Justice Committee on April 13th, 2026

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Barrette, first, we obviously need to stop the scourge of controlling and coercive behaviour. We've been talking about this here at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for a number of years. For all sorts of disappointing reasons, the work of Parliament has been interrupted. We're now getting back to this topic, and I'm glad.

That said, Ms. Barrette, I would like to address something that I heard you say earlier. I may have misunderstood, so I'll ask you to provide a further explanation. You said that we might need to wait two years for these provisions to come into force. I'm a bit surprised. I would have expected to hear about the urgent need to bring them into force quickly. You also talked about a review every two years, which seems perfectly reasonable.

I would like you elaborate on the coming into force of these provisions.

[Karine Barrette]

We're actually eager for it to come into force. I want to be clear on that. We were hoping for the adoption of Bill C‑332, but we're happy with Bill C‑16. The idea is that we don't want any unintended consequences.

We visited England. The issue that arose in England, one of the first countries to criminalize coercive control, was that the players involved received training after the offence came into force. This meant that certain players received training, starting with the police. However, the prosecutors, who weren't trained, couldn't build the cases. Everything fell apart, which left the police feeling unmotivated.

The key is to ensure that the entire chain receives training and tools. Otherwise, the players involved will be let down, as will the victims, who knock on the doors of police stations and end up receiving a poor response. The people aren't in a position to have cases that go all the way to trial. Other scenarios result in bad case law, which creates a long‑term problem.

We're also a big country. Other countries sometimes had only one national police force. In Australia, the states of New South Wales and Queensland each have their own police force and group of prosecutors. We need to think of Canada as a whole here. In Quebec, we've been lucky enough to work on coercive control with the justice system players. We're making good progress. That said, it takes time to train people and to develop tools for asking the right questions during the statement phase of the police response. Tools have been developed in Quebec, for example. We need to make sure that Canada as a whole can access this training before the bill comes into force.

In our view, the key is to avoid rushing into things and then building the plane while flying it. We really want this to proceed with proper planning and under optimum conditions in order to avoid any unintended consequences. That's why we're proposing this two‑year period. We need to give ourselves the resources to do things properly and to avoid any need to start all over again later on.

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

The issue that you raised—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Fortin, I'm sorry, but that's all of your time.

Mr. Lawton, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much, witnesses, for your thoughtful comments on this.

I'd like to delve into the deepfake aspect, Ms. Zaccour. This is something where the laws are updated less frequently than the technology is advancing, and we've seen even in the last few months some really rapid changes. A friend of mine was targeted by someone who used Grok to put her in a state of undress, and it was, to your point, incredibly humiliating for her.

I also want to make sure that we are not so broad with what we do that we're limiting things that probably shouldn't fall under criminal law. I want us to get it right, so I'm hoping to work through some of your suggestions on this.

One of the things you mentioned in your proposed amendment was the idea of using “nearly nude” as opposed to just nudity or sexual behaviour. Another thing that you've talked about is eliminating the realism component. To use an absurd example of that, if someone were to put someone's face on the Little Mermaid wearing a clamshell bathing suit top underwater, would that, in your view, fit what you think should be captured by this definition of criminal law?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Thank you for the question.

The “nearly nude” is necessary to cover situations of being dressed in a bikini. It's a put her in a bikini kind of thing.... Removing the realism is necessary to address the issue of just changing the backgrounds and making it a different setting, as I've addressed.

I believe that what the realism was trying to get at was a recognizable face and body. It is up to you as a committee to decide if that's the threshold you want to keep: recognizable face or body or only recognizable person. If you put someone on a dog's body, that would be an example of where you can make that decision, but that's not a question of realism. It's more that it's a recognizable person that would cover it, or with the Little Mermaid deepfake, or something like that, with someone's face, that would be a recognizable person. One of the ways we propose is a “reasonably convincing manner”. That would not have to pass the test of realism—I believe it's true—but it has to be reasonably convincing that it actually depicts the person. There are different ways that you can make that threshold.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I've always viewed this issue as being that the threat comes from people believing that a photo or video is real, and that is the harm. Your view is that it isn't actually the harmful component. It's the degradation or the humiliation that comes from the image itself. Do I understand that correctly?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Some examples we've seen are of victims of crimes who have died and were being put into deepfakes. That is not.... Everyone knows that the victim has died, so it's not that it is realistic.

