Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu moved third reading of Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to another Act (interim release and domestic violence recognizance orders), as amended.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise today at third reading stage of Bill S-205, as amended, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to another Act (interim release and domestic violence recognizance orders). I introduced this bill at first reading on November 24, 2021.

As you know, this bill is particularly close to my heart. I introduced it to fight domestic violence, a terrible scourge that far too many people, mainly women, fall victim to.

Domestic violence can involve physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence. It is a cycle that often starts with a period of building tension between two intimate partners, a time when the victim feels they are in danger or they become paralyzed with anxiety and can no longer function. I will always remember the touching testimony of Diane Tremblay, a survivor of intimate partner violence who appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs during the study of Bill C-3.

I would like to quote an excerpt from her testimony, as follows:

We then took Chemin de la Montagne, in Hull, which leads to a very wooded country road. We went to the end of the road near a golf course. He was trying to confuse me so that I wouldn’t know where we were, but I was looking at everything. He was doing everything he could to make me feel lost and to terrorize me even more.

He ordered me to give him my cell phone, which I did. He said, “You won’t have your cell phone, so your children won’t be able to reach you or bother me . . . .” We drove around the school to the back, to a large parking lot. He parked the car right next to a wooded area. He took off my glasses and started kissing me. I had no choice but to let him. I knew that if I didn’t do what he wanted, my life would certainly be in even more danger. This feeling is very strong.

Unfortunately, Ms. Tremblay was sexually assaulted that night. The period of tension that I was talking about corresponds to the assault phase, when the offender may physically attack his partner, rape her, verbally insult her and threaten her life. The victims come out physically injured and psychologically humiliated by their attacker.

All too often, the attackers try to justify their actions to their victims and manage to find a warped way to reconcile with them, taking advantage of their vulnerability to impose an unhealthy form of control. This cycle is repeated and results in escalating violence; the abusers feel a sense of impunity that ultimately can lead to the worst outcome, murder.

I would remind you that, in 2021, 173 women were murdered in Canada, including 26 in Quebec, and that 55% of them were murdered as a result of family and domestic violence. In 2022, 185 women were murdered because they dared to cry out, “enough, that’s enough.” I would call these past four years deadly years for Canadian women.

Women who decide to break this cycle of violence automatically put themselves at risk. They must sacrifice their lives by hiding in shelters, quitting their jobs and leaving their homes. Quite often they bear full responsibility for their children. Unfortunately, most of them have no faith in the justice system, which does not protect them. In 2019, 80% of victims of domestic violence stated that the violence they experienced was not reported to the police.

In the same year, and according to Manon Monastesse, executive director of Quebec’s Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes, 300 women were victims of attempted murder but did not report it to the police. That is within this organization alone. These statistics on attempted murder should sound the alarm and spur us all to action. An electronic monitoring device, for example, might encourage them to report their attacker and feel safer in the future.

The lack of trust of victims of domestic violence is supported by the many cases of homicide that we have sadly learned about through the media. I would like to quote the testimony given by the father of Daphné Huard-Boudreault, the 18-year-old woman who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend on March 22, 2017. He said the following:

On that tragic day, numerous warning signs should have alerted the authorities. Despite several police officers responding to Daphné’s call for help, despite the fact that the man who would go on to murder my daughter had committed numerous offences, that man left by taxi without even being questioned . . . .

Quebec’s first femicide of 2021 is another example. The murderer was a repeat offender awaiting trial. He had committed 50 criminal offences in his lifetime, including 11 counts of domestic violence and three of sexual assault. Unbelievably, he was nevertheless released after being arrested for having breached his bail conditions a third time. Ten days later, he murdered his former partner.

Dear colleagues, after hearing about this case, how can we ask women to report their attackers? It is absolutely unacceptable for a victim to take the risk of reporting their attacker and to be murdered after their partner is released on bail.

These are just a few of the many examples that show how lenient our criminal justice system is. Far too many murders occur after victims file a report. This is one of the reasons victims don’t have faith in the justice system.

Three years ago, I was approached by a group of more than a hundred women, all victims of domestic violence, attempted murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault and psychological abuse. These women went through some particularly trying times and most of them still have the scars. They wanted to take action to make things happen so they could help save the lives of victims of domestic violence. They didn’t do this for themselves, they did it for other women.

Despite the terrible hardships they experienced, these women got together to think of solutions to the problem of keeping victims of domestic violence safe when they report to the police. By joining forces and working hard, these women helped create Bill S-205, which seeks to strengthen the Criminal Code to bring in preventive safety measures at the beginning of the legal process when a woman decides to report the violence she endured.

