Status of Women Committee on May 6th, 2022

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

Thank you. I hope I understood the question correctly.

Yes, we follow what is done in Quebec.

Just to increase the accuracy of my answer, I'm going to switch to English.

We have been following the measures that are occurring in different jurisdictions, including Quebec, particularly because of some of the similarities to the electronic monitoring changes that have been proposed in Quebec.

As I mentioned, at a high level, something like electronic monitoring is considered to be within the administration of justice, so that is something that would be put in place by the provinces and territories. They currently have a number of different measures and programs.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Very well.

What I understand is that since the Quebec government has already legislated on this issue, we will have to coordinate some things with them, even if it is not the same law or the same level of government. As you said, there are different laws. There's the one in Quebec and the ones in the other provinces. So if I understand correctly, you're going to make sure that there is this coordination between the two levels of government.

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

Yes.

The operationalizing of the amendments would occur individually in different jurisdictions. Quebec might be ready for those changes. It might be easier for them to operationalize.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

All right.

Now, can you explain the effect of this on the legal front? How exactly will it change the way abusers are tried in cases of intimate partner violence?

When implementing a new public policy, it is important to link it to a solution. It's one of many measures and perhaps it should be implemented politically, but as you said, of course, it's hard for you to give opinions. I understand that, so I'll talk about tools instead.

How will your department measure the effectiveness of this public policy? Have you prepared monitoring tools to evaluate this new policy and see how it is evolving?

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

In order to follow the effects of the legislation, we would work with Statistics Canada and look at the different measures that it uses. It has a number of different surveys that could measure that type of information.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I see.

I'm going to go back to a question that I tried to ask Ms. Lambropoulos and Ms. Damoff. They told me to ask you, as it fell more under your responsibility, as a public servant.

In Quebec, with the recent adoption of Bill 24, the electronic monitoring bracelet was chosen as the device, but its implementation, which will begin this spring, will be phased in over several months.

How will the implementation of this device work on the federal side?

As for the concrete implementation, Quebec has a plan. On your side, at the Department of Justice, are you in the process of planning how it will be implemented? Do you have a timetable for implementation to determine what will happen?

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

If I understand correctly, the Department of Justice wouldn't have a specific plan with respect to implementing electronic monitoring, because that would fall within the administrative jurisdiction of the provinces and territories.

The Minister of Justice and the federal government are responsible for the laws, and the administration of them occurs in the provinces and territories themselves.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I was not talking about implementation in Quebec and the provinces, but about the implementation of what could have been the responsibility of the federal government or your department in this bill. However, I did understand what you said. We will therefore respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces in this matter.

Since my time is up, I will return to the issue of coercive control in my second round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you so much, Andréanne.

I'm going to now pass it over to Leah for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Chair.

The first question is for Ms. Davis-Ermuth. You mentioned four criteria that are considered in the best interest of the child. Can you please repeat those?

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

I'm happy to do that. It's the child's physical, emotional and psychological safety and well-being.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I ask this because in Manitoba, we have something called “for the sake of the children”. Parents who are divorcing have to go for training to look at their own behaviours in order to co-parent in a way that is in the best interest of the child and to always put the child first. It's really important to always put the child first.

Part of the stigma around this occurs when there is a partner who is experiencing coercive control. There is a fear to even comment about the other parent for fear of being labelled with what they call “malicious parent syndrome”. There are four criteria for this.

The first one is that a person suffering from this syndrome “attempts to punish the divorcing parent through alienating their children from the other parent and involving others or the courts in actions to separate parent and child.” The second is, “Seeks to deny children visitation and communication with the other parent and involvement in the child's school or extra-curricular activities.” The third criterion is “Lies to their children and others repeatedly and may engage in violations of law”. Finally, a person suffering from this syndrome doesn't suffer any other mental disorder which would explain these actions.

I say that because in the case of Dr. Kagan-Viater, she complained 53 times and raised concerns that were valid about the father's visitation with Keira. They were not taken seriously. She was treated as a malicious parent. This resulted in Keira losing her life.

In the judges' training, how are we going to deal with this so that there is not this assumption? If a parent is coming forward with legitimate concerns, even in divorce cases where both parents go through extensive psychological evaluations, this must never be overlooked again. This is costing the lives of children, whether it's physically losing their life or costing their lives in terms of their spirit.

Can one of the panellists respond to that?

[Melissa Moor]

Thank you for that note on judicial education.

