Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of that standing order.
Before I get started, I would like to take a moment to say that I will be sharing my time with the member of Parliament for Pickering—Brooklin.
I, too, would like to take a moment to offer my support to the member for Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata. I wish him a speedy recovery and send my best wishes to him and his family during this very difficult time.
I rise today not just as a parliamentarian, but as someone who has spent over two decades on the front lines as a social worker working with victims of crime. Before I ever walked the halls of this House, I walked the halls of RCMP detachments, emergency shelters, local hospitals, etc. I sat in cramped interview rooms. I held the hands of women shivering in police station lobbies at all hours of the day and night.
At the time, before entering politics, I was a frontline social worker with the Codiac Regional RCMP in Moncton, New Brunswick. Part of my job as a victim services coordinator was providing assistance and guidance to those dealing with very difficult situations. We provided crisis support and crisis intervention, and also ensured that victims and family members were aware of their rights and what they had to expect. I know first-hand what intimate partner violence looks like before it becomes a file on a prosecutor's desk. I also know what it looks like before it becomes a statistic in a report. Because of that lived experience, that professional experience, I stand here today to speak about Bill C-16, the protecting victims act.
When we look at this bill, we see legal text. We see legal jargon. We see clauses and so on, but as a former social worker, when I read this bill, I see the names and faces of people I worked with over the years. I see Jacqueline, which is not her real name, who was a former client of mine. She never had a black eye, never had a bruise and never had broken bones, but her husband controlled her vehicle keys, monitored how many kilometres she drove, monitored her phone location every second of the day, and also decided when she could sleep and when she could not. Under the current framework, it was agonizingly difficult to get the criminal justice system to intervene in her case, because the terror she lived under did not leave physical marks. This is why Bill C-16 is so vitally important.
The first pillar of Bill C-16 is the criminalization of coercive control. For too long, our legal system has viewed intimate partner violence as a series of isolated physical incidents. Frontline workers know the truth. As a client told me in the past, “Abuse is a continuous pattern of trapping a human being almost in an invisible cage.” By formally defining and penalizing coercive control, this bill would finally align Canadian laws with the psychological reality of intimate partner violence. Elevating intimate partner violence and femicide to first-degree murder reflects the grim truth that these tragedies are rarely sudden crimes of passion; they are predictable and escalated conclusions of long-term patterns of control within relationships.
We must also look at the structural changes this bill proposes. As someone who has accompanied survivors and also many family members through the gruelling court process, I know that delays are often a secondary victimization. When cases are thrown out due to the Jordan framework, a victim is left entirely unprotected, looking over her shoulder and feeling abandoned by the criminal justice system. Modifying these rules to prevent administrative breakdowns from collapsing an intimate partner violence prosecution is a vital step forward.
However, my background also forces me to look at this legislation with a critical and pragmatic eye. Bill C-16 reintroduces mandatory minimum sentences. Through a strictly political lens, we might see this as just being a tough-on-crime approach, but through a frontline social worker lens, I asked myself what this actually does to victims. In my years of practice, I saw many, many victims refuse to call the police because they feared the absolute destruction of their family's economic survival. If a victim knows that a call to police automatically triggers a mandatory multi-year prison sentence, they may choose silence instead of making a complaint.
The inclusion of the safety valves allowing judges discretion in exceptional circumstances, and I stress “exceptional”, is not a weakness of this bill. To the contrary, I would argue, it ensures that we punish perpetrators without inadvertently forcing vulnerable victims deeper into the shadows.
We also need to acknowledge that the nature of abuse has mutated over the years. When I began my career, many years ago, as a social worker, we worried back then about landlines. We worried about letters being sent and physical stalking, or, as we refer to it now, criminal harassment. Today, however, abusers use technology as a weapon of absolute humiliation of their victims. Provisions in Bill C‑16 address AI‑generated deepfakes and digital exploitation of minors. These are not futuristic hypotheticals. They are happening right now. Abusers are creating non-consensual, synthetically generated, explicit images to ruin a victim's career, destroy their custody cases and shatter their mental health. Our laws must evolve as fast as the technology that is used to inflict this cruelty.
Bill C‑16 is a powerful, overdue evolution of our justice system. It validates what social workers, shelter staff and victims have been saying for decades: that abuse is systematic, that psychological abuse is dangerous and that our courts must be modern, efficient and compassionate.
In closing, I would be remiss if I did not highlight the wonderful services that exist within my community in Moncton, New Brunswick. First and foremost, I have to give a shout-out to our local shelter, called Crossroads for Women, and Renée and all of her team there. Crossroads for Women has been in operation for more than four decades now. It provides emergency shelter for victims who are fleeing domestic violence. It also provides a 24‑hour crisis line for those who need support. It also provides supportive housing and services for those facing not only intimate partner violence, but also sexual violence. Let us not forget our youth in these situations. The shelter also provides child and youth support services. If we want this intergenerational cycle to cease, we have to make sure that we provide services to the young who are exposed to this. Again, I want to give a big shout‑out to our local shelter.
As well, we have another great organization, which started off just a few years ago, called Shelter Movers, in my town. Shelter Movers is just that: When victims are fleeing domestic violence and they need someone to go to their home and provide them with moving and storage services for their furniture, or whatever they need, we have volunteers who are called within our community. They may be called out at any hour during the day and night, and they provide that service free of charge. Again, hats off to them.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not speak about the Beausejour Family Crisis Resource Centre. Again, this is a wonderful organization that provides shelter and counselling services to those in need. As well, within the province of New Brunswick, they provide justice facility dogs for those who have to appear in court or those who have to meet, perhaps, with a police officer and are feeling anxiety. These facility dogs will accompany them either in the courts or in the interview rooms. It has made a huge difference for many victims within my community. Again, I have to give a shout-out to them and their team at the Beausejour Family Crisis Resource Centre. Kristal, Chantal and all of the team provide tremendous work, and for that I am very grateful.
Finally, if there are any survivors who are watching us this evening, I want to encourage them, if ever they need any help or support in the province of New Brunswick, to call 211. This is a free information and referral service that provides needed information to those who are fleeing difficult situations.
Let us not forget the 988 service that our federal government put in place just a few years ago. Again, if any folks in the entire country need any mental health supports, those essential services are there to help them along the way.
Again, with respect to Bill C‑16, this is a wonderful step forward in making sure that we are there to support victims. I encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the House to support this bill and move it forward as quickly as possible.