Karen Vecchio

[Government Business No. 35—Extension of Sitting Hours and Conduct of Extended Proceedings, February 28th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, hopefully we will get an answer on this, because I know, working on the subcommittee and as the chair, that I saw a lot of cancellations of committee meetings due to the fact that resources were tight. Committees are where we find out about some of the horrible things that are happening, sometimes in the community and sometimes because of the government's actions.

I wonder how much time would be cancelled from committee work, where we are unfolding and finding out all of the information on government programs and scandals. How much would the government be taking away from committee work to be able to resource this?

[Criminal Code, February 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, You are absolutely right; I cannot do that. I am thankful that on such an important issue we are able to have these conversations, and we have to have a little bit of give.

The bill before us today has been brought forward to amend the Criminal Code, specifically with respect to the repeal of section 43. To begin, I want to clearly state that there is no provision in the Criminal Code that allows for violence against children. Perpetrators of child abuse must be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Currently in Canada there are clear parameters for use of the physical correction stated in section 43.

I want to get into that part because as we are having this discussion, making sure we can differentiate between what would be seen as corrective force and abuse is very important. The line is very hard to draw. We recognize that in some situations, physical correction could be a one-off, but that in some households it could be a common practice. There is a much greater discussion we need to have, and to try to take a really hard stand on this can be very difficult.

Ultimately, I want to go back to looking at what is currently in our legislation, what parents can currently do and what the restrictions are. I am going to read something that comes out of New Brunswick, a simple flyer that was put out to parents by the Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick. It hits on what the parameters are, so I want to put it on the record. It reads:

What ‘boundaries’ did the Supreme Court set for physically disciplining children?

The Supreme Court of Canada stated that:

The force used must be intended to educate or correct the child;

The force used must be to restrain, control or express disapproval of the actual behaviour;

The child must be capable of benefiting from the discipline. In other words, factors such a child’s age and disability will influence the child's ability to learn from the use of force;

The force used must be “reasonable under the circumstances” and not offend society’s view of decency.

I add this to the discussion because we talk a lot about abuse. We talk about coercive control, which is not even a physical abuse, but we know it exists. However, we have to differentiate between parenting and abuse. This is a very hard discussion to have. I am a mother of five and I know that my son watching at home is also thinking, “What does this mean? What did I do as parent? What mistakes did I make?”

I do not recall ever being spanked as a child. Perhaps I should have been; I do not know, but there are times and places in which there needs to be physicality for the protection of a child and for their own safety. I heard the member for Richmond Hill talk about physicality while trying to put a child into a car seat. It very clearly is not about slapping the child in the face and telling them, “You do as I say”, but it is for the protection of that child. I am thinking of a situation such as taking a child away from a burning fire, because, like little bugs, they think it is interesting, and there is a need to physically remove children from those situations. Each and every time we are talking about that, we need to look at the situation, because this is situation-based.

I am not saying I am an advocate for spanking, but what I am is an advocate for understanding the situation and understanding the controls or the limitations parents may have. In some cases, unfortunately, force may be the only solution. When I say that, to me, it needs to be the final resort. It would have to be the final resort in the protection of that child. I would like to refer to the Library of Parliament, which did a really good study on this in February 2023. It is part of its HillStudies and is available to the public if anyone wants to print it off. It is obvious from the information in this write-up that we are talking about very different things and that we need to be aware.

It is obvious just from here in the House that there is a vast range of views on physical contact for parenting and for teaching. Some advocates feel abuse is never justified but recognize a corrective lens. As I was reading a dissenting report coming from the discussions on this, I think it was six out of nine judges in 2004 who supported the Supreme Court decision to allow the Criminal Code to remain as is, with section 43 allowing for children to receive corrective force from teachers and from parents. The reason I want to talk about this is that there are appropriate times and places. Six out of the nine different judges agreed with there needing to be something and needing to continue with the bill. In the dissenting report, many of them came with a “but" and said that they understood, but that this needed to be used as a last resort.

I am reading section 43 of the Criminal Code, which states:

Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.

I think this is really important because I spoke about teachers, and as the member who spoke previously mentioned, we received a letter from the Canadian Teachers' Federation, which I have here and want to add to the discussion. I will quote its concerns:

The CTF...has a long-standing policy opposing corporal punishment and supports the Government of Canada's commitment to enact all the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action. At the same time, the CTF...wants to ensure that no unintended harm is caused through the process, which is the case with the potential repeal of Section 43. If Section 43 is repealed without other changes to the Criminal Code that ensure teachers may intervene physically when necessary to protect students and, in some cases, themselves, teachers will not be able to maintain safety and security in classrooms.

I wanted to add to that, because it is very much like the dissenting report that I read from the Supreme Court, talking about why people may not have supported a repeal. It is because we recognize that there may be some instances when things are out of control. I think of a high school principal I know personally, who was trying to break up a fight in a high school. It is a bit different, but we have to understand that sometimes in school situations teachers unfortunately must intervene. In this case, it was a principal who got in between two young women who were fighting. Ultimately, the two young women were fine, but the teacher will never be able to teach again because he hit the floor when he was pushed, and he will have brain damage forever. Therefore we have to understand that sometimes these workplaces need to be controlled as well.

