44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 29, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/29/22 11:40:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, aggressive rate hikes are coming and that is because the government continues to spend recklessly. Here is what that means for an average Canadian. If they are lucky enough to buy a house for the $800,000 that it costs, with a 2% mortgage they are paying about $3,400 a month for mortgage payments. The potential of a 3% rate hike means $3,400 turns into $5,200.
Why is the government drowning Canadian homeowners in the debt of tomorrow to pay for the pet projects of today?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for bringing this important legislation to the House. I look forward to sharing my comments with the House and to telling her formally that she has my full support.
She said in her comments that more needs to be done. I am wondering if she could comment on how that can happen, whether it is by imposing tougher sentences on those who assault their spouse, treating abuse like an aggravating factor in sentencing, or making mandatory minimums a possibility. The death of Keira was an entirely preventable one and there is more that could be done. I just want to know if the hon. member would be amenable to things like that.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle for introducing this bill. I want to thank her for her efforts to right a wrong in our court system with her bill that will ensure that we educate judges on domestic violence and coercive control and, most importantly, I want to tell her that she has the support of the member of Parliament for Thornhill and members on this side of the House.
I want to share the story of Keira. I want to share the story of her mother Jennifer, her stepfather Philip and her baby brother. I want to share the story of her family, of her friends and of her community. I want to share the story of Jenn and Phil’s pleas for Keira’s safety in the face of well-documented, known and proven coercive control and abuse in our court system.
Keira was a whip-smart, rambunctious and beautiful four-year-old whose family was from Thornhill and whose life was stolen by an angry father who killed himself and Keira just over two years ago. Keira should be playing with her friends. She should be making her parents proud. She should be protecting her little brother. This was entirely preventable. Keira should be seven years old. Instead, today, Keira is a statistic of a broken system that failed her. She is a court file number of those who did not know what they were looking for. She is anything but. She was a daughter, a granddaughter, a big sister, a friend and a neighbour. She was so many things. She was an entire world of light and her death was entirely preventable.
I cannot begin to imagine the heartbreak and the pain of the Kagan family. Keira’s mother Jenn and stepfather Phil, in addition to being busy parents, a busy doctor, and a busy lawyer respectively, both have become full-time advocates for changes to the court system to educate judges on domestic violence and coercive control. That is where this bill came from. While nothing will bring back their daughter, they are on the front lines of ensuring that what happened to Keira will never happen to another child in this country again. That is a tremendous responsibility.
For victims of domestic abuse, their struggle to protect themselves and their children is a petrifying reality. Parents place their trust and their faith in the family courts to provide child protection. They would likely believe that decision-makers in the system are making decisions from a place of knowledge and appropriate training. It should never have never been up to Jenn and Phil to plead with judges to show them what they needed to see.
If someone wants to be an accredited mediator in this province, they have to do 21 hours of mandatory domestic violence training, which has to be updated every year for five years, but judges do not. If judges were properly trained in understanding what violent family situations looked like, if they knew what they were looking for, they would have been properly equipped to ensure Keira’s life would have been saved.
Jenn’s cry for action as a mother resonated in my community and in communities across the country. Jenn and Phil did the work and now it is up to members of this House to show them that their work and their courage to share their story will be the legacy of a painful journey they will always know. This was entirely preventable.
I speak to Keira’s parents often. Even more often I speak with our mutual friends, friends whose children loved Keira. I want to leave colleagues with a sense of the impact of Keira’s death on her friends.
Zach is seven years old. He said, “I really really miss Keira bad and hope she would be still alive now and I am really sad that she did die. She really liked to play with dogs. I liked to go on trips with her and go fun places with her and I liked to have meals with her and I liked to do a lot of things with her and I miss her every single day.”
Ben, who is nine, said, “Keira was like a little cousin to me. She always acted like a little girl and a little boy at the same time, which was very cool. We would go swimming and do a lot of fun stuff. We would make lots of noise in the hallway of her condo. She was funny, crazy and fun. I really miss Keira.”
Taylor is seven. She said she missed play dates with Keira and that she knows they would have been best friends. She asked if she could celebrate Keira’s birthday, and she and her mother had an extra cupcake for Keira.
These are just a few of the quotes and stories from a whole community that has been affected by this. Children aged seven and nine should never have to cope with the death of one of their friends. This was entirely preventable. Keira should be seven years old.
There are so many Canadians who are currently experiencing domestic violence at the hands of a parent or at the hands of their partner. Domestic violence leaves scars. It breaks people. It silences them. Children are not just exposed to domestic violence. They experience it. Children who experience domestic violence have higher rates of mental health issues, anxiety, depression, panic attacks and eating disorders, and the list goes on.
Members of my party, for a long time before I was in this place, have supported recommendations on adding terms such as “coercive control” to the Criminal Code. I am sincerely grateful to see it in this bill today. However, I never thought that was enough. I believe this bill is a start to see that the injustice this little girl faced is never repeated. It is so the many other victims of domestic violence can see an outcome. We have the power in this place to change this.
While I support this bill, I also believe that imposing tough sentences on those who assault their spouse or partner is needed, while making it easier for victims to escape their abusers and rebuild their lives. Further amendments to the Criminal Code are needed so there is an aggravating factor in sentencing for assault. Mandatory minimum penalties of two years should also be imposed. I hope that this conversation is a start to the much-needed, broader reform to protect victims, victims like Keira.
I think members will remember that the Hon. Rona Ambrose introduced legislation in this House in 2017, which required judges to undergo training with respect to sexual assault cases. That legislation eventually became law, and so should this bill.
Yesterday, Keira’s mother told me a story about an interaction she fondly remembered about her daughter. Jenn said jokingly that if Keira did not behave, she was going to take her back to the baby store. Without hesitation, the rambunctious four-year-old snapped back that she was going to bring her mom back to the grown-up store.
We should listen to Keira’s retort carefully, because if we do not heed the warning right in front of us, if we relent on doing the right thing, if we allow domestic violence to go unchecked without using every single tool in the tool box to stop it, and if we let another child die senselessly, we should all be returned to the grown-up store. This was entirely preventable. Keira should be seven years old.
I will end with this because I believe that we can ensure that we have the tools in place so that it does not happen again. I think we can do that, and we should do it now.
There have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices in the House, at the conclusion of the time provided for Private Members' Business today, C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner) be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
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