There were similar fears in Great Britain, where we carried out two missions to talk to a range of stakeholders about the actual effects that criminalizing coercive control had. We learned that those fears did not materialize. In our discussions with people in England and Scotland, we came to realize that it was possible to prevent these perverse effects. The solution lies in training police officers and prosecutors, and giving them the tools to properly assess who the main aggressor is when both partners claim or seem to be victims. Through the coercive control lens, criminal justice actors examine the pattern of coercive and controlling conduct, consisting of repeated instances, not isolated events, and are thus able to determine who the real aggressor is and who used defensive or reactionary violence.
Australia put controls and case review mechanisms in place to deal with the problem of the law being weaponized by perpetrators against victims. Before the bill comes into force, it's important to take the time and provide the necessary resources to adequately train all social and legal stakeholders, to develop the appropriate guidelines for police and prosecutors, to strengthen legal and psychosocial supports for victims, and to conduct education and awareness campaigns for both victims and the general public. That is precisely why we are asking that the coercive control provisions in the bill not come into force until two years after royal assent.
Drawing on the experience of the Australian states we visited in September, we recommend that panels made up of national, provincial and territorial experts in the field be responsible for the coordinated implementation of the new provisions, and that police and prosecution data be collected and tracked. This will ensure that criminalization is having the desired effect, not unintended consequences. In that vein, we recommend a legislative review every two years for a period of six years, informed by the reported data.
As for amendments to Bill C‑16, in the French version, we recommend changing the wording “en danger” to “menacée” in provisions that refer to the person's safety being at risk. This would be consistent with the English version, which refers to the person's safety being “threatened”. In our view, “menacée” requires a lower burden of proof. We also recommend that the definition of femicide in the French version specify that it is the murder of a woman or girl, specifically “une femme ou une fille”. Lastly, we oppose giving police the power to apply alternative measures instead of proceeding with the laying of an information against the alleged perpetrator in domestic violence cases. Whether prosecutors should have a similar power also warrants consideration.
The rest of our recommendations appear in our brief.
Thank you very much.