To summarize the principles of this bill, I would like to share some of the testimony of Sarah Niman, legal counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, who came to testify during the study of Bill S-205.

[English]

When an Indigenous woman overcomes her distrust and seeks help from the police, the Criminal Code sends the abuser home to keep hurting the victim while everyone else waits for judges, trials and due process to run their course. It is not an Indigenous woman’s responsibility to convince others she is worthy of safety and protection. Bill S-205 seeks to provide violence victims something of a voice. This bill places the onus on the criminal justice system to check in with victims, consider their safety through the proceedings, and produce outcomes that consider their safety. Bill S-205 does not create a response specifically tailored to Indigenous women, but it does create a framework for them to be seen and heard in a system that otherwise does not.

[Translation]

Honourable colleagues, as I have often mentioned in my speeches on the subject, the latest statistics illustrate the disturbing scope of domestic violence, which continues to increase year after year.

Between 2019 and 2022, there was a 36% increase in the number of women and girls violently murdered in Canada, specifically 118 in 2019 and 185 in 2022. With those numbers, colleagues, you can understand the meaning of the words “deadly years.”

According to Statistics Canada, in 2021, 537 women per 100,000 people reported being victims of domestic violence. There has been a steady increase over the past seven years.

Also in 2021, police forces recorded 114,132 victims of intimate partner violence, a 2% increase from 2020. There was also a sharp increase in level one sexual assaults among intimate partners, up 22% compared to 2020.

According to the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, in this province, one woman was murdered every week between November 26, 2021, and November 25, 2022. That’s 52 femicides in 52 weeks.

The situation is not much better in Quebec, colleagues. Claudine Thibaudeau, a spokesperson for the organization SOS Violence Conjugale, confirmed that 12 femicides had occurred in 12 weeks.

In 2021, Quebec saw a 28% increase in cases of intimate partner violence.

At a more local level, for example, the Quebec City police service had to hire five new police officers with training in domestic violence to handle these complaints, which are going up by 25% per year.

I’ll point out that, in response to this alarming statistic, Bill S-205 gives judges the option to add a condition requiring defendants to wear an electronic monitoring device if they are released after their first appearance or to impose a section 810 order.

Electronic monitoring establishes a security perimeter between the two intimate partners. If the person subject to the condition violates the security perimeter, the victim and the authorities are immediately alerted. This gives the victim a chance to get to safety and it gives the authorities an opportunity to intervene and prevent tragedy. This information is also indispensable to police officers as evidence that the abuser violated the conditions of the order if they must appear before a judge.

Around the world, the use of electronic monitoring devices as a tool to fight domestic violence is becoming more widespread. In 2020, France’s National Assembly passed a bill recommending the use of electronic monitoring devices, and according to the statistics available to me on April 1, 2022, French authorities had ordered the use of 995 such devices.

Also in France, in May 2021, a young woman named Chahinez, a mother of three, was murdered by her ex-husband after he was released from prison. He shot the young woman three times in her legs before spraying her with a flammable liquid and burning her alive.

Following this extremely violent tragedy, the Keeper of the Seals, as the French justice minister, Mr. Dupond-Moretti, is known, appeared at a press conference and expressed his anger towards the justice system, which did not impose an electronic monitoring device in that case. He went on to say that electronic monitoring devices are not meant to remain in drawers.

Three weeks after that tragedy, which deeply shocked the French public, the use of electronic monitoring devices increased by 65%.

France took inspiration from Spain, which has a proven track record and is a model for the world. As Senator Dalphond explained in his speech on Bill C-233, Spain has specialized courts, trained police officers and a national public awareness campaign on domestic violence. These efforts have resulted in a 25% decrease in the rate of femicide, and not one woman wearing an electronic monitoring device has been murdered. None.

The working group made up of domestic violence survivors and I proposed adding the wearing of an electronic monitoring device as a parole condition based on these European models to prevent tragedies such as those that befell Elisapee Angma, Daphné Huard-Boudreault and many others from happening again. These are femicides that could have been prevented had the offender been wearing an electronic bracelet, femicides that should never happen again given the technology we have that has been proven to work.

According to Statistics Canada data from 2018, in 60% of intimate partner homicides, the justice system was already aware of the perpetrator’s history of intimate partner violence. In Quebec, in 2015, 70% of domestic offences involved assault.

I would like to quote the testimony of two victims of domestic violence who testified as individuals during the study of Bill S-205. I will start with that of Dayane Williams, who said the following:

If he had been wearing a bracelet, yes, I could have gone to the gym. I could have had my freedom. . . . it will ease my anxiety and I can have my freedom back. I’m in therapy, and they tell me that I have to go for walks, that I have to go to the gym, that I can’t stay locked up. I am constantly thinking about the possibility of him attacking me when I’m with my children. If he decides to kill me, I’m not safe.

