Status of Women Committee on Nov. 20th, 2024

[Valérie Auger-Voyer]

Are you talking about it in general, or are you talking about the criminal justice system?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I'm talking about the criminal justice system.

[Valérie Auger-Voyer]

First, make processes that are survivor-centred and trauma-informed, whereby the victims' safety needs are taken into consideration. Make the processes adaptive to their needs, especially for those who are most marginalized.

Next, provide free legal advice and representation for victims. There are pilots of that for sexual assault, and they should be expanded.

Then invest in alternative forms of accountability—again, survivors are looking for accountability—like transformative and restorative justice initiatives.

Invest more in rehabilitation. As we've talked about, it's very much a patchwork right now. For example, in Ontario, PAR—partner assault response programs—used to be 24 sessions. They're now 12 or 16. I think they went to 16 and now they're at 12. During the pandemic, I ran one of them, and it was only six sessions. This is vastly insufficient.

Address the delays in court that we were all talking about, fund frontline services that provide supports to survivors and accompany them throughout their process. Be there regardless of whether they want to report or not.

Maybe lastly, implement the red dress alert. That's a really important one as well that the federal government can work on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Serré.

At this point, we're going to go to a fourth round. Traditionally, I have room for 25 minutes in a fourth round. We don't have 25 minutes, so I'm going to shorten that. We will have a 13-minute round of four minutes, four minutes, two and a half minutes and two and a half minutes.

We'll move forward to begin our fourth round. We started at 4:31, so we have a minute's grace.

Dominique, you have the floor for four minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Boisvenu, I'd like a clarification on therapies for men. We've often discussed this. We have to help men too, and I think everyone agrees on that. We have to give that a boost if we want rehabilitation to work.

Should we force someone to take therapy? Under certain circumstances, are therapies already mandatory?

[Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu]

That's a good question.

First, they are 30-day closed therapies.

Based on the experience with indigenous groups in western Canada, a comparison was made of the effects of therapy on men who had been ordered to undergo it by a court and on those who took it on their own. The rate of rehabilitation was the same. Those who are required to take therapy will begin to understand after two or three sessions, and will continue the therapy. People no longer drop out of therapy, whether court-ordered or voluntary.

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

You said earlier that you had great respect for police forces and the work they do, and you mentioned the traumatic situations they face. Everyone is well aware of that. However, in the various studies we've done here, women have told us that they don't trust the police.

What advice do you have for us? What steps should we take? What recommendations could be made to improve that relationship of trust?

[Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu]

We must have sound technology. When a woman denounces her aggressor, the evidence she submits to the court should be infallible. The electronic bracelet is one of them. There is also the use of cellphones. With the project we have in Quebec, a woman can record video and audio content from her cellphone, and that content goes directly to a monitoring centre. So it can't be erased. In court, that's irrefutable evidence.

Historically, it was the woman's word against the man's. For example, the man could tell the police that he hadn't been on the street or on the woman's balcony, and they were stuck with that. How do you decide who to believe in such a situation? Today, the evidence from electronic bracelets, cellphones and new technologies is irrefutable and recognized by the courts. In my opinion, those would be good tools for police officers. As a result, they may no longer receive repeated complaints.

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

If men wear an electronic bracelet, it's because women have already been believed. We should also look at what is happening upstream.

[Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu]

Let's take the example of cellphones. We don't have to go to court for that. In Quebec, as soon as a woman has been a victim of violence, the Direction générale de l'indemnisation des victimes d'actes criminels pays for the device.

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

Mr. Boisvenu, if you want a riding, I'm sure we can find one for you.

What would be the four or five priorities, the milestones for the first hundred days of a future government? What should it do?

[Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu]

When a stranger rapes a woman and kills her, it's automatically considered first-degree murder. A man who rapes and murders his spouse or ex-spouse only spends five years in prison. Why is it that a man who sexually assaults his wife and kills her is not treated the same way as a stranger who commits the same crime? In my opinion, this must be a priority. We must tell men that it's unacceptable in our society to murder someone. What's also unacceptable is that the man will only serve a five-year sentence after killing his spouse or ex-spouse.

