Canada's justice minister says he is 'open' to adding 'femicide' to the Criminal Code
OTTAWA — Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser says he is “open” to including the term “femicide” in the Criminal Code, which has long been called for by researchers and advocates looking to shine a spotlight on the issue of the killing of women and girls.
The term broadly refers to when a woman is killed by a man based on the fact that she is a woman, with varying definitions that speak to previous patterns of abuse by a male perpetrator or ideologies. Police services that use the term often do so when a killing occurs in the context of an intimate partner relationship.
Kingston, Ont. police did so for the first time last month when announcing it had laid first-degree murder charges against a 26-year-old man charged in the death of his 25-year-old partner. Police said it considered her death a “femicide.”
During the federal election campaign, the Liberals inked the term into their platform, promising to better protect victims of sexual and intimate partner violence by “making murder motivated by hate a constructive first-degree offence, including femicide.”
In a recent wide-ranging interview, Fraser said the government would look at the “precise language” of the reforms it plans to make to the Criminal Code, which are expected to be tabled in a bill this fall.
Asked specifically whether he was open to including “femicide” in the Criminal Code, Fraser said, “I’m open to it, certainly.”
“I’m not going to close the door on any of the solutions that may be presented to me over the next couple of months as we seek to finalize the draft. But we’ve not made a decision one way or another as to the language that will be included in either the name of the offence, or the specific language included in the new provisions we’ll be looking to add.”
Megan Walker, a longtime advocate for victims and preventing violence against women, says Fraser’s statement makes her “cautiously optimistic.”
“It’s the first time that there’s been any acknowledgement that femicide could potentially be incorporated into the Criminal Code of Canada, so I’m encouraged.”
The London, Ont.-based advocate, a member of the city’s police board — which has called for it to be defined in law—says that d oing so would allow for more accurate data collection.
Police across Canada operate in a patchwork of how they report these killings, referring to them as an “intimate partner death” or, in other cases, a “domestic homicide.”
Other times, police do not disclose any such details. That includes the cases of a murder-suicide when no charge is laid, but a woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner.
National Post contacted police services across Canada to confirm whether they use “femicide.” Police in Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Edmonton said they do not, but rather stick to definitions outlined in the Criminal Code.
“The motivation for a crime is carefully investigated and ultimately proven in court,” Toronto police spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer wrote in an email.
She added that Toronto police became the first in Canada to lay a terrorism charge in connection to a homicide linked to a hatred of women, when it did so against a 17-year-old, who pled guilty in the stabbing death of 24-year-old Ashley Noelle Arzaga, whose 2020 death police said was inspired by the incel movement.
“The classification of a homicide as ‘femicide’ highlights the gender-based motivation behind the crime, but it does not change the legal charge or outcome of the case, as it’s not in the Criminal Code,” Sayer said.
A spokesperson for Montreal police said, besides not being defined in the Criminal Code, “there’s no uniformity” in how “femicide” is used.
Peel police said it uses “femicide”, as does the Ottawa Police Service, which said it began doing so last August when it announced murder charges against the husband of Jennifer Zabarylo, who was found dead in the couple’s home. Ottawa police said it established its definition based on 14 different factors.
Robin Percival, a spokeswoman for the RCMP, the main police service for the country’s rural and remote areas, said in a statement that it was looking at examples such as Ottawa police, with the goal of establishing its own definition.
The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, which was established in 2017, has been tracking the killings of women and girls, including through media reports, and has produced several reports detailing the circumstances of their deaths, from locations to how they were killed, to the nature of their relationship to the accused.
It is among the most prominent groups that say defining femicide in Canadian criminal law would improve data on the issue nationwide.
Kat Owens, the interim legal director of the LEAF, which stands for Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, says there is “value” to defining it in the Criminal Code, but adds looking at the criminal legal system alone to deal with gender-based violence is insufficient.
“We know that we can’t address what we don’t measure.”
She said she views the push to change the Criminal Code to include “femicide” as largely being a step towards better data collection, as well as raising awareness, and that a parliamentary committee should carefully study the issue.
“Anytime we’re adding something into the Criminal Code that has additional elements that need to be proven, then we have a question of OK, well what kind of evidence do you need?”, which she said is the case when it comes to questions of intent.
Owens pointed to the Liberals’ promise of making femicide a first-degree murder offence, which is reserved for killings police believe to be pre-planned.
She said caution should be exercised with the proposed change, saying it essentially “removes any sort of incentive for a guilty plea,” as compared to when a charge of second-degree murder is laid, where pre-planning was not a factor.
“You might see a victim’s family put through a trial where the person might have pleaded guilty if there were other options on the table, but realistically, people are much less likely to plead guilty to first-degree murder, given the sentence of life without eligibility for parole for 25 years.”
In his recent interview, Fraser confirmed he was discussing the possibility of creating a “presumptive charge of first-degree murder,” based on a killing motivated by hatred of women.
“But the precise nature, whether it’s a unique offence, an aggravating factor or some other mechanism that we use in the (Criminal Code) is something that I owe conversations to important stakeholders before we finalize,” he said.
Walker said she wants to see the issue of adding femicide to the Criminal Code studied as a separate issue, apart from other justice reforms the government plans to make, with families of victims invited to share their experiences.
“I have worked with many, many families whose children were killed, and they use the term femicide because they say that it best represents what’s happened to their child,” she said.
“If we cannot respect the views of families who have lost their children, then I think we are failing all women across the nation.”
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