Status of Women Committee on Sept. 18th, 2024

[Carla Neto]

Yes.

I see your passion for this issue, and I share it. I think we need to establish very clear accountability structures. That starts at the top.

We have had situations with clients who have told their stories time and again in the court system. In fact, one thing that we believe happens is that coercive control is also facilitated through the courts and family law system, because these criminals, as you say, use the court systems to continue to manipulate and control. In fact, they sometimes threaten to kill the mother if the children choose to be with the mother.

Start at the top—

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

It's not that I want to cut you off, but I want to add something else—

[Carla Neto]

We start at the top.

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

I just read a book, and it's called Women Unsilenced. We had the two women here from out east, from Nova Scotia. One of the things that kept me up at night was that I read in this book that families, parents, are having children in this country and getting them ready as young as 12 months old to sell them on the streets.

Why aren't we going after those individuals? The children are being abused by professionals, by doctors, by lawyers, by priests, by judges. Why are we not doing more to protect those children? I also found out—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

We have about 20 seconds.

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

Can somebody maybe...? I'm sorry, but I can't remember her name.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

She is with Little Warriors. It's Ms. Polzin-Holman.

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

Yes, the one with the hand up: Little Warriors.

[Wanda Polzin-Holman]

Thank you. I'll be quick.

I think this is a more complicated conversation; it's not just about the offenders.

One of the things we see that I just want to add to the conversation is an ongoing problem with intergenerational trauma. When families and when mothers and other caregivers are in a place of trying to support children and youth, oftentimes, they themselves have a very long history of their own abuse. What we find in our program is that sometimes when their child is in the program for the very first time, they are actually talking about their own systemic and intergenerational trauma and abuse, and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you, Wanda.

[Wanda Polzin-Holman]

—it's for the first—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Excellent.

Next, we welcome Lisa for five minutes.

Thank you.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

All of our witnesses are excellent today. I just want thank you all for your time and your attention. I'm going to stick with you, though, Julie.

I'm sorry, but I'm seized with the problem of parental alienation. We know that it's happening here in Canada; I've spoken to victims. There's a story from August 31, just a few days ago, out of Denver. The headline is, "Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail”. That's not Aurora, Ontario.

This is one of those cases of the kind you talked about. Dad is accused of raping his daughters, and he still goes free and is able to fight for custody of his two sons. When the mother protests, she's thrown in jail because she's opposed to this reunification therapy. I've heard from victims of this, and it doesn't sound like therapy to me; it sounds more like torture, and they're forced to take it. I find the whole thing appalling.

I want to go back to your opening statement. I'm not sure who you were quoting, but you said that parental alienation is “usually the mothers” and it's “psychological abuse”. Maybe you can fill that in a little. From what I understand, parental alienation isn't actually a thing. It shouldn't be a term. We shouldn't be using it in court at all. It's just a flag; it's not a real thing.

Can you please comment on that?

[Julie Rioux]

The quote is actually from a training manual for workers for

the Quebec youth protection branch.

I'm seeing similar language being used in CAS in Ontario.

It's not therapy, because for you to have mental health therapy, you have to consent, and the children aren't consenting. Also, you're not gaslighted in therapy. These children go to reunification therapy, to RT, and they're told to forget about what their father did to them. They didn't understand; it didn't happen. The therapists actually get mad if they do.

In one case that I know of, the judge reversed custody; they cut off contact completely. I find it very ironic that for an estrangement, the solution is to estrange the child from the parent that they feel close to. One, you're damaging them psychologically, because you're breaking their effective link with their main parent. Two, you're telling them that what they lived isn't true and that they are to get over it. Three, you're forcing them into contact and custody with somebody that they have a genuine fear of. Even if the estrangement was not justified, it is still damaging to force somebody to see someone else against their will.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Coercive men don't just give up once a woman leaves the relationship. They're going to use every tool at their disposal. They're going to take what's available under the courts to use against their victim. I know that provincial court judges are supposed to take domestic violence into consideration when they're making these decisions. From my conversations with you, that's not happening.

[Julie Rioux]

That's not happening. I think it's a question of being confronted with the fact that for so many years they've accepted that alienation is real when it's not and they've probably made decisions that have harmed so many families. They do not want to believe that it is not real and that it is actually an abuse tool. They don't want to believe that. They are actually saying that the mothers are abusive because they're alienating. It just doesn't make sense.

No, in our opinion, they do not get better. That's what somebody who's more up to date on research would know better than I do, but they don't get better.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I don't mean to cut you off. We know that teaching and more teaching and more training for judges doesn't seem to be working. We already have a law that says they're supposed to take the domestic violence into account when they're making these decisions. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations that would help us move forward.

[Julie Rioux]

I think there need to be judges who have extensive domestic violence training. Remember that it's still not mandatory for them to take that training. The training that's offered right now, I believe, is 90 minutes on Justice Canada's site. The 90 minutes is not going to do anything. That's part of it, and I think there needs to be an entirely different avenue for procedures when there's abuse.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

If we banned the term “parental alienation” and banned “reunification therapy”, do you think we'd be getting there?

[Julie Rioux]

We have to ban those and use definitions of what they are, because they're already starting to try to co-opt those and say it's family therapy or it's estrangement therapy and all kinds of terms. They're actually trying to say that PA, parental alienation, is coercive control. We have to define it in an act to say what we're banning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

That's perfect. Thank you, Lisa.

Next we have Andréanne. You have two and a half minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Once again, I thank the witnesses, who enrich our thinking on this extremely important study.

The criminalization of coercive control is a request made by Quebec to Ottawa. It was studied as part of the report entitled “Rebuilding Trust”. Since the Criminal Code falls under federal jurisdiction, the Quebec government is asking the federal government to add coercive control to it.

Beyond this aspect, having had discussions with elected officials at the National Assembly, I know that the issue of online hate is also extremely worrying. There is a direct link between violence against women and online hate. How is it that we tolerate so much hate from groups like “incels”, or involuntary celibates, or influencers, who promote misogyny and who, as we can see, risk taking us backwards in terms of the image we perpetuate of women and this tolerance of violence against women—indeed, it goes as far as that. It's absolutely incredible.

Ms. Polzin‑Holman, you touched on the issue of social networks. How do you see the link between online hatred and misogyny, and violence against women in 2024?

[Wanda Polzin-Holman]

From the perspective of Little Warriors, we're seeing this in chat rooms and different online platforms that children and teens are involved in. Parents really have no idea about how to control this. We're seeing that in discussion groups, even at young ages, with girls to other girls, unfortunately, from a bullying perspective. It starts there as well, and definitely it is an ongoing problem that I think is worsening.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Yes, and many parents were shocked to discover misogynistic comments, and they were shocked to discover that their own boy was subscribed to influencers who promoted misogyny in some groups.

We have a duty to set an example. How can we think we're preventing violence against women if we allow this hatred to be perpetuated online and make young men believe that it's acceptable to commit violent acts against women? I can come back to that.

Thank you for your contribution, Ms. Polzin‑Holman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

Leah, you have two and a half minutes.