has been expressed, particularly as regards connectivity, but Senator Dalphond told me yesterday that this was not a valid objection since cellphone coverage will continue to expand in Quebec and elsewhere, in rural areas. In Quebec, as elsewhere in Canada, there is still work to be done in certain rural areas, but it is being done and it is moving ahead. The senator is confident that coverage is going to expand.

Ms. Parsa, as I explained, electronic monitoring has therefore been one of the options that judges can consider for some time now, particularly in provinces like Quebec, which has launched its pilot project, its anti-approach bracelet program. Have you started to examine that project and look into the results? Although it is a pilot project, have you studied what is being done in Quebec? Could you explain a bit of what you have learned?