I'm really happy to be here before you to share my position about the criminalization of coercive control.
I prepared a brief. I don't know if you have it with you, but I will refer to the document I already submitted yesterday.
It's clear that intimate partner violence encompasses different forms of violence that are physical and non-physical. However, from the criminal justice perspective, it is difficult to recognize certain behaviour as being part of an intimate partner violence dynamic. This is the case with coercive control that does not necessarily involve physical violence or a single incident, but instead consists of repeated and continuous patterns of behaviour that occur over a lengthy period of time.
Since we're not covering this particular form of behaviour in the Criminal Code of Canada, it's completely hidden from the criminal justice system response. Intimate partner violence is multi-dimensional in nature and will encompass numerous forms of violence.
I would like to talk a little about what coercive control is and the difficulty in addressing coercive control from a law enforcement perspective.
Coercive control encompasses acts of both coercion and control through the use of force, deprivation, humiliation, intimidation, exploitation, isolation and domination. A number of behaviours that we see in coercive control seem to be normal, but if you combine all those behaviours together, they become part of what we call coercive control in the dynamic of intimate partner violence.
This is done to produce a victim's obedience, ultimately eliminating their sense of freedom in the relationship, something that Evan Stark has referred to as the entrapment of women in their relationship. This form of violence is continuous, and resulting harms are cumulative over time, and therefore, unable to be explained by a single event. The intent is to remove the victim's sense of individuality, autonomy, liberty and capacity to make decisions for themselves, effectively trapping them in their own personal lives.
It's about microregulation that is associated with traditional gender roles and the division of labour in which women are stereotypically more passive, dependent and responsible for household and child care duty. In this type of pattern, it's going to be emphasized that the traditional role of masculinity, where men have the responsibility to pursue female partners, and the general physical advantage that men hold over women, results in the unlikelihood that a woman would be able to achieve the same kind of dominance over her male partner that would be reflective of coercive control.
There are numerous tactics that we can highlight about coercive control. Of course, there is physical violence and sexual violence, but there are tactics, as well, that are going to include limiting transportation, denying access to household, controlling food consumption, disconnecting phone lines, breaking cellphones or preventing them from going to work or going to school. If you accumulate all those forms of behaviour, combined together, they are going to fall under coercive control.
In Canada, the Government of Canada recognizes coercive control in various documents, but it has not been translated into an offence in the Criminal Code.
What I would like to go for here is to talk about the police response to coercive control.
Police have the responsibility to assess and manage the risks that are posed by an intimate partner perpetrator, and of course, they are going to assess those situations in light of the tools that are offered to them. The tools that they have are risk assessment tools, and without having an offence around coercive control in the Criminal Code, they are not likely going to see certain behaviour as part of the dynamic of intimate partner violence. It's going to be hidden, because they are going to look for the one incident and for evidence of physical violence.
I will stop here, because I have already spoken too much.