Bill C-247 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person towards whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health and a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Okay. I'll try to save 15 seconds.

Thank you for being here, Ms. Collins, and congratulations on getting your private member's bill this far. We wish you the best in possibly getting it all the way through Parliament.

Mr. Mendicino made reference to another study that this committee had done. The report coming out of that was titled, “The Shadow Pandemic: Stopping Coercive and Controlling Behaviour in Intimate Relationships”. One of the recommendations, recommendation 2, said, “concerning the drafting of government legislation regarding a coercive and controlling behaviour offence in the Criminal Code, [consider] Bill C-247 as possible language”. I believe that was the earlier version from Mr. Garrison.

Do you have any comments on why the government has not proceeded with this, made it a government bill and expedited it through the whole process, leaving it to you as yet another person bringing forward a private member's bill?

Criminal Code

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak to Bill C‑332, which amends the Criminal Code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person towards whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health or a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.

The issue of controlling and coercive conduct has been an interest of mine for quite some time. This type of conduct includes physical, sexual and emotional abuse, financial control, and implicit or explicit threats to the partner or ex-partner and to their children, belongings or even pets.

First I will spend a little more time talking about the definition, before moving on to other measures we are currently looking at to address violence. I will conclude by explaining some of our concerns with the bill.

First, I have discussed the topic with my colleague from Rivière‑du‑Nord on a number of occasions. That is how I found out that Megan Stephens, one of the witnesses who participated in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights' study, had mentioned a minor complication, namely, the fact that there is no universally accepted definition. However, the following are some of the definitions that were given over the course of the study: limiting transportation, denying access to household, controlling food consumption, disconnecting phone lines, breaking cell phones and preventing them from going to work or going to school. Combined together, all those forms of behaviour fall under coercive control.

Abusive partners uses isolation, both physical and psychological, as a means to control their partner's contact with friends and family to emotionally bind the partner to them with the shackles of fear, dependency and coercive tactics of control.

In some cases, the violent partner uses state-sanctioned structures to continue to coerce and control their victim by creating problems related to custody of the children and visitation rights. The justice system is used as a weapon against the victim. According to a study published by Statistics Canada in April 2021, intimate partner violence is a serious problem, and controlling and coercive behaviours are an integral part of that. It is difficult to know the exact scope of this type of violence in Canada, because most cases are not reported to the police.

I want to point out that, in 2021, we were in the midst of the pandemic and victims were at home with their abusers 24-7. The fact that most cases of intimate partner violence are not reported to the police is the biggest impediment to determining how many people are affected, documenting the situation and implementing solutions for the victims of these types of behaviour. It is difficult for them to find a way to talk so someone.

During her testimony in committee, Lisa Smylie, the director general of communications and public affairs for the research, results and delivery branch at the Department for Women and Gender Equality, said that only about 36% of domestic violence incidents and 5% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. Those numbers are very low.

According to the data reported by the country's police forces in 2018, women living in rural areas experience intimate partner violence the most. That is also important to note. What is more, even though coercive and controlling violence may be present in other cases, it is present in 95% of cases of domestic violence as we know it.

Today, it is facilitated by technological advances such as geolocation systems, miniature cameras, smart phones and social media platforms. This makes everything more complex. All these things make it easier for the abusers when they want to continue to inflict harm and reinforce the isolation and control, regardless of where their victim may be. There are also the traditional forms of blackmail on social media, such as identity theft, the repeated sending of threatening messages or the disclosure of personal information or content about the victim that is sexual in nature.

In light of the testimony offered during the study at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, a rather high number of offences under the Criminal Code can apply to domestic violence. The committee noted a few problems with the enforcement of the current legislation in the cases of victims of coercive or controlling violence.

Victims are wary of and have little confidence in existing mechanisms, police services and the justice system to adequately deal with their trauma. A number of stakeholders noted that victims believe that they will not be taken seriously and they worry about myths. They do not want to be judged by institutions on their credibility when they report their abusers.

Abusers often create financial and other forms of dependence, which limits the actions that victims caught in this vicious circle can take, because they could lose everything, end up on the street or lose custody of their children.

The divide between the criminal justice system, family courts and community organizations needs to be addressed.

When elements of coercive control and other forms of control are present, the criminal and judicial systems too often say that simply telling one's story is not enough to file a complaint.

Lastly, one of the most serious obstacles is the under-enforcement of the law. Multiple charges against violent men are often reduced to a single charge, usually assault. This charge is then often withdrawn in exchange for a peace bond. This is the infamous section 810.

The many femicides and cases of harassment demonstrate the limitations and the weakness of section 810 in cases where violent men pose a high risk of reoffending. They must be treated differently and required to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Second, the bill proposed by the member for Victoria is part of a growing trend among legislators to focus on coercive violence. In recent years, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights released a report on this issue, which was presented in the House on April 27, 2021. The Standing Committee on the Status of Women also touched on the issue during its study on intimate partner violence and made two motions a priority for the winter of 2024, one of which was my study proposal to look at international best practices in this area and try to learn from them.

I also examined this issue to a lesser degree at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, when I participated a few times in its study on safe practices in sport and the topic of coercive control came up.

More recently, the Liberal member for Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle's Bill C‑233, which was also examined by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, received royal assent on April 27.

The bill amended the Criminal Code to require judges, in cases of domestic violence, to consider whether it is appropriate for the accused to wear an electronic monitoring device before issuing a release order. In addition, the bill amended the Judges Act to include an obligation to hold continuing education seminars on issues of sexual assault, intimate partner violence and coercive control.

To a lesser extent, Bill C-21, which is currently before the Senate, focuses primarily on gun control and revoking possession when an individual is suspected of, or has engaged in, domestic violence, including coercive and controlling behaviour. This is part of a trend.

Third, Bill C-332 amends the Criminal Code, after section 264, by introducing the concept of controlling or coercive conduct as a criminal offence. The Bloc Québécois supports the objective of Bill C-332. However, we see several major shortcomings that will have to be studied in committee. The scope of the bill should be expanded to allow former spouses or other family members who are not part of the household to testify, in order to break the infamous “one person's word against another's” system. That is good.

What is more, consideration of testimony from neighbours, colleagues or others might also make it easier for victims to come forward. The severity of sentences and the consideration given to children in cases of coercive or controlling violent behaviour are other important factors. Reviewing the grounds on which prosecutors drop several charges and opt for the lowest common denominator shows that this can hinder the administration of justice and undermine public confidence and the victims' confidence in the courts that deal with these issues. We have to study all of that.

There are already 35 sections in the Criminal Code that can apply to domestic or family violence. They just need to be rigorously enforced, and we need to think of ways of ensuring that prosecutors rely on these sections more often in cases of coercive or controlling violence. We also need to address the difficulties associated with collecting evidence and ensuring solid and sound prosecution.

Megan Stephens, Executive Director and General Counsel at Women's Legal Education and Action Fund argued that Bill C‑247 and Bill C‑332 can make the legislation unnecessarily complex because new concepts are being introduced when the Criminal Code already contains very similar offences, particularly on criminal harassment and human trafficking. We will need to take a closer look at that.

The wording of the two NDP members' bills does not address the issue of victims having to relive their trauma. They will have to retell their stories over and over again, just as they do now, which has been roundly criticized. Furthermore, Bill C-332, as currently drafted, does not change how these matters are dealt with by the courts and the authorities.

In closing, if we want to ensure that this never happens again, if we want to put an end to this shadow epidemic, we must take action. We must take action because violence is not always physical, but it always hurts.

