Status of Women Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I would like to ask Karine the same question, because there was another incident in the mid-nineties, when a father was supposed to have supervised visitation with his children. The reason they separated was that he was very controlling. Not only was there a lack of supervision, but he ended up killing his four children and shooting himself. Before doing that, he burned down the house.

He went through some kind of treatment, but it obviously didn't work. How do we, as a society, protect our children?

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Anna, unfortunately, your time has been exhausted. Perhaps she can incorporate her answer into somebody else's.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Next, we have Pam.

You have six minutes as well.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be subbing in on this committee again for such an important study. I commend the members of FEWO for doing this.

Professor Koshan, you mentioned parental alienation. I recently sponsored a petition on this in looking for changes to the Criminal Code, but I wonder if we could talk a bit about parental alienation.

One of the things that came up in my meetings was reunification camps and how these are much like conversion therapy and are being used to send young children to the United States to camps at tens of thousands of dollars of costs to the moms to basically convert them to reunite with an abusive partner.

Do you have any comments on that and whether or not you think the federal government should do something, whether legislatively or through regulations, about these reunification camps?

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

Thank you very much for that question.

As I think I mentioned in my opening remarks, our research on family law very much supports the recommendations that have been made by the National Association of Women and the Law about the need to limit parental alienation arguments in family law cases, because often they are raised in response to allegations of family violence by women.

You're absolutely right that we sometimes do see judges buying into this notion of parental alienation, when really what a mother is trying to do is protect her children from abuse, and then, in cases that are considered extreme, these reunification camps occur, which are extremely harmful to children.

Yes, I would urge the committee to think about placing limits both on the extent to which these types of arguments can be made in family law proceedings and on the types of remedies that can be ordered. I believe there really do need to be limits placed on these types of reunification so-called therapies.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Yes. I'm familiar with the NAWL recommendation. I've met with them and am very supportive of what they're looking for.

One thing that the moms and children who have been subjected to these camps said was that if the reunification therapy and reunification camps were ended, it would stop the money train, and it would actually help in judges not recommending.

I know that I'm directing my questions at you, Professor Koshan, because you brought it up, but if LEAF or anyone else wants to jump in, you're more than welcome to.

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

Maybe I'll briefly make a plug for Linda Neilson's research in this area. She found that sometimes the people who are testifying as experts in parental alienation cases are the same people who run the reunification camps, and they stand to profit directly from those camps.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'll go over to you in just one second, Madam Riendeau, but these camps are for tens of thousands of dollars, and the charge for them is being charged to the moms, who often have to mortgage a house. I mean, we're not talking about small amounts of money that are the costs to try to fix these kids.

Talking to these young people who have been subjected to these camps or therapy...it's absolutely horrible.

Did you want to add to that?

[Louise Riendeau]

Yes, besides prohibiting the camps, every effort must be made to educate the courts and forensic psychology experts: When a woman tries to protect her children, or the children say they don't want to see their father because they've seen or experienced violence, listen to her.

People are starting to talk about judicial violence, which is one of the ways that spouses use to continue controlling their partners. We completely agree with the recommendations that the National Association of Women and the Law has made in favour of prohibiting parental alienation. That concept, which isn't based on science, has unfortunately been adopted by too many family and youth courts. We think it's just a way to maintain the status quo and the power of controlling and violent fathers.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think there are two issues, though.

One is the NAWL recommendation about banning parental alienation in the law, but there's also getting rid of the reunification therapy. Would you agree with that for the actual therapy in camps? You're nodding your head yes. Okay.

[Louise Riendeau]

Yes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

One of the issues we have with mandatory training, though, is.... This committee studied Keira's law, thanks to MP Dhillon. I worked on that. We can't mandate training for judges. I'm very grateful that the Province of Ontario has implemented Keira's law, as has Manitoba. I would encourage Quebec to do the same, but we're really limited as legislators in requiring training for judges, and a lot of the people who need training actually fall within provincial jurisdiction—children's aid societies and Crown prosecutors. I think we've come a long way, thanks to MP Dhillon's private member's bill and the work of Jennifer Kagan, but we are limited as educators on training.

I think I have about 15 seconds left, so I'll I'll end it there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Perfect.

Ms. Larouche, go ahead for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the four witnesses for being with us in the context of this study.

The news, unfortunately, reminds us quite dramatically how much more we should be doing to ensure no one else becomes a victim. An article by Stéphanie Grammond appeared in La Presse this morning, reminding us once again that the numbers in Quebec are alarming. We can come back to that.

Ms. Barrette and Ms. Riendeau, we just discussed the issue of education. I was fortunate to discover your tool last summer, when I was thinking about how to submit this study on coercive control to the committee. Would you please tell us a little more about the subject and precisely how it adds to our study of coercive control?

