Liberals urged to increase penalties for intimate partner violence, murder

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called on other parties Tuesday to support a private member’s bill he said would combat intimate partner violence — just as a new report tracks how the problem has grown in recent years.

“There are countless who have lost their lives because Liberal laws have turned their perpetrators loose on our streets,” Poilievre said outside the House of Commons.

“We want to work with any party to get this bill passed to protect people. We encourage every party to join with us. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit — let’s do the right thing now.”

Poilievre’s statement came after Statistics Canada released a report showing reports of intimate partner violence increased 14 per cent between 2018 and 2024.

The report also notes women and girls remain overrepresented in those statistics. The number of women suffering intimate partner violence in 2024 was 3.5 times higher than the number of men.

Poilievre blamed the caseload on what he claimed was the federal Liberals’ lax approach to criminal justice and called for stricter penalties.

Bill C-225, introduced by Conservative MP Frank Caputo, would automatically make the killing of an intimate partner an act of first degree murder, and bar someone arrested for an intimate partner offence from being released by a peace officer if they had been convicted of a similar offence in the previous five years.

Caputo said his bill was developed with input from victims of intimate partner violence who want to see changes to the criminal justice system.

“We believe that the government should be dealing with this right away. And if you don’t want to listen to me, that’s fine. But perhaps they will listen to the voice of Debbie,” Caputo said, introducing Debbie Henderson, whose niece was a victim of intimate partner violence.

Henderson’s niece, Bailey McCourt, was killed in July by her ex-husband. He was charged with murdering her hours after he was released on bail.

Henderson said she’s tired of seeing similar stories in the news and is demanding change through the passage of Bill C-225.

“There’s no need to wait. The next person could be you, or it could be one of your family members. And we don’t want to see any other family member go through the horror that our family has gone through,” she said, holding back tears.

During question period Tuesday, Caputo pressed the Liberals to answer if they would support the legislation.

Liberal MP Nathalie Provost, who survived the Polytechnique shooting in 1989, has suggested the government will back its own approach instead of the one proposed by the Conservatives.

“What is important is to have a broad and integrated approach and there are already bills that we have tabled and that will allow us to act,” she said during question period.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fraser said Monday that B.C. government lobbying on the McCourt case was reflected in several elements of Canada’s new bail reform legislation, adding that his government planned to table further legislation around intimate-partner violence by the end of the year.

“It will include certain changes around presumptions of first-degree murder,” Fraser told reporters at a joint press conference on the new law alongside B.C. Premier David Eby in Victoria.

“The exact terms of the provision are under development now, and we expect over the weeks to come, before the legislation is tabled, that we will finalize what that specific provision will take.”

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But Fraser said he was hesitant to make specific promises about the content of that bill, adding that Ottawa remained in discussion with Eby and B.C.’s attorney general, Niki Sharma.

He wouldn’t directly answer if the forthcoming legislation would criminalize the term “femicide” and make it a first-degree murder offence, a promise Liberals made during the federal election campaign.

Eby acknowledged that Bill C-14 did not include everything that the McCourt family or he wanted, but added his government was not done yet advocating for the family.

“We continue to advocate for the reforms the family is asking for, related to a presumption around first-degree murder,” Eby said. “We raised that with the minister today.”

Bill C-14, tabled in Parliament last week, toughens sentences for several crimes and expands the burden of proof for bail from the prosecution to the accused, in a principle known as reverse onus, to cover offences including assault and sexual assault involving choking or strangulation.

James Plover is accused of second-degree murder in McCourt’s killing. Plover had been convicted of choking someone and freed on $500 bail just hours before the alleged attack on his estranged wife.

The new legislation would also remove the possibility of house arrest sentences for “serious sexual offences,” including against children.

The Statistics Canada report found nearly half of intimate partner violence victims were living with the person accused of the crime at the time of the incident.

The agency reports that most victims of intimate partner violence in 2024 were physically assaulted (72 per cent), while 9 per cent were victims of sexual offences and 7 per cent were victims of criminal harassment.

Statistics Canada says the rate of family violence against seniors has increased by 49 per cent between 2018 and last year, with 7,622 senior victims of police-reported family violence reported in 2024.

A full 36 per cent of seniors who experienced family violence last year were victimized by one of their children, the agency reports.

— With files from Émilie Bergeron and Wolfgang Depner, and Global News

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