OTTAWA — It’s time for the Liberals to crack down on intimate partner violence.
Speaking to reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons on Tuesday, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre decried Liberal inaction on crime, specifically against intimate partners.
“So far he has done nothing, he’s passed no laws to reverse the Liberal crime wave that his party has unleashed over the past decade,” he said.
“And unfortunately we see the results in intimate partner violence.”
Intimate partner violence on the rise in Canada
According to Poilievre, 2024 saw 128,000 victims of intimate partner violence in Canada, with reported instances of family violence seeing a 17% increase over the past six years.
As well, 79% of those killed by their intimate partners are women, with 26,000 children paying the toll of family violence.
“This is all the direct result of C-75 , the Liberal bail which allows repeat offenders to be released as soon as they’re arrested, and of course C-5 , which allows these abusers to do their sentences in the comfort of their living room and threatening their loved ones.”
Allowing serial domestic abusers to serve sentences at home, Poilievre said, is little more than turning homes into prisons for victims.
Poilievre highlighted the case of B.C. woman Bailey McCourt, whose accused killer allegedly killed her within hours of his release after being convicted of three counts of uttering threats and assault by strangulation against an intimate partner.
“A mother, murdered by her estranged ex-husband James Plover — a man who was released literally hours earlier despite a conviction for uttering threats and carrying out a violent physical assault,” Poilievre said.
“This could have been prevented — if Mr. Plover had been in jail where he belongs, she would still be alive today.”
Tories table bill to put abusers behind bars
Tabled last month in the House by Public Safety Critic Frank Caputo, the Conservative bill C-225 would, among other things, ensure those convicted of killing their intimate partner would be sentenced like first-degree murder, increased sentences for those convicted of assaulting and/or harassing domestic partners, and ensure those convicted of intimate partner violence would only be released on the order of a judge.
“They want change, Canada wants change, I want change,” Caputo said, standing alongside members of McCourt’s family.
“As a former crown prosecutor, as a former federal parole officer, I have seen the pernicious impact of intimate partner violence. This is a crime that spans every socioeconomic group — it is vastly underreported and disproportionally impacts women, especially vulnerable women.”
Caputo described his private member’s bill, which is currently undergoing second-reading debate in the House, as the most comprehensive response to intimate partner violence in Canadian history — a non-partisan approach to solving a problem that impacts all layers of Canadian society.
“The time for change is now,” he said.
