44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 4, 2024 10:00AM
She said: Madam Speaker, I want to start by acknowledging that it is not often that all MPs agree in this chamber. Especially around this time of year, politics can be particularly divisive and partisan. However, all members from all parties have come together to support my private member's bill and support survivors of intimate partner violence, and I want to extend my gratitude. I hope that we can all think of this bill as an example of the great things we can accomplish when we reach across the aisle and collaborate. When we work together to put aside political differences, focusing on the needs of our constituents, we can change their lives for the better.
In Canada, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every six days. Let that sink in. Every six days, we lose a woman to intimate partner violence, and it disproportionately impacts indigenous women. Of the women killed, 22% are indigenous.
I want to acknowledge that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report, and after five years, only two out of 231 calls for justice have been implemented. When the report was tabled, the commission confirmed that the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls crisis is a genocide, yet the government has delayed and delayed. Former commissioner Michèle Audette says that she has “lost faith” in the government's ability to tackle this issue. I want to remind my colleagues that as elected officials in Canada, we have a responsibility to stop the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
The 2019 report highlights that intimate partner violence disproportionately impacts indigenous women and girls. In the same way that all parties have worked across party lines to support my bill on coercive control, I call on MPs in this House to put aside political differences, tackle the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and implement the calls for justice, including fully funding a red dress alert.
I want to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for her leadership and advocacy on this.
We know that coercive control is one of the most common precursors to femicide, even when there have been no other instances of physical violence. I have spoken in the past about how coercive control has impacted my family, but I have also heard from hundreds of people across Canada who have written to me, met with me and spoken to me about how coercive control has impacted them either directly or through loved ones.
Each person who shared their story told me how grateful they are that this piece of legislation exists and that they hope no one will ever have to go through what they experienced. While each story is unique, the pain is very similar. The pervasiveness of coercive control is all-encompassing, and the trauma is deeply rooted. One story that sticks with me is from a constituent of mine. She has asked me not to use her name out of fear of retribution from her abuser, but she has given me permission to share her story. For her anonymity, we will call her Lisa.
Lisa spoke to me about how she experienced coercive control by her children's father. Her abuser had taken over every single aspect of her life, and like so many other stories, the abuse eventually became physical. When she was finally able to escape that relationship, her abuser began to control her through her children. The father of Lisa's children would withhold her children from her and threaten them. She had to do what he wanted just to see her own children. When the issue of child support was in front of the courts, the judges ignored the fact that Lisa had been sexually assaulted and abused by the father of her children, who were now being withheld from her.
She spoke about how the legal system favours men so heavily that even when Lisa's daughter spoke to the lawyers and the judges about the situation with her parents and when she spoke about being scared, if she seemed prepared, there would be allegations that Lisa was coaching her and that she was manipulated. Then if the child's recounting of events was missing details, then there were doubts about the validity of the story.
At the end of the day, both parents now have equal access to the children, despite the abuse, despite the coercive control and despite the harm that continues to be done to these children.
The reality is that, currently, there is no law that protects people from situations like this, from situations like the one that Lisa went through. Lisa told me she is extremely grateful that this legislation is moving forward, but she spoke about how much more work needs to be done. She worries about the systemic issues that will still exist even if, and hopefully when, this bill, Bill C-332, is passed and implemented.
A key part in Lisa's story is the fact that in every step of the judicial process, the system does not favour people who come forward and share about the abuse they are experiencing. When people report abuse to police, they are often turned away due to a lack of evidence. If their case is accepted by the officer and is brought forward to a judge, they risk the case being thrown out again. If they are one of the few who get to have their case heard in court, judges and lawyers have no requirement to be trauma-informed.
Many judges, prosecutors and other individuals in the criminal justice system do not have the training needed to understand the dynamics of intimate partner violence. There are also judges who have made sexist and misogynist comments during trials and judges who have ill-informed preconceptions about victims of gender-based violence.
The enforcement of this legislation would be incredibly important. While many judges who would oversee cases of coercive control would be provincial, the federal government has a responsibility to lead by example and to ensure that judges and lawyers who would work on cases of intimate partner violence, including coercive control, receive adequate training and that they be trauma-informed.
Survivors of coercive control are not only abused by their partners but also face retraumatization by the legal system itself. This needs to end, but that will only be accomplished if the government stops delaying and dragging its feet, and makes the reforms needed to support survivors of intimate partner violence. Survivors need a criminal justice system that supports them instead of revictimizing them.
