Status of Women Committee on Oct. 27th, 2025

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Ms. Henderson, in closing, I’ll let you answer one or two questions. The first question is this: Do you have any suggestions for the committee about how the federal government could provide better coordination between the police, the courts and services to victims? This is a complex program that requires a holistic vision. That means that a number of groups must improve communication and strengthen coordination.

The second question is this: If federal members could carry out just one reform, which one would it be?

I’ll leave it to you to decide which of these questions you’d prefer to answer. Can you tell us how to improve coordination between stakeholders, or can you give us one recommendation?

[Debbie Henderson]

I think it would be great if there were just one point person for each family going through this kind of thing, to help them navigate the system and all the ins and outs of it, instead of having to go to this person for this and that person for that.

You have to tee it up yourself, all while bawling your face off, you know, and trying to navigate, in our situation, funeral stuff. There are just so many different balls in your court, and you're expected to juggle 20 different things. I can't even juggle three.

I think that if there were a way to implement something like that for victims it would be helpful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

For our last two questioners, we'll go to Ms. Cody for five minutes and then Ms. Nathan for five minutes.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I wanted to ask you this, Ms. Henderson, in regard to the reverse onus of proof. It's a procedure that would require the defendant to demonstrate that he can actually be released within the current laws. He would have to present a release plan.

The judge would rule after assessing this plan. Don't you think that this is basically just a procedure that would change nothing and that dangerous people would still be released?

[Debbie Henderson]

I do worry that dangerous people can still be released. I'm not fully confident in this. I mean, can you do 10 jumping jacks or five? What are the criteria that you have to meet to be released?

I am just not feeling confident in it, and I don't feel confident in the fact that there's potentially a life at risk. That's the most important thing that we have on earth in our daily lives: a human life.

I don't feel very confident in what I know of what has been put forward. I just don't know what the criteria are. Maybe if I knew what the criteria are, I might support something like that, but I don't, at this point, know how many jumping jacks it will take, for lack of a better example.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

With regard to everything that has happened—the unfortunate experience you had to go through—if the government had invested massively in mental health services and housing, which is something a lot of people are demanding, would that have been enough to protect Bailey in the moment her aggressor was prematurely released after their conviction?

[Debbie Henderson]

No, it would not have, in this situation. I don't see how that would have saved Bailey's life.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Ms. Mendoza, it's been said that a peace bond is nothing more than a piece of paper. I think that resonates with a lot of people. It's been said that they are short-term, not properly enforced and don't have a lot of follow-up.

For peace bonds to be more than paper and to actually carry weight, would extending their duration for serious or repeat cases of intimate partner violence—perhaps up to two years—create a real window of safety for victims?

Beyond length of time, would adding stronger federal standards—such as a mandatory Crown review before a bond expires or automatic notification if conditions are breached—make a difference in giving families confidence that they are being protected by the system?

[Harmy Mendoza]

I would agree with that.

Again, I will add a few other areas.

I spoke about perpetrator programming. I spoke about one researcher who has developed a model that works for perpetrators. The model has shown that perpetrators change their behaviour after they go through it. It's been proven.

This would be instead of, for example, a mandatory program like Ontario's partner assault response, PAR, program. That's for 12 weeks now. It used to be for 15 weeks. It shrank because of funding constraints. We don't know to what extent the PAR program works. We don't know if it works for one specific set of abusers more than another. We can have some assumptions. Common sense will tell us that, probably, more time would be helpful because the legal justice system's process takes a lot of time.

However, without proper data collection and evaluation of the changes, I'm afraid I can't even begin to point out the areas that need to be watched more closely, changed or improved, or where we go back to the drawing table and rework it again. We just don't have that right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

Now the last round of questions goes to Ms. Nathan.

[Juanita Nathan, Liberal, Pickering—Brooklin, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Mendoza, I didn't get a chance to talk to you last time, so I thought I would start with you.

Can you tell me a bit about the type of women your agency sees? Can you comment on what percentage of them talk about reuniting with the perpetrator and the difficulties they talk about when they are separated?

[Harmy Mendoza]

The agency I work for does not provide direct client services. We work with women survivors. We have a whole curriculum to make sure they become peer researchers. That is through our community-based research curriculum.

