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C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner)

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 4, 2023
Context: Committee Evidence - FEWO-89 (FEWO) - Dec/4/23
Ms. Sonia Sidhu
  • 04:14:03 p.m.
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Victims are already consulted. Why I am saying that is that it impacts more disproportionately Black and racialized people. The other point, Madam Chair, is that Bill C-233 considers intimate partner violence as a crime for which electronic monitoring should be especially considered, if we consider it for all crimes. Judges do not get the nudge to treat IPV with extreme care. That was the other point I wanted to add.
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Ms. Sonia Sidhu
  • 04:27:03 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I think we already dealt with this in Bill C-233. I already spoke on that. That is, I think, on the first part. We talked about the bail hearing, which elevated intimate partner violence as a crime for which electronic monitoring should be specially considered. We did this with Bill C-233.
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Ms. Chelsea Moore (Acting Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice)
  • 04:28:01 p.m.
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Just to clarify, the motion G-1 would actually remove two proposals from this bill. I believe that might be a source of some of the confusion. The first proposal that would be removed is the proposal to ask the prosecutor if the victim has been consulted, and the second proposal that would be removed is the proposal regarding electronic monitoring. They both fall under the first clause. The one motion deals with both proposals at the same time. On electronic monitoring, as the committee is certainly aware, there was a specific condition added to the Criminal Code that, at bail, judges must consider imposing a condition of electronic monitoring in cases of intimate partner violence and other cases—other serious charges. That did receive royal assent in former Bill C-233. That's with respect to the second proposal. The first proposal, with respect to the obligation to ask the prosecutor if they've consulted the victim about their safety and security, is not currently in the Criminal Code; however, there are a few related provisions, which have a similar intent to this proposal and would be added by Bill C-48, which was adopted by both Houses last week. Hopefully that clarifies a little. I think there's been some discussion about both proposals, maybe mixing the discussion together, so I just wanted to clarify that there are two different ones.
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