44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 20, 2023
- 04:05:04 p.m.
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Thank you for the question.
I think that it's the most important aspect of this bill. I spoke with more than 100 women over the past three years. A little later, you'll be hearing from two witnesses, both victims, who worked closely with me on this bill. The words that we heard most often from victims were “protect us”, “don't run government advertising campaigns asking us to report our abusers because when we do, our lives are at risk”. If you want women to report their perpetrators and for victims to be willing to speak out, then protect them.
Bill S‑205 complements Bill C‑233, which has already been adopted. What Quebec did was a complementary process. Most of the provinces have followed Quebec's lead by adopting legislation to require electronic bracelets, or will be doing so over the next few years. That means things have been set in motion just about everywhere in Canada to protect women. The goal of our bill is to give us the courage to protect victims who are brave enough to report their abusers.
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- 04:06:23 p.m.
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Thank you very much for your answer.
You spoke briefly about Bill C‑233, which has force of law in Canada and says that a justice may decide to require a person who committed a violent offence against a woman to wear an electronic bracelet. Now you're saying that you don't want this to apply solely to cases of violence against women, but to be used more widely. Can you tell us why you decided to widen its applicability in Bill S‑205?
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- 04:07:16 p.m.
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I'd like to thank the member who sponsored Bill C‑233, which has already been adopted. However, its scope within the Criminal Code is relatively narrow.
I'll give you an example: subsection(4.2) of section 515 of the Criminal code, which has been in force since the adoption of Bill C‑233, focuses on specific offences, but does not include things like intimidation, breaking and entering and being unlawfully in a dwelling house. And yet most complaints from women are in connection with their ex‑spouse unlawfully entering and being in the house. It's often under circumstances like these that a murder is committed, but Bill C‑233 doesn't cover these offences.
Bill S‑205 does include them. Senator Pierre Dalphond—whom many of you know, I believe—worked closely with me on this bill. He introduced a section which, if it is adopted, would broaden the scope of Bill C‑233 without lessening its importance.
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- 04:17:17 p.m.
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Thank you so much, Senator, and thank you for being a good ally, participating in an end to gender-based violence. Thank you for your work.
I know this is your last bill, so I commend you and thank you for that.
We passed Bill C-233, which provides for electronic monitoring in cases of intimate partner violence. I know in your bill, the current wording of Bill S-205 would allow the Attorney General to request electronic monitoring for any release order under subsection 515(2). Do you think that subclause 1(2) of the bill is redundant?
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- 04:18:08 p.m.
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That's the advantage of Senator Dalphond's amendment. If Bill S‑205 is adopted, there will be a correlation between the two bills. Combining the two would expand the use of electronic bracelets. However, it must never be forgotten that only a justice can order the wearing of an electronic bracelet. The justice's decision must be based on the victim's safety, in terms of protecting both her life and her health. I don't believe the bill would be contradictory, but rather complementary. The scope of the act would simply be broadened for justices when they have a victim before them. Bill C‑233 limits the number of victims who might be affected and the number of criminal circumstances, while Bill S‑205 broadens the scope. However, decision authority will always rest with the justices.
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- 04:31:04 p.m.
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You are absolutely right.
A judge must show extreme sensitivity in cases of domestic violence, violence against children and sexual assaults. A bully, when in the presence of the victim in court, continues to bully. The perpetrator establishes a power relationship through which he exercises control over his victim, and that continues, even in the courthouse. That's when the judge's role becomes important. The judge must establish a relationship with the victim and give the victim as much discretion as possible if she wishes to talk about the conditions she wants to include in the recognizance to keep the peace, because she is the person who knows her abuser best.
It is therefore important to listen to the victim to know what conditions she wants to be safe and to feel safe. It's very important for the judge to be sensitive to the victim's needs. That's also why Bill C‑233 raises the matter of training for judges. You no doubt remember Bill C‑3, which was about training judges in matters of sexual assault. I had put forward an amendment to include domestic violence, but it was not accepted. Now, Bill C‑233 acknowledges that judges need training in this area.
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- 04:57:06 p.m.
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Thank you for having me here.
Senator Boisvenu, thank you for bringing forward this bill.
For those who don't know me, I am a lawyer. I practise predominantly family law, with some criminal law, and I've been doing that for about 15 years.
I bring a bit of a unique element to my experience because, as was alluded to before, I am the stepfather of Keira Kagan, who was involved in a murder-suicide that ended up resulting in Keira's law being passed through Bill C-233, along with provisions for ankle monitoring.
When I reviewed this bill, I was quite optimistic. Because of my unique experience as both a survivor of domestic violence through my stepdaughter and a lawyer who deals with a lot of victims of domestic violence as part of my work, people from all across Canada reach out to me quite regularly—and I mean literally every province and territory—and I hear all the stories, in addition to my own practice. I think this bill is quite important to implement.
As a matter of first priorities, a lot of people have trouble coming forward. They fear they may be disbelieved and, even worse, they fear that if they are disbelieved and no charges are laid, they may get it even worse once their intimate partner finds out that they have gone to a police officer to make a complaint. The stakes can be quite high.
What we also find is that, once a police officer does agree or finds grounds to lay a charge, victims oftentimes feel silenced. They feel that they don't have much control over the process and that things are just done without their input.
One of the very first provisions that struck me was something so easy and something that should be done regularly, which is to get the victim's input on their safety and security needs. That could be done so easily in the stages where the police officer takes their statement. They could, just at the very end, ask about their security and safety needs. They could be taken through victim witness services. It is a really easy thing to do, and it's really important.
By way of a very quick example, I was involved in a case where the husband was charged—they were pretty bad charges—and, of course, we had the regular no-contact provisions. They didn't consult with the wife on this one, and the unique aspect of this particular case, for example, was that these people were very religious and went to their temple a lot—multiple times per week. Police didn't know this and the Crown didn't know this, because nobody had asked the wife. What the husband was doing was going to that temple a lot more than usual in the hopes of continuing to see the wife. Now, when the wife reported this to the police, the husband had plausible deniability—“I'm here just to go to my temple”—even though he was going at times and on dates so much more often than he used to go.
That became a problem, because nothing was really getting enforced. At a minimum, it could have been considered.
Similarly, even informing people of the conditions to get the order—it's part of this bill—is really important, because most victims don't even know that. If they don't have a lawyer, sometimes they don't even receive it.
Finally, I want to talk about the peace bond process, because it is really important and is really well done, in my opinion, in what this bill accomplishes.
First of all, a peace bond is a separate process to a criminal proceeding. In a criminal proceeding, you have to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for there to be a conviction. With a peace bond proceeding, number one, the standard of proof is a balance of probabilities—just what is more likely than not—and, number two, the other key difference is that somebody could lay a peace bond information just based on having reasonable grounds for fear for their safety or of violence, which is a really important distinction. A criminal offence does not even have to have taken place, but if intuitively a victim knows that something bad may happen, they could lay an information.
In addition, and what is also really important and is perhaps an unintended consequence, because the courts are really concerned with unreasonable delay due to the charter, and because the criminal burden is so high, oftentimes prosecutors make deals. Right now, they're very limited in terms of the deals they can make when there's a peace bond, but Senator Boisvenu's bill has provided them further opportunity to make a much better resolution, which would still, hopefully, protect the victim, if they really need to go that route.
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