The principle of judicial independence requires that the judiciary control judicial education on a range of topics, and that would include training on coercive control and intimate partner violence. It will be up to the judiciary. Decisions lie with the judiciary around what the content of that training would look like and what in particular it would include.

In this case, questions about the content on that kind of training would be better put to the National Judicial Institute.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I ask that because, especially in cases of coercive control that are not visible, it isn't uncommon for women to come forward with legitimate concerns about the parent—not in a malicious way, but with real reasons of concern—and they are characterized as having malicious parent syndrome.

With regard to the training, I know the training the judges get is up to them. Even with those criteria, if they're the ones who are designing the training, are they required to attend that training? Is it going to be mandatory?

[Melissa Moor]

As you noted, judicial independence requires judicial training over education for judges. This includes both the content of judicial training and whether judges are required to attend training or which training judges take. That decision would be up to the judiciary as well.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's really concerning for me, because the problem is with the judges. As we heard from Mr. Viater, the ones who need the training the most are usually the ones who don't want the training, and they're part of the decision-making about whether they get the training.

How can this bill have an impact to ensure that judges get this training? In this instance, we see the loss of a child because nobody listened to the mother. It was crazy-making, like she had this malicious intent. That resulted in the loss of a child.

How can we give the bill more teeth?

[Melissa Moor]

As my colleague mentioned, as department officials we're not able to offer opinions on potential amendments or suggest amendments to a bill. However, I will address your question in a different way.

As you noted, the judiciary does have control over judicial education, including what training judges take. We see that the Canadian Judicial Council, which sets the training requirements for federally appointed judges, takes judicial education very seriously. On their website they have several policies on judicial education that underscore the importance of continuing judicial education for judges to keep learning, and also for public confidence. We understand that judges develop education plans that are approved by their chief justices.

In terms of this bill, it would expressly recognize, in one of the proposed amendments to the Judges Act, that the CJC can establish seminars on coercive control and intimate partner violence, and it would also amend the Judges Act to expand the scope of the provision that recommends or encourages the CJC to provide seminars to include seminars on interpersonal violence or intimate partner violence and coercive control.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thank you very much. We're now going to start our second round. For the first five minutes, we're going to switch to Dominique Vien.

Dominique, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank you, ladies, for being here this afternoon.

I don't have many questions for you. However, I do have one that relates to one of your answers, which surprised me a bit.

Ms. Davis-Ermuth, in response to a question from one of my colleagues about the application of the new provisions of Bill C‑233 and how all of this was going to be verified on the ground, as well as my question earlier this afternoon about how the effects of these new provisions were being analyzed, you responded that Statistics Canada was going to be doing that work.

Did I understand correctly?

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

Thank you.

What I meant to say was that within the Government of Canada, Statistics Canada will be doing this work.

They determine the criteria. They work with our provincial and territorial counterparts to collect national data on different factors.

One of the measures for [Technical Difficulty—Editor] they could how often the provision in relation to electronic monitoring is used. That's not specifically in the Criminal Code right now. It's not necessarily something that's easy to measure, but they work with provinces and territories to try to determine how to collect different data about how things are working in the justice system.

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

I have trouble understanding how this will be done. There are prosecutors, judges and defendants.

How is Statistics Canada going to ensure that it collects data on how the new provisions are applied? I don't understand why Statistics Canada is being given this task.

I am having trouble understanding. Am I alone in this? It's not clear to me.

Behind this bill there is a purpose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

If someone could answer that question, that would be great.

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

With the different laws that we have, sometimes it's hard to measure their effectiveness individually, but there have been a number of different laws that have been enacted by the federal government over the last few years, including the Divorce Act and the former Bill C-75, that have a number of different measures in them that aim to increase protections for victims of intimate partner and family violence. We've heard some of the statistics today about the prevalence of the issues, and one of the things we would look at is prevalence of people who are harmed in these types of relationships.

There's also self-reporting. We get reports from victims and individuals about victimization with these types of crimes. [Technical difficulty—Editor] and then in relation to [Technical difficulty—Editor].

If you're talking about how successful it is, in terms of the implementation that occurs and how they're finding the measures to work with, that's something that's harder to quantify. There might be qualitative studies, but that wouldn't give us definitive data on how it's playing out across the country.

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

Will the Department of Justice look at the results of this law? For example, will it look at how many bracelets are installed per year, who wears them and under what circumstances?

[Shannon Davis-Ermuth]

Yes, the Department of Justice will be looking at these aspects, but they don't have the tools to collect this data.