Status of Women Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2024

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Could you tell us more about what you know about the bill and what might be interesting, what's good about it and maybe even what's not so good about it?

[Dr. Lisa Heslop]

One thing we are very concerned about, and I don't think it's been discussed, is the language around suicidality as being indicative of coercive control. We're very concerned about that. We see the possibility of how that could be used to harm survivors.

The other thing with respect to criminalization is that it places the responsibility of laying those charges on police officers. As I think I mentioned at the beginning, we've been trying to work with them in the family court system, which is much better equipped to assess, to take time, to gather information from multiple sources, to be able to understand, to build rapport and to build trust with survivors so that they'll be able to disclose the information that's required. That doesn't lend itself well to a police officer arriving on scene in an incident-driven system. That concerns us and, I think, leaves survivors vulnerable to being charged in the reverse.

We still continue to see, despite it being three years since the Divorce Act was enacted, a lot of stereotypes about family violence playing out in family court in ways that harm survivors, particularly survivors facing multiple inequities. Those include indigenous survivors and survivors facing poverty and experiencing housing insecurity and trauma-related issues. Survivors continue to be questioned as to why they did not report the violence to authorities, or why they didn't leave, or why they just can't move on. A lot of education has happened in the family court sector, yet here we are, three years later, with so much that still needs to be done to ensure that survivors' experience of family violence—all forms, not just coercive control—are taken seriously and that their disclosures don't lead victims to being unfairly and unjustly accused of fabricating allegations in order to gain advantage, or to being accused, as you've heard, of parental alienation in family court proceedings.

Those are our primary concerns.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That's interesting. Right now, there's a lot of talk about training police forces. In fact, I'm meeting with an officer from the Granby city police force soon to talk about this; he wants to let me know that an annual conference I went to last year was also attended by police forces, as well as representatives of community groups and the Quebec legal system. They're all interested in Bill C-332. They were talking about how important it is for the bill to pass and the importance of criminalizing coercive control. These stakeholders represented a cross-section of society.

You mentioned something interesting.

I'm now going to turn to Ms. Mercer or Witness 1. Both—

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Ms. Larouche, I'm sorry.

We will have to leave it there.

Leah, I will pass the floor to you for six minutes, please.

I'm sorry, Andréanne. I provided you with an extra 30 seconds for the translation.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I lost over a minute of speaking time because of interpretation. When I resumed speaking, I had to repeat more than a minute. I saw that I had one minute left and I was going to ask my question.

I was at 5 minutes and 16 seconds when I reset the clock, as you suggested I do before I started speaking the last time around.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Okay. I had understood that you had lost about 30 seconds, but was it the entire time that you were posing that question? Is that the concern, that she wasn't understanding the question?

I'm completely open to that, Andréanne.

Leah, can you press pause for a moment?

Andréanne, if you could ask your last remaining question within a minute, that would be terrific.

Thank you.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll ask my question quickly. In any case, it's simple.

Ms. Mercer or Witness 1, I invite you to give me a 15-second answer. You both spoke about family court. In Quebec, it falls under the Quebec government. Would it be important for family courts in Quebec and the provinces to be educated about parental alienation?

[Prof. Jean Mercer]

Is the question whether it is important?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

We're federal MPs. You were talking to us about family court, but they fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.

Did you also make your case before the provinces?

[Dr. Lisa Heslop]

Can I take a shot at answering that question?

As you probably know, most of the provincial legislation related to family law is consistent with the Divorce Act, with some exceptions in some of the provinces and territories. Quebec is maybe one of those exceptions, but it's equally important, no matter which piece of legislation you're using, that the same considerations be given.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

Leah, you have six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

My first question is for Madame Mercer.

We've spoken a lot on other legislation about the importance of educating judges and police officers in terms of the issue around coercive control. I'm certainly not against education, but I was wondering if you could explain how judicial education may not solve the problem with accusations of parental alienation and why legislative reform is needed.

[Prof. Jean Mercer]

The issue here is that judges are at least supposed to apply the laws as they exist. To educate them in laws as we think they should be rather than as they are would not be very helpful. The legislation would have to create the laws before we could educate judges on the current laws.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

What you're saying is that we can't talk about education until we have legislation in place.

[Prof. Jean Mercer]

That's right.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Another quick question is this: Do you think that the committee should recommend banning reunification therapy, banning accusations of parental alienation, or both?

[Prof. Jean Mercer]

I don't see how you can ban accusations, but you can ban consideration of those accusations as part of judicial thinking in child custody, and I would say, yes, this should not be permitted as part of the evidence in court or part of the judge's rationale for making a decision.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

My next question is for Witness 1.

You said that you were told by your lawyer, “Don't mention abuse.” Why did your lawyer ask you not to mention abuse? What was the fear?

Could you respond quickly? Thanks.

[Witness 1]

Many survivors, when they enter the family court system, will receive advice from lawyers. They say that, if you don't mention the abuse, then you won't have the backlash of that parental alienation accusation, because parental alienation basically re-victimizes the domestic violence that the survivor has gone through by stating that they are unknowingly, not intentionally, sometimes without saying anything, transferring their fears onto the child. They don't understand that an abusive man who is an abuser to women is likely to also be abusive to a more vulnerable child.

This is a common recommendation. It really just speaks to, if you're a victim entering the family court system, a victim of family violence, the thin line that you walk on every day either trying to receive protection by saying, “Hey, there's abuse present for either myself or my child,” or trying to appease and not be seen as an alienator.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

My last question is for Lisa Heslop.

I can't remember who you were responding to, but you said something about how accusations of coercive control can sometimes have the opposite impact, penalizing victims instead of perpetrators, particularly for indigenous folks and BIPOC folks. Can you expand on that a little?

[Dr. Lisa Heslop]

Sure.

I think that in the absence of a much broader understanding, when you're relying on a system that is incident-driven, there's a lot of room for.... For example, when we look at the criminal justice system as the response to intimate partner violence or gender-based violence, there's been a lot of unintended consequences from doing that. When officers aren't able or aren't trained to identify a primary perpetrator, our mandatory charging laws result too often in women being charged with defensive use of force.

One of the really interesting studies that has just come out is around women who have been charged with what they describe as defensive use of force saying they would never call the police again. These are women who are living in very precarious and dangerous situations. Loss of trust in the police service, for those women, puts them at a far greater risk.

This is the same and probably even much more complicated than primary perpetration for police to assess on scene. As I was saying, we're training people in the family courts to be able to assess in an environment where they have a lot more access to information from multiple sources over a long period of time. We're struggling to move the dial on their understanding of coercive control.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you, Ms. Heslop.

Anna, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you Madam Chair.

I'm going to give my last two minutes to Michelle.

My question here is.... Maybe it's not a question; it's a statement.

According to the United Nations, children have the right to protection from abuse, exploitation and harmful substances, and to have their views listened to and their evolving capacities respected.

Parents also have the right to protect their children and to ensure that they receive the nurturing they require, so I don't understand this whole bit about taking them away from the parents or one of the parents. Whatever happened to the foster care system?

I'm bringing this up because I was part of that system, and I didn't have this situation. They did listen to the child, and then the parents were assessed.

Why are we not doing that today instead of punishing the child?

I don't know if Lisa wants to answer that.

[Dr. Lisa Heslop]

I'm not sure I totally understand your question.

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

If there is a situation with children and they're in danger, are the parents not assessed by professionals?

I was placed in the foster care system. Are they not assessed to ensure that the child is better with one of the parents? Are they not reviewing the circumstances?