“We have been asking the government for years to make coercive control a crime and to protect women from violence. This bill is a good first step, but it took the government too long to act.”

“Mr. Speaker, tonight we are debating Bill C‑16, tabled late last year. What still impresses me, however, is the timeline. For months, if not years, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has been calling for progress on a number of issues: court delays, the criminalization of coercive control and, as the Bloc Québécois and other stakeholders have also urged, the issue of intimate AI-generated images and deepfakes. People have been calling for all that for weeks, months and years. It took a press conference by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women where we displayed non-partisanship, where members from all political parties sitting on that committee called on the government to criminalize coercive control and take action on violence against women. It is an important first step, but why did it take so long?”

“New laws alone will not fix violence against women. We need to focus on preventing it before it happens. What does my colleague think about working on prevention?”

“Mr. Speaker, it is true that people often view a legal ruling as a magic wand that will fix everything. What we keep hearing in committee is how important it is to focus on prevention. I mentioned this just yesterday to the Minister of Women and Gender Equality. I also told her about an important study on the rise of masculinism and anti-feminism, and that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women will hold a press conference and eventually release its report. I asked her if she would be interested in seeing the recommendations included in that report. Could my colleague comment on the importance of working proactively on prevention?”