I want to start by appreciating the thought process. I think I already said in my opening statement that I commend the intent behind it. I think the challenge is that threshold for coercive controlling behaviour...without satisfying the individual incidents of abuse, which are already part of the tool box for police officers and prosecutors, and those behaviours are already criminalized.
What I am challenged with and what I am presenting to all of you to think about is that what this will create is another form of abuse, and then it bears noting, from all of us, to understand that then this needs to actually be added as a notion of compounding abuse. Abuse is already happening, and these are the individual incidents, and now on top of it we will add the layer of compounding abuse.
All of those incidents need to be proved.
My questions to you are these. How many incidents are we talking about? How many incidents will make it coercive control? What will a survivor be required to prove? Are we asking the survivor to prove that she felt controlled and that she didn't then have a recourse? How can the intent of harm be proven?
I think my challenge is the practical implications. I feel that, as much as it will look really brilliant on the books to have this, it will be really difficult to utilize in the courts.
We have many other such provisions on our books. Those changes were made for survivors— criminalizing of forced marriages, criminalizing of FGM. There are many other such changes that have been brought forward to protect survivors, but they are never used, because they're so difficult for police officers to understand and for prosecutors to bring forward; they always go back to the existing tools and these charges that they can already lay.
I hope that helps in contextualizing what I'm trying to say.
Thank you.