Justice committee  Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Yes, another concern is with respect to the wording of Bill C-332 and its focus on the “significant impact” on the complainant, which means its interpretation in the bill will very much rely on the complainant's testimony, which is potentially

Justice committee  Thank you for that question. I think something that's significant about that incident is that we still don't know a lot about it. We don't know, for example, if coercive control was an element of the intimate partner violence that was experienced by the woman who was killed in t

Justice committee  Thank you. Good morning, and thank you very much for the invitation to provide input on Bill C-332. I'm joining you this morning from Treaty 7 territory here in Mohkinstsis, which is the traditional territory of the Blackfoot peoples. I am speaking on my own behalf this mornin

Justice committee  Thank you. I agree that criminalization of coercive control can have the kinds of benefits that my colleagues have mentioned, but I would really urge the committee to ensure that it's done correctly so that the offence doesn't have unintended consequences or impacts on members o

Justice committee  Thanks very much for that question. Yes, I absolutely agree that there needs to be judicial education around coercive control. I would say that we should be educating lawyers about coercive control as well, because one of the issues right now is that lawyers don't screen for dom

Justice committee  Our research does show several barriers that have arisen for victims during COVID-19. One barrier we haven't talked about is the one that the courts themselves have created through hearing only urgent cases, and especially in the family law area that has really made it difficult

Justice committee  I'll try to be brief on this. From the judicial decisions I have read, I think a real problem is that judges don't recognize coercive control, especially in the family law realm. They tend to see violence very much as an incident-based scenario, and they tend to rely much more on

Justice committee  May I turn it over to Professor Benedet for this? I know she has something to say on this.

Justice committee  Thank you very much. I agree. This is an important opportunity for us to ensure that we get this right. As I raised in my opening remarks, one of my concerns, if the offence isn't drafted properly, is that actual survivors might be caught up in the criminal offence, and they ma

Justice committee  Thank you for that recognition of my award, Madam Brière. I agree that cyber-violence is increasingly an issue that we as a society need to grapple with. I don't have specific expertise on cyber-violence. For the most part, I've been looking at provincial laws that now prevent t

Justice committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning. I am grateful to be joining you today from Treaty No. 7 territory, and I appreciate this opportunity to speak with members of the committee about the criminalization of coercive control. I'm part of a research team that's reviewing dome

Status of Women committee  [Inaudible—Editor] the position, and I support the need for ongoing training. One of my experiences in working with judges on judicial education and training has been in the domestic violence context, and perhaps I can just give an example from that context. There's new research

Status of Women committee  Here's where I think we do bump up against the principle of judicial independence. As I mentioned earlier, my view on that is that if training is aimed at ensuring that judges aren't making errors of law, that they're applying the law appropriately, and that they're not using rap

Status of Women committee  I agree with everything that's been said, but I would just add, in going to this point of complainants and their confidence in the justice system as it handles sexual assault cases, that it's very important that the bench represents the diversity of society. I think that will con

Status of Women committee  Yes, I support mandatory training as well, and I think it's important to recognize that what we're talking about here is trying to prevent errors of law from taking place. When we see it in that context, to me it's not a direct assault on the notion of judicial independence.