Justice Committee on April 13th, 2026

[Peter Copeland, Deputy Director, Domestic Policy, Macdonald-Laurier Institute]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to everyone for having me. It's a privilege to be here.

The protection of victims is at the core of public safety. The federal government deserves credit for taking up several politically fraught issues at once, both long-standing and novel, but it's one thing to be able to tackle these problems and another to ensure that the policies are crafted in such a way that they meet the objective in substance and not just in style.

The fact that 10,000 cases are stayed or withdrawn annually is an affront to justice for the accused, victims and our general public safety. At MLI we've argued that legislative refinement of the Jordan framework is warranted, as the court's ceilings were not the product of data-driven analysis and institutional knowledge but were legislated from the bench. Parliament is on firmer ground when it deploys the additional resources and time it has at its disposal to find an appropriate solution to the issue, as it has here.

The bill's amendments are welcome in this regard, but they should go further by expressly recognizing organized crime and national security matters as categories that warrant special treatment. They involve issues that are unusually document-heavy and operationally complex, with cross-border evidence, multiple accused and intelligence sensitivity.

The image-based abuse reforms are among the strongest parts of the bill, but they too do not go far enough. For many victims, the core harm is that images stay up for far too long. Canada should learn from the recent American legislation, as we argued at MLI with Bridge2Future. This means a 48-hour takedown capacity with expectation and consequences for platforms that fail to act.

The concept of coercive control is well known and can be operationalized in a way that is precise. The bill is directionally right to include it, but the definition is dangerously loose as drafted. What counts as a “pattern” is undefined. Is it two acts or is it 10, and over what period? When does basic financial management become coercive control of economic resources? When do basic domestic disagreements—about parenting, let's say—become control over the manner in which a child is cared for? The definition, we argue, should be amended in line with what the concept in fact is: a sustained pattern of domination, intimidation, isolation and threatened consequences that deprive a person of ordinary agency within an intimate relationship.

To achieve that, a predicate offence—rather than a stand-alone model—where multiple acts are defined over a period of time, perhaps with Crown approval, would be superior. It would avoid excessive overcharges and the capture of basic disagreements and absurd scenarios, as I've illustrated, that could gum up the justice system. Scotland adopted this predicate approach and had 95% prosecution rates, whereas England, in its loosely defined model akin to what's in this legislation, had success rates of 13%.

Moving on to femicide, I argue that the language should be removed and that it can be without sacrificing any of the additional offence types or the severity that it is to be rightly associated with. Unlike organized crime, for example, which recognizes patterns of behaviour and clusters of offences under a concept with additional powers for police and prosecutors, along with penalties associated with it, “femicide” is a misleading term. It implies that someone has the intent of killing based on generalized misogyny. In reality, people generally have specific motives related to concrete facts and realities, not a generalized hatred of women.

Parliament is already ensuring harsher treatment for killings committed in the context of coercive control, sexual violence, trafficking or hate through this bill. The law can specify those aggravating features, require courts to consider more serious sentences where they're present and improve statistical tracking of violence against women without adopting activist terminology that is effectively a distinction without a difference.

With regard to minimum sentencing, the government is right to reassert Parliament's authority in this regard, but the safety-valve approach remains too deferential to the same jurisprudence that created the problem. Courts have stretched section 12 to second-guess sentencing policy that properly belongs to legislatures, and could do so again here. They could find, for example, that an offender's race or migration status warrants this special treatment, as they have been prone to. It's important to remember that there is, in fact, already a great deal of discretion in the law. Police decide what facts justify charges, prosecutors decide how to proceed, and in many cases the Crown can elect by indictment, summarily or under a different offence altogether, depending on the facts before them.

A better model would be mandatory minimums with a set of narrow and objective grounds that, when coupled with gross disproportionality, could qualify the offender for a lower sentence—things like the age of the victim, prior convictions or the use of violence or threats. That would preserve Parliament's sentencing signal and reduce opportunities for imaginative judicial revision.

