Canada’s Criminal Code will soon have tougher penalties for intimate partner violence, particularly in cases of murder, after a Conservative bill became law Wednesday.
The private member’s bill essentially leapfrogged the Liberal government’s own bill that would criminalize femicide and other forms of intimate partner violence and coercive control, and includes many of the same measures.
The legislation will automatically apply a first-degree murder offence to the killing of an intimate partner when part of a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct, regardless of whether the act was premeditated or not.
Under the new law, if a person is convicted of manslaughter against an intimate partner, the sentencing judge must consider a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole for 10 to 25 years.
It also creates a new offence of violence against an intimate partner, which includes threats and attempted acts of violence, allowing such acts to be tracked in criminal data.
Conservative MP Frank Caputo put forward the private member’s bill, a type of legislation that rarely passes into law.
The legislation is named Bailey’s Law after Bailey McCourt, a 32-year-old B.C. woman who was killed last year in a Kelowna parking lot.
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Her ex-husband was charged with second-degree murder in connection with her death shortly after being freed on bail following his conviction for choking and uttering threats.
“Today is a special day, a bittersweet day,” Debbie Henderson, McCourt’s aunt, said while holding back tears at a press conference in Ottawa alongside Caputo.
“She will never be forgotten, and her daughters will know that she has left behind a legacy, a legacy that will make a difference.”
The final version of the bill says its measures will come into force 30 days after royal assent.
“When we get our 2027 copies of the Criminal Code, this will be in it,” Caputo told reporters.
“The fact that we were able to do this in a year (after McCourt’s death), to me, speaks to the cooperation but also the necessity. Intimate partner violence is a scourge on society.”
The Liberals introduced Bill C-16 two months after Caputo tabled his bill. The government legislation has passed the House of Commons and is currently being considered by the Senate.
C-16 would define “femicide” in the Criminal Code and would expand on the measures in Bailey’s Law, including extending the first-degree murder charge to killings of intimate partners to also cover murders committed in the context of sexual violence or human trafficking.
The government bill also puts more onus on intimate partner violence offenders to prove their innocence, criminalizes the sharing of non-consensual sexualized deepfake images and videos, and strengthens protections for children from sexual abuse and exploitation.
Bailey’s Law was amended to state that its measures would be replaced by those of C-16 if the Liberal bill became law after Caputo’s bill.
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