As a final point, the Quebec National Assembly has also made this call. I had a discussion with an MNA in Quebec City this summer. She told me that the Quebec National Assembly had done its part, that it had produced the report “Rebuilding Trust” and said that the ball was now in Ottawa's court. She said that the National Assembly does not have jurisdiction to study coercive control in the Criminal Code. I took it upon myself to heed the call from the Quebec National Assembly, a call made by female MNAs who did exceptional, non-partisan work.

Let us try to examine it intelligently in committee.

Justice and Human Rights

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights examined the issue of coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate relationships to explore the possibility of considering such behaviour to be a criminal offence. This was done in connection with Bill C‑247, which was introduced in 2020. Members will recall that that bill died on the Order Paper when the government called an election that never should have happened because it did not change the make-up of the House whatsoever.

The purpose of Bill C‑247 was to add to the Criminal Code proposed subsection 264.01(1), which read as follows:

Everyone commits an offence who repeatedly or continuously engages in controlling or coercive conduct towards a person with whom they are connected that they know or ought to know could, in all the circumstances, reasonably be expected to have a significant impact on that person and that has such an impact on that person.

We are talking about a hybrid offence that would carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison. It was proposed that the justice committee carry out a separate study to consider coercive behaviour within the meaning of what was then Bill C‑247.

It is important to be very careful when discussing intimate partner violence. It is a very delicate and sensitive subject. Violent or coercive behaviour has no place in intimate relationships and should never occur. We all know that the goal of eliminating it completely will unfortunately never be achieved. It will always exist to some degree, which is why solutions must be carefully thought out before we write them into any legislation that would amend the Criminal Code. We must help victims as much as possible, but we must help them in the right way. Drafting legislation that properly reflects the intent of Bill C-247 is an extremely complex exercise.

The report illustrates this quite well. Witnesses and experts have many reservations and have suggested a number of changes. Penalties for coercive behaviour cannot be set out in just a few clauses, as much as we would all like that to be the case. Some countries already have these or similar tools in their criminal codes. It would perhaps be wise to study their systems more carefully and try to understand how these ideas could be transposed and adapted here.

The Criminal Code is a set of laws that create limits for what is and is not acceptable in a society. These laws can evolve over time, and they differs from one place to the next. We can draw inspiration from foreign laws, but we cannot simply copy them. That is a shortcut that could go awry, although it might be done with good intentions initially.

The Criminal Code already has provisions for people who are victims of violence. Even so, the problem is that women are generally reluctant to report. As my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo mentioned, there are also evidentiary challenges when witnesses cannot be convinced to follow through with their testimony to get someone charged because they still have an emotional connection to that person.

The other problem, in the case of psychological violence and coercive behaviour, is that victims may not realize they are victims until they are really trapped. Another thing to consider is that people who behave coercively do everything they can to isolate their victim. Without their network, victims find it very hard to report this behaviour, especially when their self-confidence has been eroded. Slowly but surely, a web is woven around the victim. This can happen to anyone, no matter their gender, age or social class. There is no such thing as a typical victim, no model that makes it easy to identify these victims from the outside.

A lot of awareness raising and prevention need to be done before we can come up with legislation that is comprehensive and effective. That is one of the recommendations in the report. It also talks about raising judges' awareness.

It is important to note that the Government of Quebec plays a lead role in many ways with respect to public awareness and prevention. In Quebec, things are networked, and resources are interlinked: education, health, social services, justice and public safety.

We have used the team approach for quite some time, which leads me to share my own concerns about the steps mentioned in the debate on this report.

Criminalization comes up over and over again. That is what is behind the creation of a Criminal Code section, but we do not talk enough about rehabilitation or even assistance. That may not be unusual because, as I just mentioned, on our side the assistance would be provided by the Government of Quebec and the provinces, which are responsible for social services.

I would like to address the fact that the bill says barely anything at all about striking a balance between criminalization and rehabilitation. There is also very little mention of it in the report.

Both the victims and their assailants need help, but Bill C‑247 did not mention the balance that needs to be struck. There was no mention of the possibility of providing help and upstream prevention.

I would like to conclude my speech on a positive note because all the work that was done by the committee is still very important. This work needs to be a precursor to a deeper, more tangible reflection on the opportunities available to us to try to legislate on this type of behaviour and, ultimately, help the people who are the victims of it directly or indirectly. That is really its primary objective. These victims are also often collateral damage and we need to think of them.

[Chief Francis Lanouette, Co-Chair of the Crime Prevention, Community Safety and Well-being Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Good afternoon.

As police officers, we know that by the time a domestic violence charge goes to court, it’s likely that the victim has been experiencing some form of violence or controlling behaviours at the hands of their partner for a significant amount of time.

Recently, our association expanded its focus on domestic violence to address the issue of coercive control. Our committee is collaborating on research to better understand this phenomenon from a police perspective and to develop the tools necessary to detect it. To improve the understanding of this concept by the policing community, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police offered a webinar on this topic.

Our association also proposes other avenues of intervention to achieve continued progress to help protect victims sooner, before physical or visible harm comes to them. First, we must address current limitations in the Criminal Code when it comes to intervening in cases of domestic violence. As a result, we support legislative changes including the addition of coercive control as a new offence under the Criminal Code, as suggested in our submission on Bill C‑247, which is now known as Bill C‑202.

We also support adopting Intimate Partner Violence Disclosure Acts, Clare's Law, throughout all provinces and territories in Canada.

In addition to legislative changes, we are also calling for the development of a Canadian Intimate Partner Violence Policing Centre, as previously mentioned by Chief Greenwood; the implementation of courts specialized in these matters that would be better equipped to support victims throughout the judicial process; continued education and awareness initiatives with the general population, and especially with youth; the development of multi-sectoral teams whose mandate is to assess the risk of homicide in cases of intimate partner violence.

On this last point, it should be noted that, in Quebec, such rapid response teams are already being deployed and a new law on electronic bracelet systems has been adopted. The Quebec experience could perhaps be expanded across the country.

In conclusion, we must provide officers with tools to help them recognize and address intimate partner violence, including coercive control, because when victims remain silent in the belief that there is nothing police can do, they also lose out on the opportunity to access support agencies, resources, and opportunities to change their situation.

Thank you for your attention.

Gender-Based Violence

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Chair, in my speech I talked about support for my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke's private member's bill, Bill C-247, which would make coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence. Does the member support the bill and could she could tell us why?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

I appreciate the debate we are having tonight to highlight this pandemic within a pandemic and to highlight the seven Quebec women whose lives were taken in the past few months and, of course, the 160 women whose lives were taken this past year.

Across Canada, front-line women's agencies and police report increases of intimate partner violence at 30% to 70%. We cannot continue to stand by as women's lives are ended, and their deaths cannot go without action. Often those women who are killed have suffered many violence acts prior, and a woman who is trapped without resources, financial or otherwise, to flee has too often been a victim of many different types of abuse, not only from her partner but from a broken system and those in power unwilling to do what is truly necessary to change it.

The New Democrats have and will continue to push to change that system and to act. That is why I am so proud to support the private member's bill from my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, Bill C-247, which would make coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence.

We know that intimate partner violence has been and continues to plague our society and that the pandemic has made this problem even more acute, as the numbers from Quebec show. Patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour are also forms of violence, but these patterns are often a precursor to overt physical violence. This behaviour being seen as a criminal offence would allow earlier intervention by police, courts and service organizations without having to wait for that actual violent incident to take place.

We know that our families, communities and country are stronger when women thrive. In Canada today, it is still all too common for women to experience discrimination and gender-based violence, particularly if they are members of marginalized communities.

