The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights met to study Bill C-16, an act to amend certain acts in relation to criminal and correctional matters, focusing on gender-based violence and victim protection. Witnesses included Inspector Valarie Gates from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Chief Thai Truong from the London Police Service, Melanie Webb and Kathy Batycky from the Canadian Bar Association, Leah Zille from Child and Youth Advocacy Centres of Canada, Lindsay Jolie from Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Centre, Marta C. Hajek from Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, and Naomi Parker from Kindex Research and Knowledge Centre.
Inspector Valarie Gates supported Bill C-16 as a critical step in recognizing coercive control as part of intimate partner violence, noting that police report over 110,000 victims annually but that patterns of psychological harm often precede physical violence. She recommended that the legislation explicitly include former intimate partners regardless of living arrangements, and stressed the need for national training, risk assessment tools, and trauma-informed approaches to avoid misidentifying victims as offenders, drawing on international examples from the UK and Australia.
Chief Thai Truong supported the bill’s direction, emphasizing that intimate partner violence involves patterns of control rather than isolated incidents, and that the two-year implementation period is responsible for training and preparation. He recommended creating a narrow, threshold-based IPV risk information-sharing authority to connect siloed data across police, health, and social services, arguing that privacy laws should not prevent harm prevention, and he supported strong sentences reflective of crime severity to maintain public trust.
Melanie Webb, speaking for the Canadian Bar Association, raised two key concerns: that introducing an alternative remedy to a stay of proceedings for unreasonable trial delays could weaken incentives to address delays, and that the proposed safety valve for mandatory minimum sentences still requires imprisonment, limiting options like conditional sentence orders. She suggested that Bill S-208’s framework may be preferable, and noted that the CBA supports many provisions but worries about unintended negative impacts on victims from increased delays.
Kathy Batycky, also from the Canadian Bar Association, focused on the coercive control offence, arguing it lacks precision in defining the required pattern of conduct, which risks capturing isolated incidents or missing conduct after a relationship ends. She recommended introducing a “reasonable foreseeability” standard and urged caution with a “recklessness” standard to avoid criminalizing emotionally charged but non-coercive behaviour in high-conflict family disputes, and stressed that criminal law alone cannot address family violence.
Leah Zille, from Child and Youth Advocacy Centres of Canada, strongly supported Bill C-16 but emphasized that testimonial aids for children should be presumptive rather than exceptional, and that consistent application across jurisdictions is needed to reduce trauma. She called for proper resourcing of programs providing these aids, including facility dogs and remote testimony rooms, and urged proactive information sharing with families to support children’s healing, noting that the justice system was not designed with children in mind.
Lindsay Jolie, from Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Centre, supported the bill’s recognition of AI-generated images and strengthened responses to threats to distribute child sexual abuse materials, as these reflect the reality of online exploitation. She highlighted that patterns of coercion and control are central to child abuse and that naming them in law will support earlier intervention, but urged the government to also pass enforceable online safety legislation to hold technology companies accountable for child safety.
Marta C. Hajek, from Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, argued that Bill C-16’s limitation of coercive control protections to intimate partners creates a serious gap, as most elder abuse is perpetrated by children or caregivers, not spouses. She urged expanding the scope to include relatives and informal caregivers, noting that older women face distinct vulnerabilities and that the two-year implementation period would leave many without protection, and called for immediate action given rising abuse rates.
Naomi Parker, from Kindex Research and Knowledge Centre, supported the bill but recommended introducing graduated sexual offence categories to allow proportional sentencing for child abuse, as current law collapses different harms into the same charge. She also called for extending recognition of coercive control to children and for formalizing trauma-informed frameworks, including presumptive admissibility of high-quality child forensic interviews, and stressed that implementation and resourcing will determine the bill’s real impact.
During the meeting, members questioned witnesses on topics including mandatory minimum sentences, bail reform, and the need for training, with Chief Truong supporting strong sentences and the CBA opposing mandatory minimums. No procedural debate, motions, or votes occurred during this session.
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