Engaging in sexual activity is not shameful per se. It's not the fact that someone may have engaged in sexual activity. It's really the non-consensual part. It's the difference between wearing a bikini because you want to wear a bikini and someone forcing you to undress. It's completely different.

Yes, we believe that the harm is in the non-consensual use of someone's image for sexual purposes, not the fact that the person is believed to be sexual or to have had a sexual past.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

What role, if any, do you believe civil law could play in this? Again, criminal law is a very big tool. Could there be a route through defamation or privacy where people have a remedy, but we're not threatening to throw someone in jail if they make an image that is, again, humiliating, perhaps, but not something that people believe is legitimate? Again, I don't know where I am on this. I'm just trying to understand what our options are as we deal with this issue.

[Suzanne Zaccour]

What victims most want is a remedy to remove the photo from the Internet. That is, I think, the number one thing—the online harms kind of remedy. That is starting to appear in different jurisdictions. I always make a point of arguing for things that you can do in the federal jurisdiction, but yes, what victims want is for the image to disappear. That's why targeting the creation might also enable the law to intervene with the companies that diffuse these, that share these images.

Yes, there's definitely a role for civil law, but civil law, if it's just defamation, takes time—and it's too late. It's really about removing the images. Our proposals are limited to federal jurisdiction, but yes, absolutely, that would be part of the solution. It's also the teaching on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. If the limit is different in civil remedies, in online harms and in criminal law, it may create confusion, but it definitely must be part of the picture.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Lawton.

Mr. Chang, you're next. I'll give you about three minutes, and then we'll have to stop there.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Zaccour, we know that many victims are delaying leaving abusive relationships because shelters cannot accommodate their pets, which creates a real barrier to safety. From your perspective, are there any legal or policy measures that could accompany Bill C-16, such as protection orders for pets or better coordination with shelters to ensure victims can leave safely?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

Yes, that is a real issue. It's an issue that is related to shelters not having enough money and also not accommodating pets. I believe some of the briefs that were submitted touched on that specifically.

Yes, we do support solutions that include recognizing that harm to the animal is part of the dynamic of coercive control and domestic violence. It's the same abuser who abuses the mother, the child and the pet. It should be seen as one issue that needs to be addressed in all its facets.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

There has been discussion about defining “femicide” as the killing of women and girls, so based on gender or sex. To ensure legal clarity and that no victims are excluded, how should the law be applied in cases involving gender-diverse individuals, such as, for example, in a gay relationship where one of the partners identifies as a woman? Based on your experience, what approach can ensure the definition remains legally clear, inclusive and focused on the underlying dynamics of gender-based violence?

[Suzanne Zaccour]

The one premise that's really important is that murder is already a crime. It's really about the government deciding that it wants to do something more and something special to recognize femicide. However, murder is already a crime, and it's the most serious crime in the Criminal Code. No one will fall through the cracks in that way.

That being said, if the government decides to go forward with this femicide legislation, which raises a lot of issues, the definition of femicide as the murder of a woman or a girl would be more specific, and it would have to include both cisgender and transgender women and girls. It's also possible to decide to define it as the murder of a woman or gender-diverse person. It really depends on what the purpose of this new legislation is, because if a lot of the situations that are covered in this bill are actually already covered as either first-degree murder or an aggravating factor.... Those are the different options that could be used.

It's also possible that what the government is trying to target is not femicide, but something else. If it's femicide, then femicide would be the murder of a woman or girl because of her gender, whether she's a cisgender woman or a transgender woman.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Chang.

Thank you to our witnesses. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this panel, but we're very grateful to you for taking the time and making such excellent contributions to this important piece of legislation. Thank you.

