Evidence of meeting #12 for Justice and Human Rights in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
To my recollection, I believe several witnesses said that 60% or 70% of inmates in prisons were awaiting trial and had therefore not yet been convicted.
Are you able to confirm or deny this figure?
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Mr. Brown, I suppose you are not aware of this statistic either.
Mayor, City of Brampton
I have a little bit of information there. I did get this in my briefing, that dead time is awarded on every case where an accused has spent time at Maplehurst, and that is due to lockdowns, triple bunking and a lack of access to programs. Sometimes they'll get triple time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you to both witnesses, Chief Johnson and Mayor Brown. Thank you individually for your service to Canada.
We will suspend, colleagues, briefly to transition to the next hour. We have four witnesses who we have to get prepared and logged on, so we'll take a brief break and then resume in about five minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you for being patient. We were just trying to get Ms. Wamback from the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation online. That has not been entirely successful, so we'll let the technicians work at it as we start this next round.
Welcome to the witnesses. I apologize for the delay today.
We will try our best to get two rounds of questioning in from members, so I will not take up too much time in introduction.
Just to present the people here today, we have Jacqueline Beisel-Cobb from accounts receivable at Western Financial Group, in person. Welcome.
We have Cait Alexander, founder of End Violence Everywhere. Welcome.
Then we have Brett Broadfoot by video conference and, if we are successful, Lozanne Wamback, the co-founder of the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation. Welcome.
I'll remind you to not speak too loudly, keep a distance from the microphone and avoid sharp banging around the microphone for the sake of our interpreters.
Without further ado, we will now move on to the witness presentations. They will each have five minutes.
Ms. Beisel‑Cobb, you have the floor for five minutes.
Jacqueline Beisel-Cobb Accounts Receivable, Western Financial Group, As an Individual
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.
My name is Jackie Cobb and I'm here to speak on behalf of my 23-year-old daughter, Madison Cobb, whose life was brutally taken away from her by her ex-boyfriend on July 19 in a parkade in Calgary. Before Madison could get into her car to come home to her family, she was gunned down by her ex-boyfriend, leaving her dead at the scene.
In thinking of my Maddie, think of your own daughter, sister or niece. Now picture them left to bleed to death with no one there to help them. Imagine their fear.
My Maddie was a bright, passionate, respectful, cheery and accomplished young lady. She excelled academically, was a competitive swimmer and had just begun a promising career as a surgical eye assistant at LASIK MD. Her life was full of potential. Madison deeply impacted and connected with people. She was on a mission to save individuals who needed saving, even if it was just helping, guiding or being a friend to those who didn't have one. She was always there when called upon, always lending a hand and never complaining to help others. She was a girl with strong family values. She was a best friend, and always saw the bigger picture in life. She was an old soul, acting beyond her years. She cared about people, something most of us have lost throughout the years. Although she is no longer with us, today Madison continues to try to help others.
By appearing before you, I represent her desire to find justice in a system that failed her when she needed it the most. My Maddie followed every legal avenue to ensure her safety. A restraining order was granted on June 10 against her offender, who also had two criminal harassment charges against him for stalking her. He was released on bail on June 10 and June 17. He was known to have a firearm in his possession as well. The restraining order did not do its job. It was a piece of paper with meaningless words. The judge knew about the criminal harassment charges and the firearm when Madison was finally granted the restraining order, yet nothing stopped her offender from walking out of the court, free to plan and carry out this horrific act.
Madison deserved to live without fear. She was not protected by the system. Madison became a victim of a violent crime and paid the ultimate price. This was not a moment of anger. Every action was calculated. He stalked her. He waited for her, and he executed his plan. The nature of this deliberate act should automatically remove any possibility of bail or leniency. He chose to take her life. He should be held accountable.
I stand here before you on behalf of Maddie and the thousands of women and men who have been impacted by domestic violence. Maddie is not the first person to suffer at the hands of the legal system, and she will not be the last unless a stand is taken to change the current system.
Please, I urge Parliament to enact stronger consequences for repeat offenders and those who breach protective orders. Early intervention, such as mandatory evaluations and monitoring the offenders, could prevent escalation and save lives. We must prioritize the right to live a life protected by law, in safety from such criminals.
How many innocent people need to die like my young daughter Madison for legislation to change?
We all know the law is broken. We hear that legislation might change, but it never does. Parliament has the knowledge, the power and the authority to make the necessary changes to implement stronger sentencing now, before more innocent lives are taken. The system needs to change. Why are we so forgiving? Why do we give the offenders so many chances? The criminals know our system and its loopholes, and they are taking advantage of it. Please protect the innocent. Criminals should not have the same rights as you and me.
