A sweeping overhaul of the Criminal Code to reflect crime prevalent in today's society has been introduced on Parliament Hill.
Federal Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser announced on Tuesday the introduction of the Protecting Victims Act, which includes new protections for victims of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and gender-based violence.
The legislation also includes stiffer penalties under the Criminal Code for those convicted of predation against children.
The changes proposed in the bill include classifying hate-based murder, including femicide, as first-degree, making coercive control a crime in an effort to encourage intervention before an intimate partner violence situation becomes fatal, and increasing penalties for selling or distributing sexual deepfakes without the participant's consent.
Fraser said the overhaul was the product of extensive feedback from crime victims and law enforcement, and it took today's technology into serious consideration.
"We recognize at the same time that it creates the potential for abuse," said Fraser. "We are seeing a gap that exists in the Criminal Code, and we are fixing that today, to ensure that artificial intelligence deepfakes will be recognized when it comes to charging people for the non-consensual disclosure of intimate images."
Quebec MP Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique de Montréal massacre, stressed the importance of including femicide in the Criminal Code update.
"Women who are killed simply because they are women do not vanish into silence," said Provost. "They become part of a long and painful history shaped by discrimination and hatred."
The bill would also modify the Criminal Code to reflect stiffer penalties on those convicted of offences in which the victims are children. These would include mandatory sentences for those convicted of crimes related to child sexual abuse and exploitation material, stronger measures to affect online exploitation and child luring, and penalties against criminal groups for recruiting, grooming, and exploiting young people in criminal enterprises.
Fraser said that intimate partner violence is more pervasive than it has ever been, and chances are, everyone likely knows someone who is a victim.
"These are real people in real communities," said Fraser. "For some of us, that's the classmates that we grew up with, who we used to visit, who grew up down the street. For others, it is our coworkers whom we no longer see at the office. And for others, it is the immediate family members whose lives have ended too soon."
The bill, known as C-16, was formally introduced on Monday in the House of Commons and has undergone first reading.