Today, while Lisa is out of the relationship with her abuser, he is still able to control her through her children. While there are pieces of this legislation that touch on the fact that coercive control can include having children withheld from people or having threats of violence against children to control people, the topic of parental alienation is not considered in this legislation.
We have heard from stakeholders like the National Association of Women and the Law that parental alienation is a controversial concept not founded in scientific evidence. It is used in clinical and legal settings to describe when children are refusing or resisting contact with a parent. Abusers use accusations of parental alienation as a form of coercive control.
Unfortunately, this concept continues to be weaponized against women in abusive situations. It is weaponized to silence them, to remove children from their care and to remove them from the care of the victim of abuse, simply because the children do not want to spend time with the abusive parent.
Organizations and frontline workers have been ringing the alarm bell on this. More than half of workers in women's shelters in Quebec describe the accusations of parental alienation as a core priority for their shelter or their organization. It is one of their primary concerns.
It is a real issue that has impacts not only on mothers, but also on children who may be facing situations of abuse or witnessing that abuse. The impact of that abuse is so widespread, and it affects women who are in women's shelters or in the health care system, as they access our judicial system, and it has impacts on how they participate in our economy. While I hope that this bill, Bill C-332, can be voted on and passed, I urge parliamentarians to consider the very urgent need to train judges, to train everyone in our criminal justice system, to change the legislation, to better support victims of intimate partner violence and to better support parents facing discrimination in our criminal justice system.
I want to take a moment to thank the many organizations that have come together to support this bill, Bill C-332, and who have had a hand in crafting it. I am thinking of Sagesse and many of the organizations in my home community of Victoria, which includes the Victoria Women's Transition House and the Cridge transition house.
I want to thank my colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, for his continued efforts to ensure that we criminalize coercive control. He first tabled a version of this bill in a previous Parliament and has been an incredible ally not only to victims of abuse, but also an ally to me in this Parliament and an ally to women who face gender-based violence on a daily basis.
I also want to thank the courageous people who have come forward to share their stories, and they include the many survivors of intimate partner violence, the family members who have shared their stories of loss and the professionals who have been working on the front lines of the crisis of gender-based violence and the crisis of intimate partner violence and who have been continuing to advocate every day.
I also want to thank my sister who shared her story and who allowed me to share her story. She has pushed and supported me throughout this process to make sure that we are better supporting survivors of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence.
These issues are so deeply rooted in our society, and we must do more. As we have seen a rise in intimate partner violence, we know that the cost of living crisis, the pandemic and all of these stresses have a detrimental impact on intimate partner violence. We need to come together in this chamber not only to pass this bill, Bill C-332, but also to commit to giving victims and survivors the tools they need to not only leave abusive situations, but also to find justice in our justice system.
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- Jun/4/24 6:20:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, for many reasons, I am really pleased to be standing to debate the current bill at third reading. I am happy, because I first tried to bring this issue to the attention of the House nearly four years ago. It has been a long struggle to get the bill to this state. I am also happy because the bill does something quite important: It recognizes that, in intimate partner relationships, there are other forms of violence than broken bones and bruises, and they are equally harmful. I am happy that all parties have now come to support the bill.
We owe a great debt of thanks to the survivors who came forward to committee and publicly told their stories of suffering coercive and controlling behaviour. We owe it to the women's shelter workers, who gave very eloquent testimony about the need not only for better legislation but also for better supports for women who suffer from domestic violence. We also owe a debt of thanks to the police who talked about their frustration. In particular, those in the Saanich Police Department told me that, many times, officers visited homes that they knew they would come back to. They knew that there would be bruises and broken bones next time, but they did not have the tool they needed to intervene.
Finally, I want to thank the member for Victoria. I took this, as my own private bill, as far as I could get it in the last Parliament. I have been very pleased to work with her in this Parliament to make sure that the bill gets across the finish line.
There is an urgency here. Quite frankly, I was worried that the bill might get lost in the rancour of the end of a sitting in a minority Parliament. I want to express my thanks to the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who did some important negotiations today that will help us get the bill back in front of the House next week so that we can pass it before we rise.
Why is it urgent? Of course, we all know the terrible statistic that, once every six days, a woman in this country is murdered by their intimate partner. Not as familiar is the statistic that nearly 25% of those are indigenous women. Given the promises that we have all made in this Parliament, especially the government, to act on the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women, this becomes a part of that package.
It is also urgent because, often, the women who are subjected to coercive and controlling behaviour are among the more marginalized in our society, whether they are indigenous women; new Canadians, who may lack the connections and supports in the community to escape such relationships; or those within my own community, the queer community.
