City council declares unanimous support for federal coercive control bill

Sault Ste. Marie City Council passed a motion on Monday to support a federal bill to strengthen laws in Canada around intimate partner violence. The Sault father of murder victim Caitlin Jennings says if the proposed law had been in place, he believes his daughter would still be alive today.

City council discussed the federal private members Bill C332, which seeks to add coercive control to the Criminal Code of Canada. The motion was brought forward by Ward 3 councillor Angela Caputo and seconded by Lisa Vezeau-Allen of Ward 2.

According to the motion, the Government of Canada names coercive control as an act included in intimate partner violence, but does not include coercive control as a standalone offence contained within the Criminal Code.

In a unanimous vote on Monday, city council agreed to lend its support to the bill while family members of victims affected by intimate partner violence watched from the gallery.

Dan Jennings lost his 22-year-old daughter Caitlin in July when she was found dead in a London, Ont. home. Her fiance, age 50, was arrested at the scene.

Immediately after the meeting of council, Jennings told SooToday the support he has received from the community since sharing his daughter's story has been incredible.

“My little bit of being uncomfortable and my little bit of my pain doesn't compare to what Caitlin experienced her final moments. So I have to be strong for her," he said of the difficulty in sharing that story.

He said council's decision to support Bill C332 gives him positive hope that his voice and the voice of other victims' families will be heard to prevent similar tragedies from happening to others.

"If this was already a law in place, I have no doubt Caitlin would have been saved," he said of the bill.

Brian Sweeney was also in attendance Monday with Renee Buczel, longtime friend of his slain daughter Angie Sweeney.

In the months since his daughter was killed in a mass shooting that devastated Sault Ste. Marie, Sweeney has twice met face-to-face with the prime minister, stood with victims of gun violence in Montreal and travelled to Ottawa to urge senators to pass Bill C-21, which contained measures improving the way police deal with domestic violence cases involving firearms.

"That's what I like about the Sault, the support is here," said Sweeney. "We hear it from people everywhere — everywhere I go people stop and talk to me and want to hug me and say: ‘we back you 100 per cent.’

Sweeney and the Angie's Angels group have been working hard in the past few months to advocate for the changes needed at every level of government to put a stop to intimate partner violence. He doesn't think it should be so difficult for governments to get behind such legislation.

"Is there a man alive that could stand up to anybody and say they think that it's right for a man to be hitting a woman, or their children or cousins, aunts, grandparents, whatever," he said. “I don’t care how big the bear is, I'm willing to poke it.” 

On Wednesday, Jennings appeared at Queen's Park to show support for another piece of legislation, the provincial Bill 173, which seeks to have intimate partner violence declared an epidemic in Ontario.

On Monday, Sweeney addressed the fact the Ontairo PC party and Premier Doug Ford had so far not supported calling the issue an epidemic.

"If Mr. Ford doesn't like the word up epidemic, let’s call it what it is — it’s a God damned plague," said Sweeney. "This is a health issue. It's taking lives but nobody's paying attention to it."

At Queen's Park on Wednesday, the government house leader told the legislature the government would indeed be supporting the bill.

Buczel said the federal Bill C332 and provincial Bill 173 go "hand in hand."

"I think they're both what needs to happen, what needs to change, and so we're really intrigued to see how both of those play out," she said of the two bills.

"We had unanimous support here [at city council] because this community has lived that tragedy and we need to make change so no other community lives through what we experienced here," said Buczel.

In October, Sault Ste. Marie City Council made its own declaration that intimate partner violence was an epidemic.