- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Peterborough—Kawartha
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $106,196.43
- Government Page
She said: Mr. Speaker, people watching at home may think that these are just so many amendments. That is the essence of what I am going to talk about today.
I must also always thank the people from Peterborough—Kawartha, my riding. It is always an honour to stand here and speak on something so critical that affects Canadians and families across this country.
We are speaking today about domestic violence in particular. This is a bill, Bill S-205, that was put forward by Senator Boisvenu. I will be talking a lot about him in this speech today because it is a very personal story of what he did to put forward this bill. We had the chance to study this bill in my committee, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, also known as FEWO.
Before we go into this and the amendments that we have put forward to this bill, I want to provide some stats for people watching at home, many of whom are living these stats.
Domestic violence in this country is an epidemic, and 94 Ontario municipalities have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. In Ontario, 30 women were killed in a 30-week window between 2022 and 2023. Compared to 2014, intimate partner sexual assault was 163% higher. There has been an increase of 72% in domestic violence in this country.
I think, right now, people really have on their minds, especially my Albertan colleagues, a tragic story that happened just weeks ago in front of a elementary school. The headline reads, “Man who killed his estranged wife outside Calgary school was facing domestic violence charges”.
The man who killed his estranged wife outside of a Calgary elementary school was facing criminal charges for domestic violence and was charged with twice violating a no-contact order. This woman was murdered in front of an elementary school. Her three children no longer have either parent. This bill that we are talking about today, Bill S-205, could have prevented that tragedy. Let us break it down, and let us talk about why these amendments are critical and why I am asking every member in this House to support these amendments and to strengthen the bill that was originally created.
The senator who put forward this bill, Senator Boisvenu, is an incredible human. His daughter was murdered in 2002. She was 27 years old. She was randomly kidnapped and killed, because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, by a repeat violent offender.
The senator said, “Changing the system takes a lot of energy. But I had no right to miss the mission that Julie had given me....
One day I will return to Julie, it will be her, my judge. And I'm sure she'll tell me that we've done great things together, the two of us.”
I think it is very important that members in the House, people at home and constituents recognize that the intention behind this bill comes from a very personal place of the lived experience of a man who lost his daughter to domestic violence. He did his due diligence. He spoke with stakeholders and did all the legal correspondence that was necessary to ensure this bill was done properly. When it went to the status of women committee, FEWO, it was watered down beyond belief. The whole purpose of the bill was removed by the amendments put forward by the Liberals and the NDP.
Today, we are asking them to reconsider what they are doing to this watered-down bill and to approve the amendments we have put forward, to leave the bill as it was and to put victims first. I want to give us some victim testimony from the committee that verifies what we are saying here today. This is from Ms. Diane Tremblay. She testified at FEWO on November 20, 2023, about Bill S-205 and said:
If my abuser had been required to wear an electronic bracelet under a recognizance order pursuant to section 810 of the Criminal Code, as proposed in Senator Boisvenu's bill, my children and I would have been safer and I wouldn't have had to go through these attempted murders. Believe me, you don't emerge unhurt from an attempted murder. You suffer the after-effects for life.
I am asking the House of Commons, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Justice, the judges, all the provinces of Canada and the members to pass and enforce this new bill. It should be adopted immediately, without any amendments.
This is victim testimony.
It's very urgent. To conclude, I'd like to add that we have a right to live peacefully and safely under the law in our country.
For those watching at home and looking at these amendments, I will say that the Liberals removed the clause asking for the electronic bracelet to be worn by the attacker. That is the whole weight of the bill, the whole point of it. During the period of time between when a victim is strong enough and courageous enough to even report it, which is another issue, they are in a very dangerous position to be attacked or killed by their attacker, as are their children.
I think it is also really important for people at home to recognize something if we really want to think of the big picture and help prevent domestic violence. How many of those attackers grew up in a home where they witnessed domestic violence as children? We have to break the cycle. The impacts on children witnessing domestic violence are profound.
