Justice Committee on Feb. 16th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you very much for that.

We'll go to Mr. Kelloway for six minutes.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hello to my colleagues.

Thank you so much to the witnesses for coming here today, for your opening statements, for the work you do and the advocacy you show every day. I'm very humbled to be here today.

Most of my questions, if not all, I will direct to a fellow Maritimer, Ms. Matthews. As you know, Ms. Matthews, at the height of the first wave of this pandemic and after a tragic incident in my home province of Nova Scotia, our government implemented a firearms ban. I'm wondering if you could speak to how this ban will benefit those you work with. I'm thinking of the use of guns to coerce and whatnot. Thank you.

[Julie Matthews]

A firearms ban would be such a powerful way to help victims of abuse. When we do a danger assessment we know the ownership of a firearm, even if it's not in the home, significantly increases that person's risk of homicide. We know that removing that power from the abuser would significantly save that person from harm.

I'm not sure what further I can say to that. Yes, guns are dangerous and a lot of people have them. It's easy to get access to them. I mentioned there's a lot of hunting around. Not everybody is dangerous with a gun, but there certainly should be some good controls around who has access to them or not.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I appreciate that very much, Ms. Matthews.

What do you think could be done by the government to improve the delivery of domestic violence services and information during the pandemic? I know there's been investment in this area, but what more could be done to build on the investment or look at new investment that would help you and others in the services you provide?

[Julie Matthews]

We could really use a lot more funding, honestly. Not to make everything about money, but I really feel we're significantly underfunded. To have to pay $13 an hour to our staff is.... I'm in a crisis currently, just to have staff to man our particular facility, so we seek to supplement that. Increased funding would make a big difference in enabling us to properly train and have our facilities and services available.

In the Maritimes, we're generally small towns anyway. We have a few larger cities. However, we see here in my local area that we are limited in the resources we're able to offer, like mental health supports. Family court waiting times are long. If there was something the government could do to speed up the process, even, that women are waiting on to get into the family court.... They can wait three months to access services there.

The emergency intervention orders have been a wonderful addition. However, we've found just in the short time they've been in effect that sometimes the adjudicating officers don't seem to understand the significance of the dangers that the women are in, and they're denied, not granted any sort of.... It's happened that because they've come to stay at the transition house, the officer deems them to be in a safe place and that they don't need to have any other sort of order or protection granted to them. That has been terribly frustrating and difficult, and it's disheartening for the women, who are receiving the message, once again, that there's really no help for them. They feel that much more trapped and in danger, so it's not encouraging to reach out for help again.

That's what I would say on that. I hope it answers your question.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

It does. As someone who's worked in the not-for-profit world on a whole host of issues, there is a lot to be said about the amount individuals get paid. We put faith and trust into organizations like yours that do amazing work, but do so—I'm guessing, and I don't want to put words in your mouth—on a budget that would probably be considered a shoestring budget. To me, everything you said rings true about working in the social services sector.

My third question is about the challenges resulting from COVID-19 for women's shelters. I want you to unpack that a bit. Also, what are the opportunities, Ms. Matthews, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic for women's shelters and other resources dedicated to assisting domestic violence victims across the country? As a result of COVID-19 and perhaps practices you've had to either develop or modify, do you see anything that could enrich? I'm curious. When we hit a crisis situation like we have, oftentimes there are significant challenges, as we all know, but what kinds of social innovation measures have you put in place that you could share with us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

You're way over your time, Mr. Kelloway. My sincerest apologies.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. I'll have to email you.

[Julie Matthews]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

If you can provide a written submission to that question, we'd really appreciate that.

Mr. Fortin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[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?

[Kamal Dhillon]

Thank you for your questions. There's tons for me to unpack. The first thing is to be believed. Every victim wants to be believed. If there is doubt.... When the police first came to me, they would ask me questions such as, “What did you do? What happened? How did you provoke him?” Instead of asking those questions, they should believe me.

One of the things I said is that sometimes there is no sign. There are no physical signs that will prove I was hit. If that's what they're looking for, they've missed the mark. I had one incident where my husband had a gun to my head. That left no marks, but that instilled a fear that the next time the gun goes to my head, I won't be alive.

There are a lot of things that you asked in the question. I will try to remember to answer them.

The other thing we do is educate. One of the things I'm doing through my story, my books and my own experiences as a social worker is to go around not just sharing my experience, but...how we listen to the abused and how we identify the abuser. The abuser is not one who wears a sign that says “I will abuse”. The abuser, as it was mentioned earlier, is one who is really charming and very nice. He waits for you to go into the room.