My life has changed forever. I will never see my child walk through that front door with her incredible smile, knowing she is safe. I can't kiss her goodnight, say, “I love you” or call her when something is exciting. I won't have the joy of seeing her walk down the aisle or having kids of her own. All I have left are photos and videos to help remember every detail of her appearance and listen to her voice on tape so that I can hear how she spoke my name. I hold her clothes so tight, so that I can remember how she smelled, and I hum her favourite song in my head all the time because I don't hear it blaring from her room any longer.
Now I have to look at an empty chair at my dining-room table where she sat when we ate. I walk past her room with a constant sadness of the good times we shared in that room. There will be no more treasured family vacations we loved taking together. Now I have a constant worry that my family will fall apart because of this crime, as so many other families have.
I stand here today to advocate for change so that no other family endures this pain. You never think it will happen to you until it does. You can make the difference. Hold them accountable on their first offence so that this tragedy doesn't become your nightmare, a nightmare I am living for the rest of my life.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you, Ms. Beisel-Cobb, for your courage in testifying today.
We will go directly to Ms. Alexander and then to Mr. Broadfoot.
Cait Alexander Founder, End Violence Everywhere
Thank you to the members of the committee.
I want to begin by commending you on what has clearly been a tremendous success, a justice system so efficient, so protective and so flawlessly designed that victims and survivors across this country have nothing to fear. I honestly don't think that we need to be here today, so we might as well just go home, but we can't go home, because none of the aforementioned is remotely accurate or truly reflective of the graveyard of preventable deaths that Canada has become.
My name is Cait Alexander. I'm a model, actress, artist and founder of End Violence Everywhere, EVE, a registered charity in Canada serving survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault and gender-based violence.
On July 31, 2021, I was nearly killed by my former partner in Leaside in Toronto. Despite the severity of the attack, having photo and video evidence of him nearly beating me to death, despite the tactical team coming to my home and despite the eight charges he faced, he was released on bail almost immediately for $500. He never even had a criminal trial for my attempted murder because all eight of his charges timed out under the ruling of R. v. Jordan. I don't even have a peace bond, because it expired.
I lived in hiding for months after the attack before being forced to move to the United States, and had I not left Canada, he probably would have been successful in his quest to end my life. He nearly did that to the woman he dated after me and, I found out, the one before me as well.
The scariest part is that my experience is not unique. It is common in Canada. Abuse is happening to women, children and, yes, men as well every single day in this country without consequence.
At my organization, we serve these survivors we call the experts, because they are the experts of these issues, their experience and the horrors of not having a functional justice system. If you have not engaged with the system nor read the entirety of the Criminal Code of Canada, I would not call you an expert, regardless of your parliamentary title. We, the experts, call it the injustice system, and we live the damage that it does every single day.
A most recent example is of a club promoter, Mark Holland, who notoriously has sexually assaulted dozens and dozens of women spanning generations. He is on the registered sex offender list and this past August was released on bail for more sexual assault charges. He is free in the community once again. I met Mark when I was 18 years old outside a nightclub on King Street West in Toronto. Something in my gut told me to stay away from him. My instinct was beyond accurate.
Over the last decades, I have watched Mark Holland harm eight of my friends and brutalize dozens and dozens of other young girls with impunity, and he's out on bail again. I have seen hospitality groups and clubs continue to hire him despite knowing what he does. I have seen him breach conditions repeatedly and still remain free, still working in nightlife venues, still hunting victims and still protected by systemic gaps that enable serial predators. It's almost as if the government wants this.
Our team at EVE is supporting hundreds of survivors, and we receive thousands of disclosures online and directly through our advocacy channels. These are not fringe cases; these are Canadians, primarily women and children who are unsafe in their homes, unsafe in their communities and unsafe because the system that is supposed to protect them protects the abusers. The charter rights of criminals appear to outweigh the charter rights of victims.
We are supporting survivors who sleep with bags packed by the door. We are supporting survivors who relocate provinces because their abuser was released. We are supporting survivors who have been told directly that the system cannot help them until something worse happens, until blood is drawn. Even then, in those instances, as I know from personal experience, it's not enough. The only time it seems to be enough is when she's buried. We have to die, and then you care—sort of.
Dozens have been killed recently by partners who were released on bail despite clear histories of violence. Two of the parents of these women are testifying today, my friends Jackie Cobb and Brett Broadfoot. It is my honour to call them my friends, but I wish I didn't have to meet them, because their daughters were murdered in preventable deaths simply because the government doesn't have good policy and doesn't care.
Don't tell me that you do care, like you did, James Maloney, on October 28, 2024, when we met under former minister of justice Arif's reign. You promised me you would see our pleadings through. You promised me that having a family of lawyers helped you understand first-hand what we go through. You promised me that you cared, and you promised me that you would do something about the horrors of the Canadian criminal system.
