Status of Women Committee on Oct. 27th, 2025

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Prior to your niece's murder, how involved were the local police with incidents that may have happened beforehand?

[Debbie Henderson]

I can't speak to that. I'm not sure how involved they were with Bailey specifically. I do know that she reached out for help.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Tell us a bit about the GPS monitoring system that you have spoken about. What do you envision that system to be like and who would that be governed or regulated by?

[Debbie Henderson]

With the GPS monitoring, I think that ideally it would have some form of a system that would go back to local authorities. If somebody is breaching an area where they should not be, then the police are notified and can do something about it.

It's the same with an alert that goes to the victim. With a piece of paper, you're just walking around in your community not knowing where the perpetrator is, and I would say, instead of not knowing, that you have nowhere safe, because it's a surprise all the time.

I assume it would be monitored somehow. I don't know if you would have a national system set up. There are people who are more involved in technology than I am. I'm just a victim's family member. I do know that my phone has the ability to track my friends, and I can locate my family. I know that my friends can geofence their dogs on their property. I would assume that people with much more understanding of technology than I have could assist with that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

All of the provinces administer justice. At the federal level, we are responsible for creating the laws, which are administered, then, by each of the provinces across Canada. Creating a system like a GPS monitoring system would be something that provincial governments would be responsible for.

Ms. Mendoza, you spoke about tracking data and monitoring. Can you elaborate on that a bit? How can tracking that data inform policy?

[Harmy Mendoza]

I would assume that for any type of changes you want to make, you want to make them evidence based. You want to make sure they have worked, maybe in countries similar to Canada.

For any country, province or municipality that wants to be serious about the changes they're making, I would hope that we could collect information about how the current policies and procedures are or are not working. There are experts in those areas. Canada has a lot of very good top-of-the-world universities and researchers.

My own agency has only seven full-time staff. We are already going into community-based research and trying to collect, with our very own fundraised resources, information about how current procedures are impacting women.

WomanACT works with women with lived experience. We have a pool of women who have experienced abuse. Every time there is a change—it could be from the federal government, provincial government or municipality—we immediately consult and we start looking for and collecting information about the gaps. What is working and what is not working? I think that is a key crucial component of any changes you want to make.

Make sure that you work with those experts in the area, those who are providing services, but also with those who are monitoring different changes, so that the changes you are implementing do not have unintended consequences. You cannot do this alone. You have to do it with the other levels of government.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Ms. Mendoza, just following—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You're out of time. I'm sorry.

You'll get another round. Fear not.

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much to our two witnesses for coming here today.

Ms. Henderson, I’d like to join with the other members of the committee to offer you my condolences. This type of testimony moves us deeply every time. I remind myself that we conduct these studies in honour of all those who have lost their lives to violence. This is an issue that shocks us deeply.

You spoke about multiple early warning signs and events that happened with your niece. There were a number of them. The person who murdered your niece exerted coercive control over her throughout their relationship and ensnared her in a web. Do you think action could have been taken earlier if the Criminal Code recognized coercive control and had a broader definition of violence?

This morning, I spoke about this issue with representatives from an organization that focuses on ending violence against women. I’ll get back to the study on section 810 later.

[Debbie Henderson]

I would agree with that. I would hope that there would have been, but I also think there's not enough information or education out there for women.

I think that when you get caught up in a situation with someone who is very charismatic and very charming, it can be confusing as well, in thinking that “maybe I did something wrong here” and taking some of the blame, and not really recognizing it, because it's inside your own home. It might come out to the outside, but it's inside your own home.

I think there needs to be more information on coercive control and more education for women about it so that they have a greater understanding of what's going on.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Henderson.

Ms. Mendoza, many witnesses have said that the process of reporting peace bond violations under section 810 of the Criminal Code is intimidating, lengthy and offers little support. Based on what you see, what discourages women the most from seeking peace bonds?

[Harmy Mendoza]

There are so many things. I don't know if I'm going to be able to answer your question, but I'm going to add a layer of complexity that will shine some light on the importance of collaboration between the different levels of government.

You are standing, maybe in a shelter or at a friend's house, and you have a peace bond that was given to you by our criminal system. Then there is the abuser, showing up with the police because he has an access order from the provincial family legal system. You have that, and you may even have the police in front of you. The police are going to be confused. I know that I am going to be confused if I have a peace bond and a protection order that is contradicting the other order.

The reason I want to say this is that once you go through that experience, you know that having a document that doesn't have any process attached to it doesn't really do much. On top of that, when you have contradictory orders, that makes things next to impossible. You're confused. You're at risk. Now your child needs to go with the abuser, but you have this other order that doesn't really help you.

What I'm trying to say here is, yes, having a process that is fast and clear could help, but we also must have other areas that need to be attached to this order, as I mentioned: wraparound services and VAW experts supporting the victim.

Ms. Henderson just spoke about the situations that happen at workplaces. Risk assessments at workplaces must be done, just like risk assessments at home must be done, because they will save lives, because the issue is preventable and because the signs are clear for the victim, the family and the friends.

It's a complex issue. Like I said before, I guess what I want to draw to your attention is that it's important to have a fast, clear process when it comes to the area of your jurisdictions, but if I could, I will just do a bit of an ask about exploring how to align this work with other areas. Education and training are absolutely important.

Coercive control doesn't have to be physical, and it's lethal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

Now we're going to go to Frank Caputo for five minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's really great to be here. I believe this is quite possibly the first time I've subbed in on this committee, and it really is an honour to be here today. I wish I was here under different circumstances.

I've spoken about my past work in the House of Commons far too much, but one thing I will highlight is that just before I was elected, I was in charge of the file of a young woman who was killed. It was a charge of second-degree murder that went to manslaughter.

