Status of Women Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

[Dancella Boyi]

Yes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

I have a question for the department officials. What effect would this subamendment have? Doesn't replacing “fears” with “believes” lower the degree of proof required? Perhaps the difference in semantics is meaningless, but I'd still like to know whether it would have an impact, despite what you said earlier when you answered the question. Is it better to say “fears” instead of “believes”?

[Julia Nicol]

Thank you for your question.

I'll read what the Ontario Court of Appeal said in Budreo, in English.

As far as the difference in meaning goes, the way “believes” is interpreted versus “fears” isn't really an issue.

The Ontario Court of Appeal had this to say:

“Fear alone connotes a state of belief or an apprehension that a future event, thought to be undesirable, may or will occur.”

The meaning of the two concepts doesn't really change much, but since this is somewhat new in the context of peace bonds, we have to look to what the courts have decided.

Do you have anything to add, Ms. Moore?

[Chelsea Moore]

Basically, there isn't really any difference between “believes” and “fears” from a legal standpoint, according to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Both require an objective assessment by the court.

Regardless of which term you use, the court has said that the test will be the same. Whether it's a fear or a belief, the court will still have to decide whether there's an objective reality to that fear or belief. They do that by asking, “What would a reasonable person in a similar situation do if they had the same facts before them? Would they have this fear or belief?” That's how they assess it objectively, but there's no real difference that we've seen in the case law from our research between “belief” and “fear”.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much.

Now, we have Leah, and then we'll go to Marc and Emmanuella.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

It's nice to be back in person this week.

Picking up on a couple of comments, I think that if we're talking about “epidemic”, it's actually gender-based violence. I know that has been declared an epidemic in municipalities. It's not just intimate partner violence, but gender-based violence.

Speaking of removing victim consultation, from my understanding—I could be wrong—right now victims have the choice of three options. There's a written submission, not testifying at all or testifying. It gives more autonomy to the victim to be able to make a choice about how they want to deal with a case. I could be wrong. I'd like to hear what your understanding is.

I think “any” is actually really important. If you look at cycles of abuse, depending on where the victim is in the cycle, they may or may not feel safe to report the abuse, even though they may be in a life-threatening situation, which is why I think “any person” is really important in terms of what was proposed by the Liberals.

If a person is too fearful even to report—I know you want to do a study on coercive control—and believes that if they report, something terrible is going to happen to them, they might choose not to report, whether it's true or not, depending on how they're doing.

I actually do support the amendment of having “any”, for that reason. I think it—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I just want to ensure you are on G-3 and not the subamendment right now, as you're talking about this. The word “any” is one thing, but the subamendment is on the words “fear” and “believe.” Right now we're on the subamendment.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I follow you, okay.

That was my question. Is there a better word? It seems to me—maybe I'm wrong—that “fear” and “believe” are very subjective. Is there a better word that could be used that could be clearer?

[Chelsea Moore]

As my colleague pointed out, all the other peace bonds in the Criminal Code currently use “reasonable fear”.

I understand the concern that it does sound subjective, but the courts have interpreted it as being an objective test, even though there's a subjective connotation to it. They do need to look at it from the perspective of a reasonable person to see if they would have a similar fear if placed in a similar situation.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Out of the two, between a belief and a reasonable fear, a reasonable fear has been tested more in court. Is that right?

[Chelsea Moore]

Reasonable fear is the test that's currently in the existing eight or nine peace bond provisions, including terrorism, organized crime, sexual offences against a minor, forced marriage and serious personal injury. They all use the reasonable fear test. It has been upheld by the courts as constitutional. It was challenged in the Budreo case as being too subjective, but the court said they were going to uphold the provision because they were interpreting it through an objective lens.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

In that case, I think it would be better to use something that's been tested in the courts.

Okay, there we go.

I'm just figuring it out, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We have Marc, Emmanuella, Michelle and Lisa.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I think we're looking at the subamendment from Ms. Lewis. I just wanted to make a few comments.

As Leah pointed out, the Minister of Justice has also called gender-based violence an epidemic.

I just want to follow up on what Ms. Ferreri said about the changes to the original amendment. The idea is not to exclude intimate partners, but to include everyone who is close to the victim, so they have the right to provide information and request a peace bond. This is an improvement on the current situation because it removes obstacles.

That language is an improvement, because if we just put “intimate partner” in there, as Bill S-205 states, then family members or others cannot apply for a peace bond on behalf of the victim.

It is an improvement. I just wanted to add that. Now—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Marc, let's go back to the subamendment.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Going back to the subamendment, as we have just discussed here with Leah's question, reasonable fear has been.... I will be voting against the subamendment because G-3 has “intimate partner” in there and has the “reasonable fear”, if I'm understanding correctly.

I will be voting against the subamendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Still on the list we have Emmanuella, Michelle and Lisa.

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

Can someone just confirm if this has already been covered? I missed the first 20 minutes of committee. Were the implications of adding “and probable” already covered? Was it already asked?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Let's take that to the ladies there.

Chelsea and Julia, can you just help with that portion? We've skirted around it, but I do think it's good to have specifics.

Thank you.

[Julia Nicol]

As we discussed briefly earlier, if “probable” is added, the challenge is that it's not used to date in this context. It's used in other contexts, like investigative powers, so we would have to wait and see how the case law interprets it.

One of the possibilities is that it would make it harder to get the peace bond because it would be distinguishing a “reasonable” ground from a “reasonable and probable” ground, so it could potentially require more evidence of something to justify the fear. Unfortunately, we don't know for sure because the other peace bonds all use the “reasonable grounds” term, so we don't have a concrete example of case law using that term in the peace bond context.

The investigative context is quite a bit different, because in the peace bond context you don't need to have an offence already; you're trying to prevent one. It's a preventative measure, so it's a bit of a different context. We'd have to see what the cases come out as saying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks very much.

We're now moving on to Michelle.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I didn't want to do this as a point of order, but I wanted to point out, in regard to Ms. Gazan's point about what I had said, that I was actually saying that the City of Peterborough has declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. That's what I was saying.

To Mr. Serré's point, why wouldn't we add “intimate partner and persons”, then? That would just be a friendly conversation I would have with you if you wanted me to put it forward as an amendment, because I hear what you're saying and I think I understand it, but why would you remove that word?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Lisa, you have the floor.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I just want to make sure that we're all clear that the only thing this subamendment does is add the word “probable”, which we've heard would increase the barriers for women getting the peace bond. It also adds complications to the legal system because it's not a currently used legal term. We're asking women to make sure not only that it's reasonable but that it's probable, so they can get a peace bond. That's just adding barriers.

There's no mention of intimate partner violence in this subamendment, so I think we're going way off topic. I think we should all know that the only thing this subamendment does is add the word “probable”, which adds barriers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's all subamendments do, though. They take something and they add to or subtract from it.

When we get to amendment G-3, we'll see all of the changes that actually have occurred there. You're right—there are massive changes from G-3.

Let's get back to exactly what you're saying—the G-3 subamendment. The change involves the words “believes on reasonable and probable”. That is the change to the words there.

Are there any further comments?

Dominique, go for it.