Status of Women Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Comtois, do you say yes or no to a guaranteed livable basic income?

[Gabrielle Comtois]

It's absolutely essential.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It's absolutely essential. Okay. That's great.

Professor Chambers, you gave a wonderful definition of coercive control. I know that we've been trying to find a definition of coercive control. With your definition of coercive control, would you say it's a fairly new concept?

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

It's about 20 years old. It started, really, with Evan Stark, and grew out of the power and control wheel from the Duluth model 20 years before that. However, the details have filled in more with time, with more examples coming from real life and with talking to more victims.

One of the things I have sent to the committee is a checklist that we're using now locally. It is really detailed about questions to ask to identify coercive control.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I did see that. Would you say that we need to have more research done before we criminalize coercive control, yes or no? Then my time will be up.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

I think the research is there. I think what we need is more education because of the risk of misinterpretation of the law with the current problems that Amy was talking about and the racialized enforcement and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you very much, Ms. Chambers.

I would like to get in a second round. We have resources for a little bit longer, and this is powerful testimony, but I am still going to shorten the next round to move us along.

Dominique and Lisa—so Conservatives and Liberals—you'll both have three minutes. This was a Bloc study that was put forward, so I'd like to keep you at two and a half minutes and Leah at two and a half minutes as well. Are we comfortable with that?

Dominique, you have three minutes.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Chambers, thank you for being with us this afternoon. Since I don't have a lot of time, I'll get straight to the point.

Regarding the article that our colleague Ms. LaRouche mentioned, I read it this morning and found the statistics it provides spine-chilling. It also suggests an interesting angle on which I'd like to get your opinion. The article reads as follows: “To take action upstream, Quebec could also draw on Clare's Law, under which it would be possible lift the veil on the past of one's spouse.” That British law was enacted following a murder in the United Kingdom.

The article also mentions that staff at shelters in the regions, in particular, have realized that women often fall victim to the same man.

Some Canadian provinces have enacted a version of Clare's Law in order to obtain information on a violent man. That's the case, for example, of Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan. It's not the case of Quebec, however. Have you heard about that, and what you think about it?

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

I think it's a great idea. The more information women can have in their hands, the better. There's no downside to being able to get information publicly about someone so that you avoid dating them. It originated in the U.K. with Clare's law. I think every province should have a Clare's law.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I don't know if I actually understood, but earlier one of your colleagues mentioned the profile of a toxic individual who virtually enslaves women. How frequent are these kinds of cases in the general population? Is it 1 in 1 million or 1 in 100,000? Are those cases documented?

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

We don't really have a profile in that we don't have a lot of statistics because we don't have the cases before us, except for the ones that go violent. We don't know all the cases that don't ever get litigated. We don't have all that evidence.

If you look at the patterns of who dies, it is overwhelmingly white privileged men who kill their partners, and it is overwhelmingly those same men who then might engage in mass violence. They practise on the women in their lives first.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Wow.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I can't see the chair and so don't know if she's given me the nod. I don't know how much time I have left.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Sadly, Dominique, there's no more time.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I'm done, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Yes, you're done.

Lisa, you have three minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses who we've had here today. It's been a difficult but very important conversation.

I also have very little time, but I'm going to go to you, Amy, from my beloved local YWCA Hamilton.

Thank you for being here. I really appreciated in your opening statement how you explained how victims can be traumatized by a court process if coercive control is criminalized, because it's not based on evidence that police can clearly find. It would be up to the victim to come up with, and I don't know what kind of proof she'd come up with in a court of law to try to prove that she's been living under coercive control.

If we don't have legislation against coercive control, what do you think is the best way to address it? Is there a way to make the justice system work better with the family law system?

[Amy Deschamps]

There absolutely needs to be better integration between the criminal justice and family law systems because we know that these things, particularly where intimate partner violence is considered, cannot be separated. We have to look to the reality that the current system does not work for many of the individuals—women, children and marginalized people—who are experiencing it. If we look to where the challenges are presently and start there, my worry about criminalizing coercive control is we're assuming it's going to be a check mark in addressing this instance and this issue.

There are many other opportunities we can look at to try to make change. We have the 86 recommendations that came out of the Renfrew County inquest, which lay out a road map for us to invest in the types of change needed to make a difference.

I see the criminalization of coercive control as one piece of that puzzle, but there is a lot of work to be done ahead of that in order that the people assessing on the beat can make the right decisions. Our systems need capacity. We need time and resources to invest in training our officers and frontline staff. Our system as it stands, as a VAW sector, is crumbling, under-resourced and over capacity. Looking at the real solutions there is the place to start if we want to make real change.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Amy.

Professor Chambers, I'd like to go back to you.

You said in your opening statement that coercive control is more indicative of femicide than physical violence. Could you explain that to us in further detail, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

You have about 25 seconds. Thank you.

[Dr. Lori Chambers]

A lot of the time, physical violence is just the result of people getting angry and fighting, but femicide is planned. It's men who are in control, and when they lose that control, rather than lose that control, they kill. It's planned behaviour.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That was well said. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

Next, we have Gabriel Ste-Marie.

You have two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Greetings to my colleagues and the witnesses.

Ms. Comtois, in two and a half minutes, I'd like to hear you tell us about the problem of economic violence and resource control. Then, if you have the time, I'd like to hear you discuss the issues involved in preventing and correcting that behaviour.

[Gabrielle Comtois]

As I said, friends, family and the community are among the most essential resources. They are the first people who can act and help victims find and access resources. Then there are all the front line organizations, such as the centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel, the CALACS, and the shelters, which can help victims access the resources they need to start their healing journey. Lastly, there are more specialized services, depending on their needs.

However, the women have basic needs. Like any human being, they need a roof over their head, access to health care and access to the labour market, but there are barriers at all levels in many provinces. Quebec is in the midst of a housing crisis, it's hard to access health care, particularly for women, and it's harder for women than men to access the labour market.

An established basic income would enable these women and, more broadly, all victims to escape these situations or at least to tip the odds in their favour and improve their general living conditions. Many women who enter the centres can't start their healing journey because they have to meet more immediate needs, such as feeding themselves and putting a roof over their heads. Only then can they think about healing. Individual journeys definitely differ greatly from person to person, but needs that, in the hierarchy, are quite basic, must be met first. The Canadian government must absolutely address this problem so that these women can meet their basic needs.