In Canada, there are only a patchwork of plans, programs and supports. There is no comprehensive system in place. Shelters across Canada have been asked to do more with less year after year. Some shelters in Canada have reported not receiving funding increases in nearly a decade, but they took action. They made up the difference through their own fundraising efforts. They showed the leadership that women, children and non-binary people in their neighbourhoods needed.

On the front lines, time, resources and money are limited, but incredible community leaders and volunteers take on that fight daily, and I am so grateful for them. During the pandemic, numerous women's organizations emphasized the need for core operational-based funding. It is necessary for any organization to be able to shift during an emergency to provide the community-based programming they know is needed.

During the Harper government, a great deal of that funding to institutions was cut and any funding provided was made available only under specific project-based funding. Under subsequent Liberal governments, some funding has been returned, but not to the levels required and still through that same project-based funding model.

Women's organizations must have long-term, stable, core funding so women can access the supports and advocacy they need when they need it.

For five years, the government has touted a national action plan to end gender-based violence. Whether in committee or in the House, since being elected, I have taken every opportunity to ask the government when a plan will be formalized and brought forward. Sadly, women are still waiting.

We also need action and the implementation of the calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. We must implement all 231 calls for justice. This cannot be another inquiry that sits on a shelf and collects dust. Women do not need another report only to refer to when a government has been caught ignoring the problems women face, a report like the 2015 Deschamps report on sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Deschamps report has 10 recommendations, yet only two have been implemented in six years.

Gender-based violence impacts all women of all different ages, racial backgrounds and cultural groups. Everyone is at risk and everyone is a potential victim. Those at high risk, something we have heard repeatedly during this pandemic, are people who are already vulnerable. Women living in poverty, women with a disability, immigrant women, and indigenous women and children are disproportionately affected by this form of abuse and violence.

I must conclude with this. The problem is clear and the solutions can be clearer. These disturbing numbers of the murders of women from Quebec and across Canada underline the necessity of ensuring that the House and the government take action that is both effective and urgent. That is what I will continue to fight for. That is what New Democrats will continue to fight for.

[Christopher Sheppard, President, National Association of Friendship Centres]

Thank you.

Atelihai, Christopher Sheppard, uvanga.

Good afternoon, committee. I'm Christopher Sheppard, president of the National Association of Friendship Centres. I want to recognize that I'm joining you today from Treaty No. 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis. I'm thankful for the welcome I've received while being a visitor on their land. I am joined by the NAFC executive director, Jocelyn Formsma, and we thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

The NAFC represents over 100 local friendship centres and PTAs in every province and territory in Canada except Prince Edward Island. Friendship centres are urban indigenous community hubs that provide a wide range of programs and services for demographics of all indigenous people—first nations, Métis, Inuit, urban and 2SLGBTQ+—including programs for babies, families, children, youth, adults and seniors. We offer services in justice, health, violence prevention, housing, homelessness, economic development, employment and training, early learning and child care, education, indigenous languages and culture.

Collectively, we are the largest and most comprehensive urban indigenous service delivery network in Canada. In 2019, 93 friendship centres served approximately 1.4 million first nations, Inuit, Métis and indigenous people across over 1,200 programs in 238 buildings, and employed over 2,700 people.

Bill C-247 may be helpful in some situations for persons experiencing controlling and coercive behaviour. However, on our review of the bill, first nations, Inuit, Métis, urban indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ people will still be reliant on the justice system to provide solutions if they choose to engage with this new section of the Criminal Code, should this bill pass. Further reliance on justice systems potentially subjects indigenous people to existing and continued broader issues of systemic racism barriers. We have numerous examples where indigenous people experience harm from systems in cascading and sometimes deadly ways. The success or accessibility of this potential new section of the Criminal Code is similar to other sections and relies on reporting of incidents and high levels of trust in these systems, which currently does not exist.

Without further action that is targeted at systemic racism in justice, housing, education and health systems, it remains likely that urban indigenous people will not be able to access the benefits that this bill hopes to achieve.

In a recent report on urban indigenous people and public service accessibility in Quebec, a survey was conducted regarding urban indigenous interactions with public services. The report submits that the survey results show that violence is widespread, but that services are greatly under-utilized. It is clear that both an apprehension of the public service system and a lack of familiarity with its services hinder urban indigenous people's access to prevention and intervention services for sexual and domestic violence issues. One participant is quoted as saying, “My ex was beating me and the police didn't believe me.”

Although this study was completed in Quebec, these issues are widespread across Canada and rely on the kind of disaggregated data that we need but currently do not have in order to give a clear picture of the urban indigenous situation. How are indigenous people supposed to report non-overtly violent acts while systemic racism and overt violence against our people persist?

NAFC submits that adequate programming to support urban indigenous people in understanding their rights as well as accessing their rights is crucial. Friendship centres remain a safe place for all indigenous people to access cultural programming and ultimately foster community connection. Friendship centres across Canada are offering wraparound programming every day, which allows victims of abuse to feel safe in disclosing abuse and to feel supported in reporting it to the police.

For accessing legal services and navigating the health system, it is essential that indigenous-specific supports like friendship centres receive adequate funding in order to be able to continually run these programs.

We conducted a literature review of reports and recommendations that they make regarding indigenous justice. The key themes that emerged are these. One is the need to train and educate non-indigenous people on indigenous history, heritage, culture, identity, laws and current realities. However, when reviewing publicly available federal responses, we found little in the way of mandatory or ongoing training on indigenous matters for any national or federal law enforcement entity.

Two is to increase funding to indigenous communities for public programs and organizations that benefit indigenous people. There are few funds available for justice-related programming.

Finally, increase participation of elders within the justice system, increase education and training for indigenous people on the Canadian justice system, and increase and promote proper use of Gladue reports and courts. We found that these activities are very sparsely implemented across the country. Urban indigenous people are continually caught in jurisdictional matters between federal and provincial governments; law enforcement and justice are no different.

The NAFC has offered and continues to offer its perspective, expertise and knowledge of urban indigenous communities and community members to inform the federal government and guide effective remedies, both now and as we continue on this journey.

We look forward to being a part of this conversation and to any questions you might have.

[Chief Francis Lanouette, Co-Chair of the Crime Prevention, Community Safety and Well-being Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Good afternoon.

Thank you to the members for the opportunity to appear before this committee.

My presentation today will be delivered in two parts. The first will present the position of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) on the proposed legislative amendment. The second will support the CACP's position by demonstrating the limitations currently imposed by the Criminal Code when it comes to intervening in cases of intimate partner violence.

Chief Greenwood will address the prevalence of intimate partner violence in Canada and how the addition of a coercive control law could interrupt violent assaults, therefore protecting our victims sooner, before physical or visible harm comes to them.

Let me begin by stating that the CACP supports the creation of a new Criminal Code offence for coercive control between intimate partners. With this action, Canada reaffirms its commitment to do everything possible to make gender equality a reality.

As we focus on the new offence being proposed by Bill C-247, we would like to draw your attention to recommendations 1 to 4, found on page 10, of a brief prepared by the University of New Brunswick: support for the creation of a new criminal offence of coercive control; ensure the inclusion of former intimate partners regardless of living arrangements; a comprehensive description of coercive control behaviours; the implementation of a risk assessment tool for police officers so they can clearly identify the elements that constitute coercive control behaviours.

