Forgive me if my introduction is repetitive from last week, when my Internet dropped. I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak again today.

By way of introduction, I'm an ex-RCMP officer of nine years' service who attended many so-called domestic disputes during my service. I was also at that time on the board of the North Shore Women's Centre in North Vancouver, B.C., as a police adviser. I'd like to point out that this was some 40 years ago, and here we are still.

I've also worked as an Ontario government investigator and investigative manager for Ombudsman Ontario, particularly in the field of corrections. I retired as a director of enterprise-wide services in the Government of Ontario. Further, I'm certified as a Canadian human resources leader.

Sadly, I'm also the mother of 26-year-old Lindsay Margaret Wilson, born July 30, 1986, my precious daughter and best friend, who was stalked and shot to death by her ex-intimate partner, a legal gun owner who had guns and a licence he never should have been granted, in a murder-suicide on April 5, 2013, in Bracebridge, Ontario, just two weeks before completing her graduating exams. I received her degree at Nipissing University posthumously.

I want to emphasize to the committee that my daughter's assassin—yes, that's what I call him—had never been violent with her until the day he murdered her in cold blood. He was clean-cut, articulate and from a well-to-do family of professionals in the community in which he lived. He was also manipulative, artful and controlling with my daughter in a number of ways. He'd tell her she was the love of his life, but would undermine her self-confidence by constantly criticizing her looks, her weight—when she was slim, not overweight—her clothing choices, etc. She left the relationship twice when she caught him drug dealing behind her back. That was another manipulation, as he was not the person he purported to be.

The first time, he lured her back with letters articulating his love for her, his apologies and the inevitable promises of changed behaviour. Occasionally, he threatened suicide by firearm to keep her with him. We must understand that threats of suicide to keep someone in a relationship are a form of coercive control, since they terrify the recipient of the threats. She kept these from me initially, sadly, as she knew how I'd react.

He also incessantly held over her head the matter of an $85 phone bill he claimed she owed him. My daughter, a principled person, didn't agree that this money was owed. She also strongly believed that since she had unwittingly been duped into paying many of the costs in their relationship, she definitely owed him nothing. Since drug dealing had been his only income, he didn't want to pay for anything in cash. I even offered to give her the money to pay him so that he would stop harassing her about it, but she refused on principle.

In January 2012 he threatened to commit suicide by firearm over three hours on the phone with her after she'd caught him drug dealing again and had broken off the relationship for good. She severed all contact with him. He then kept trying to contact her through blocked-number phone calls, through friends, through social media and through letters he wrote to her again professing undying love and that it was all his fault, but still adding content to undermine her self-esteem. He continued to bring up the phone bill.

She read me the final letter about three weeks before her murder. There was no hint in the letter of any threat or of his escalating anger towards her, but I pointed out to her how manipulative, deceptive and undermining the letter was. In one sentence he'd praise her. In the next sentence he'd find fault. We were afraid to get a restraining order, because I knew as an ex-police officer that its service on him might be the very thing that tipped him over the edge into violence. I also knew that if he showed up at her door with a gun, it would be too late to get help.

We also thought at the time, incorrectly, that his driver's licence was suspended and that he couldn't reach her five hours away. But he did drive five hours. He found her car and stalked her that week to find her home. He surprised her with a shotgun in the driveway. While she pleaded for her life, he shot her with both pellets and slugs at close range, centre body mass—a clearly fatal injury. She survived for only about 20 minutes. Police told me she was in shock and in no pain, but that she knew she was dying. That's horrific for a mother to learn.

I've been lobbying for a criminal coercive control offence since I learned England and Scotland had done this, and have monitored how such cases have been faring in the U.K. justice system. It's clear that police are indeed laying the charges. In fact, to date, there are over 1,000.

However, it's now emerging that too many are failing in court because judges and defence counsel are arguing, but he didn't hit you, did he, so it couldn't have been that bad? It appears they don't understand the legal definition of coercive control as non-violent behaviour of the accused towards the victim.

This demands the education of the criminal justice system regarding coercive control as an absolute necessity in implementation of that bill, as was done in Keira's law. Abused women are at greater danger of harm if such charges fail in court because personnel don't understand the intent and meaning of the law. Monitoring of charges and convictions initially must also ensure there's no adverse impact on identifiable groups, such as indigenous persons or people of colour.

Finally, I firmly believe, as an ex-police officer, that a conviction for coercive control in one's criminal history will serve as an evidentiary building block to corroborate any future pattern of behaviour that might progress to violence, or worse, femicide.

Thank you for listening and for your time.

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