I am taking that very strange situation of what happened to a teacher in a high school and relating it to what might happen in elementary schools. How can we ensure that teachers are in charge and are respected in the classrooms? My sharing the story of the high school principal has a lot to do with respect for teachers in these institutions and the fact that there needs to be some control. I am not talking about forceful control, but sometimes there are situations that are way out of control, so a teacher may need to reprimand a child or take them to the office. When the Canadian Teachers' Federation comes forward to speak to us, I think those are the situations in which it wants to ensure that the safety of its members and the safety of the students are going to be paramount. I believe taking section 43 out may have extraordinary consequences because of how unsafe our schools are at this time. We are trying to do a good job, but unfortunately mental health situations are impairing us very much.

I want to go to my final point, the proposals for reform. We know that we have had approximately over 20 private member's bills on this specific subject. None of them has passed at committee, and in the last 20 years, in a report on children's rights in Canada, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights recommended the repeal of section 43 and highlighted the need for public education campaigns. I absolutely agree with that part, because I think it is important that, any time we are talking about abuse or misbehaving, we to educate.

I think this all comes down to section 43 being a tool to be used only as a final resource, but I think we cannot take away this tool from our teachers and parents.

I appreciate the time to speak on this important topic.

[Criminal Code, February 13th, 2024]

Thanks to Leah for always laughing at me.

Today's bill is brought—

[Criminal Code, February 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour to be able to stand in this place today to debate this important piece of legislation. I come here, working on things like domestic violence, interpersonal relationship violence and the protection of children, but I also wear a hat of a mother of five and a grandmother of two. I know, one can only tell by some of the wrinkles that I am a grandmother.

[Gender-Based Violence, February 8th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has seen a sharp increase of sexual assault reports since 2015, with 20,948 violations. Stats Canada has reported an increase between the years 2015 to 2022 at 71.66%. Although these stats are not broken down by gender, we know that the crime is more likely against female victims of violent crime, especially sexual assault. Women are five times more likely to experience sexual assault compared to men. According to a report, victimization reporting rates were 106 out of 1,000 for women and 59 men out of 1,000. These stats are a direct correlation to the failure of this government's catch-and-release bail policies passed in Bill C-75 and Bill C-5, which removes mandatory minimum sentences for certain major crimes.

A common-sense government can ensure that repeat offenders remain behind bars while awaiting trial and will bring back mandatory jail time for serious violent crimes that were repealed by the Liberal government. Conservatives will always stand with victims of crimes. Conservatives will bring home safe—

[Committees of the House, February 8th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, in relation to Bill S-205, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to another act (interim release and domestic violence recognizance orders). The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I would also like to say congratulations to Senator Boisvenu, who brought forward this bill and who has been a voice for so many victims across Canada. The 11 of us really appreciated working on such an important bill that had such personal intent.

[Criminal Code, February 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I will begin by saying to the interpreters that I will try to talk slowly, but this is something that I am so passionate about, so when I do speed up I will look to the Speaker to say, “slow down”.

I wanted to start off this speech by stating the importance of making sure we add coercive control to the Criminal Code here in Canada. I want to read a story from the CBC on December 7, 2021. The title of it is “Coercive control, the silent partner of domestic violence, instils fear, helplessness in victims”. I will give a bit of background on it.

It is a story about a young woman who was in a relationship that she was trying to leave. Her friends and family knew she was trying to leave this relationship desperately, but unfortunately so did her partner, and with that the partner decided that he would take her life in order to deal with some of these issues.

I want to read from this story, because it is rather graphic:

In the last few weeks before a murder devastated people in her Halifax social circle, Ardath Whynacht began to worry.

“I had a sick feeling in my stomach,” she said.

Whynacht was concerned about two people she knew socially: a high school friend, Nicholas Butcher, and the woman he was dating, Kristin Johnston.

Butcher's friends knew that he was struggling to find work, in debt and depressed. People in their circle knew the two were having problems in their relationship.

Whynacht says she later learned in court that others among her friends knew Butcher was accessing Johnston's private messages. He also followed her movements ... [called] "stalking" behaviour.

Unfortunately these stories do not go away. I have had the honour of sitting on the status of women committee since 2015, with a small break when I went to PROC, but over and over we have talked about violence against women, and we know that violence against women is not just physical, that there is such an emotional piece to it. Coercive control is exactly what we are talking about today.

I want to read to members a second piece, and it is titled, “'A life sentence': No escape from abusive relationships when navigating family court system, say victims”. It states, “Victims, experts say courts often fail to recognize and protect people from non-physical forms of abuse”. This entire story talks about the torture, and I am going to use the pseudonym used here, of Sarah:

Sarah says her ex-husband's abusive behaviour slowly escalated after their family court decision in 2022. For instance, she says he began dropping off their kids with her later than the court order stated.

“What I've found is now that we no longer are living together as a family, I can't actually protect them,” she says.

Then, she says, the stalking and harassment began.

When she went to the police, she felt she wasn't taken seriously. Sarah says she was denied a peace bond because her ex-husband hasn't physically assaulted her or her kids recently.

