Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Niman, Ms. Coyle and Ms. Parsa, thank you for your testimony.
The committee held its first meeting on Bill S-205 on Monday. We heard victims testify and explain the importance of this bill, to protect them. As victims, they asked us, as legislators, to move forward. We also heard the testimony of Senator Boisvenu.
I spoke with Senator Dalphond, who collaborated on this bill. He has had serious discussions, in particular with representatives of associations of shelters for victims of spousal violence in Quebec, who asked him to work to have this bill enacted.
The Government of Quebec worked conscientiously to produce the “Rebâtir la confiance” report, which contains hundreds of pages and is the result of non-partisan collaboration. All political parties in Quebec worked on the report, taking a feminist approach, and perhaps a less partisan approach than elsewhere. It is great to see how they were able to produce this report and how they gave it a very meaningful title, one that means rebuilding confidence. The loss of confidence is at the heart of the problem in the system at present. Victims have no confidence. They need tools, they need concrete action that shows them we are acting and we want to restore their confidence in the system, we want to hear them and listen to them.
This summer, I met with a member of the provincial legislature of Quebec who told me that the ball was now in the federal government's court. The Government of Quebec has done its share of the work. It has enacted a bill concerning electronic bracelets and launched a pilot project of courts specializing in sexual violence. Listening to victims and having better trained judges can happen in tandem with using anti-approach bracelets. At present, this system is operating in various places in Quebec.
Some hesitation has been expressed, particularly as regards connectivity, but Senator Dalphond told me yesterday that this was not a valid objection since cellphone coverage will continue to expand in Quebec and elsewhere, in rural areas. In Quebec, as elsewhere in Canada, there is still work to be done in certain rural areas, but it is being done and it is moving ahead. The senator is confident that coverage is going to expand.
Ms. Parsa, as I explained, electronic monitoring has therefore been one of the options that judges can consider for some time now, particularly in provinces like Quebec, which has launched its pilot project, its anti-approach bracelet program. Have you started to examine that project and look into the results? Although it is a pilot project, have you studied what is being done in Quebec? Could you explain a bit of what you have learned?