The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs has the honour to present its

ELEVENTH REPORT

Your committee, to which was referred Bill C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner), has, in obedience to the order of reference of Wednesday, December 14, 2022, examined the said bill and now reports the same without amendment but with certain observations, which are appended to this report.

Respectfully submitted,

Observations to the Eleventh Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (Bill C-233)

Bill C-233 addresses the importance of education and pro-active responses to address gender-based violence and coercive control. In line with witness testimony regarding the urgency of addressing this issue in our society, this committee urges the government to also invest greater resources in initiatives that enhance financial, social and health supports that help ensure: capacity and resources for emancipatory anti-violence supports, centres, including women’s shelters, financial supports, more responsive and respectful treatment of victims by police and prosecutorial authorities, and effective interventions to interrupt and address misogynist and racist violence, including with aggressors.

To this end, we encourage the Government of Canada to take greater, urgent action to address violence against women, coercive control and to support victims/survivors of intimate partner and domestic violence by responding, with a view to implementing the outstanding:

•recommendations of 99 Steps to End Violence Against Women, developed following a series of consultations with women’s groups, anti-violence workers, victims and legal and academic experts conducted by the Department of Justice from 1992-1996;

•calls for Justice of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry;

•recommendations of the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

The committee has reported in the past about how the Criminal Code has been amended in a piecemeal manner for many decades and has become cumbersome, sometimes repetitive, or inconsistent, and in need of comprehensive (see for instance, the committee’s 2017 report Delaying Justice is Denying Justice at pp. 41 to 43.) The committee repeats its past recommendation that an independent body should undertake a comprehensive review of the Criminal Code. The newly revived Law Commission of Canada could undertake such a review, which should include a study of all provisions in the Code that pertain to violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence and family violence.