Evidence of meeting #18 for Justice and Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was control.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will ask Ms. Gill to share with me the list of countries that she suggests we look at. I understand that Scotland, England and Wales are on the list. What other states should we look at?
We talked about Hawaii with Ms. Illingworth.
Do you have any other suggestions for us?
Prof. Carmen Gill
I have two suggestions: England and Wales. There's also Scotland, where they looked at an offence of coercive control or—
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Excuse me, Ms. Gill, I would like to discuss this all evening with you, but I only have two minutes. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for your answer.
The other question I want to ask is about education. Ms. Silverstone was saying that she's very involved in the education of judges, police officers, and lawyers.
How do we legislate or control to prevent coercion? How are we going to educate people about this? Is there currently a program or another mechanism in place to educate the public?
We should work ahead of time to prevent young boys or girls—I know some very controlling girls—from developing this behaviour. I don't know who could answer that question. I'm talking about education, not of police officers, judges or lawyers, but of the public at large, from a young age.
Executive Director, Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society
I can answer that question. You have hit exactly where we need to be. We need to be getting upstream of this work and we need to stop violence before it begins. There are a lot of promising practices happening across Canada that are prevention programs. Alberta is actually working right now on a primary prevention framework that is being led by my organization. There's a coalition of 500 organizations across Alberta working on that. I plan to submit a written submission and, in that, I could attach some research that has been done on that.
Ombudsman, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
Can I just add really quickly?
Ombudsman, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
A public health approach is really what we need in Canada, so education, training, criminal law responses, supports for survivors and taking a public health approach.
Absolutely, we need to prevent upstream violence from happening, and we can. We have an obligation to the United Nations to prevent violence against women in the SDGs, and homicide in Canada as well.
February 4th, 2021 / 1:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Fortin.
We'll now go to Mr. Garrison for two and a half minutes.
Go ahead, sir.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Of course, I think these hearings before the justice committee are part of what Mr. Fortin is talking about, which is our attempt to shine a light on this issue for the broader public. For that, I thank the witnesses for being present today.
I want to return to something that I think tends to sneak into our discussions, which is the concern that there is some difficulty in recognizing the pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. Certainly, in my discussions with front-line workers, I don't find they have any difficulty in recognizing what behaviours we're talking about.
I would ask each of the witnesses to very quickly comment on whether they believe it is difficult to recognize and define these patterns of behaviour.
Executive Director, Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society
I'll begin quickly. I'll let you know that I think it's very easy to define. Not only is it easy to define, but we've created a new tool that is being used by family law lawyers, mediators and arbitrators, which is literally four questions clients can answer that will tell us whether or not there was coercive control in the relationship. It's very easy. We call it the fear factor. If one member of the relationship is afraid of the other person and adjusts their decision-making as a result of it, that's coercive control.
Prof. Carmen Gill
It is going to be easy to recognize coercive control if they know what it is in the first place. I understand that people will not see it if they are not aware of what it is, and with an offence, we would raise this particular awareness about coercive control.
Ombudsman, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
I would reiterate that some education is needed. No matter what field you're in, in the criminal justice system, you may come to your job with the preconceived notion that psychological, emotional or financial abuse is not violence, but it is violence and patterns of it.... As I said, when you work on the front line and you talk to survivors, they can describe what they are going through instantly—the fear, the isolation and the control that they're being dominated with. It's just a matter of getting the tools that Andrea has described into the hands of those who are responding, the first responders.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Garrison.
At this time, I'd like to thank the witnesses for their very compelling testimony. If there are any references to written submissions or other documents, please make sure that you provide the committee with them. If there are any questions that were left half-answered or unanswered, please, you are welcome to provide written submissions to the committee.
Before members log off, I have two quick deadlines to remind you of, for your own benefit and to encourage people.
One is with respect to written submissions for this study from stakeholders. The deadline is February 28 by 12 noon. Please note that and do encourage stakeholders to write to us if they're not able to come in person.
The second deadline that I'd like to remind members of specifically is Tuesday, February 16, end of day. Members can submit their witness list for our next study, which is on the impacts of COVID on the justice system. I'll remind members that, based on discussions, we had eight witnesses for Liberals, eight for Conservatives, three for Bloc Québécois and three for NDP. The deadline for that is end of day Tuesday, February 16. If there are any questions, please get hold of me after the meeting.
Thank you again for a very worthwhile meeting, everyone.
At this time, the meeting is adjourned.