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

I don't want to interrupt you, Ms. Dhillon, but we have very little time and I would like to hear from the two other witnesses on the same question. I am going to let you have another 30 seconds to tell me whether anyone close to you could have intervened to prevent it before you married the man. Could anything have prevented it?

I would also like the other two witnesses, Ms. Walker and Ms. Matthews, to answer the same question.

[Kamal Dhillon]

I had no choice. I was 18. Being a cultural Indo-Canadian woman, my marriage was arranged. If that was my daughter I would let her get to know the person first. I was engaged and we married the week after I'd met him.

Going forward, I educate young girls never to get into that.

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

So loved ones have to be better prepared before things like that happen. Thank you, Ms. Dhillon.

Ms. Walker, do you want to give a quick answer? Time is short. In 30 seconds, can you tell me what could prevent this from happening?

[Megan Walker]

I don't think we can rely on women to prevent the violence they face every day. We need to make sure that men are held accountable for their behaviour.

We need to understand that this is a major crisis. The government needs to stand up, as it's done with COVID, and say that this is a problem and that it is going to make sure it provides the resources needed to ensure that all women have immediate access to service and all men have access to service that they need to learn what it's like to value women if they can value themselves.

It's so important. We need to have legislation that recognizes—

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

Thank you, Ms. Walker. Forgive me for interrupting, it is not at all polite of me, but I see that I only have 30 seconds left.

Ms. Matthews, what do you think can be done to prevent this from happening?

[Julie Matthews]

I agree with the other two ladies who have spoken.

There are red flags. Yes, education is a big part of it in order to recognize what is an unhealthy relationship and who is acting in an abusive way, but also, men have a particular need to call out other men when they are saying something inappropriate. You don't make sexist jokes. You don't laugh and make it okay to behave like that or say the things you do, because everything just builds.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Fortin.

We'll now go to Mr. Garrison for six minutes.

Go ahead, sir.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for appearing today, particularly you, Ms. Dhillon. It takes incredible courage to come here and tell a story like yours, and we wouldn't be in these hearings if women who were victims of sexual violence did not speak out and had not spoken out over the years.

I also want to thank the two representatives of first-line service providers, because your organizations, with incredibly few resources, have helped to amplify those voices and make sure they're heard.

My goal in this study is to make sure not only that we hear the voices, that we listen to the voices, but that we also act.

I'm going to ask Ms. Walker a kind of a provocative question. I know she won't mind that.

You've talked about a domestic violence provision in the Criminal Code, which is a large measure that I think would take some time to figure out and enact. Is there a danger in setting aside the adding of coercive and controlling behaviour to the Criminal Code while we wait for something larger? In other words, is the perfect the enemy of a good tool in this case?

[Megan Walker]

I think the reverse. I think that if we don't stop and invest in changing the Criminal Code, which actually is not that difficult....You start with a code named “ending male violence against women” or whatever you choose, you sift the 35 plus sections under that funnel, and you would add there exactly what you were asking for: coercive control.

You of all people, Mr. Garrison, will be able to access this through Irene Mathyssen. She wrote a bill that was absolutely extraordinary, which we circulated very extensively and which had complete support.

It's not difficult to do. The difficulty we have right now in adding coercive control is that in the existing legislation we have, the sections of the law are not enforced, and when they are enforced, or somebody is charged, the reliance is upon the victim to testify to get a conviction.

We need to get away from that. We also need to get away from the courts saying, “Listen, we have so many cases here that we're going to reduce yours to one offence, so plead guilty, get a peace bond and out the door you go.”

The danger for me is in stopping what needs to be done, which is broad-based legislation.

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

Thank you for that answer.

Ms. Matthews, I want to ask you a similar kind of question as to whether you think that at this point adding coercive and controlling behaviour to the Criminal Code would provide a useful tool, recognizing that we need other things?

[Julie Matthews]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not an expert at what's going to be the best thing for changes in the Criminal Code, but it certainly is a huge gap, I think, because the coercive and controlling behaviour is such a huge piece of abuse, really, and it's unseen. It's difficult to prove because, like Ms. Dhillon said, it doesn't leave a mark. It doesn't have physical evidence like that.

There are so many ways, I think, that this would be a great addition to the Criminal Code, but it would really need to be something that would be followed through on in the understanding of the judges, I think, and for the police to know how to properly implement things and what they can or cannot do.

We know that if there are not any significant consequences for abusers, they're not going to change what they're doing. There's not any reason why they would.

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

Ms. Matthews, from your work with victims of domestic violence or intimate partner violence, can I ask what kinds of things victims need to make better use of the protections of the court system or the police? What kinds of things would be most effective?