The University of New Brunswick conducted a workshop in Quebec last November, with the active participation of the CACP, as part of a research project on coercive control behaviours. I would like to share an excerpt of the testimony of a female police officer, a team sergeant, that clearly demonstrates the current limitations for police intervention:

The problem I see at our level is when there is no criminal offence. For example, there is no assault, no threat, no harassment, just to name a few, but there are clearly coercive control behaviours. We find ourselves in a kind of fog. We do not have concrete tools at our disposal, nor do we have many possible intervention options. This means that we often go back to the station with a case of family dispute or of assistance to the public when we know full well that something unhealthy was going on. However, our authority under the Criminal Code of Canada did not provide us with a legislative option to intervene. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for us to tell ourselves that we will be back to that address, with the hope that, at that time, there might be a legal reason to take concrete action and that it is not too late.

As you can see, our police officers have the victims' best interests at heart, but in the absence of a clearly established criminal offence for coercive behaviour between intimate partners, they cannot intervene adequately. This testimony clearly outlines the current limitations of the Criminal Code and the importance of implementing legislation in this area.

I now turn the presentation over to my colleague, Chief Kimberley Greenwood.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

In your opinion, will Bill C-247 help children who are living in these abusive situations? Also, what more can we do to ensure that children are protected?

[Carla Neto, Community Programs Manager, Women's Habitat of Etobicoke]

Good morning, Madam Chair.

My name is Carla Neto, and I appear before this committee representing Women's Habitat of Etobicoke, a feminist organization serving victims and survivors of gender-based violence, and their children or dependants, since 1978.

We operate two distinct services, a 25-bed shelter for women and children escaping violence, and an outreach centre that works with women and children living in the community who are impacted by violence and poverty, many of whom are still residing with abusive intimate partners. Both sides support women to assess risk, develop safety plans, offer counselling to address the impact of abuse and trauma, and offer referrals to essential services such as housing, health care and legal services, parenting programs, as well as prevention and leadership programming for boys and girls.

I have worked in this sector for almost 30 years, working with children and women, victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, in which coercion and control are very much part of the dynamic of the abuse and terror they are subjected to.

We thank you for inviting us and commend you on your efforts in the study of this topic and the proposed creation of a new criminal offence of controlling or coercive conduct as outlined in the private member's bill, Bill C-247.

Historically, much emphasis has been placed on physically aggressive acts in intimate partner violence. In doing so, we often lacked the broader context of the relationship and missed the opportunity to see the role and impact of non-physical violence. Although we can't say that coercive control will always eventually result in physical abuse, it is fair to say that in our experience and work with victims and survivors of abuse, all physical abuse was preceded by and will continue to include coercive control.

Coercive control occurs within the context of complex dynamics in intimate partner relationships where one partner exerts power and control over the other. Coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviours that create an unequal power dynamic in a relationship, making it difficult for the victims of such behaviour to leave the relationship, because it's less visible and therefore often seen as having lesser effect. It is also harder to identify by family and friends, but, certainly, it is equally damaging to the women and children subjected to it in the relationship.

Victims and survivors of coercive control describe their experiences as living under a constant, never-ending threat. Others describe feeling like captives trapped in plain sight. Those of us who are survivors of war recognize some of the same psychological effects and impacts in the victims and survivors of coercive control.

Coercive control in intimate partner violence has two main components, coercion and control. Coercion can be the use of force or threats of physical aggression to alter the victim's behaviour. Control is used to compel obedience by the victim by monopolizing vital resources, dictating preferred choices, limiting options and depriving the victim of essential supports needed to exercise a level of independence.

Coercive control is so effective because the victims see threats of punishment by abusers as credible, and they should. Many of the women we serve shared being stalked by their abusive partners. They also shared that threats included death, the abusive partner threatening suicide, disfigurement, removal or harm to their children, pets and family members, deportation and defamation, just to name a few.

The control victims experience at the hands of their abusive partners includes the removal of choice of decisions about their own reproductive health and rights, because the more children a woman has with the abusive partner, the greater control the abuser exercises in all spheres of her life, including using state-sanctioned structures such as the legal and family law systems to continue to coerce and control women through custody of and access to the children. Additionally, abusive partners use the manipulation of children, including threatening to kill their other parent, in this case the victim, if the children choose to reside with the victim in situations of child custody. It is common that children will even refuse to go to the shelters.

Isolation is another tactic, and, sadly, statistics show that in many of these cases where coercive control is coupled with physical violence, it leads to lethality.

Finally, we suggest that the strategies and efforts to address violence in intimate relationships and gender-based violence must be multipronged to address its complexity and dynamics: prevention through education, provision of supports for victims and survivors, supports for organizations that support the victims, meaningful investments and funding, and legislative changes.

Thank you.

[Chief Nishan Duraiappah, Chief, Peel Regional Police]

Good day, Chair Khalid and committee members. I'm very thankful for the invitation to participate in this discussion on controlling and coercive conduct within intimate partner relationships.

As you know, my name is Nishan Duraiappah. For the past 14 months, I've had the pleasure of being chief of Peel Regional Police here in Ontario, and previous to that I policed in another jurisdiction. For context, Peel region contains 1.4 million people and has the highest percentage of visible minorities within the greater Toronto area. It is inclusive of the cities of Brampton and Mississauga, and we are also responsible for policing Canada's largest international airport, which is Toronto Pearson.

In Peel region, our officers respond to over 1,000 calls for family violence and intimate partner violence per month. Family and intimate partner violence, collectively, remain the number one call for service for us. In 2020, this equated to over 19,000 calls for help.

Tragically, despite our best efforts, some of these calls result in homicides and serious assaults. Roughly 40% of all homicides in Peel region over the last two years have been because of family and intimate partner violence. This is a priority affecting communities in Peel and across this country.

Power and control are essential to the cycle of family and intimate partner violence. Peel police support the need to pursue additional mechanisms that interrupt that cycle. The new offence proposed by Bill C-247 is an opportunity to do so. We know that there are many incidents where the ability to intervene in controlling behaviour will be an added tool to prevent future loss of life and harm to a victim.

I understand that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who support the establishment of this offence, will be providing remarks later.

Our goal here in Peel police is to find every possible way to mitigate risk, and the enforcement of coercive control can be a valuable tool. I'll briefly speak to risk mitigation tools, but I would like to emphasize that, despite the best offences being available to us, we continue to be concerned that repeat intimate partner violence creates the greatest challenge for us. The need for reform as it pertains to high-risk, repeat offenders is of importance to me.

On Tuesday, July 28 of last year, my officers responded to a shooting in the city of Brampton. Officers located a 25-year-old female deceased of a gunshot wound and a male with self-inflicted injuries. This young woman was Darian Henderson-Bellman. She and the accused male, Darnell Reid, had a relationship for about three years. During those three previous years, Reid was initially charged with domestic assault against her. He was released on bail with no-contact conditions and would go on to breach those conditions three additional times and be re-released on each occasion.

On his fourth arrest, police located a loaded handgun on his person. As a result, in May 2020 the Crown attempted to detain Reid based on secondary and tertiary grounds. He had continually threatened the safety of the public and had a history that he would not abide by any release plan or surety. The Crown, however, was unsuccessful and he was again released with a GPS monitoring device and two sureties.

For Mr. Reid, power and control were central to how he coerced the victim back into a position of risk, ultimately killing her on July 28, for which he was charged. This was despite all best efforts of police and the Crown and the prosecution of his existing offences. The release of high-risk repeat offenders who demonstrate an element of control and manipulate the vulnerable is of significant concern. I highlight this as a concurrent priority for many police leaders.

As it pertains to the newly proposed offence itself, as you know there are existing Criminal Code sections where it is an offence to use words or acts short of violence in very confined contexts. Police officers, no doubt, are optimistic that the new offence will provide proof of clear offence so that it is articulable and prosecuted.