I left your office that day hopeful. How stupid of me. You never called me again—
Liberal
Founder, End Violence Everywhere
All right then, I'll leave it right there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you.
Mr. Broadfoot, we'll go over to you for five minutes, please.
Brett Broadfoot As an Individual
Good evening, committee. Thank you for having me here this evening.
My name is Brett Broadfoot, and I'm here to speak for my family, and most importantly, for my beautiful and now deceased daughter Breanna. I hope also to speak on behalf of other victims of intimate partner violence, for all the women who continue to live in fear of their abusers because they are still out on the streets after being charged with no accountability for the violent acts they have committed. I would like to share my family's personal experience at this time.
On March 15, 2024, my daughter Breanna was brutally attacked by her boyfriend. She was left with two black eyes, a fractured orbital bone, several other broken bones in her cheeks and severe bruising around her neck from his hands having been wrapped around them in strangulation. She was only 16 years old at the time.
Her attacker, age 18, was arrested on March 15 and charged with assault plus assault with choking and suffocation or strangulation. He was released from custody on the same day he was arrested. After being scheduled to attend court again on July 31, 2024, he was sent with orders to not commit, communicate or go near my daughter, as well as refrain from possessing any weapons. We couldn't believe he was released, just allowed to continue as if nothing happened, while Breanna remained in the hospital struggling to recover from the injuries he had inflicted upon her.
Our family felt that we had zero help or support during this time. We were set to sit alone with the knowledge that her attacker was just out there, unmonitored and unchallenged, ready to assault again whenever he wanted. Unfortunately, that thought came true.
On July 16, 2024, Breanna, now 17, was attacked again by the same individual, but this time in a much more serious way. At approximately 1 a.m. on July 17, we were awoken by the sound of a police sergeant knocking on our home door. We were told that our daughter had been taken to the critical care trauma unit at Victoria Hospital with multiple stab wounds. We were told that the same individual had abused her again.
Breanna fought as hard as she could, but unfortunately passed away from her injuries. On July 18, 2024, we lost our baby girl. Our worlds have changed forever.
To this day, I truly feel that Breanna could and should still be with us if her abuser had not been released after the original attack, or at least monitored.
Our system completely failed us, just as it has failed so many others in the past. We need to stop the catch-and-release of arrested abusers now. Granting immediate freedom to an individual who has violently assaulted and hospitalized a defenceless young girl or woman is incomprehensible to me. The strangulation charge needs to be taken more seriously. It's holding someone's life in their hands, letting them breathe or not breathe. Think about that.
This is a high-risk factor that should make someone be considered a violent offender. How is it not? Our system allows offenders to exist completely unmonitored, as if nothing has happened. Survivors are forced to live in constant fear of being abused again by the same man. This is not right. I know we can do better.
Let's work together to be part of the solution that stops this violence. Let's please take our heads out of the sand and make change now.
Thank you for your time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you, Mr. Broadfoot.
We will now turn to Ms. Wamback from the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation and she is online. I'll just give you a few seconds to start speaking, Lozanne, but when we do hear you, please proceed. You have five minutes. You'll need to turn your camera on, if possible.
Lozanne Wamback Co-Founder, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
Sorry; I'm new at this.
Thank you for inviting me here to speak about this very important issue.
The entire court process causes huge stress and revictimization for the victims and/or the family members who are also very greatly affected and can be considered victims as well, from lies told with impunity by the defence lawyers in court about the victim, to victim services, which a lot of victims tell me make matters worse. In our case, they didn't even offer to help us. We didn't get any help from them.
There is also the terrible legislation around bail, parole and sentencing. Offenders are let out on bail receiving light sentences and then let out on parole, often to reoffend, because after all, there are not enough parole officers to watch them. What does that say about the value of the lost or compromised lives? The victims have no importance and no value. They're disregarded, lost and alone.
In our case, the three offenders were out on bail for four years before they were in court. The one who kicked my beautiful blue-eyed boy's head like a football, causing brain damage, was out in the community wandering around free—while we were imprisoned in the hospital—reoffending with impunity, as we found out by reliable word of mouth.
After the release from the hospital, I was in constant fear that he would find my son at his new school, which wouldn't have been very difficult, and push him down the stairs or hit him in the head again, at which point he would surely die. I fell into desperate depression and panic attacks, feeling that I could not keep Jonathan safe. I couldn't; I had no control.
Much worse than that, Jonathan was constantly terrified, having nightmares, night terrors and depression, often yelling that he wished he was dead and frequently suffering from brain injury rages and trying to hit his head against the cement floor in our basement, while Joe, my husband, and I tried to restrain him by holding his head. Afterwards, my husband slumped into the couch clutching his chest. Soon after, he developed heart disease, which he suffers from terribly, even now.
After their short sentence was served, this was all repeated again.
