Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on Friday pledged tougher sentencing for intimate partner violence and to repeal the Liberals’ soft-on-crime legislation, bills C-75, C-5, and C-83.
Poilievre, in efforts to tackle the “epidemic of intimate partner violence,” promised the “strictest possible conditions for anyone accused of intimate partner violence and stronger jail time for abusers.”
The Tories plan to create a new offence, “assault of an intimate partner,” under the Criminal Code and change intimate partner murder from “manslaughter” to “first-degree murder.”
Anyone who is accused of domestic violence will have the “strictest bail conditions” possible imposed on them, “including GPS ankle bracelet monitoring, with any breach of conditions resulting in immediate imprisonment.”
“The government has failed the most vulnerable Canadians,” said Poilievre at a press conference in Trois-Rivières, QC.
“Those who abuse their partners or their children should be off the streets and behind bars where they can’t harm their victims or anyone else. A new Conservative government will make sure our justice system always puts victims, not criminals, first.”
A press release from the Conservatives states, “From 2009 to 2014, family violence and intimate partner violence were on the decline, with 2014 marking the lowest rate ever recorded in Canada.”
“Since 2015, Canada has witnessed a violent crime wave. Family and intimate partner violence have increased by 19%, while sexual assaults and sexual violations against children have risen by 75% and 119%, respectively.”
“A new Conservative government will lock up violent abusers so they cannot hurt their victims or anyone else,” said Poilievre.
