Evidence of meeting #22 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 c-16.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Staff Lawyer, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
I don't have the numbers off the top of my head.
Of course, the issue with Grok, the AI tool on Twitter, is that users weaponize it to create many deepfakes, which has generated a lot of news. I think there have been some analyses done on how the majority of the deepfakes created by Grok are of women.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Ms. Kim. Sorry to interrupt. It isn't polite, but time is limited.
Ms. Silverstone, I would like to ask you the same question. Do you have any statistics or more specific information on this issue?
Chief Executive Officer, Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society
I don't have statistics on the prevalence of deepfakes. All the information we have is narratives from the experiences of our clients.
We can definitely say that it is, increasingly, a tool being used to perpetrate coercive control, especially post exit from relationships.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Fortin.
We'll move into the five-minute round, starting with Mr. Baber. The clock starts now.
Conservative
Roman Baber Conservative York Centre, ON
First, I'd like to address Ms. Irons.
Thank you so much for attending today and for your testimony. On behalf of all my colleagues, I want to express our sincerest condolences on the loss of your daughter. I commend you for turning that tragedy into the advocacy work you're doing today. We can certainly benefit, and I pray that no parent has to go through this ever again.
I want to begin by asking Ms. Kim specifically about one of the recommendations she made, with respect to deepfakes.
Our committee is often bogged down by politics and big concepts, but I like to do some technical work. If you think that the government has gotten a provision wrong here, and that it should be expanded, I'd like to offer you the opportunity to do that. I was unable to locate it in your submission. My understanding, Ms. Kim, is that you're suggesting that deepfakes do not necessarily just reflect a realistic depiction of the victim but also capture what might be an unrealistic depiction. Is that correct?
Senior Staff Lawyer, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
Yes. I believe the last part of the definition of deepfakes proposed in the bill states that they have to be “likely to be mistaken for a visual recording of that person”. We think this part creates too high of a threshold. If something has to be so realistic for it to be considered criminal.... We've seen examples of harmful deepfakes with Grok, where users asked Grok to put women in bikinis, force them to smile or cover them in blood. All of those things are acts of harm, but they wouldn't necessarily be caught under this definition of a deepfake, because they wouldn't necessarily be considered as a realistic representation of them. However, their images are still being taken without their consent and are being sexualized. That is the act of harm.
Conservative
Roman Baber Conservative York Centre, ON
For the benefit of my colleagues, I think Ms. Kim is referring to proposed paragraph 15(2)(b) in the bill. Specifically, it's the last part, which mentions that the person is depicted as being exposed, and it says, “if the depiction is likely to be mistaken for a visual recording of that person.” I think the French version of the same section is similar.
I would go even further. I would suggest that you can have an unrealistic depiction of a person that is perhaps used in a perverted fashion. For instance, one might have qualities that are not human qualities, and at the same time they could be depicted in a sexual fashion.
I agree with you 100%, Ms. Kim. How would you suggest that we fix it literally? You still have to refer to the identity of the victim here. Maybe you're not able to answer that question now, but I certainly invite you to email my office with any technical suggestions. If you have an answer now, that would be great.
Senior Staff Lawyer, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund
Sure.
Our suggestion was simply to remove the last part, where it says, “if the depiction is likely to be mistaken for a visual recording of that person.” In the previous part of the definition, it does require that it's “an identifiable person who is depicted as nude, as exposing their sexual organs or as engaged in explicit sexual activity”. Our suggestion is simply to remove the last part.
Conservative
Roman Baber Conservative York Centre, ON
Ms. Irons, I note that women tend to be affected disproportionately by sexual violence. It has been a long-standing position of the Conservative Party that when it comes to sentencing for sexual offences, such sentencing for multiple offences, particularly, should comprise consecutive sentences rather than concurrent sentences. If you have two sexual offences, they would be served consecutively as opposed to concurrently.
How do you feel about that, Ms. Irons?
As an Individual
I'd love to see that, except that my concern is that it would be constitutionally challenged. I believe that in the past there have been constitutional challenges to consecutive sentencing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Baber. You're out of time.
Mr. Chang, go ahead for five minutes.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Irons, thank you so much for your courage.
From your perspective, what are the key warning signs or system failures that, if addressed earlier, might have changed the outcome for your daughter?
As an Individual
Well, I've testified before—it was on Bill C-71, and it's not necessarily as relevant to this bill—on the fact that the other thing my daughter's killer had hidden from her was a criminal adult history of personal violence. He'd been convicted of assault and forcible confinement and he'd hidden his criminal record from her. He served two years' probation, because his parents helped him plea bargain out of those charges. Well, he didn't plea bargain out of them—he was found guilty—but he got two years' probation. He immediately applied for a gun licence and got one. I've had that investigated through other avenues. That caused changes in Bill C-71 to the area of background checks for licensing in guns.
In terms of coercive control, Ms. Kim spoke about evidentiary requirements. I can tell you that when England, Wales and Scotland started down this road, there were very, very few cases in the first year, but in 2024, there were 5,000 charges of coercive control laid. There were 853 convictions. Of those, 832 were men. In my view, that tends to counter a little bit Ms. Kim's position of a disproportionate impact on, for example, indigenous women. Mind you, in the data I have on how it's faring in England and Wales, I didn't have any racial breakdown to access.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
Thank you.
How do you believe Bill C-16 could better account for or respond to situations involving domestic violence, particularly for those who may be at high risk but feel unable to seek help?
As an Individual
As I said in my opening remarks, I strongly feel that if we can successfully educate the justice system on what coercive control actually is, if we can then actually get some cases prosecuted, which is another issue in Britain, and if we can get some convictions, then we're building an evidentiary pattern. If it later results in further violence—or, as in my daughter's case, femicide—there is an evidentiary record.
Right now, that doesn't exist for women in situations like my daughter's. In fact, former MP Pam Damoff once asked me to imagine how Lindsay could have gone to court to get a red flag order based on this type of coercive control. That was a very high legal bar. My daughter would never have been given an emergency risk order. She wouldn't have been successful. There was actually nothing in place. He never laid a hand on her, so there was nothing about which my daughter could complain to the police. The only thing was his threats of suicide. As I mentioned, she was terribly afraid that she would experience reprisal if she reported that to the police. She honestly believed in the gaslighting that he would never harm her.
As an Individual
I do think that if we have the ability to get these prosecutions and convictions under coercive control, we can see things start to change with consequences.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
What changes, whether in law enforcement, social services, or community awareness, do you think are most urgently needed to protect others from experiencing what your family went through?
As an Individual
One is the provision in Bill C-21 for protection orders. If a person becomes the subject of a protection order for violence or abuse of women and they're a licensed gun owner, their gun licence and their guns will be immediately forfeited or seized for the duration of the protection order. That could be up to two years.
The other problem they're seeing in Britain is that, because the Crown is not prosecuting enough of these cases, the number of police charges or efforts to have someone charged is somewhat declining. I think the education of Crown counsel and judges is extremely important. In Britain, initially 50% were failing in court because the defence counsel and the judges believed violence should be an element of a coercive control prosecution, which is simply not true.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Chang.
Mr. Fortin, go ahead for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Bloc
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Ms. Silverstone, I understand your position on criminal harassment. We said that we would change the subjective fear test to an objective fear test in the case of criminal harassment. The idea is to see whether the person can reasonably feel harassed. I gather that you have some objections to this change. I would like you to elaborate on this.
How could changing the subjective fear test to an objective fear test harm victims?