Family and intimate partner violence and the outcomes we see are the result of complex circumstances that are as complex as the community we police. Peel police have developed a new comprehensive strategy of an integrated community safety plan built on programming and community development. It will comprise 48 officers working from a community-driven collaborative space. They will be working from a community hub to ensure that we integrate with community services and have immediate integration with service partners.

Through programs like this, enhanced legislation and the continuous pursuit of solutions that address family and intimate partner violence, we will be better equipped to make a difference in people's lives and save lives.

Thank you.

[Yasmine Youssef, National Manager, Nisa Homes]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you so much for inviting us here today and for the work everyone is doing to ensure the safety of men, women and children across Canada.

As the Nisa Homes national manager, and with my colleague Reena, who is a mental health promoter, we appreciate speaking here today in support of Bill C-247.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will go back to Ms. Dhillon, if I may.

Ms. Matthews was saying that Bill C-247 would be a kind of additional tool in the fight against domestic violence. However, we already have criminal offences.

For example, you mentioned in your testimony that your husband threatened you with a gun. You understood that, if anything like that happened again, you could die. You were beaten and kidnapped by your husband, who did not let you leave the house. Those acts per se are already criminal. Assault, violence, threats and kidnapping are already offences in the Criminal Code.

How do you believe that creating another offence of domestic violence could change anything?

How could that have changed your situation if a section in the Criminal Code said that domestic violence is prohibited? Could the situation not still have happened in the same way?

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Ms. Dhillon. I was moved by her testimony. She has survived through some terrible things. As I listened to her, I tried to imagine that my sister, my mother or my daughter was speaking. I found it very troubling.

The goal of Mr. Garrison's Bill C-247 is indeed that abusers can be charged with these different behaviours. However, as I have often said since we started considering this issue, provisions in the Criminal Code already consider harassment, violence, threats and such as offences. That said, I fully understand that domestic violence takes place in a specific context.

One question occurred to me as I was listening to you, Ms. Dhillon. I was trying to figure out not how we might have punished the abuser, but how we might have prevented it from happening.

Given your experience, can you tell us anything about what can be done so that situations like those you have experienced never happen again? Is it a matter of educating and training responders and the police? Should there be weekly or monthly visits by people with responsibility for these kinds of issues?

How can we detect a potential problem? How could I determine, by watching my friends and acquaintances, that one individual is possibly controlling and violent towards his wife? How can we find that out before anything happens? How can we respond so that it does not happen?

[Megan Stephens]

I think it's really important that you are looking into this, because as I've said, the status quo is not working. I don't think it's the kind of thing that can be pushed through without a lot of careful contemplation and thinking through some of these operational, policing and prosecutorial challenges.

I think one of the difficulties is that currently as drafted there's a lot of good thinking in Bill C-247. It's very much a British law. It is taken from the British context and doesn't necessarily use the same language that we see in the Canadian Criminal Code.

I think what's important about the idea of criminalizing this is that it is looking more broadly at the course of conduct, not isolated incidents. Right now the criminal justice system prosecutes specific isolated incidents and typically violent incidents. That's not really how intimate partner violence or domestic violence happens.

There are other places in the Criminal Code where we already look at courses of conduct over time that happen in relation to people, the ability to exercise control over people. If you look at criminal harassment, there's language there about repeatedly impacting someone. If you look at the human trafficking provision or the procuring offence, they talk about exercising control, direction or influence over someone.

I think it is important for it to be a Canadian law that will be understood and applied in the Canadian context; that we look to some of those other offences and think about how the language there and the language from some other offences look more towards a course of conduct over time instead of necessarily an isolated incident. We think about how that might emerge. I think it also makes a lot of sense to think concretely about this. I talked about the objective elements of proof that would be required for prosecution.

It is going to be difficult to get people to understand and accept that something should be reasonably seen as having a significant impact on someone without proper training and education for people who do not experience that to understand what that means. That is going to be essential for everyone in the justice system. You need it in your police officers so they can understand the reports and unpack what is meant by this course of conduct over time. You need it in your prosecutors to understand that they can have a reasonable prospect of conviction. You're going to need judges to understand this as well. This isn't necessarily generally understood in the public discourse. It's going to be hard to operationalize this without having that knowledge and training to go along with it.

I think those are some of the key considerations that need to go into this, also thinking through how the requirement for subjectively having the complainant say they were significantly impacted by this; how that will play out in potential revictimization of witnesses, of complainants, during the criminal justice process. We've seen that too often in the context of sexual assault prosecution. I think it's a real risk in this context as well.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Ms. Stephens, you have noted operational challenges in incorporating coercive and controlling behaviour into the Criminal Code.

You spoke of the English experience. In England, we have seen the law now on the books for about six years, relatively few charges, but not that great in the number of convictions, which would perhaps speak to some of the operational challenges you mentioned.

Mr. Garrison has tabled a bill, C-247, which you referenced. You said in your view it would be unduly complicated. You spoke of the fact that there could be amendments to the bill that could perhaps improve it.

Could you elaborate on what could be done to perhaps strengthen this bill or is your broader point that we shouldn't be going down this road?

[Megan Stephens, Acting Executive Director and General Counsel, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund]

Thank you so much.

My name is Megan Stephens. I'm the acting executive director and general counsel at the Women's Legal Education & Action Fund, LEAF. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear here today from Tkaronto, The Dish With One Spoon Territory, as part of your study on coercive and controlling behaviour.

For 36 years, LEAF has worked to advance the equality rights of women and girls through litigation, law reform and public education. LEAF has long advocated for the need to improve the justice system’s response to gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence or domestic violence.

I want to start by thanking you for taking the time to study coercive control. This work is really important, because intimate partner violence remains a pervasive and widespread problem in this country.

We know the status quo is not working. One in three women in Canada experience domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence. The risks of such violence are greater for women who live with multiple intersecting inequalities, including indigenous, Black and racialized women, women with disabilities and migrant women.

We also know that over the course of the last year, as much of the world's attention has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been another shadow pandemic playing out as lockdowns have isolated women with their abusive partners. Frontline workers in shelters and transition homes across the country have reported increases in physical violence, as well as a dramatic rise in reports of coercive control being used by partners.

Coercive control may be a relatively new concept to many of you, but it has long been recognized by both frontline service providers and academics as lying at the core of intimate partner violence. While there are many different working definitions of coercive control, it's generally understood as a course of intimidating, degrading and regulatory practices used by abusers to instill fear and threat into the everyday lives of their victims. Importantly, it's a highly gendered practice that often seeks to maintain or expand the gender-based privilege of a male partner.

While I commend you for this study, I also want to underscore the importance of proceeding carefully in your work. In my submission, it would be a mistake to rush to criminalize coercive control without thinking through the potential unintended consequences of criminalization. While such a move might be symbolically powerful, we have unfortunately seen too often how the criminal justice system can be weaponized, revictimizing those it seeks to protect.

There are, in my respectful submission, important operational, policing and prosecutorial challenges associated with the proposed criminalization of coercive control, all of which require careful consideration.

In terms of the operational challenges, it will not be easy to transplant the concept of coercive control from clinical and academic contexts into the criminal law. The concept covers a broad range of conduct and is the subject of multiple definitions—as many as 22 by one academic’s recent count. If coercive control is to be criminalized, the elements of the offence should be clear and draw on terminology and language used elsewhere in Canadian criminal law. Adding an overly complicated new offence to the Criminal Code won’t help survivors.

I am concerned that Bill C-247, which draws heavily on the British legislation, is in its current iteration unduly complex and would require some modification.