Moreover, prison isn't the place for violent men, except in extreme cases. Women tell us that when you send a man to prison for six months, he's even more violent when he comes out. So we have to replace prison with rehabilitation, because the cost is the same. Someone in a prison costs $80,000 a year. If we send him to therapy, it might cost $20,000 or $30,000. So we have to substitute rehabilitation for short prison sentences, which achieve absolutely nothing because there's no therapy in provincial prisons.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you, Mr. Boisvenu.

[Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu]

That's what has to be prioritized. The Minister of Justice should also prioritize reciprocity among the provinces in helping victims.

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

I invite you to send the committee those four or five priorities in writing. We'll wait for your document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

Thank you.

At this point, MP Damoff, you have the floor for four minutes.

Oh, I'm sorry. MP Hepfner, you have the floor for four minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'm sorry to confuse you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

It's all good.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

This has been a very valuable conversation. I want to thank all of you for your insights.

I want to go back to an idea we talked about before at this committee. My colleague MP Damoff brought it up. I think it's one of your recommendations, Valérie: Appoint a lawyer for victims. I want to dig into this a bit more.

How do you envision that working out? I love this idea because, in my court experience, I heard this all the time. Victims don't feel like they're being heard. The Crown is not there for them. They have wonderful people in victim services who work in courts to help guide them through the process, but that person isn't advocating for them before the judge. I would like to see this at family court, as well—a lawyer for the victim who is knowledgeable about gender-based violence, coercive control and things like this.

I don't know if you know. Would this be a Criminal Code change? How do you envision this rolling out?

[Valérie Auger-Voyer]

Honestly, that's a very good question.

I don't have a legal background myself, so I know the same as you do: Survivors don't feel like they're heard. At the moment, they're just a witness to the crime against them. They don't feel their needs matter, or that there is someone there to represent them and explain the system to them. The prosecutors can do some of that, but they don't necessarily have to, or they don't have the time.

They need someone with legal expertise who can guide them through the process and advise them.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I would add that it should be somebody who is given standing to speak at the court case, which the victims don't always have.

However, I want to move into a different area. I know that your organization works with groups that support women on the front lines, organizations that combat gender-based violence. I know from all my conversations with all my stakeholders who work in this field that it's been a really tough time for the frontline workers in this field. What can we do to support them more, to support their mental health, to support them through all that they're going through, so that they can continue their vital work of supporting women who are victims of violence?

[Valérie Auger-Voyer]

I'm so glad you asked that.

Actually, our organization has been working on a road map to build supports for the gender-based violence workforce. It's based on serving frontline workers as well as all the research that's been done in Canada on this topic. We've created some priorities, and one of the recommendations is for the federal government to create a national labour force strategy for the gender-based violence workforce, because there are so many common systemic issues that they're facing.

It's not just the trauma that they're experiencing and hearing every day, but the barriers in all the systems that they're working with that are very frustrating on a daily basis—and it's not just that: It's a caring job that's done mostly by women and mostly by women of colour, indigenous women and Black women. Just as in the care economy, those jobs are very much undervalued and underpaid, with no benefits and no pensions. It's really a systemic issue, and it needs to be fixed by a national labour strategy.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Maybe I'll go back to the project that I was unsure about earlier, when I was asking about it. I think the project is more about forming a network so that everybody's on the same page across the country. Can you talk a little bit about that project in the 10 seconds we have left?

[Valérie Auger-Voyer]

I host a national working group on sexual violence, and it's the only place nationally where sexual assault centre representatives can come and talk about the trends and the gaps and the challenges, and that's what then informs our work and our recommendations. We really look at all the gaps across the country, across jurisdictions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Shelby Kramp-Neuman]

That's excellent. Thank you.

MP Larouche, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.