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A private member’s bill aimed at enacting stricter laws around intimate partner violence has cleared a major hurdle.
Bill C-225, also known as Bailey’s Law, passed third reading in the House of Commons Monday.
Bailey’s Law honours the memory of Bailey McCourt.
“Every step, it takes a little bit of the weight off. Every hurdle that we jump, it takes a bit of the weight off,” said Debbie Henderson, Bailey’s aunt and family spokesperson.
“It will never completely take all of that off, but it means a lot.”
The 32-year old mother was fatally attacked in a Kelowna parking lot last July.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Henderson when asked about her feelings on the bill passing third reading. “It comes with a reminder of why we’re here and the position that we’ve been put in and that’s hard.”
McCourt’s ex-husband, James Plover, is charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting a trial date.
“What happened to Bailey, it was very, it was public…with so many bystanders that witnessed it, that tried to help,” a tearful Henderson said.
McCourt’s grief-stricken family has been pushing for change and Bailey’s Law ever since.
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The cause was taken on by Conservative MP for Kamloops-Nicola-Thompson Frank Caputo.
“So many people are still in mourning over Bailey’s death,” Caputo said. “She left behind two children. We can’t forget that in moving this bill forward.”
Caputo introduced the private member’s bill last fall, which includes a number of changes to the Criminal Code to better protect victims and hold offenders more accountable.
“It addresses intimate partner violence in a way that we haven’t seen in, perhaps ever in Canadian legal history,” said Frank Caputo.
“What this does is it says, if somebody is murdered in the process of coercive control, that that becomes first-degree murder. It also creates a unique offence, violence against an intimate partner. That’s also new. It used to just be assault or criminal harassment.”
Passing third reading is no small feat for a private member’s bill, as many don’t even make it this far.
“This bill made it through the House of Commons in what may be record time, in my estimation,” Caputo said.
But now there’s another hurdle.
The bill goes to the Senate for further debate and that could take some time.
“We would be competing with other bills in terms of which bill gets debated,” Caputo said. “Only one bill can be debated at a time. So the question is, which bill should be debated. Typically, private members’ bills, they kind of go to the end of the line.
“If people want to support this bill, please write to your senators. Tell them we want this bill passed and we want it passed very quickly.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Henderson.
“Domestic violence, intimate partner violence is an epidemic in this country and it needs to be prioritized,” Henderson said. “We need laws in place now, not yesterday. We need them now.”
If approved by the Senate, the bill would move to receive royal assent before becoming law.
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