To conclude, Bill C-16 is genuinely impressive in its scope and intent, but it must go beyond that to ensure that the laws are properly tailored to address the problem they're meant to. It must include less symbolism, beyond what may be attractive politically or most expedient to carry out.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Copeland.

Our last presenter is Dr. Giesbrecht for five minutes.

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht, Director of Research, Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Service of Saskatchewan]

Good day. I'm Crystal Giesbrecht. I'm pleased to add the perspective of PATHS, the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan.

I will focus on the provisions in Bill C-16 regarding the coercion or control of an intimate partner—specifically, PATHS' support for legislating a Criminal Code offence—and four potential amendments to this section. I have submitted a brief regarding these recommendations.

I conduct research with survivors of intimate partner violence and coercive control and service providers in Saskatchewan. Without exception, PATHS' member agencies, as well as survivors and professionals who have participated in PATHS research, have expressed support for criminalizing coercive and controlling conduct in the context of intimate relationships.

We appreciate the inclusion in Bill C-16 of a comprehensive description of coercive or controlling conduct that acknowledges the nature of coercive control, where incidents on their own may appear inconsequential but the cumulative pattern causes harm. Importantly, this bill will criminalize this pattern of conduct when it is perpetrated against an intimate partner or others, including children or the survivor's animal. Canadian research demonstrates that children are often co-victims of coercive control. My own research in Saskatchewan, as well as that of other researchers across Canada, has demonstrated the connection between coercive control and threats, maltreatment and the abuse of animals.

We suggest expanding the definition to include engaging in a combination or repeated instances of any of the forms of other conduct listed if the victim states they believe, or if the behaviour could reasonably be expected to cause the victim to believe, their safety or the safety of someone else, including their animal, is threatened or if they have experienced distress, disruption to their life or an adverse effect on their day-to-day activities. This will allow accountability for coercive or controlling conduct that disrupts victims' daily lives, regardless of whether the behaviour could be expected to cause victims to believe there is a threat to safety.

Second, we recommend including manipulation of the victim's vulnerabilities as another possible form of coercive or controlling conduct, as opposed to its being considered separately under “Circumstances”. Although this provides guidance on an area that may be considered, rather than a mandatory element that must be present, we feel this change would keep the focus on the behaviour of the perpetrator and limit the evaluation of the victim's circumstances of vulnerability in the court's determination of whether the perpetrator engaged in coercive control.

Third, we recommend an amendment to state that when a person is convicted of an offence under section 264.1, the court will make an order prohibiting the offender from contacting the intimate partner or any child or other person affected by the conduct unless it is satisfied that the order is not necessary for the safety or protection of the victim, any child, other person or animal affected by the conduct.

Fourth, we recommend an amendment to establish training guidelines and programs for legal system professionals in consultation with provinces and territories, police, intimate partner violence and coercive control experts and organizations that work with victims and survivors, and to require monitoring and reporting on training implementation. The section pertaining to coercive or controlling conduct is set to come into force two years after royal assent. Therefore, training for professionals must take place during this period to ensure effective and informed responses when the legislation comes into force. Professionals who will require training on the coercion or control of an intimate partner and the new offence will include police and lawyers, and the training should also be made available to judges. In the brief, we've listed topics for inclusion in the training, including moving from an incident-based view of intimate partner violence to recognize patterns of coercive and controlling conduct, and practical skills such as risk assessment and evidence gathering.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate PATHS' support for a Criminal Code offence of coercive or controlling conduct toward an intimate partner. We hope to see the protecting victims act become law in Canada.

I give my sincere thanks to the committee for your consideration.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Baber, I'm turning it over to you. You have six minutes, starting now.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Copeland, and thank you for your testimony.

I'd like to address your article in the National Post concerning the mandatory minimum sentences. I've long maintained, and my friends have long maintained, that this Liberal government has abdicated its responsibility for keeping Canadians safe vis-à-vis an explosion of crime since its election in 2015. You write, “Although correlation is not causation, it's noteworthy that a decade-long rise in crime rates coincided with the return of the Liberals to power in 2015”.

