Justice Committee on April 13th, 2026

[Karine Barrette]

What mistake do you mean exactly?

We are learning from Australia's experience. What we liked about various Australian states is that they worked extensively on the law's implementation, beyond just passing it. New South Wales, for instance, did a lot of work on that, making sure to set up expert panels and working groups to oversee data and training, among other things, in preparation. Reporting measures were put in place to determine whether the offence satisfied the objectives set out by lawmakers or whether certain populations were experiencing more harm. Those mechanisms were established.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up, Ms. Barrette. I'm sorry.

[Karine Barrette]

All right.

We learned what things they did right and what things we would do differently from Australia.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Gill.

Mr. Housefather, I go over to you for six minutes.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses from both organizations for their presentations.

I'm going to start with the representative from the National Association of Women and the Law.

Ms. Zaccour, first of all, let me just say that your brief is structured in exactly the way that I think everyone's brief should be structured. The way you explained each of your amendments and gave detailed legal language to us was exemplary. I just want to thank you for that because it makes it so much easier for members of the committee to do their job. For example, one thing that you pointed out was the ownership of an animal and the fact that the bill would require an animal to actually be owned by the person concerned, not their mother and not their sister. That was just a really interesting point that I hadn't noticed in reading the bill. Anyway, again, thank you.

My first question for you relates to the question of protecting “unreasonable” women from criminal harassment. Can you just talk about your concern there, your proposed language and why that is important?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Thank you for your kind words about our brief, and thank you for the question.

There are two ways to criminalize causing fear in the context of criminal harassment. One is subjective fear. That asks this question: Was the person afraid? One is objective: Would a reasonable person be afraid?

Generally, you may not want to criminalize causing subjective fear. What if I don't know that the person is afraid? If I give someone a pen and it makes them afraid, that's “unreasonable”. I'm not going to be criminalized. However, in the context of criminal harassment, there's already a requirement that the accused know that they're causing fear. Once I know.... If my colleague tells me, “I'm very afraid of spiders”, for example, it's unreasonable to be afraid of spiders, but I know it's the case. In the case of criminal harassment, it's often intimate partners or former intimate partners, so I would know, intimately, that the person has those fears. Once I exploit those fears and deliberately cause fear to the victim, then the question really is not whether the person was afraid.

In our brief, we do propose to keep both objective and subjective fear. The reason is that there was a case in Quebec where the accused did something that would cause fear—stalked a politician and harassed them—but the politician, instead of being afraid, was angry, and the accused was acquitted. I think that's what the bill is trying to respond to.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

What you're basically saying is that for a stronger person, who doesn't feel fear that the average person would feel, the matter should still be a criminal offence.

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Protect both the unreasonable victim and the resilient victim. It really doesn't matter how the victim lives their feelings. It's really focusing on the behaviours of the accused. That's why we proposed that dual standard.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Next question, can you explain to everyone the importance of changing the “or” to an “and”? In the bill, you have “coercive or controlling conduct” throughout, and you've, I think, suggested replacing that with an “and”. Can you explain again, in terms of the pattern of abuse survivors, why that's important?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

I can, absolutely.

Coercive control is already recognized in family law, so we're learning from the way courts are dealing with coercive control in family law. Some of the ways they're dealing with that is in finding that the victim is the abuser, because they focus too much on control.

As I explained before, there's this stereotype that if the woman is constrained to the house, then she has control in the house. Sometimes judges really miss the power dynamic. If the mother is trying to protect the children, for example, or protect herself by saying, “You cannot drive the children around when you've had a few beers” or “I don't want my ex to see the children right now, because he's dangerous and I'm afraid they might be harmed or killed”, in family law, they can be found coercively controlling, and now they're going to maybe be found to be a criminal. Even if they're not convicted, the threat of criminalization is already problematic.

The goal is to refocus on coercion, on power imbalance, which is the heart of coercive control. We suggest changing the “or” for “and”, which is the framing of the offence, in addition to the other change that I explained about being controlling at home. That's not how we intended coercive control.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I totally understand.

I want to move to deepfakes now. I think Bill C-16 takes a very important step by expanding the offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images to include deepfakes. I've called for this for a long time.

One of the things that you've mentioned is the importance of including the word “creating” in the bill, meaning that the simple creation of a deepfake—the non-consensual creation of intimate images—should be a criminal offence. Can you explain why? The bill currently talks about publishing, distributing and transmitting these images, but it doesn't talk about creating them.