I want to go on to another victim's testimony. It is by Martine Jeanson, president, founder and frontline worker of La Maison des Guerrières. She testified November 23, 2023, giving powerful testimony in the status of women committee. She said:
Over the past 20 years, I've worked with hundreds of women who needed help. There is no way to hide them. Men can track them down at their place of work or through their family. They can follow children to school or to their friends' homes. The man will never stop stalking them, following them, harassing them and harming them. Until an electronic bracelet is required, women and their children will never be protected. Electronic bracelets may not be perfect, but that's all we have for the time being. We have no protection. That's why we are asking you, on behalf of all women, to pass the bill [unamended].
This is victim testimony.
I will reiterate this over and over again: We were elected to the House to elevate the voices of the people outside the House; we were not elected to push our own agenda and our own ideology. We were elected to make life better and safer, and right now, this country is not safe. There are serial killers who are eligible for day parole, retraumatizing their victims. There are children and mothers, people from all socio-economic classes, who are afraid to go to school. The men, the attackers, will find them wherever they are; they are stalkers. They control them and their lives, and they ruin children's lives. They ruin the lives of all the people around them.
The bill before us should be the most simple bill. We have an opportunity in the House to fix it. In committee, one of the members on the Liberals' side said they are just trying to keep it in line with how the current justice system works. The current justice system is broken, full stop. All we have to do is listen to the stats and read the paper. A CTV reporter tweeted this past weekend that she had someone criminally charged for harassing her. She was told to contact the police the minute he contacted her again. He is supposed to be in jail, but he is out. That is the danger, and that is why the bill and the amendments were put forward.
The bill would amend the Criminal Code with respect to bail pending trial and with respect to peace bonds, to provide that a judge, and in some cases a peace officer, may impose, as a condition of release, an electronic bracelet on an accused who is released pending trial or on a defendant who has entered into a section 810 peace bond. Electronic monitoring creates a security perimeter between the two intimate partners. The victim can carry a transmitter with them at all times, allowing them to maintain the safety perimeter even if they are away from home, giving the power to the victim.
I am asking every member of the House to please vote in support of the amendments. Let us strengthen our justice system and protect victims from domestic violence.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a great privilege to stand in the House of Commons on behalf of my community of Peterborough—Kawartha.
I would like to thank my colleague from Yorkton—Melville for putting forth Bill C-311, which I will be speaking to this evening.
Bill C-311, an act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to violence against pregnant women, is a simple and straightforward piece of legislation. If passed, it will create accountability for those who commit violence against pregnant women.
Here is the bill summary, which comes right out of the legislation itself:
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to specify that knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman and that causing physical or emotional harm to a pregnant woman are to be considered aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes.
That is the entire bill summary. The bill is less than one page long.
Let me quote it:
Whereas Parliament wishes to denounce and deter violence against pregnant women by explicitly including pregnancy as an aggravating circumstance for the purpose of sentencing....
It does exactly one thing. It adds longer prison sentences where there is:
evidence that the offender, in committing the offence, abused a person whom the offender knew to be pregnant...evidence that the offence caused physical or emotional harm to [the] pregnant victim
Violence against women has been recognized as a global public health problem since 2010. Violence during pregnancy is of special concern due to the adverse effects on not only the mother but also the developing child. Violence during pregnancy has been associated with negative lifestyle behaviours, compromised prenatal care and poor maternal physical and mental health.
When a perpetrator has been identified and found guilty, the sentence must be required to match the crime. This is something all of us in the House of Commons can agree on. What we know and what my colleague has brought to light is that the Criminal Code sentencing provisions are insufficient. It is well established that the risk of violence against women increases when they are pregnant, yet consequences for their attackers do not.
According to Statistics Canada, intimate partner violence has steadily increased each year for the past seven years, and eight in 10 victims of crime are women. The Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System reported that women abused during pregnancy were four times as likely as other abused women to report having experienced very serious violence, and this is a little graphic for people watching at home, including being beaten, choked, threatened with a gun or knife, or sexually assaulted.