Assuming you could operationalize an offence of coercive control, there will also be challenges in ensuring that police officers are able to understand and identify reports of coercive control. Extensive training would be essential for police across the country. Even with the training, the U.K. experience suggests that many police are still struggling to see coercive control as worthy of criminal charges.

Another more significant policing challenge is that many survivors, particularly those from marginalized or vulnerable communities, face real barriers to reporting, including a distrust of police. Real work is needed to restore the trust of survivors in police and the justice system more generally.

Finally, as someone who spent more than a decade working as a Crown prosecutor before joining LEAF, I think there would be significant challenges associated with the prosecution of coercive control.

I am especially concerned about the potential impact of prosecutions on complainants. As drafted, the offence requires proof both that the accused’s actions could reasonably be expected to have a significant impact on the victim, meaning that it was objectively reasonable to have that impact, and that they have in fact had such an impact, meaning that complainants will need to give evidence about how they have been affected by the conduct.

This could lead to the revictimization of women as they navigate the criminal justice system, having to testify about their experiences, having their credibility impugned, and opening them up to invasive requests for access to their medical or therapeutic records to call into question whether and how they have been impacted.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

It's certainly helpful to look at what other jurisdictions have done as we consider Bill C-247 as well as the issue of coercive control more broadly.

Ms. Illingworth, you noted that several U.S. states have passed laws in this area. I actually wasn't aware of that. I understood that there is a bill in the New York general assembly. As well, in the State of Tennessee, it's my understanding that its law on false imprisonment has been amended to include categories of behaviours that constitute domestic false imprisonment.

Can you point to the other states so that we could give those laws consideration as we study this very important issue?

[Andrea Silverstone, Executive Director, Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society]

Good afternoon, Ms. Khalid and members of the justice committee. Thank you for having me today and for providing me with the opportunity to discuss a topic I am incredibly passionate about: coercive control as a framework for understanding and addressing violence.

I am the executive director of Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society, which is a provincial organization in Alberta that supports individuals, organizations and communities to disrupt the structures of violence. I am also a graduate student at the University of Salford in Manchester, United Kingdom, working towards the completion of my master's degree in the psychology of coercive control.

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that seeks to strip away a person's freedom and their sense of self. It is a liberty crime. Focusing on coercive control as a criminal offence is crucially important in devising measurements of criminality, because it reflects the multiple tactics of coercion and control employed by perpetrators of violence.

The current framework of criminal offence does not reflect the experiences of victimization or the harm perpetrated to victims of domestic violence. This is evidenced by high attrition rates, sentencing data and low conviction rates in cases of domestic violence.

Relationships with coercive control result in greater injury to the victim and are characterized by more frequent and severe violence that's less likely to desist. The increase in severity makes the need for legal intervention in cases of coercive control even more imperative, in order to interrupt the escalation and frequency of abuse.

Because the current criminal framework to address domestic violence does not take into account coercive control, the justice system is not viewed by many victims or victims' advocates as a tool to address domestic violence in society. This is evident not only through the low conviction rates and high attrition rates I already mentioned, but also through the fact that less than a quarter of victims of domestic violence report it to the police.

It should be noted that when the justice system in the United Kingdom changed its working definition of domestic violence—years before the legal system changed to make coercive control a criminal offence—calls to the police increased by 31%. This is because once the definition changed to encompass the true experience of the severity of coercive control, victims believed that the abuse they were experiencing would be addressed by the police and, by extension, the courts.

Because our current criminal justice system focuses only on events that are deemed criminal offences, it ends up excluding many other threats that make up ongoing coercive control, blinding the justice system and leaving it without the tools to actually address violence in our society.

I've been working in the domestic violence sector for over 20 years, and I believe that including coercive control as a criminal offence is a game-changer. It's going to give the justice system the opportunity to intervene in violence before it escalates. Coercive control is present in 95% of relationships where there's domestic violence. It's one of the best indicators of lethality. If the police and justice system have the ability to address coercive and controlling behaviour criminally, it's going to allow them to prevent the escalation of domestic violence.

It will change how society views domestic violence. If our justice system puts the lens of coercive control on domestic violence, it will create a discourse in the public in which all Canadians will understand that violence is much more than a black eye and that people stay in violent relationships because of a loss of personal agency. It will destigmatize domestic violence, allowing us as a society to do a better job of addressing violence.

It will save our system of care—non-profit agencies, police and health—and businesses money. It's way more economical to intervene before the domestic abuse becomes physical. It allows the perpetrators to get support before the lethality of their crime increases. It breaks the stigma around domestic violence, allowing both victims and perpetrators to get support.

Domestic violence is at epidemic rates in Canada and is rapidly increasing due to the effects of COVID. We need to improve and innovate our approach to addressing and stopping the violence before it escalates. Making coercive control a criminal offence in Canada is our opportunity to do this.

I'd like to end by making four recommendations. The first is that we immediately implement a new nationwide working definition of domestic violence to reflect coercive and controlling behaviour. The second is that the Canadian criminal law be changed to reflect the criminality of coercive and controlling behaviour. The third is that support be provided for nationwide training for police, judges and Crown prosectors on the framework of coercive control and domestic violence. The last is that we appoint a coercive control and abuse commissioner for Canada, with expertise in all forms of abuse, to provide public leadership and expertise to legislators about abuse issues and to play a key role in overseeing and monitoring the provision of abuse responses with a focus on coercive control.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Garrison for bringing forward his private member's bill and bringing attention to this issue, and I want to thank the committee for allowing me the opportunity to present to you today on an issue that is so important to me and for all Canadians.

I look forward to the opportunity to answer any questions and to continuing this dialogue.

[Heidi Illingworth, Ombudsman, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime]

Madam Chair, thank you for inviting me to appear here today.

I am the federal ombudsperson for victims of crime. My office is an independent, arm’s-length organization within the Department of Justice Canada. We work with victims by taking and reviewing their complaints and making recommendations to federal decision-makers to ensure that victims are treated fairly and with respect across the criminal justice system.

I want to pay my respects to the first nations, Métis and Inuit ancestors, and affirm my office’s commitment to respectful relationships with one another and this land.

I would like to begin by thanking the honourable member Randall Garrison for his efforts to bring awareness to the issue of coercive control in Canada. I do appreciate that the subject is very meaningful to him personally. In fact, my office commissioned a paper on this subject last spring and I wrote to the Minister of Justice to request that he introduce such legislation. This is because at my office, we hear regularly from survivors of intimate partner violence who feel that they are not heard, believed or treated fairly when they report their experiences to the police. That is why there is a need, in my view, for legislation to criminalize coercive control, which is a pervasive form of psychological violence.

Briefly, coercive control consists of repeated behaviours that aim to isolate and intimidate an intimate partner. These behaviours can include limiting the victim’s freedom, verbal abuse and threats of harm to the victim, their child or pet.

Currently, IPV is approached as an incident-based problem. It is treated as an episodic or one-time event and the repetitive dynamics of coercive control are not recognized. This makes it extremely difficult for law enforcement to intervene effectively. Experts have identified coercive controlling behaviours as important precursors for femicide worldwide. This harmful and dangerous behaviour has been criminalized in other jurisdictions, such as England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland and several American states.

As you undertake this study, it is important to consult with diverse experts who serve survivors on the front lines. It is also critical to apply a GBA+ analysis and hear the lived experiences of survivors, especially those from indigenous communities, Black people, people of colour, individuals with disabilities and members of the 2SLGBTQQIA community to ensure diverse voices are considered.

The following data shows us how prevalent intimate partner violence is in Canada. In 2020, between January and September, the Calgary Police Service responded to 15,038 domestic incidents. This is 55 calls a day in a city with a population of approximately 1.5 million. In Winnipeg, a city with some 817,000 residents, they typically record 16,000 domestic incidents a year. That’s 44 per day. Statistics show us that victims of IPV are disproportionately female. We also know that this plagues our society and costs us billions of dollars every year.

