Justice Committee on Oct. 27th, 2022

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Thank you.

If I could, I will just maybe react to the preamble to your question. It had a preamble, contrary to the law—we advocated for it to have a preamble.

I guess the question I can send back to you is, were we useful today? How useful were we? I say “we” meaning NAWL and the law professors you heard previously. Was it worth the delay? That's a question you can answer because you have been listening.

I do recognize the difficulty in getting this machine to work fast. We're certainly hoping.... We're advocating on a lot of issues and I can tell you that many women are concerned that the most harm and violence they receive are not addressed by this action. We would like to see this commitment in other issues, which I know you believe in, too.

I forgot the actual question. I only answered your preamble. I'm sorry.

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

Do we still have a vacuum?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

We believe it is still worth taking the time, now that perhaps the dust has settled. I know that misinformation was a concern for Parliament. We believe there's still good reason to amend the law and to close a gap, but also to clarify and make the law easier to apply.

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

I know at the time we had our discussions, holding these hearings was a gesture of good faith. It wasn't just for the sake of holding hearings, but if we needed to make further adjustments, these hearings would inform us about that and provide that possibility.

[Suzanne Zaccour]

We certainly hope so.

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

I'm sometimes viewed as overly optimistic, but I've only been in Parliament for 11 years. Sometimes I've seen us do the right thing.

My last specific question, because I know we're running out of time, is on the standard of foreseeable harm versus the loss of control, which was very clear in the previous panel. Would you see it useful for us, if we weren't going to eliminate the section, to rewrite it so the focus is on foreseeability of loss of control rather than harm?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Certainly the argument can be made that if it's foreseeable that you're going to lose control.... If we believe the necessity of this defence, and the whole premise is that when you lose control, you lose control and there is no telling what you're going to do, then it seems sufficient to hold someone responsible if the intoxication was voluntary.

Perhaps one or the other could also be sufficient, but we feel that having to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, with the concerns we have regarding how courts will interpret who this reasonable person is and what kinds of risks they take in a society where most of these intoxicants are legal but people still take it.... What does the reasonable person do in these circumstances?

These are very difficult questions, and the courts have not always seen eye to eye with women's organizations in terms of what kind of risk is reasonable to place women in.

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

Thanks very much.

I do take seriously what both you and the other panel said, and the Native Women's Association of Canada, that there are many other aspects surrounding this where we need better supports, better education. I know we will all take those suggestions seriously in our future work.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I want to thank our witness, Ms. Zaccour, for a very informative session, and I want to thank all our members.

Before we adjourn, I want to remind members that for the Thursday, November 3, meeting, if there are any witness names they haven't sent in, to send them in. Currently we have three confirmed, so just have your whips please look into that if there are any witnesses who need to be informed.

Thank you very much for a successful meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.