Furthermore, there are more than 80 cases in recent Canadian history of women who have been killed while pregnant. Each of these women was killed by a man who knew they were pregnant, yet sentencing judges are not mandated to take these actions into account under the current law.
Each and every one of us in the House, regardless of party lines, carries the responsibility to do everything we can to make public safety a priority, to ensure that everyone is safe, including our most vulnerable. In existing criminal law, if a pregnant woman is assaulted, depending on her injuries, the offender could face a maximum penalty of 14 years if they were charged with aggravated assault. With this new legislation, that person could be liable to a harsher sentence.
This is a bill designed to increase public safety. This is a bill designed to show Canadians that we care about public safety. Who can argue with that?
When one hears the facts, it seems like a no-brainer bill that would get the support of all members, but sadly that is not the case. So often, it takes a tragedy to change laws. As we have heard, there have been almost 100 tragedies of pregnant women being murdered, and the law still has not changed. Today, we have a chance to do that.
I spoke with Jeff Durham, who I know is watching right now. Jeff was the husband of Cassie and the father of Molly. Cassie and Molly were brutally murdered by someone known to them. Jeff has tried for years to get this law passed, and he expressed his deep frustration with me on the phone, in a very private conversation that he allowed me to share with the House, that he cannot believe how politics continue to hijack this bill.
This country is failing victims, survivors and their families. This country is soft on crime, and public safety is eroding rapidly. Canada's worst criminal in history has been moved to a medium-security prison. What message are we sending to Canadians?
There is no longer an incentive to be a good human, because there are no consequences. It is time we stood with survivors, victims and their families. It is time we showed our support with action.
This bill is concrete action. It puts in place a sentence that matches the horror of killing or assaulting a pregnant woman. We are Canadians. We should be protecting our most vulnerable, and that includes pregnant women. I ask every member in this house to stand up for victims, survivors and their families.
I ask every member in this House, every mother, to think about Jeff Durham when they cast their vote for this bill. I ask them to think about their sisters, their aunts, their daughters or their own mothers, and how they would feel if someone attacked them, or worse, if someone attacked them while they were pregnant. The time should match the crime, and attacking or murdering a pregnant women is among the most heinous of crimes. The mother is the most sacred of people in our society.
Let us do something to fix it. Let us send a message that it will not be tolerated. Let us remove the politics from this bill. Let us stand with public safety. Let us implement a law that says we will not tolerate this, and let us vote in favour of Bill C-311.
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- May/2/23 8:37:50 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, here we are, two years later, and tomorrow still has not come.
This is an issue that hits home in my community. I have talked about this in the past, but it certainly warrants repeating. Cileana Taylor was 22 years old when she was assaulted in September 2020. Her brain injury left her in a coma for five months. She died in February 2021. The man who assaulted Cileana was not charged with murder and he is currently walking free on the street.
What happened to Cileana and what continues to happen in this country to indigenous women is an injustice. It is shameful and it rests solely on the backs of the inaction of this Prime Minister and the Liberal government's failed catch-and-release bail system. Indigenous women's and girls' lives matter. Cileana's life matters. The calls for justice are not photo ops and they are not optional. They are necessary to create the substantial and systemic change necessary to end the ongoing violence.
There is something we can do today. It is a simple, actionable item. We have an Amber Alert and it helps find children quickly by leveraging technology. A red dress alert can do the same. It is a simple, actionable item that every single member in this House can get behind. While we wait for these actionable items to be put into place, why not try something tangible that we can put in place today? A red dress alert would stop indigenous women from being murdered and going missing. It seems pretty simple.
Enough is enough. We need action. I stand in solidarity with all the members in this House tonight to say that a red dress alert is something we can get behind. We need to stop indigenous women from going missing and being murdered.
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- Oct/6/22 2:34:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has known for four years about the heinous allegations of sexual assault against eight players from team Canada. Hockey Canada received $14 million from 2020 to 2021 from the Liberal government. Hockey Canada has paid millions to pay off sexual assault claimants.
My question is for the Prime Minister, who claims to be a feminist. How is covering up sexual assault helping women?
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