Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, my thanks to all the witnesses who are here today.
I think your testimony is important. We are addressing a sensitive topic. As I said earlier, there are many pitfalls, and we have to be very careful how we deal with these situations. So your insights are valuable to us.
My question is going to be for Ms. Gill.
I appreciated the part of your testimony where you help me to identify what needs to be addressed in our work. There are already offences in the Criminal Code for violence, assault, harassment, forcible confinement. All of those are already criminally prohibited and prosecuted when such incidents occur.
At the other end of the spectrum are the behaviours in relationships, sometimes stormy relationships, that are perfectly okay and should be allowed in a normal society. So we are somewhere in between when we talk about coercive and controlling conduct. What I take from your testimony, Ms. Gill, and from the other presentations, is that we are looking for some sort of model to determine what will be reprehensible controlling and coercive conduct that we want to avoid.
First, am I correct in saying that we are going to find what we want to avoid when controlling and coercive situations keep repeating?
Second, is it really necessary to make it a criminal offence, or do you think there may be other ways to better combat this type of harmful behaviour that is detrimental to everyone's life?