Status of Women Committee on Dec. 4th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm sorry for interrupting all of you beautiful people. The bells are ringing.

Could I get everybody to indicate that we can continue for at least the next 15 minutes, and then we'll reassess?

We'll continue for 15 minutes, reassess and go from there.

Go ahead.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

As I was saying, when we have such a specific piece of legislation that's going to be dealing with protecting primarily women, we have more permissive language, but then, when we're applying it, we also have to look at that application in the broader context of the public. “Any person who fears” is not something that I can.... There's a void for vagueness in this language when you have it just apply to the general public. It should....

Do you know what? I'm going to propose a subamendment to this, then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Okay. Please go for it.

I just want to double-check on subamendments.

What we'll do is we'll have you move your subamendment, so that we can get in writing. Then we will suspend so it can be distributed, okay?

You have the floor. Go ahead.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

It reads:

Any person who believes on reasonable and probable grounds that another person will commit an offence that will cause personal injury to the intimate partner or a child of the other person, or to a child of the other person's intimate partner, may lay an information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Can you say it one more time, please?

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

It reads:

Any person who believes on reasonable and probable grounds that another person will commit an offence that will cause personal injury to the intimate partner or a child of the other person, or to a child of the other person's intimate partner, may lay an information.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have a question, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Wait one moment. I'll be right with you, Leah.

I'm going to have the clerk repeat it, and then we'll go.

[Dancella Boyi, Legislative Clerk]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It's just to ensure that we have this correct.

We're looking at amendment G-3, “(a) replacing lines 9 to 12 on page 2 with the following”, and it's that first portion, where we have 810.03(1).

Dr. Lewis's amendment is “810.03(1) Any person who believes”—instead of “fears”—“on reasonable and probable grounds”, and then it proceeds as provided.

Was there another...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

There were a few different words in there. Did you talk about the others?

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

No. I've kept their amendment and then just added “believes on reasonable and probable grounds”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I have it. That's fantastic.

She has to get this written and distributed.

I know that Leah had a comment to make.

Go ahead, Leah.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't know if this is helpful. I certainly hope it's helpful.

I know that when there's a suspicion of child abuse, the way it currently stands you have a legal obligation to report. I don't think we're really swaying too much from existing laws. However, we're now talking about violence, which people report all the time, in fact. Then it's up to the victim to decide what they want to do with it.

I don't know if that's helpful. Maybe it's totally not helpful. I know you have to do that under the law anyway right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Thanks so much, Leah.

Go ahead, Sonia, on the subamendment, and then we'll get this written.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Madam Chair, can we suspend for a bit?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Yes. That's what I was trying to do.

We're going to suspend, everyone. We'll get this in writing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

I'm suspending for a few more minutes. We have votes very shortly.

We have clause 2 with the amendment that will be coming back with translation. We are going to have to stand clause 2 and go on to our next amendment. We won't do anything to do with that amendment, because we need it in writing, so we can just go on to clause 3.

I need a UC motion. I need everybody's consent so that we can stand clause 2 until we have the translation available to us, and go on to clause 3.

(Clause 2 allowed to stand)

That was awesome. Well done.

Emmanuella, you have your hand up. Do you have a comment?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

It's on clause 2, so when we get back to that, I'll ask the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Let's look at the time. We are exactly 15 minutes out from the vote. Would we like to vote in the room? We can proceed with another 10 minutes of work and then take five minutes to vote.

Is everybody good with that? I'm looking at everybody, and everybody looks good. We're happy and joyful.

Let's move on.

It's consequential. We are now going to move on to clause 4.

There are a whole bunch of things that are procedural in here. Clause 3 is dependent on something else, so we're going on to clause 4 now. There are no amendments in clause 4.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

It's okay. Take your time. I'll go over it again.

We will not be doing clause 3, because it is linked to clause 2, and clause 2 has been stood for now. We won't be able to do clause 3 right now because of clause 2, so we'll move on to clause 4.

Clause 4 has no amendments right now, so it's really up to us how we want to proceed. Do we support it? Can we move forward? We can take a vote on that.

(Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to)

(On clause 6)

G-9 is the amendment.... We cannot do clause 6 because it is related to clause 3, and clause 3 is related to clause 2. We will have to hold on.

Are we good to go with G-10? Yes.

We're looking at page 14. G-9 can't be done. We're on G-10.

Sonia, this is one that you brought forward. Go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes, Madam Chair.

It removes the requirement in relation to the timelines, so it's making an order in relation to the ability for the informant to make some submissions as to what conditions should be imposed on the defendant—that's in proposed new subsection (8)—and adding the words “intimate partner” and “Attorney General” in proposed new subsection (12) to ensure that both the intimate partner and the Attorney General can apply to vary the condition of the recognizance, in addition to the defendant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Anita has her hand up.

Go ahead, Anita.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

My understanding is that G-10 is consequential to G-3.

I don't know that we can necessarily do that now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

G-9 is consequential, but not—