Evidence of meeting #122 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
As a mom, I'm looking around the room and our eyes are kind of popping out of our heads a little bit, because we can't imagine that.
What have you been told is needed in order for you to be able to see your child again?
As an Individual
The judge has granted my daughter's father.... He gets to decide whether I get to see my child or not. He was given exclusivity over whether or not I have visits.
Conservative
Michelle Ferreri Conservative Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
We've heard a lot of testimony here about.... Ms. Illingworth, one of your recommendations was to remove the term “parental alienation” from the Divorce Act.
I'm going to go to Witness 1, who described herself as a physician.
You suggested standardized risk assessment. Obviously, being a physician, you have clarity around the structure of systems. How do you prevent parental alienation? That is real, even though the testimony we've heard today is awful. It's a violation. What has happened to you is unacceptable. It's criminal. What would you recommend we put in to ensure that parents aren't using their children as leverage to alienate them? Is there wording that can be changed? What is your recommendation, Witness 1?
Ms. Illingworth, you are free to jump in with suggestions on that as well, if you wish. What we're looking for is what that language would look like. If we were to remove that from the Divorce Act, how would we still ensure the safety of the children?
As an Individual
I think we need to look historically at this phenomenon of parental alienation. It was created in the early eighties by a disgraced psychologist who used the concept of parental alienation as a method to distract from sexual abuse accusations against fathers. It has been used as a vector of abuse against women since then. You can all google who started this; his name was Richard Gardner. He said, “There is a bit of pedophilia in every one of us” and “The child who has suffered bona fide [sexual] abuse may very well have enjoyed the experience”. That is how this started.
This concept of parental alienation has morphed and is used in settings where men are accused by the mom and/or children of abuse. They're false allegations used to distract from the abuse. Sadly, there has been a lot of case law across the world—even here in Canada—where as soon as parental alienation is raised, women are down a rabbit hole.
The word “alienation”, in the setting of abuse, has to be eradicated. The way to do that is to have risk assessments on the front lines so that, from the get-go in these custody battles, we can determine whether or not abuse is present. That—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
Thank you very much for your answers.
I'm confident that there'll be many other questions from members and you'll be able to finish some of your thoughts.
Anita, you have the next six minutes.
Thank you.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you very much.
I have to say, as other members of this committee have said, that this is some of the most disturbing testimony we have heard.
I'd like to start with Witness 2.
What you described is absolutely a violation of your fundamental rights. You mentioned the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I just want you to know that what you are doing today, by speaking out, is going to help a lot of other children. I know it's really hard, but I want you to know that we appreciate what you're doing. The fact that your basic rights.... You wanted to speak to a judge because you believed that this would actually make a difference.
Are there safeguards? You talked about banning all forms of reunification therapy and other things. Your voice was silenced, but are there safeguards in the judicial system that could be built in to allow children to have a voice and a direct remedy? Is there anything you can think of that we could do to make sure that what happened to you doesn't happen to anybody else?
As an Individual
Yes.
Thank you for your first remarks. I very much appreciate it. I want to apologize for speaking too quickly. I was quite nervous.
To comment on what you said, I think it's very important that what I wanted to happen does happen: for example, that children get the opportunity to speak with the judge prior to the decision being made. It was quite frustrating not to have that opportunity.
In addition, involving children's lawyers, if the child cannot communicate directly with the judge, and having an intermediate party like a children's lawyer who takes the words of the child exactly, without twisting them or manipulating them in the ways the assessor did, and who is then communicating the child's wishes to the judge, I think is an alternative solution as well.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you very much.
I wish we had more time, but I am going to move on to Witness 1.
In the horror of what you're describing, there are some things in what you said that are incredibly alarming. One of them was that you said children are being “trafficked across the border”. We know that children cannot travel internationally without parental consent, so how on earth would this have happened? Can you maybe describe what happened to you? How do we prevent that, given that it would be illegal to begin with? How did it happen?
As an Individual
My children were not sent to a camp in the U.S. However, I know of two cases in Ontario where that did happen.
What happens is that at the time of the judge's decision, the custody is transferred initially to the transport agents and then to the people who run the reunification camp. We've had children driven across the border to New York, and another child flown to a camp in California.
This dates back all the way to 2012. This has been going on for some time, but there are these camps also in Canada.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I think we need to look at these kinds of issues as well, to ensure this doesn't happen.
Witness 3, we all talk about consent. You described something in your testimony about children being forced to hug their father. Obviously, forced hugs are not consent. Again, it's baffling to think that this would even be allowed in our system. How do we prevent that? Is this something that's happening across the board?
As an Individual
Yes. My child was also forced to. It's with the reunification therapist and any form of reunification or any time parental alienation is brought up. When the child feels scared and they don't want to hug or show affection, or to tell the non-preferred parent that they love them, that is seen as alienation done by the preferred parent. That is used against us in family court.