Honourable members, I put this to you: It has to stop. That is why I support the study of this legislation. Several provisions of Bill C-247 bring positive change for victims. I especially welcome the proposed broad definitions of the concept of connection found in proposed subsection (3).

We are submitting a written submission as well, which will address some of these issues more fulsomely.

Honourable members, I would like to say in closing that I believe the Canadian legal and justice systems must be more responsive to the lived realities of victims and survivors. I work directly with survivors, and that is why I think it is time that we address this gap. Victims deserve access to justice, which is often not possible due to our limited legislative framework. By making Criminal Code amendments, we can improve women and children’s safety. We must also take the time to address the current police limitations in recognizing these coercive and controlling behaviours.

I welcome the opportunity to answer your questions. Thank you.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Isshak, certainly the private member's bill I proposed is one suggested tool for dealing with this problem of coercive, controlling behaviour. You talked about an integrated legal response. Very quickly, can you give me some idea of the other measures that you had in mind?

[Genevieve Isshak, Clinical Director of Residential and Community Services, Hiatus House]

Thank you, everyone.

As the clinical director of residential and community services at Hiatus House in Windsor-Essex, Ontario, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with all of you with respect to Bill C-247.

Our mission at Hiatus House is to break the cycle of domestic violence, one family at a time, by providing 24-hour crisis help and emergency shelter to abused women and their children. This is combined with public education, research and specialized counselling services for all family members impacted by domestic violence.

We know that one in four women have reported that they have experienced domestic violence. Because this does not include the unreported instances, we believe this number is closer to one in three, which is similar to what the World Health Organization reports worldwide. Keeping these numbers in mind, I would like to ask you to just consider how many of you know or have known of a family member, neighbour, co-worker or friend who has experienced domestic violence. Should one of these women in your life ever need assistance, Hiatus House is the only shelter for women experiencing domestic violence in Windsor-Essex.

Amidst the current pandemic, we know that survivors of gender-based violence are most at risk of violence in their own homes. We know that the most common location of abuse for women and their children is in their homes. We hear the necessary pandemic messaging that staying home is staying safe, but what happens when home isn’t a safe place to begin with? Being coerced to stay home results in people feeling even more isolated and leaves little opportunity for escaping their abuser and finding safety.

Abusive partners use isolation—both physical and psychological—as a means to control their partner’s contact with friends and family to emotionally bind the partner to them with the shackles of fear, dependency and coercive tactics of control.

We know that the risk to women in abusive relationships is dynamic and that these women are subject to isolation, emotional and psychological abuse and controlling acts of violence. This abuse invariably escalates over time. These abusive behaviours are intended to cause fear and gain power and control over a woman’s thoughts, beliefs and actions. Controlling another person’s thoughts, beliefs and actions does not require specific overt acts of violence, although those acts certainly may be occurring as well.

As such, the bill will help keep women safe and hold abusive partners accountable for their violence, whether that is an overt act of violence or the type of emotional and psychological abuse that is most common in the intimate abusive relationships that I have just detailed.

Our interest in the bill is focused on the safety of women who are subjected to gender-based violence including intimate partner abuse, and the eradication of all forms of gender-based violence. We are grateful for the possibilities that the bill offers and commend MP Garrison for his initiative in bringing this critical piece of legislation forward.

As you are all well aware, the question of finding the most appropriate criminal response to intimate partner abuse has challenged the violence against women movement, politicians, policy-makers and shelters for decades. While we think Bill C-247 offers important ideas, we believe it is imperative to also take the time for a fulsome and inclusive discussion about integrated legal responses before committing to just one approach.

We believe that the national action plan on violence against women currently in development is important to consider. Such an inclusive discussion would ensure that unintended negative consequences as well as possible benefits—of any law or policy reform—are carefully considered and appropriate and adequate resources are put into place to support those reforms. We urge you to create space for these diverse voices when the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights examines this bill.

We also offer our input at any time it may be helpful. Our expertise and experience over many decades of working with women with diverse experiences of violence has taught us much in the implementation. We concur with the intent of the bill and value its genesis in the context of COVID-19-related surges in intimate partner violence.

With that, I thank this committee for inviting my opinion on behalf of Hiatus House today. I hope that you will consider providing careful study and adequate resources to effectively and appropriately implement the bill and allow it to accomplish its well-intended goals.

An end to violence against women and their children in Windsor and Essex County and across all of Canada—creating a life where all family members are empowered to live violence-free—is our vision for the future.

Thank you,

[Professor Janine Benedet, Dean pro tem and Professor of Law, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting me to participate in this hearing.

As you heard, I'm a professor of law at the University of British Columbia and my research focuses on legal responses to violence against women, with a particular focus in recent years on sexual violence. I'm pleased to see that this committee is seriously considering how to address the problem of coercive control in intimate relationships, which is inflicted in most cases by men against women and girls.

I think it is important to note that while addressing this problem may serve to prevent further serious violence, and certainly the private member's bill in question speaks to the terrible mass killings in Nova Scotia, it's also important to understand that this coercive and controlling behaviour causes great harm to victims, affecting their sense of self-worth and throwing up real barriers to accessing the resources they need to get away from an abuser.

It's also important, and I would say this based on my own work, to recognize that coercive control may be a precursor to sexual violence in addition to or instead of physical violence. I agree with the aims of the bill, and in general I think such an offence could be useful for police and Crown counsel. I can see that this offence forms a useful middle step between an assault charge and a peace bond in some cases.

Having said that, I think it does bear saying as well that there is a history of some police and Crowns failing to use the tools they already have at their disposal, and creating one more offence will not solve the troubling tendency to disbelieve women when they report violence or the lack of other supports in the community to address the violence that they experience.

In the time remaining to me in my opening remarks, I would like to address some of the relationships and behaviour that may be overlooked when we speak of coercive control and mention a couple of features of the text of the offence that could raise concerns about whether it will achieve its important aims.

For the past several years my colleague, Isabel Grant, and I have been researching sexual violence across women's lifespans, focusing on the particular challenges that arise when prosecuting sexual assault against older women and against teenage girls, for example.

In our research we saw numerous examples of coercive control against these victims that were age-specific. For example, in our study of cases involving teenage girls we saw that the single-largest group of perpetrators were male family members, most often fathers but sometimes brothers, uncles and grandfathers. Most of these men lived with the girl in question but some did not. Controlling behaviours included controlling what a girl could wear, taking away any privacy she might have, isolating her from other family members and friends, and refusing to let her go to school or ride the bus. In one case we reviewed, a father refused to let his daughter speak to her brother, going so far as to separate them at meals so that they couldn't have contact with each other.

In the cases of older women, our primary conclusion was that the barriers to detection and prosecution when the abuser is a family member are significant. In the cases we could find we saw coercive behaviour by husbands but also sons, nephews, and grandsons. These sometimes took age-specific forms such as controlling access to necessary medication or doctor's visits or cutting the woman off from transportation so that she wasn't able to get around on her own. It also included cases of making the woman believe that she was forgetful and incompetent, that she was in the early stages of dementia and, therefore, couldn't manage her own affairs.

I want to say that while it is spousal or dating relationships that may come to mind first when we think about coercive control, I would urge the committee not to overlook these other kinds of relationships in which this behaviour also occurs and is often a precursor to other violence.

I'll conclude by saying there's a lot to discuss here in terms of the offence itself, in particular, the mental element. Fundamentally, what I would say is that it's important not to create an offence that replicates some of the problems we've had with the criminal harassment or stalking offence, and I see some of those challenges here.