I want to mention her name because her name was forgotten. In fact, funding for the police investigation came because she had been missing for 20 years. It came through the missing and murdered indigenous women funding. Through those initiatives, there was funding for an undercover operation. Her name was Angel Fehr. Her killer is actually out of jail already and, according to the media and parole decisions, has a really bad attitude. I'm sure that's no solace to the family. Angel was seven months pregnant, I believe, at the time she was killed.

This is something that is of considerable importance to me, and I don't want to use all my time talking. It was against that backdrop, and also with my prior experience in intimate partner violence, that I drafted a bill. I drafted it mostly in the last session, but when Bailey was tragically murdered, I added a few things. I'm going to ask Ms. Henderson a bit about that.

Thank you very much, Ms. Mendoza, for being here.

I don't live too far from Ms. Henderson. In full disclosure, I met with the family about a week ago.

I'm going to ask you about Bill C-225, which is a private member's bill that I've put forward on intimate partner violence to create the offence of assault of intimate partner and to make murder of an intimate partner first-degree murder, among other things, and to create a risk assessment at any point in the proceedings.

Ms. Henderson, your family has asked me to name this “Bailey's Law”.

Please, the floor is yours on this point.

[Debbie Henderson]

We did ask you to name this “Bailey's Law”.

After Bailey was murdered, we drafted a letter and talked about the things we would like to see changed. Keep in mind that we're being thrust into this. This is not something that we've spent years looking at. It's new to us and we're trying to learn about all the pieces and to put things together.

One of the important things for our family—I'm sorry. I'm going to get tearful about it—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Take your time. It's okay.

[Debbie Henderson]

—is the first-degree murder charges. I don't know if any of you have lost a family member to murder, but it's absolutely gut-wrenching and horrifying. What makes it worse is to think that this man who murdered her has second-degree murder charges. This behaviour went on before. This behaviour led to her being murdered. It wasn't something that he just did—a crime of passion, a momentary lapse of judgment. His behaviour before, how he treated Bailey before, how he threatened to kill her and the girls before.... It was all there, and we're sitting here stressed, when we've never experienced this kind of stress in our lives, wondering why he hasn't been charged with first-degree murder. Found guilty of first-degree murder, he would spend more time in prison.

I'll say that that's justice because that's all that we can get. It's not justice enough for us. We've lost a family member, a mother, and we have to live with that. We hope that with Bill C-225.... We fully support it. We were thrilled to see that this piece was in there. We're thrilled to see the GPS monitoring in there, as well as the risk assessment. You know, the ability to step in and potentially stop something—hey, eyes are on you—seems very logical, practical and reasonable to us.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Okay, thank you.

I don't know if there's a GPS provision, but a judge could order that as part of the risk assessment.

You have 15 more seconds if you want to add anything else.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right.

We're going to move along, then, to Madame Ménard for five minutes.

[Marie-Gabrielle Ménard, Liberal, Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est, QC]

Ms. Henderson, I commend you for your courage in coming here today.

It’s difficult to ask you questions because we’re wholeheartedly behind you. You’re likely going through the most difficult period of your life, and I think that all the members of the committee recognize that. All of us wish you didn’t have to go through this.

During this period, what do you and members of your family need?

[Debbie Henderson]

We need change, and we need change to happen fast. We need to see that the system cares and that the system is willing to do what it can as quickly as possible. We've seen some other bills being presented with regard to hate speech on the Internet. We see that—okay, that's fair—but we're not seeing lives being lost in such a way because of something that was just said on the Internet. I'd like to see stats on that if there's anything different from what I've looked up.

Every five to six days in Canada, somebody loses their life to intimate partner violence. To me, those stats, which I didn't know about beforehand, are staggering and gut-wrenching. Every time we see on the news that another human being has been murdered, it breaks our heart. To be quite frank, it makes us lose our faith in our government and the justice system. We want to see swift action. This is so important. This is Canada, not a third world country. Let's get together. It's a non-partisan issue; it's a human issue. I would personally like to see people coming together to come up with the best solutions together. I think that there are some that are on the table.

Our family is hoping for support for those bills.

[Marie-Gabrielle Ménard, Liberal, Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est, QC]

Ms. Henderson, this is a difficult time for you, as it is for other families of victims. You talked about education and awareness.

Might it be beneficial to provide some support for families navigating such a difficult time?

[Debbie Henderson]

Absolutely, there could be better support. I think until you go through a situation like this you don't have an appreciation for how complicated it is. There are so many different factors that come into play.

ICBC is involved because he drove into Bailey's vehicle. There is a need to understand rules in estates. Family law comes into play. Criminal law comes into play.

I used to be a nurse. I can speak that language well. I don't speak another language very well, because that's not my area of expertise. When you're thrust into that, you are trying to learn quickly and figure it out. I know that victim services is very supportive, but there are a lot of gaps at play. There needs to be more support around that.

There are a lot of financial issues as well. You save for your retirement, but you don't realize that you're going to have to spend your retirement on legal costs because somebody brutally murdered your family member.

[Marie-Gabrielle Ménard, Liberal, Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est, QC]

Ms. Mendoza, your work has equipped you with on-the-ground experience. You also have colleagues throughout the country. What would help prevent violence?

Could we one day have a world where gender-based violence will be reduced and families, such as the family of Ms. Henderson, will not have to go through a similar experience?

What do you envisage in terms of prevention resources?

[Harmy Mendoza]

That's certainly the hope and the fire that drives my work every day. When I go to work every day, I hope that I will not have a job the next day because that will be the day when we will not hear that a woman has been killed in the context of intimate partner violence.

Can it be eliminated? I believe it can.

I believe it is complex. I believe it will take efforts that are related to, like I said, all the different levels of government, all the different divisions from the municipalities, all the different ministries from the provincial government and all the different departments in the federal government.

We need to prevent—