Can you please expand on that?

[Peter Copeland]

During this time, there were hundreds of instances at the federal level and in other superior courts across the country where minimum penalties were struck down. That's often done on the basis of a reasonable hypothetical scenario, a judicial innovation that allows the judges to assess hypothetical scenarios and not the facts before them. We saw numerous minimum penalties struck down during this time.

I think one of the benefits of minimum sentences is that they are very clear and straightforward. They create predictability and certainty of enforcement, which is in fact a deterrent. It's not about the severity and length, necessarily, of time spent—and we want to ensure our penalties are commensurate with that—but they are a very efficient and effective tool.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Copeland.

If I may, you're saying that the various courts, in support of striking mandatory minimum sentences under section 7, often cite what is referred to as the fundamental Canadian values test, a vague and non-legally justified concept.

Can you please explain what you mean by the courts resorting to the fundamental Canadian values concept to strike down a mandatory minimum sentence?

[Peter Copeland]

That's in reference to charter values. This is an example of something that courts take upon themselves, unfortunately, too often. It's to refer to things not in the text of the law as a basis to inform their judgment. I think that is too often what occurs in the area of criminal law.

Returning to these specific proposals, we commend the government for taking it upon itself to reinstitute the mandatory minimums, but I do have a concern with the nature of the safety valve, in that it still invests a lot of discretion with the judge to—on their own interpretation of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment—basically come up with scenarios that, in their view, constitute cruel and unusual punishment, when in fact many Canadians would disagree—

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

I apologize. My time is short.

Just for the benefit of the viewers at home, I'd like to try to explain what is happening vis-à-vis this argument on mandatory minimum sentences and what the government proposes to do.

We saw recently the Senneville decision, in which the Supreme Court struck down the mandatory minimum sentence for access and possession of child pornography. The court relied on a reasonable hypothetical scenario in which two teenagers supposedly would send each other an explicit picture, and that may be tantamount to possession. Of course, the court said that this would be absurd, and because of that, they can't maintain the minimum sentence.

That was not the case before them, but they decided to strike down the mandatory minimum sentence on the basis of a hypothetical that, in my view, no respectable Crown attorney or police officer would touch. What they did is that they reduced the sentence for Senneville, and in fact, in Naud's case, it was reduced to nine months instead of the mandatory 12 months. This is despite the fact that Naud never argued that a mandatory minimum sentence of one year would be cruel and unusual. The court strikes it down in a hypothetical, but awards the defendant Naud with a lower sentence than is prescribed. Now the government comes along and says it's going to use the safety valve, that it's going to allow for these extreme scenarios that would allow a court to escape from the mandatory minimum sentences.

I submit that what it in fact does is weaken mandatory minimum sentences. It still allows judges in cases like Naud to disregard the mandatory minimum sentence, even though absurdity was not pleaded.

[Peter Copeland]

Yes, I do think it's conceivable that in relying upon a creative interpretation of what constitutes—I can't remember the exact language—grossly disproportionate, cruel and unusual punishment, even restricted to the facts of the case, you could find judges striking down laws and not rendering justice.

As I suggest, a way of narrowing this further could be by tying certain objective factors to making someone eligible for a lower sentence—things such as age, prior convictions, whether there is a commercial purpose involved, or threats, intimidation and the presence of weapons. This is used in other jurisdictions. They have the effect, I think, of constraining the judiciary appropriately and ensuring the intent of the legislature to ensure that severe punishment of an offence is upheld.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Baber.

Mr. Chang, we'll go to you for six minutes.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Dr. Giesbrecht.

How transformative is the recognition of coercive control for frontline service providers?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

Thank you so much for the question.