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes until the next panel is ready.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'd like to call the meeting back to order.

For our second hour, we are joined by Sylvie Champagne and Michel Marchand from the Barreau du Québec. From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we have Peter Copeland. From the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan, we have Dr. Crystal Giesbrecht, who I understand may be having some audio challenges, so I'm going to ask her to go last in the opening remarks.

Each group has up to five minutes for opening remarks, and then we'll open the floor to questions.

Why don't we start with the Barreau du Québec?

[Sylvie Champagne, Secretary of the Order and Director of the Legal Department, Barreau du Québec]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for this opportunity to outline the Barreau du Québec's position on Bill C‑16.

The Barreau du Québec is the professional order that regulates the practice of over 31,000 lawyers. Its mission is to ensure the protection of the public, to contribute to quality and accessible justice and to uphold the rule of law.

In this capacity, the Barreau du Québec acts independently to provide legislators with a rigorous legal analysis that reflects the reality of the justice system. We can count on the valuable contribution of our expert groups of lawyers who exemplify the diversity of our profession.

First, I would like to emphasize that the Barreau du Québec supports the fundamental objectives of Bill C‑16. The desire to better prevent and penalize domestic violence, to recognize the dynamics of domination that can lead to homicide, to strengthen the protection of children and to adapt the criminal justice system to certain contemporary realities is legitimate and necessary. The purpose of our comments isn't to call these objectives into question, but rather to support their achievement.

I'll briefly outline the main points of our analysis.

The first point concerns the consistency of criminal law.

The bill modifies the offence of criminal harassment, creates a new coercive control offence and introduces a definition of femicide. Yet these three mechanisms depend largely on the same basic behaviours, which include surveillance, intimidation, control and isolation.

The Barreau is concerned that this increase in the number of offences for similar behaviours unnecessarily fragments the understanding of domestic violence and complicates the application of the law, without providing truly enhanced protection. We believe that a better integrated approach would have achieved the same objectives more clearly and effectively.

I would now like to focus on the specific issue of femicide.

The Barreau fully recognizes the need to identify and combat homicides that occur in an environment of domination, control and gender‑based violence. This constitutes a serious and widely observed reality. It's only right that legislators want to treat the matter seriously.

Two key aspects require clarification to ensure that this reform fully achieves its objectives.

The first aspect concerns the temporal connection between the violence and the homicide. The bill would define a murder as a femicide not only when it takes place during a period of control or domination, but also after a pattern of this nature has emerged, without any clear guidelines. The broader and more imprecise this temporal connection, the more difficult it becomes to establish a direct link between domination behaviours and the act of killing. This can create uncertainty in the application of the law.

The second aspect concerns the balance within the justice system. The definition of femicide automatically carries the most severe penalty available under Canadian law, meaning life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 25 years. This exceptional penalty is normally based on the idea that the act committed shows a particularly high level of culpability. If the definition remains too broad or inadequately delineated, this maximum penalty may be applied in situations where the link between the domination and the homicide isn't sufficiently clear or direct.

The Barreau calls on the legislator to tighten certain guidelines, in particular by specifying the required link between the dynamics of control and the homicide. That way, the definition of femicide can specifically target the situations that it seeks to address.

The third point in the brief concerns the reinstatement of mandatory minimum sentences already declared unconstitutional, along with the new mechanism in section 718.4 that the bill proposes to add to the Criminal Code.

Although it's touted as a tool designed to provide flexibility, the mechanism would place the onus on individuals facing prosecution to show that the minimum sentence is unjust in their case. This raises concerns about fairness, legal predictability and the risks of two‑tier justice, depending on the resources available to the person facing prosecution.

Lastly, the Barreau—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'll have to ask you to wrap up, Ms. Champagne.

[Sylvie Champagne]

So, we will come back to this during the questions. I would just like to say, regarding the aspect related to the Jordan ruling, that we have concerns.

Thank you for your attention.

Mr. Marchand and I will be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Copeland, we'll go to you next.