This, to me, is the tragedy of what we are seeing in the justice system, and not just necessarily in the justice system, but in our society. What we are seeing is women being controlled, beaten and violated by men in the majority of these cases. I am not saying that coercive control cannot be reversed and cannot be applied to men as the victims, but we know the majority of these cases are women. What are we going to do about it?

In this House, Bill C-233 was passed unanimously, and I am so proud of the incredible work that we did as a Parliament to ensure that there are judges trained, when it comes to domestic violence issues, because we have to understand that domestic violence is not just physical violence. Of the cases, 30% may show physically, but the majority of these cases that we are seeing when it comes to domestic violence are coercive control.

What does that mean? I think that is what we have to get down to, and this is exactly what the member who has put forward the bill, whom I would like to thank for putting forward the bill, and I want to talk about: what coercive control is and why we as parliamentarians need to take it seriously for the safety of our women and girls.

The definition presented in Bill C-332 indicates:

(a) it causes the person to fear, on reasonable grounds, on more than one occasion, that violence will be used against them; (b) it causes the person's physical or mental health to decline; or (c) it causes the person alarm or distress that has a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities, including (i) limits on their ability to safeguard their well-being or that of their children, (ii) changes in or restrictions on their social activities or their communication with others, (iii) absences from work or from education or training programs or changes in their routines or status in relation to their employment or education, and [finally] (iv) changes of address.

This was all put forward by Evan Stark, an American forensic social worker, back in 2007. I am really proud to see this definition in Bill C-332. It so important that we have this discussion.

In my role as the chair of the status of women committee, I can speak for every member of that committee on the strength and vulnerability of so many of the victims who have come to speak to our committee, knowing that when they go to the police, if they do not have a bruise, it is not going to be taken into consideration. Coercive control is not in the Criminal Code. Things like harassment are, but coercive control, that idea of controlling another individual, is not.

We have to take it into consideration. Let us look at the first case that I talked about. The young man was reading all of her emails and intercepting those types of messages. The prying into that relationship: That is control. It takes me back to a phone call that I had just last week from a teacher, who was very concerned. A young woman, an EA, had come to the school very fearful for her life. She had never had physical abuse. She had never been violated or anything like that. However, the fear of coercive control was there, because she was being controlled. What ended up happening to this young woman is that she did not go to work, flag number one.

This is important: Putting coercive control into our Criminal Code will give the opportunity for our police to understand what coercive control is. Thus, when they are investigating or going to a scene of a dispute, they can understand and know what they are looking for.

Right now, with its absence from the Criminal Code, how are police officers supposed to recognize it? Does it look like harassment? Are they being stalked? There are various different things.

The one thing we know about coercive control is that it does not just happen once. In physical abuse, someone can actually show and date the abuse, and all those things. They can go to the hospital, report it, show the bruises and provide evidence to the police or the doctors. With coercive control, that option is not there. How do they go and show somebody what another person said or that the person has read all their emails?

There is one thing that I found really disturbing from doing the research that we have done in the last number of years on this. That is the number of women who are not believed. This is really concerning to me. We have to understand that many women are isolated in their homes. We saw that through COVID-19. In March 2020, we saw an absolute increase. By May 2020, I believe, the government was saying that we need to help out shelters more. That is something we all agreed on. We know that, when women cannot leave a place where they are being victimized, they are not safe. That is exactly what happened with COVID.

Coercive control is one of those things that we must talk about. It is not just about the physical. It is about looking at the whole person.

I want to read a part that was received from the federal ombudsman for victims. It is very important that I read this, because when women are talking about coercive control, when we are talking about it, it is cumulative. It is not just one incident. It is something that could have happened yesterday and continues each and every day.

One of the stories I read was talking about a women who watched her husband driving up the laneway every day. She needed to see his facial reaction, because she needed to know how he was entering that house. Was he happy that day? Was he angry? Those are things that women who are victims of coercive control are thinking about all the time. They are always tiptoeing on glass. The fact is that they are worried about their safety. That is what we see with coercive control.

There is that threat down the road. Today they may not hit them, but they do not know what is going to happen later. We know from the Canadian Femicide Observatory that one woman is being killed here in Canada every other day. What is that telling us? We have to change our laws, and we have to take a better look at this.

The federal ombudsman for victims of crime has asked for this to be looked at thoroughly, recognizing that it is a pattern. It is not just a one-time incident.

Therefore, I ask the justice minister and his department, and everybody, to work together to ensure that we save women's lives.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2024]

With regard to the government and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+): what were the results of the GBA+ analysis and the subsequent actions taken for (i) Bill C-75, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, (ii) Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (bail reform), (iii) Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Judges Act, (iv) Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act?

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 12th, 2023]

With regard to the Auditor General’s report entitled “Modernizing Information Technology Systems”: why does the government not retain historical data as cited in section 7.40 of the report?

[Indigenous Services, December 11th, 2023]

Mr. Chair, part of my concern is with respect to accountability and the current Liberal government. We have not seen the two go along hand in hand for a long time. Absolutely, we need to have that accountability. We need to move forward with first nations. Unfortunately, I just know that with the current government we have not seen that accountability.