Initially, the scope of the bill was somewhat broader. The Senate cut it back with a number of amendments, in an effort to make sure that the bill would be adopted. The goal was not really to put forward a version of the bill that would include all my aspirations for the protection of women. What we wanted was for the bill to pass and to amend the Criminal Code by making domestic violence a defined offence. We wanted to send Canadians the message that special attention henceforth be paid to domestic violence. We particularly wanted to send the following clear message to women: “If you report your perpetrators, we will protect you.”
It's true that we could have been more ambitious, but we wanted to succeed and limited ourselves accordingly to what the senators wanted.