I think this will be hugely transformative. A Criminal Code offence of coercive and controlling conduct is something that frontline service providers have for many years been calling for. We at PATHS, on behalf of our member agencies—domestic violence shelters and counselling centres across Saskatchewan—have been advocating for this to the federal government for nearly seven years.

So often, frontline service providers—and that includes family law professionals, police and also the domestic violence, shelter and service workers—have had instances where they're supporting clients who are at a very high risk of lethality. They're experiencing some very dangerous and harmful behaviour, but currently there's nothing within the criminal legal system that can be done to support them.

By legislating this criminal offence, I think it opens a lot of doors for training, education and awareness of what coercive control is, and it offers frontline professionals a way to support survivors and direct them to mechanisms within the criminal legal system that can help them and keep them safe.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

Why is the two-year implementation period important for training and system readiness?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

I would echo what our colleagues at the Regroupement said earlier.

We've wanted this criminal offence for a very long time, of course, and I would love to see coercive control criminalized immediately. However, I do recognize why this has been put into the bill, and I think that having that two years before it comes into force will be helpful for ensuring that training is provided to legal system professionals, to police, lawyers and prosecutors.

However, that two years will need to be used very efficiently. Training will need to be ready and it will need to be rolled out and monitored to ensure it is implemented effectively, so that those two years are used to ensure everyone has the training and there are going to be effective responses in implementation as soon as that bill comes into force. If those two years are not used to efficiently and effectively deliver training for professionals across the country, then the two years won't have met the objective.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

What specific training should police and prosecutors receive to apply this law effectively?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

I think the training should include a number of topics, and it's not an extensive list.

Some of the things that could be included in that training are the ranges of behaviour and tactics employed by perpetrators; the connection between coercive control and other forms of intimate partner violence; the connection between coercive control and intimate partner homicide or femicide; moving from an incident-based view of intimate partner violence to recognizing patterns of coercive and controlling conduct; recognizing the cumulative harm of coercive and controlling behaviour and the impact on victims; and cultural and intersectional factors that impact the perpetration and experience of coercive control.

As well, there are practical skills for professionals, such as assessing risk, including risk of lethality; identifying the primary aggressor; interviewing survivors and perpetrators or accused perpetrators; gathering evidence; documenting patterns across multiple interactions and calls for services; trauma- and violence-informed support for survivors; and, very importantly, cross-sectoral collaboration.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

Do you believe that making femicide first-degree murder sends a strong enough deterrent message?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

I do. I think that valid points were raised by the presenters in the first hour of the committee's meeting about some of the gendered issues of the recognition of femicide, but I do think that this is very important. I'm in support and I'm heartened to see the issue of femicide addressed in Bill C-16.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

How will this bill change the way victims are identified and supported?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

Having a Criminal Code offence of coercive control offers opportunities for victims, first of all, to report. Currently, I see through my work with frontline professionals and victims and survivors of coercive control that many of them do not report to police because there's currently no chargeable offence occurring.

Being able to report means repercussions for the perpetrator, but importantly, it means the potential to offer protective mechanisms, such as protective orders, to survivors. It also means being able to validate and recognize that behaviour and show that this does matter and is concerning and potentially dangerous, and being able to do something about it. The current status quo is that victims and survivors are told, “There's nothing we can do here. There's nothing we can do about this. Come back when something criminal”—i.e. a physical or a sexual assault—“occurs.”

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

My final question to you is this: What gaps still exist in protecting women in rural and underserved communities?

[Dr. Crystal J. Giesbrecht]

Some of the gaps include housing. This is an issue all across urban and rural Canada.

What we see here in Saskatchewan is that sometimes survivors stay in situations longer than they would choose to because accessing housing is a significant barrier whether they live on a first nation, in a small town or in an urban centre. As well as that, I think there are barriers to reaching out for support. Sometimes it's geographic distance and transportation, or it's support for survivors and frontline professionals with expertise in intimate partner violence and coercive control.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Dr. Giesbrecht.

Thank you, Mr. Chang.

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