Jonathan suffered great emotional stress and saw an irresponsible social worker who used inappropriate therapy contraindicated for any frontal lobe brain damage, resulting in false memory syndrome concerning his childhood and causing him to become estranged from us for 11 years now. We are in absolute despair. None of this would have happened if he hadn't been kicked into brain damage. It was because of this crime—because of the attack.
Olga Baranovski, the mother of homicide victim Matti Baranovski, told me she was dead inside after the murder of her son and, in fact, was found dead in her apartment, all alone. Her life was over because of this crime.
The victims are the true recipients of the life sentence, not the offenders. They go on with their lives; we don't. We suffer from insomnia, depression, panic attacks and other mental health issues. We are lost and alone and in pain.
The offenders are let out and continue to receive free psychological support. In fact, the correctional investigators said recently that funding for psychological help for the inmates should be increased, but isn't it funny how there is no mention of the psychological support for victims?
By the way, we received no psychological help, unless we sought our own, at our own cost, of course.
With this legislation, there will be more victims. More families will suffer, and there will be more revictimization. It will go on and on, affecting more and more people.
In closing, I just want to ask about this. There's a victims ombudsman in Ottawa. What are they doing? I haven't heard anything.
Another thing I wanted to mention was that it's so easy to find support and funding if you are—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Ms. Wamback, your time is complete. Just take a few seconds to conclude, if you could, and we'll have plenty of opportunity to ask you more questions.
Co-Founder, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
Okay. It's just that the funding for the victim-initiated groups is very hard to find.
Thank you so much, again, for this opportunity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Miller
Thank you.
Colleagues, we'll do our best to get these two rounds in. We'll go to Mr. Brock, Mr. Chang and Monsieur Fortin for six minutes each, followed by Mr. Lawton, Mr. Maloney, Monsieur Fortin, Mr. Baber and Ms. Dhillon.
It's over to you, Mr. Brock.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for your attendance, particularly the witnesses who are here advocating on behalf of family members and personal experiences. My heart goes out to each and every one of you. In fact, my entire Conservative team will always stand in solidarity with victims over the accused—always.
There is one thing I want to highlight, and I feel like a broken record when I say this. The number one responsibility for a federal government is to keep us safe. This federal government, under the so-called leadership of Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney, to you, Ms. Beisel-Cobb, has failed your daughter. It has failed to implement the necessary changes to keep her safe. It has failed to bring in mandatory detention in high-risk IPV cases. It has failed you in terms of strict enforcement of no-contact orders. It has failed you in terms of increasing sentences for violent repeat offenders. For the last 10 years, all that we have heard is promise after promise and no deliverables.
It started with Bill C-75, when they made it easier for repeat violent offenders to be recycled through the justice system: catch-and-release. They followed up with Bill C-5, which eliminated mandatory minimum penalties for all drug offences and for serious gun offences. They made it easier for sick mass murderers like Paul Bernardo to be transferred from maximum security to medium security, to enjoy the comforts because why not? Liberals have always favoured the accused.
To you, Ms. Wamback, to your considerations and concerns, what about that victim ombudsperson? For almost a year and a half, this failure of a Liberal government did not appoint that person, and that person right now does not have the necessary tools to keep victims safe. I apologize to you that your government has failed you so miserably.
To you, Ms. Alexander, one thing that stuck out to me as very important was your phrase, “almost as if the government wants this”. Can you elaborate on that?
Founder, End Violence Everywhere
I think it's pretty obvious that we have a problem here, with a lot of my friends here and with the social outreach of millions and millions of people wondering what this government is doing, why they are favouring the criminals and why they are not holding obviously dangerous people accountable.
I feel like a broken record. I feel like I'm banging my head against the same walls, just the way that my ex did to me. This government has been an extension of the abuse that my ex committed against me. I don't understand what shade of red they need the blood to be. How many of us have to die? How many times do we have to say, to repeat, to suffer before we get both sides of the government—this is a non-partisan issue—on the same team so that we put criminals away and protect the public?
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations, ON
You specifically pointed out Mr. Maloney for making promises to you a couple of years ago. Have other members of the Liberal government made similar promises that were simply not kept?
Founder, End Violence Everywhere
I tend to use this experience: In April 2024, I sent a letter about my experience in the injustice system to Pierre, to Jagmeet and to Justin. Pierre responded in 48 hours, Justin responded in seven months and Jagmeet never did.
Then there was the committee meeting on July 31, 2024, where the Liberals and the NDP put a motion in about abortion and I was forced to walk out of a committee meeting just like this.
Clearly, you have to know at this point that this is wrong, that something needs to be done and that this leniency to criminals is just going to end up killing more people. Clearly, you know that now. We are screaming it from the rooftops. It's in every single newspaper and every single headline. The media is frustrated with it.
Why aren't you doing something serious about it?