We recognize, and we heard very clearly, that there is a concern about ensuring that the bill not do further harm. There were some extensive amendments made in committee to prevent revictimization as much as we can for those who survive, as well as to prevent the use of the bill by the actual abusers to continue their coercive and controlling behaviour.
Two of those amendments are quite important. One would forbid those who self-represent from being allowed to cross-examine their partners. These are perpetrators who engage in coercive and controlling behaviour and who represent themselves in court. Instead, the judge would appoint an independent lawyer to do that. That is an important part of avoiding revictimization by the abusive partner. The second is equally important. It says that, in findings of guilt under this offence, the judge must consider the overall context of the relationship. In common language, this means that the judge would have to ensure that the actual abuser, not the victim of coercive and controlling behaviour, is the one being charged. It is my hope that, after seeing these important amendments, the other place will also act expeditiously to pass the bill.
In addition to the women who are subject to coercive and controlling behaviour and the harms they suffer, and in addition to those who eventually die by femicide, which, 95% of the time, is preceded by coercive and controlling behaviour, the other victims of coercive and controlling behaviour are children. Children who are in households where coercive and controlling behaviour is taking place quite often suffer enormous psychological damage as a result of this behaviour as it goes on.
That leads to a related question that the bill does not address, and that is parental alienation. As I like to say when we talk about family law, this is not a thing. There are people who try to use the concept of parental alienation against their partners, saying that it is not their behaviour that has caused their children to be afraid but their partner, who is alienating the children's affections.
The bill does not deal directly with parental alienation, but it does deal with one of the fundamental causes of those disputes, which is the coercive and controlling behaviour at its root. We have heard today that all parties are very interested in making sure that we also address the question of parental alienation.
Will the bill end domestic violence? Of course it will not. There are many other supports that the frontline women's shelter workers talked to us about. They include legal aid in family law at the provincial level and additional funding for shelters. During the pandemic, it became quite clear that many women do not have good options for leaving these relationships.
Even when women finally come to the conclusion that they have no other option but to leave, there is no place for them to go in the community. In particular, many women stay in relationships because they have children; they are not sure how they will provide shelter and food for those kids. Therefore, they suffer through that coercive and controlling behaviour in the interim.
Quite clearly, we need better education in the justice system on the issue of coercive and controlling behaviour, as well as domestic violence in general. Too often, stereotypes of survivors and relationships interfere with the proper operation of the justice system.
Many police forces have done good work in establishing domestic violence units. Not all police forces have those units. We need to make sure that police forces have people who are trained and have the sensitivities to recognize when there are harmful relationships in front of them. When the bill is in place, they would be able to use it to help people get assistance in those times.
We also know that prosecutors, quite often, do not proceed with cases because of a victim's reluctance to testify. We need some education there, both for the survivors and for the prosecutors, to make sure that these situations actually proceed in court, as they should. This is a way of sending a very strong social message that this behaviour is unacceptable and that those who engage in it will be sanctioned by society.
Finally, there is a difficult topic and one that I am always concerned about: We need to encourage judges to better educate themselves in this area. I respect the independence of judges, and I am not arguing here today that we make judges do something. What I am arguing is that we should get the attention of judges and have education provided to them, within their own professional organizations, on the topic of domestic violence and, in particular, coercive and controlling behaviour.
No, the bill would not stop domestic violence, but because of the close connection between coercive or controlling behaviour and femicide, it may play an important role in reducing femicides in this country. The bill would provide an important tool to catch harmful and dangerous situations in interpersonal relationships earlier than we do now. This is what I heard very strongly from the frontline shelters and from the police. Right now, we lack a tool that recognizes and allows action before there are bruises and broken bones.
I am pleased to see virtually universal support for the bill. I am pleased that we have a good prospect of getting it passed next week and getting it sent to the other place. I am hopeful that the amendments we made address the concerns of some of the Senators and allow them to act expeditiously as well.
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- Jun/4/24 9:30:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a bittersweet moment for me to rise on this important legislation.
It is not a secret that in indigenous communities particularly there is a need for accountability when it comes to the dramatic actions of the RCMP and its direct negligence of its purpose to ensure peace and security for so many, which oftentimes fails indigenous people.
The most important piece to this legislation in the minds of many indigenous people is the aspect that would replace the existing Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, or the CRCC, for the RCMP and establish a new stand-alone and independent commission. This is an incredible testament to the immense work of indigenous people and advocates, including that of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry, which had its five-year anniversary just yesterday. Its report was blunt in its assessment, stating, “The RCMP have not proven to Canada that they are capable of holding themselves to account”.
