Transparency is always a good thing. Operating from data and evidence, even if people disagree with what happened, at least we are operating from a common set of understandings. Yes, the more opaque it is, the more you get into misunderstandings.

Thank you to all three of you for being here.

It was only a few months ago when I heard about double charging. I am shocked, because that’s the lazy way. When you can’t do enough investigation, you just charge both. Can I get your opinions, Ms. Coyle and Ms. Latimer, on double charging?

We understand that this all comes back to the same well-intended legislative reform that Bill C-48 is premised on, which is that we want to protect people. We want to protect vulnerable people. The people we work with are some of the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our society. Unfortunately, they are frequently subject to dual charges. People come to their houses. They can’t determine or bias exists in the police officers who arrive, and they end up laying dual charges. Both parents are then caught up in the legal system. The repercussions from that are far-reaching, particularly if there are children involved. It is one of those nuanced aspects of the law that we really need to be talking about.

I absolutely agree with that.

Ms. Owens, I have been really disturbed about the discharge provisions. I can’t believe that Bill C-48 has the discharge provision for intimate partner violence. How can you give a discharge and then look at discharge provisions under this bill? I want your opinion on that.

Thank you, Senator Jaffer, for the opportunity to speak on this point. We are also very concerned about that provision, and that’s why we called for it to be removed from the bill.

With respect to discharges, this committee has heard from other witnesses that strict requirements need to be met before a discharge can be provided. There are concerns with conflicts with the Criminal Records Act and whether or not people who have discharges that should be expunged from their record will not see that happen. There is also the reality that prosecutors have access to information about discharges already. We are concerned about expanding reverse onus beyond the narrow set of circumstances where the courts have found they’re appropriate and for the impact, as Ms. Coyle mentioned, on individuals who face dual charging.

Ms. Owens, what worries me is that maybe the discharge provisions will be open and then that will make it like a frequent offender and that’s where reverse onus will be used. I don’t know how this will work. Have you thought about that?

We have thought about it, yes, in terms of how problematic it is for reasons that Ms. Coyle also spoke about, where you have someone who receives a discharge for a relatively minor offence or potentially a dual charging pleads guilty to get out of jail, and all of a sudden they become that repeat offender subject to the reverse onus, and that is quite concerning to us.

Thank you very much to all of you for being here.

First of all, on the dual charging issue, I have to say I agree with Senator Jaffer. I had not heard about this practice before, and it isn’t that many years since I practised law actively. In the province of Saskatchewan, it was not something that I saw happening with any frequency whatsoever, yet this morning I note that Ms. Coyle used the word “frequently” to describe this.

Ms. Owens, you have highlighted in your submission that many individuals can be both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, and it seems to me that perhaps this argument is at the core of your opposition to that provision in the bill. You were talking about data earlier, and I’m wondering if there’s any reliable statistical data that accurately quantifies the number of cases of domestic violence where individuals are both victims and perpetrators, particularly with the number of men and women listed in that, and to what extent does that data vary depending on factors about perhaps the definition of domestic violence or different data-collection methods.

Thank you very much for the question.

The short answer is that this is one of the areas where it would be beneficial to have additional data looking specifically at this question related to dual charging. I don’t know of strong data that lays that out, but perhaps my colleagues on the panel may have information about that. I do know from talking to people who work directly with survivors, like Ms. Mattoo who appeared before the committee yesterday and Ms. Coyle today, that this is a problem they see frequently in the work they do.

From a broader statistical standpoint, we also do know — and there are statistics for this in our brief — about the percentage of folks who are incarcerated who have experienced victimization themselves. That’s broader than the situation of dual charging, but it is a situation where we have an overlap between perpetrators and survivors.

Yes, that is quite a bit broader than that. I thought maybe it was an Ontario thing, or maybe it’s a policing issue, which frankly it seems to be. The few practitioners I have spoken to from here also did not see this. They said, yes, certainly they have seen it, but they would not describe it in any way as frequent. If there is any actual data or evidence that any of you can provide to our committee about that, I would be very interested to see that.

Also, Ms. Owens, in your submission to this committee, you recommended the removal of the provision in Bill C-48 that applies that reverse onus in cases where the accused has previously been discharged from an offence involving intimate partner violence and now is accused of a similar offence. Obviously, you are dealing with vulnerable women in your capacity at LEAF, and given the increase in prevalence of domestic violence in Canada, you don’t think it’s essential to have that type of a stricter legislative measure to protect potential victims, even if it means imposing those types of stricter conditions on acts of domestic violence, like is provided in Bill C-48?

Thank you for that question as well.

We absolutely agree that gender-based violence is an epidemic, as has been said by the Mass Casualty Commission, but responses like these don’t make survivors safer, and I can give you three quick reasons for that. The first is that the criminal justice system already doesn’t work for many survivors, especially ones from marginalized backgrounds. The second is the point made about no neat dividing line between survivors and perpetrators. The third is that changes to the bail system like this do nothing to address the underlying causes of gender-based violence, and they actually may make things worse in terms of the impact of detention on people, like losing their jobs, homes and mental health supports, as other witnesses have talked about.

Lastly to you, also because you are here with LEAF today, are you concerned about the fact that the predecessor minister on this bill had introduced this bill back in May or early June, and generally the Trudeau government puts forward a gender-based analysis on a bill and we still don’t have one. Are you concerned about that, given that could be the type of thing that would provide us with some answers?

Yes, we are concerned about that, and we think it would be beneficial to have one.

Chair, may I ask that we don’t finalize the bill before the gender-based assessment? May I ask that the clerk make it known to the minister’s office that the Senate will — I’m just speaking for myself — reconsider looking at this bill if we don’t get this, because the minister had said we would get it. It’s not normal not to get it.

Letter from the chair.

They told me that we asked the minister last week.

May I respectfully ask that we ask again, because it’s a new minister and I don’t want it to get —

We will.

Thank you, chair.