If he’s wearing a bracelet and approaches my location, the police will be there before I call 911. The bracelet will alert them. He has committed a crime, but he gets to walk around as if he’s done nothing, and I’m the one who has to hide at home. Right now, he has won — he has his freedom and I do not.

I will continue with Ms. Martine Jeanson’s testimony, and I quote:

You said that women wouldn’t feel safe. Right now, it’s not just that we don’t feel safe — we aren’t safe.

Electronic bracelets may not be perfect, but the information they provide may be able to save a lot of lives. Bracelet monitoring isn’t all flawed; there are lives that will be saved. It won’t be the only thing women rely on, but right now, they have nothing to rely on. They can’t see their abuser coming, whereas with this measure, they’ll have a chance. However small this chance you are giving us may be, they’ll have a chance to know their abuser is coming. . . . I was gang-raped and left for dead. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if bracelet monitoring had been in place. Whatever the likelihood that the technology will help, it could save a lot of lives.

This testimony is a reflection of the 150 domestic violence victims who are calling on us to pass Bill S-205 so that the electronic monitoring device can give them the protection they deserve. As Ms. Williams said, we could give these women their freedom back by imposing electronic monitoring, and as Ms. Jeanson said, whatever the likelihood that the technology will help, it could save a lot of lives.

These quotes I just shared with you in this chamber are deeply meaningful.

Our mission and responsibility is to do everything in our power to save the lives of these women and those who will experience this form of violence in the future.

The second aspect of my bill makes an amendment to section 810 of the Criminal Code, which allows a judge to order a defendant to enter into a recognizance to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for a period of not more than 12 months, in order to protect someone who has reasonable grounds to fear for their safety.

Currently, section 810 of the Criminal Code is a general instrument of preventive justice, and it creates a source of criminal liability even if no offence has been committed. A violation of any of the conditions imposed in the recognizance may result in the accused being charged under section 811 of the Criminal Code and, if guilty, being sentenced, up to a maximum of four years in prison.

A section 810 order, better known as a no-contact order, is often used in domestic violence cases. In November 2020, the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victimes de violence conjugale, a women’s shelter network, working jointly with researchers at UQAM and the Université de Montréal, released a report on the use of section 810 of the Criminal Code and the victims’ perspective. The report found increased use of 810 orders, which are seen as substitutes for criminal charges and trials.

Here is a excerpt from the report that illustrates what I’ve been saying:

Participants were encouraged to use the 810 as an alternative to the cumbersome justice system and the emotional strain of testifying in court. It was also positioned as a more effective form of protection than a trial, which could be lost.

One victim stated:

So the lady (legal secretary) says to me, “Well, you know, there aren’t enough judges or courtrooms. The X court is swamped. For your own safety, you should ask for an 810. The complaint would be withdrawn, but at least you’d be safe.”

This excerpt from the report shows the flaws in our justice system, which struggles to adequately protect victims of domestic violence who bravely choose to file a complaint. A section 810 peace bond with no surveillance mechanism or treatment option is just a piece of paper that is issued as a quick fix for victims of domestic violence. It is an irresponsible and dangerous approach that is increasingly being relied on by our justice system and is putting the lives of domestic violence victims at risk. Some have even been killed.

I would like to quote another excerpt from the report:

Regarding the usefulness of the conditions imposed by means of a section 810 order or in the context of a release pending trial, many women noted that they are useful only if non-compliance with the conditions is detected, taken seriously and punished. Otherwise, they are only symbolic, serving as a smokescreen that contributes to a false sense of security and cynicism with respect to the justice system.

Honourable senators, that quote is supported by a scientific article published in 2017 and entitled “Women victims of domestic violence at the margins of the criminal justice system: sureties to keep the peace (810 Cr. C.).” This article was written by two University of Montreal professors who studied victims of domestic violence who were supposed to be protected by an 810 order. Of the 15 women who participated in the study, eight of them said that they had had to call the police again because their ex was not abiding by the conditions of the order. That is just over half, which is consistent with the data published by Statistics Canada in 2015.

Generally speaking, we are seeing an uptick in failures to comply with an order issued by the justice system. In 2015, Statistics Canada reported that, between 2004 and 2014, cases where failure to comply with an order were among the charges grew by 25%, while cases involving charges related to breach of probation increased by 21%.

If we just look at 2013 and 2014, we can see that failure to comply with an order accounted for 50% of administration of justice offences. Breach of probation accounted for 33% of the cases in the justice system. It is clear that when abusers are awaiting trial or released under an 810 order, the safety and lives of victims are in jeopardy.

