Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, every person deserves to live free from violence and fear. No life is worth more than another, and no one should face a greater risk of violence because of their gender, their sex, the neighbourhood they live in, the work they do, the school they attend or whom they love. Violence against our most vulnerable is some of the most morally reprehensible behaviour in our society. It is not a demonstration of strength or power or control. It is a profound failure of respect for the dignity, autonomy and humanity of another person. It rewrites the rest of their story, because becoming a victim of a violent act changes someone forever. It changes their sense of safety and often the course of their life. Our responsibility as legislators is to help build a society where those principles are not merely aspirations but realities. These acts may rewrite their stories forever, but we can help to ensure a happier ending. I am proud to stand up today in support of our government’s Bill C-16, the protecting victims act, because it would put the necessary tools in place for law enforcement and the legal system to take action. It would give police, prosecutors and courts the ability to intervene earlier, better protect victims and survivors and help prevent future harm. Bill C-16 is about victims, not as statistics and not as stories, but as people. It aims to do right by them and to recognize that their lives are fundamentally altered by violence long after the courtroom is empty and public attention fades. It would be responding to the real-world concerns we have heard from victims across Canada. Too often, our justice system asks these victims to relive the most traumatic moments of their lives while offering them little certainty in return. It asks them to be resilient and patient and silent while we debate the process. It places the burden of safety on those who have already been harmed. As a government, we are saying this is not good enough. We need to make changes, and we need to make them now. Bill C-16 would strengthen how victim safety is considered throughout the justice process. It would ensure that courts are better equipped to assess risk, recognize patterns of repeat violence and impose conditions that reflect the lived reality of victims. It would improve consistency and accountability in decision-making, particularly in cases involving intimate partner violence. It would also introduce concrete measures to better support victims throughout the legal process, including permitting, in the courtroom during testimony, support persons, or in some cases even support animals, to accompany children, persons with disabilities and people who have experienced sexual violence. This legislation is grounded in a simple but urgent truth: Violence, particularly intimate partner violence, is rarely random. It is often patterned, escalating and predictable. When we have evidence that harm is likely to occur, failing to act is not neutrality; it is negligence. As the member of Parliament elected to represent the people of Halifax, I have a responsibility to support this bill, which, among so many important steps, proposes to criminalize coercive and controlling conduct. For far too long, our criminal law has focused almost exclusively on isolated incidents of physical violence while failing to recognize the sustained patterns of psychological, emotional and financial control that so often precede them. Coercive control includes isolating someone from friends and family, monitoring their movements, controlling access to money, issuing threats, intimidation and humiliation. It is violence that may leave no visible injuries but that causes deep and lasting harm. The evidence is clear. Coercive control is one of the strongest predictors of serious injury and intimate partner homicide. In Canada, women are far more likely than men to experience intimate partner violence, and research consistently shows that the presence of controlling behaviour dramatically increases the risk of lethal outcomes. By criminalizing coercive control, Bill C-16 would give our justice system the tools to intervene earlier, before violence escalates, before lives are lost and before harm becomes irreversible. These are the steps that matter most, because this bill is not just about changing the way we respond to violence; it is about stopping it from happening entirely. It refuses to accept that violence must become extreme before the law responds. However, coercive control is only one part of how this bill would modernize our response to the evolving forms of violence. The protecting victims act would also take further preventative measures, including the creation of a new offence that would prohibit even threatening to distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material, because threats need to be taken seriously, and we need the tools to stop them from becoming a reality. The bill would also target sextortion by criminalizing threats to distribute intimate images and by increasing penalties for people who exploit fear and humiliation for coercion or gain. Bill C-16 would also modernize our criminal law to reflect the realities of harm in the world we live in today. It would strengthen protections for victims of image-based sexual violence, including the non-consensual creation and distribution of intimate images and sexually explicit deepfakes, recognizing the profound and lasting damage these acts cause. It would improve accountability of people who weaponize technology to humiliate, threaten or control others, particularly women and girls. The bill would enhance how courts consider risk, patterns of behaviour and victim safety across bail, sentencing and supervision, and it would reinforce a simple principle: that dignity, consent and personal autonomy do not disappear online. It would also modernize Canada’s criminal harassment laws, recognizing that stalking and intimidation increasingly occur through technology and that victims should not bear an unreasonable burden to prove their fear before the law can respond. Violence is violence, whether it happens behind closed doors or behind a screen. In April 2020, Nova Scotia experienced the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. For many Canadians, it was a shocking and tragic news story. For my constituents, and for those of my fellow Nova Scotian MPs, it was something far more personal. Communities across our province lived through the fear and uncertainty of those days and continue to carry the grief and loss that followed. The events of April 18 and 19, 2020, led to the establishment of the Mass Casualty Commission, which undertook a comprehensive examination of the circumstances surrounding the tragedy and the systemic factors that contributed to it. Among its findings, the commission highlighted the critical link between gender-based violence and broader threats to public safety. It found that patterns of intimate partner violence, coercive control and escalating risk were present long before the shootings occurred, yet those warning signs were not sufficiently recognized or addressed. The commission concluded that violence is often not a series of isolated incidents but rather a pattern that can escalate when left unchecked. It called for earlier intervention, stronger risk assessment tools and a justice system that responds to gender-based violence with the seriousness it deserves, designed to protect victims, prevent future tragedies like this and to keep communities safe. Bill C-16 would respond to those lessons by strengthening our ability to intervene before harm becomes irreversible. In my community of Halifax, we see both the devastating impact of violence and the extraordinary strength of the people who survive it. We also see the tireless work of frontline organizations that step in where systems too often fall short. Shelters like Adsum house provide safety and stability for women and children children fleeing violence. Organizations such as the YWCA Halifax, Alice House, Bryony House and the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre support survivors through crisis, recovery and rebuilding their lives. These groups do life-saving work every day, often with limited resources and under immense pressures, and they have been clear with us about what is needed. Safety cannot begin only after harm has occurred. It must be built into the system itself. Proactive and preventative measures save lives. Bill C-16 is one part of how we do better. It is not the only solution, but it is a necessary one. It reflects evidence, it reflects lived experience, and it reflects a commitment to ensuring that victim safety is not an afterthought but a priority. We are here not to accept violence as a fact of life but to prevent it where we can, respond to it where we must and ensure that it never goes unanswered, because we know that harm is predictable, and we also know that it is preventable. We owe that responsibility to survivors, to families and to communities across this country that deserve to feel safe in their homes and in their lives, and that is why I support the protecting victims act.