This opportunity has been a long time coming, and I am very honoured to rise to speak to this issue, but also to highlight the stories of survivors who have had to endure pain and suffering inflicted upon them by the RCMP. It is my hope that, through this legislation and the implementation of this independent review committee, we would see the systemic change that is so desperately required for the victims who have had the immense courage to come forward. Members can imagine being attacked by a police officer, then overcoming the immense difficulty of telling that story, to oftentimes be met with a recommendation that goes nowhere. The report is put on a shelf, gathers dust and more pain grows. When we see no action or accountability for those who do harm, it creates an injustice. That injustice, in turn, creates a massive failure not only of policy-makers, but also of society.
In a 2013, a Human Rights Watch report entitled, “Those Who Take Us Away”, examined 10 towns across the north of British Columbia and documented numerous reports of RCMP officers violently assaulting indigenous women and girls, or arresting them when they called for help. I ask members to imagine that for a moment: calling out for help and being met with an arrest. These reports included attacks by police dogs, strip searches by male RCMP members, violent punches and attacks, and the use of pepper spray and tasers, which eventually injured them during these arrests. I would remind members that these were people who were calling the RCMP for help. Particularly disturbing are the numerous accounts of rape and sexual assault by RCMP members. In response to an investigation into this, women reported that officers had told them “no one will believe you”.
It was not that long ago in Manitoba where we saw a terrible instance of a police officer by the name of Officer Theriault, who took an indigenous woman out of a cell to “pursue a personal relationship”. His supervisor, in turn, mentioned how wrong it was, but insisted that the officer could do “whatever the [eff]” he wanted with her. This is simply unacceptable.
The time for the RCMP to do what they want in an unfettered fashion is over. I am very honoured and pleased to know that my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has done the work necessary to make what has been a very difficult journey for so many, particularly indigenous women, possible. I also thank members of all parties, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and, of course, the Liberals for what I hope to be unanimous support for this bill.
However, I want to mention how important it is to recognize one of the calls for justice brought forward by the national inquiry. Call for justice no. 9.1 is “to acknowledge that the historical and current relationship between Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people and the justice system has been largely defined by colonialism, racism, bias, discrimination, and fundamental cultural and societal differences.”
Canada is a young country. We are still reeling from the effects and the ongoing participation of colonization by institutions that were built to do just that. The RCMP was first founded as a paramilitary group in recognition of the paramilitary group created in Ireland to attack the Irish people. It was replicated here in North America as a way to clear the plains when Sir John A. Macdonald so infamously wanted to bind this country together with two bands of steel, albeit bloody ones.
The RCMP, formerly known as the North-West Mounted Police, was charged with the very difficult, but also sad, job to displace so many people, and they used the immense tools of genocide to do it. We know this from accounts of survivors, particularly a member of the Métis community, a famous elder known as Maria Campbell. It is very difficult for me to mention this story because she is quite a revered elder and someone many Métis people and many indigenous people across the Prairies look up to. She revealed just a few years ago that she was forced by her publisher to edit out her recounting of being raped by an RCMP officer at the age of 14. He had simply dragged her into the bedroom of her own house, where a few RCMP members had come to hassle the family about alleged poaching.
It is very clear: RCMP sexual abuse of indigenous women and girls is an open and well-known secret across indigenous communities, still today. Even a 2014 Public Safety Canada report acknowledged this problem, when one service organization reported that the police “either rape you or arrest you. The cause is racism and discrimination.”
These are the stories of indigenous women who have long stewarded our nation. They are proud women who carry our stories, our languages and our traditions for thousands of years in this place. To be met with such violence and indignity is a shame and one that must be rectified. Albeit, this bill would do a very small part, but a necessary part, in making that a reality.
In my home province of Alberta, just a few months ago, in the small community of St. Paul, where my niece goes to school, a 33-year-old constable with the RCMP detachment, stationed in the northeast community, was arrested and charged with child sexual exploitation offences. He was suspended with pay.
This is not justice. This is not the kind of Canada that so many labour for. This is not the kind of Canada that so many people do everything they possibly can for their children to be raised in a safe environment, knowing that these atrocities continue and it could be them next. It scares me.
I should mention that it is not every day that this chamber is unanimous in support for doing what is right, but I am so pleased to know that today it is. I am proud to know that New Democrats will be voting in favour of this bill to bring in a much-needed level of civilian accountability and to bring justice to the many victims who deserve it.
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