I'm not too sure in terms of prevention, but removing the reunification therapy, as we've all spoken about, and all the remedies associated with parental alienation that are currently being used...also, as Witness 2 mentioned, having lawyers to properly advocate for the children to express their views and wishes.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thanks for bringing that.
I have less than a minute left.
Ms. Illingworth, you've heard this testimony. You work with victims. What are your thoughts about what we've heard today?
Executive Director, Ottawa Victim Services
Yes. I thought the testimony was incredibly powerful.
As I said, I don't think Canadian laws adequately address the lived realities of victims and can respond to them adequately. We see that certainly in the criminal context, but I think the witnesses today have eloquently shown you how this isn't working in the family law context either.
We have serious work to do, especially around the use of parental alienation and disallowing that, as recommended by so many and by the UN special rapporteur.
Conservative
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all four witnesses for taking the time today to share their profound and troubling life experiences with us.
Thank you for participating in this study.
Ms. Illingworth, in your opening remarks, you talked about coercive control, which is the subject of this study. Can you tell us a little more about the criminal justice response you expect when it comes to coercive control? I would like to hear more about that.
Executive Director, Ottawa Victim Services
Do you mean the current criminal law response?
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Exactly. You mentioned it in your opening remarks. I'm giving you the opportunity to tell us more about that.
Executive Director, Ottawa Victim Services
I would like to come back to that, certainly.
I have concerns that many of the clients whom we help and serve in our jurisdiction cannot access police support. There are no charges in their case unless there is a physical incident of violence. All of what is happening in that relationship that is very abusive is basically observed by patrol officers. When they come on the scene, they know something is going on that isn't right within this relationship. Survivors are describing economic and financial abuse and control. They are being isolated and intimidated. They have been threatened and they are very fearful.
Right now, the law is really focused on physical incidents of violence, and that's when charges can be laid. We have so many survivors who are outside of the scope of a criminal law response. They don't know where to go to get help, and they don't know how to get out of these situations. Luckily, sometimes we have officers who recognize that there is a problem and they will flag it to victim services teams so that we can intervene and do some education around what may be happening. This may help people to recognize the abusive situation they're in and get them supports to increase safety or provide them with options around perhaps fleeing and looking at new housing to get out of the situation they're in.
Others, such as in the testimony you've heard today, maybe are not in the criminal justice system at all but are trying to separate or get a divorce from the abuser. If they have raised concerns around their partner being abusive, they face really dire consequences in the family law system in terms of being accused of parental alienation.
I think we have serious work to do in terms of dealing with coercive behaviour in both the criminal system and the family law system in Canada.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you.
My time is limited, so I'll come back to that in a subsequent question.
As a teenager, I was struck by an awareness campaign in Quebec called “Violence: It's not always striking, but it always hurts!” It opened my eyes to the fact that there are different types of violence and that you don't need a bruise to be a victim of violence. This has been a concern of mine for quite some time.
You mentioned it in your opening remarks. You also talked about culture change. First of all, it has to be recognized from a criminal standpoint. Second, officers must be made aware of coercive control and properly understand its implications under the Criminal Code.
How do you envisage education initiatives for stakeholders, from the police community to the justice system?
I have 30 seconds left. We can come back to it later, but you can start your answer.
Executive Director, Ottawa Victim Services
Absolutely. We need to implement training mechanisms, especially if we're moving towards criminalization in this country. There will need to be training for police, judges and other legal professionals in addressing and responding to these behaviours, and in how we handle these cases in both the criminal and the civil law contexts.
I think public education is absolutely needed, as well, as part of this change, so the problem of intimate partner violence doesn't remain hidden and thought of as a private matter, which it very much is now.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman
Thank you very much for your response.
Leah, you have six minutes.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you so much, Chair.
I want to start out by thanking all the witnesses for being here and sharing very difficult testimony. I want to honour that.
My first question is for Witness 1.
You were talking about abuse. We know there is a continuum of abuse, coercive control being part of that, often resulting in physical abuse. I know we're studying coercive control. One of my concerns, at this point, about criminalizing coercive control is that I don't know whether we have adequately addressed parental alienation, and if that will place victims at greater risk.
I want to very quickly quote the NAWL report:
Victims of domestic violence are particularly at risk of being accused of “parental alienation” when they raise safety concerns. The idea that mothers fabricate allegations of violence to gain an advantage in family court and then brainwash their children to fear their father reinforces myths around family violence, marginalizes concerns for the child’s safety, and puts women who denounce domestic violence at increased risk of being disbelieved and even punished.
Do you think parental alienation is often used as a counter-argument for coercive control?