In order to provide a constructive, significant and effective solution to the problem posed by the increasing reliance on Criminal Code 810 orders — which are regularly used in domestic violence cases — I have opted, with Bill S-205, to amend the Criminal Code and add a new 810 order specifically for intimate partner violence. It will be accompanied by new conditions, such as a monitoring device, that would be better adapted to the situations experienced by women facing domestic violence.

This new order would also be a way of recognizing the specific issue of intimate partner violence in the Criminal Code. It would be an addition to other 810 orders in the Criminal Code that are specific to certain offences, such as the 810.2 order, titled “Where fear of serious personal injury offence,” and the 810.011 order, titled “Fear of terrorism offence.”

In this new 810 order, the bill gives judges the ability to mandate treatment for substance abuse and domestic violence. We need to stop the revolving door of domestic violence and hold abusers accountable.

That’s why this bill’s approach is based on both monitoring with the electronic device and rehabilitating abusers through therapy. If we don’t try to do something about the causes of domestic violence, we’ll never do away with this scourge, which will only get worse. Unless we try to treat the behaviour of violent men, we’ll have to keep hiding abused women and building more and more shelters. Women, however, will still be in constant danger.

Therapies for men are still embryonic in Canada, but many initiatives to help violent men are springing up in places like Ontario and some Indigenous communities in Manitoba. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to Senator McCallum, who introduced me to excellent workers in these communities who are doing outstanding work in this field. Thank you, senator.

Quebec set up a phone line for violent men in November. It serves the Chaudière-Appalaches region south of Quebec City. The STOP Violence line gives violent men support when they are in danger of committing domestic violence. The phone line, staffed by three organizations that help violent men, received 2,000 calls in its first eight months of operation.

It is imperative that we focus on both the victims and the perpetrators to achieve better results. That, honourable senators, is a pragmatic approach that we should take to get things moving in the right direction, the direction that victims have been asking for for years.

I’d like to quote another passage from Ms. Jeanson’s testimony, this time on the therapy aspect:

Why do we continue to build homes for abused women just to hide them? Instead, it would be wise to build therapy centres for abusive men, so that they can be surrounded by abuse experts to help them correct, if not fix, their abuse problems, because their violence rarely decreases.

She also said the following:

I give workshops to impulsive men and you see change in these men; it is possible. These are men who have a history, who have wounds and who have inappropriate responses. However, they don’t have the tools, they don’t know how to change that behaviour. It takes specialized people to teach them to change these behaviours. We see it. I work with abusive men, and we have some great successes when it comes to changing those men.

Before I conclude my speech, I would like to thank Senator Dalphond for the important amendments he proposed to the bill and Senator Jaffer for keeping things on track as the bill progressed in committee. I would also like to thank the other senators on the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for the serious work they did during the study of the bill. You answered the call of the domestic violence victims who came to testify, and your spirit of collaboration and your respect and sensitivity will help make women safer in our country. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Colleagues, we need to fight every time a woman is abused and killed in Canada. We should be outraged and never allow ourselves to get used to this.

We have the opportunity and the privilege to safely mobilize and condemn violence against women. Unfortunately, we cannot stamp out this form of violence, but we can certainly pass Bill S-205 to condemn this violence and to make Canada a leader in this area as it should be.

We have the privilege conferred by Canada’s Constitution of amending the laws of our country. Our collective responsibility as legislators is engaged. We have a duty to act to save these women’s lives, and our courage will be demonstrated not by our speeches, but by our actions. Let us act together to pass this bill and respond to the call of the thousands of Canadian women who are victims of domestic violence and who hope in silence to be heard and understood.

I want to especially thank the 150 women who actively participated in developing this bill. The Guerrières, guided by Martine Jeanson, are aptly named as they have never given up. For three years, you never gave up on the Senate despite the hardship caused by your individual experiences. You are my heroines.

In closing, I’d like to recall the ruling by Justice Laskin of the Ontario Court of Appeal in R. v. Budreo, and I quote:

The criminal justice system has two broad objectives: punish wrongdoers and prevent future harm. A law aimed at the prevention of crime is just as valid an exercise of the federal criminal law power under s. 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867, as a law aimed at punishing crime.

On the eve of March 8, International Women’s Day, it would be a big step for many women if we were to grant them the right to protection.

Honourable senators, we need to take action and that is why I’m asking you to pass Bill S-205 at third reading so that it can be sent to the House of Commons as quickly as possible. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Clement, debate adjourned.)

[English]

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Klyne, seconded by the Honourable Senator Harder, P.C., for the second reading of Bill S-241, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (great apes, elephants and certain other animals).