As we know, that tool isn't a magic wand; it won't solve all problems, but there is a whole continuum of services and solutions that can be proposed. I'm going to give you some time to tell us more about your tool.

[Karine Barrette]

Thank you very much for that question.

We've actually been working on the project since October 2021, as my colleague mentioned. We're working with an advisory committee consisting of some 30 members in the whole chain of legal stakeholders: police forces, the École nationale de police du Québec, academic researchers, assistance and housing shelter workers, lawyers, the director of criminal and penal prosecutions, prosecutors and correctional services. We think it's important to work with all those people.

The idea was to develop tools that would really meet the needs of those stakeholders on the ground, first, to understand what coercive control is in their respective missions, and, second, to determine limits on the ground. Then the idea was to see how those stakeholders go about detecting coercive control, since a patrol officer doesn't detect it in the same way as a family lawyer or immigration lawyer. The idea was also to determine how to document coercive control more accurately in order to understand the dangerousness of a domestic violence situation.

So we've developed a tool box and a “police placemat”, a checklist for police officers, that indicates how the various coercive control tactics manifest themselves. The members of the advisory committee really wanted to see specific examples. Not having experienced gaslighting situations, they told us they wanted to know what they look like and how to develop surveillance and to question on the ground.

We've designed these tools to support these stakeholders, and, as my colleague mentioned, we've created this “police placemat”, which now helps police officers write their reports so they can include details about what they observe on the ground. These are just a few tools among many others, but they're having a major impact. We've also developed other components on women experiencing economic insecurity and women from ethnocultural communities.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

We know we can't even consider helping domestic violence victims escape from that cycle if we don't do more to address economic violence so we can remove women from the poverty and insecurity cycle that very often traps them in the domestic violence cycle in the first place.

I'd like to go back to the somewhat chilling article that appeared this morning. It tells the story of Naima Rezzek, who was stabbed by her former partner last Saturday. She was the second woman killed in three days and the fourteenth woman killed in Quebec since the start of this year. Eight of those women were killed in domestic violence situations. The author of the article asks the question, “So what's going on here? In less than five months, more women have already been murdered than in all of 2023.”

My thoughts about the coercive control issue stem from the fact that I was challenged on the subject by a female member from Quebec City. You told me you had been consulted about that article. I know that you weren't just consulted about the article, you also contributed to the report entitled “Rebâtir la confiance”, which brought together the various initiatives in Quebec. That's more or less what was said in the article.

There are a lot of things that Quebec can do better, but the ball is now in the federal government's court regarding the criminalization of coercive control, and we can't toy with that ball.

How do these figures reflect the situation? How could this tool for detecting coercive control help reduce the number of crimes against women?

[Louise Riendeau]

Actually, the reason we welcome the study you're conducting here today is that it's important to talk about this concept and to make it known. Many professionals and victims, although the latter know what they go through, think that domestic violence means physical violence. However, we know that victims experience all kinds of forms of control, and we know that coercive control is a very accurate indicator of lethality. A study conducted in England has shown that, in more than 90% of domestic homicide cases, the victim had previously experienced coercive control.

The public, and professionals especially, must be aware of the concept so they can help victims and urge perpetrators to change their behaviour. In my opinion, here's what it takes to succeed: We have to document situations, name them, take steps to counteract coercive conduct and stop trivializing actions that, in isolation, may indeed seem trivial. People must be more informed, oppose coercive control and recognize it as a form of violence.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Barrette, if you have nothing to add on the subject, I'm going to ask you a question: what did you learn from that tour? You said that every country that had raised the criminalization issue felt there was no turning back.

[Karine Barrette]

We agree with what the other witness said: All actors can help with screening. As previously mentioned, where there's no physical violence, victims aren't necessarily aware that they are victims of domestic violence. If we recognize that coercive behaviour goes beyond physical violence, actors in the legal community, in both family and criminal law, will be able to intervene and inform the victims.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Excellent. Thank you.

Next, we have Leah Gazan.

You have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today for this very important study.

My first question is for Professor Koshan.

Would you recommend to the committee to not criminalize coercive control?

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

Thank you very much for that question.

That is the position I took with my colleagues in the brief that we filed with the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We totally understand that coercive control is a real concern and that we need to think about legal responses to coercive control, but we share some of the concerns that were mentioned by Roxana Parsa from LEAF in her opening remarks. We have learned some lessons from things like mandatory charging and prosecution policies for domestic violence.

We also bring to the table some issues with how family law is treating coercive control. It is being used against women. Women's protective actions—

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Professor, I'm sorry. It's just because I have limited time.

Do you agree that we should not criminalize coercive control, yes or no?

[Prof. Jennifer Koshan]

I agree with that, but not at this time. We need more work to be done.