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Absolutely. We support the criminalization of the creation of deepfakes for a few reasons. One of them is just understanding what the harm of deepfakes is.

Again, the harm is not some people thinking that the victim has done sexual things. That's a really outdated conception of the harm of deepfakes. The harm is using someone's image and recognized face and body to create sexual materials. If we criminalize the creation, first of all, it means that the law and the state can intervene before more harm is caused. Currently, creating deepfakes would be legal as long as they're not distributed, and once they are distributed, it's too late for the law to intervene.

We recommend criminalizing the creation and also expanding the definition, because the definition is so narrow. It doesn't cover all sexual content. It needs to be explicit sexual activity, and, as I already explained, there's the realism issue. It's a step in a good direction, but if we're going to target deepfakes, we should target them in a way that will allow us to intervene before more harm is created and to intervene with the distributors of deepfakes.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Fortin, it's over to you for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all three of you for being here this morning. Your input is very valuable.

I'd like some clarification.

First, you said that the definition of femicide should specify that it's a crime against women and girls. I was a bit surprised by that, I must say. I thought it was clear that a femicide necessarily means a crime committed against a woman or girl. Could you start by providing more details on that?

[Louise Riendeau]

In the summary, the French version refers to “une femme”, a woman. The provision itself refers to the murder being committed against an intimate partner, regardless of gender. That's why we're asking that the definition be clarified. The French version should specify that femicide refers to the murder of “une femme ou une fille”, a woman or girl. Then, the various contexts come into play. The pattern of conduct applies in cases of intimate partner violence. It could also be in cases of sexual exploitation, for instance. Nevertheless, we feel it's important to clarify that at the outset. I don't think that should be assumed in the bill.

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

What would your definition of femicide be? Generally, it's a crime committed against a woman or girl, but I want to ask about more specific circumstances, because I have only five minutes. Say a woman is killed when she walks into a bank in the middle of a bank robbery. Should that fall into the same category as a woman who is killed by her controlling and coercive partner? A third case comes to mind, the Polytechnique shooting, where an individual killed women he didn't know simply because they were women. To my mind, those are three pretty different scenarios.

I'd like to hear your views on that. Do all three cases constitute femicide? Does something in particular need to be specified?

[Louise Riendeau]

Yes, I think it's necessary to specify that these women and girls were murdered because they were women and girls. That applies in the case of spousal homicide when there's a controlling dynamic. We feel that's an important aspect. It would also apply in cases like the Polytechnique shooting. However, as far as we're concerned, it wouldn't apply in the case of a woman who just happened to be killed during a bank robbery.

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

Let's look at a classic case, where a woman is killed by her partner. Should the reasons for the murder be taken into account? For example, the husband could have decided to kill his wife because she had a good life insurance policy and he was having money trouble. This is just made up, but he killed his wife because he would benefit financially from her death. Does that fall under the heading of femicide? In order for the murder to be considered femicide, is it necessary for the man to have killed his partner because he thought that her skirt was too short or that she looked at the neighbour a little too long, for example?

I don't want to seem insensitive. I just want to make sure I have a clear understanding of what constitutes femicide.

[Louise Riendeau]

As far as we're concerned, there clearly has to be a pattern of conduct. Otherwise, it could be considered first-degree murder when a victim kills her violent spouse in self-defence, for instance. In our view, what matters is showing that a pattern of conduct, in other words, a domestic violence situation, led to the murder.

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

Speaking of self-defence, I want to follow up on something you mentioned in your opening remarks. It seems to me that the Criminal Code already provides for cases of self-defence, whether a man or woman is involved.

Is it necessary to add something that specifically covers a woman who is subjected to controlling behaviour and who acts in self-defence? Does the current definition of self-defence fall short in that regard?

[Karine Barrette]

I can start, and then my colleague can provide more information.

One of the problems is that proving self-defence can cause significant stress. Currently, some women who kill their partners in self-defence either face a charge of second-degree murder or negotiate to have the charge reduced to manslaughter. That puts a lot of pressure on them; they wonder whether they should take the risk.

Sorry, but people are talking.

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

Sorry, Mr. Chair, but it's quite noisy.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I was going to make the same comment.

Gentlemen, the witness is having trouble hearing and I'm having trouble hearing as well. If you don't mind....

[Karine Barrette]

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.