I'm looking forward to discussing that more with the members of the committee.

[Nathalie Levman]

Do you mean of the private member's bill, Bill C-247?

[Nathalie Levman]

The scholarship does address that. There are other articles as well that look at the implementation of the offence in the U.K. and talk about difficulties with gathering the evidence, including difficulties with law enforcement even being able to recognize that this is, in fact, what's going on, particularly, for example, when the incident comes to the law enforcement's attention because of one violent episode. They have to be able to situate that in a pattern of conduct that may have taken place over months or years. That can be a struggle. Of course, the evidence would come, as you're pointing out, from the victim herself. I will use gendered language because the statistics support me on that.

Before I turn it over to my colleague from WAGE, if I could move quickly to the other side, which is that there are also criminologists who are recommending some caution with respect to enacting and developing these types of offences, in particular from the U.K. and Australia. You may know that New South Wales is considering a private member's bill very similar to C-247.

I would bring the committee's attention to an article called “The Criminalisation of Coercive Control: The Power of Law?”, which is in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. I found that very informative and you may, too.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

As this is the first day of our study on coercive and controlling behaviour, I just want to take a second to put on the record how we got here. If we were doing a normal study of a private member's bill, as the sponsor of Bill C-247 I would get to make an introductory remark. Let me just say a couple of things briefly.

At the beginning of the pandemic I did a phone-around to the two independent police forces and two RCMP detachments in my riding. All four of those police commanders, when asked what the main thing was that they were seeing in the pandemic, first remarked on the increase in domestic violence calls. It was interesting that it was across the riding. It was interesting that it was the immediate response of all four.

When I had a discussion with them about how police felt about that, they very quickly raised their frustration that their ability to act was limited only to the most serious physical violence and their frustration at their inability to address issues of coercive and controlling behaviour, which quite often—almost always, in fact—are associated with more direct forms of physical violence.

I did a call-around, then, to the service providers for women's groups and women's shelter organizations in my riding and, of course, found the very same thing, that they reported a very sharp increase in demand for their services. Interestingly, they reported the same frustration. In the attempt to try to keep their clients safe, they were frustrated by the inability of the police to act until it was much later on in the relationship.

As a result of those conversations, I began to look at what more we could do as a society to address this problem. The British example was brought to my attention by Mitzi Dean, a local MLA who is now the Minister of Children and Family Development in British Columbia.

I drafted a private member's bill, Bill C-247, which is modelled on the British law, so that we could look at whether this addition to the Criminal Code could help provide another tool for addressing the problems of domestic violence in this country.

The second part was to try to get more people to discuss and be aware of what's being called by some a “shadow pandemic”. I then decided to put forward a motion to this committee to conduct this study.

For me, the study has two parts. One is to raise the profile of this very significant increase in domestic violence and intimate partner violence during the pandemic. The second is to look for solutions, which may involve my private member's bill, but there may be other solutions that we could adopt that would help address this problem.

That's how we got here this morning, from my point of view, and I'm really pleased to have the department officials here to help us try to address this problem. I'm certainly looking forward to the wide variety of witnesses we will have coming forward in later sessions.

We've had an attempt by the federal government to come forward with a strategy to reduce and address gender-based violence.

Ms. Smylie, has that strategy taken into account the phenomenon of coercive and controlling behaviour?

[Nathalie Levman]

My colleague, Stéphanie Bouchard, already gave our comments and tried to make some of those distinctions.

You know, of course, that traditional criminal law focuses in on incidents, so it's an incident-based approach. That said, there have been some exceptions to that rule in terms of more modern offences. The criminal harassment offence is in fact a very good example of that. It aims to address the overall impact or cumulative impact of behaviour that takes place over a period of time. That's precisely what this coercive control offence being proposed by Bill C-247—and which is also place in the United Kingdom, Scotland and Ireland—attempts to do. It is broader than our criminal harassment offence, but it takes a very similar approach to it in the sense that the legal test would be to look at the overall impact on the victim or the recipient of that type of conduct and to criminalize it and recognize that spousal abuse or intimate partner violence takes place over a period of time and often involves more subtle types of behaviour that serve to subjugate.

Evan Stark, who is one of the leading sociologists on this issue and has done a lot of research on it, talks about it being a kind of liberty crime resulting in the subjugation of the victim.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses who are with us today. Domestic violence is an important issue, and any and all related factors are concerning, so I'm glad you're all here this morning.

I've looked at the overall situation, and the biggest question I have is this. How will the line between offences be drawn when it comes to domestic violence versus harassment versus coercive conduct? I realize Bill C-247 provides a definition. By the way, this morning, we are considering Mr. Garrison's motion, not the bill, but I appreciate that there is a connection and something of a definition.

Ideally, I would like to hear from all three of you, but since Ms. Farid is general counsel, perhaps she can answer. Nevertheless, you are all senior counsel, so I don't mind if one of you is especially keen to answer the question. What I'd really like to know is how the courts will distinguish between those three situations.

Ms. Farid, perhaps you can go first.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Certainly I want to thank you, Minister, for being here with us today. I also want to thank you for the spirit of collaboration and co-operation that you've always exhibited toward me when it comes to justice issues and the justice file.

I was very pleased to hear you mention domestic violence, or intimate partner violence, in your opening statement. I want to focus a little bit on this question.

When I first did a phone round of the many police forces and detachments in my riding in March because of COVID, every one of them raised the problem of a spike in family violence, domestic violence or intimate partner violence at the outset of COVID. I believe this is a continuing trend, and one that we will see exacerbated as many families struggle with loss of income and other challenges posed by COVID.

One thing the police said to me was that they often lack tools to deal with this question of violence before it becomes overt physical violence. I introduced a private member’s bill, Bill C-247, that tries to deal with the phenomenon of coercive and controlling behaviour, which quite often is a precursor to that violence. This would provide police with another tool that they could use to intervene earlier in intimate partner violence.

Minister, is the government interested in pursuing such an initiative, one that would help police to have additional tools to deal with intimate partner violence?

Criminal Code

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-247, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (controlling or coercive conduct).

Mr. Speaker, today I have a private members' bill that would help address domestic violence in Canada by making controlling or coercive conduct in an intimate relationship a criminal offence. Right now police often lack the ability to intervene in domestic violence cases before physical violence takes place, even though significant harm may have already been inflicted on one of the partners. People living in fear of violence should not have to wait to experience violence before receiving help and protection. This bill acknowledges that victims of controlling or coercive conduct suffer serious harms that are not overtly violent. Harms resulting from fear of violence often include declining mental and physical health, and limitations on the partner's ability to carry on an independent and autonomous life.

During this pandemic, governments have told Canadians to stay home to stay safe, but unfortunately not every home is a safe place. In fact, I know in my riding, as in most communities, police have seen a spike in domestic violence calls during the pandemic. Creating a new offence for controlling or coercive conduct will not only help stop the serious harm already being suffered, but also facilitate earlier intervention by police, which may avert physical violence later on.

If this bill had already been enforced, it might have been possible to prevent the shootings in Portapique, Nova Scotia, earlier this year. The shootings began with an incident of domestic violence between individuals whose problematic relationships had been brought to the attention of the police by neighbours and friends numerous times, though without ever rising to the level of physical violence that would have allowed police to act. This bill will fill that gap. The federal ombudsman for victims of crime has recently called for adding this kind of provision to our Criminal Code, and a similar bill has been enacted in the U.K.

I hope the government will support this private members' bill and help facilitate its early passage through the House.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)