Justice committee  During the pandemic, I spoke a lot about coercive control in the media, so I had a number of calls from victims. IPV did not decrease because of the end of the pandemic. It pretty much increased.

Justice committee  I will echo what Andrea just said, but I want to remind you about the change of legislation in 1983 for sexual assault. We went from rape to sexual assault. That particular legislation completely changed our way of viewing sexual violence. I think legislation like this bill could

Justice committee  Absolutely. It also involves the abuse of the animal that lives in the home. I've seen cases where the partner has killed the dog. That was his way of telling his partner that she could be next. There is an issue when you start seeing abuse towards pets. It's generally a red fla

Justice committee  The offence would not necessarily consist of an event, but of a set of behaviours. How do we determine that these are controlling behaviours? We'll have to rethink the way we put questions to the victims. This will make it possible to establish the type of controlling behaviour t

Justice committee  I echo what Andrea said, but I want to talk about the experience I had in New Brunswick when we developed specialized courts on domestic violence in Moncton. We had a rise in cases that came out. When you have something happening like this, you can expect that there will be a r

Justice committee  I will again echo what Andrea has been saying. It's not necessarily going to end coercive control, but at least we'll have something bringing us forward to intervene in those situations. We should not forget that perpetrators are also going to need some form of intervention. We

Justice committee  I think it would be helpful to have a non-exhaustive list of certain behaviours so that people in the judicial system can work with something. They will know quickly that they are dealing with cases of coercive control. Of course, that doesn't prevent us from having guidelines

Justice committee  My take on this is that it's like the chicken or the egg, so you wait for the legislation while everybody is being trained. I think you need movement that goes hand in hand, so you're moving forward with the legislation while you're training people at the same time. The fact that

Justice committee  On the unintended consequences, every time there's a new policy or new law, there are some consequences we will have to deal with. If we are, for example, considering the misidentification of the victim as the perpetrator and are providing more awareness and, of course, more trai

Justice committee  That's an excellent question. It can be very problematic, we agree. When children are victims of such behaviour, their mothers are too, usually. If a mother is the victim of coercive control, for example, her child will be too. I wouldn't think of children as lone victims of co

Justice committee  Parents certainly need to have some control over their children. However, we are not talking here about disciplining children, but about excessive control over people who will not have control over their everyday activities; and children can be among those people.

Justice committee  It's complex. It's a defence that refers to the victim's incapacity. We can think of cases of dementia, for example. It's rather marginal. It's a defence that could easily be used by people who are violent towards their partner while they are vulnerable, precisely to evade enfor

Justice committee  I forgot about children. If we're talking about the definition and who this particular amendment encompasses, I think I would expand the definition of those who are in situations of coercive control. I would open this as well to include children and other family members, who also

Justice committee  Absolutely, and thank you for the question. No-contact orders of course should be enforced, but we have to remember that a no-contact order is just a piece of paper. It does not necessarily prevent contact or make sure the victim is really safe, but at least there is a trace tha

Justice committee  I can answer. Thank you for the question. This is something I was also looking at in the amendment. With the fact that we are already defining “intimate partner” in section 2 of the Criminal Code of Canada, I think we could refer to this section in the definition of this particu