However, I have experience working on the front line, as you mentioned. I used to be a violence against women shelter worker. I coordinated a few housing programs. What I can tell you is that some women want to go back to their abuser, and they have the right to do that.

I talked about the complexity of things. Why are we not engaging perpetrators so they change their behaviour and the way they use violence? The chances are that—like I said and as it's been proven—if a woman doesn't want to go back to him, the perpetrator will likely touch another nine families. That's what I last remember. I may be wrong. I guess what I'm trying to say is that some women do go back. They have the right to go back. Why is that? There are many reasons. They want their children to grow up with their father. They love this person. It happens. For us, it's about the different options this person has so she remains safe within the choice she made.

You asked a question about child protection services. They get involved. They get engaged the minute the justice system is engaged. How are child protection services prepared to support this type of family? There is violence against a woman, so they call in domestic violence teams, which have been proven to work. It's a bit of a collocation system, where you have the VAW expert and the child protection expert working together to support this family in order to prevent any lethality for them because, yes, some victims go back.

[Juanita Nathan, Liberal, Pickering—Brooklin, ON]

I know the judges have the right to mandate people to take part in PAR programs. As such, because they are mandated programs, a lot of the times you don't get to see the results that you want to see.

At the same time, the children's aid societies cannot mandate someone to attend an anger management program or a PAR program. Do you think, if the children's aid societies could do that, it would help the situation? They can only make recommendations; they cannot make them attend a program.

[Harmy Mendoza]

I can talk about the Toronto Children's Aid Society. They do recommend, if that's the case, that abusers take the caring dads program. I know that they have integrated some level of evaluation and that it has been helpful.

Every one of our different sectors, divisions and Crown operations has a lot to contribute to this big, complex support service provision.

[Juanita Nathan, Liberal, Pickering—Brooklin, ON]

Can you think of any negative effect or any mitigating factor that may affect an IPV registry, such as having an electronic bracelet or even making intimate partner violence a first-degree murder classification?

[Harmy Mendoza]

I can't, off the top of my head, right now.

[Juanita Nathan, Liberal, Pickering—Brooklin, ON]

Thank you.

In talking about rehabilitation for men, looking at anger or whatever the causes are for intimate partner violence, we have to understand that, when we make a law, it would apply to everyone equally. It won't apply to women separately and men separately. We talk a lot about abusive men, but there are situations where women do get caught in this, and they go through the system. Sometimes they don't have the supports for this, including the translation.

Having said that, what type of rehabilitation...? We talked about the PAR, and we talked about the CAS. There are healthy relationship programs in schools, where they start to teach them.... Also, there's a workplace safety mandate in some provinces, Ontario included. The workplace has to keep the employees safe from violence and from intimate partner violence. Some workplaces have a protocol that you must go through training every month, for the women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Unfortunately, we're at the end of our time.

I would invite the witnesses, if you have a response to Ms. Nathan's question, to send the answers to the clerk.

This will conclude our panel for today.

I want to give a heartfelt thanks to both of the witnesses appearing today. You're very brave, very courageous. Thank you for the work that you're doing.

For the members, before we adjourn, there are a couple of housekeeping items I want to bring to your attention.

The first one is that the Minister of Women and Gender Equality is coming on Monday. We have a budget of $500 to approve for that.

As well, there is a supplementary budget for our gender-based violence, for another $500.

Does the committee agree to adopt these budgets?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's very good. You're very co-operative.

Now, on briefs, there are a lot of people interested in this study. I would suggest that we should open this up for briefs, but the translation constraints of timing are a lot. I would like to spare our analysts.

What I'm going to suggest is that we allow briefs that do not exceed two pages, which is about 1,000 words, and that we give people until November 28. That's after we've heard all of our witnesses, and another couple of days, so all of that testimony and those briefs can be incorporated in the final report.

Do I have the committee's approval?

Ms. Khalid, please go ahead.

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

I'm just wondering about the deadline on the written briefs. Let's say somebody submits it on the last day, which is November 28. It would take some time for translation. Would that delay our report-writing process?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No. The analysts will take the testimony, which goes up to November 26, and do their version one of the report. Then it's going to take until mid-December, at the earliest, I would think. It's not going to delay it. It'll be incorporated.

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

In that case, I'm okay with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is everyone in favour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.