Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape of men or women, including spousal rape, as sexual assault, and the government enforced the law effectively. Penalties for sexual assault carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison, up to 14 years for sexual assault with a restricted or prohibited firearm, and between four years and life for aggravated sexual assault with a firearm or committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization. Most victims of sexual assault were women.
The law provides protections against domestic violence for both men and women, although most victims were women. Although the criminal code does not define specific domestic violence offenses, an abuser can be charged with an applicable offense, such as assault, aggravated assault, intimidation, mischief, or sexual assault. Persons convicted of assault receive up to five years in prison. Assaults involving weapons, threats, or injuries carry terms of up to 10 years. Aggravated assault or endangerment of life carry prison sentences of up to 14 years. The government enforced the law effectively.
According to the government’s statistical agency, indigenous women were three times more likely than nonindigenous women to experience violent abuse and, according to the RCMP, were four times more likely to be victims of homicide. Civil society groups also claimed federal and subnational governments failed to allocate adequate resources to address these cases.
The federal government launched an independent national inquiry into the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women in 2016 with a mandate to report by the end of 2018. In March the inquiry body requested a two-year extension of its mandate and an additional 50 million Canadian dollars (C$) ($38.4 million) budget, but on June 5, the federal government granted a limited extension to allow the inquiry to submit its final report by April 30, 2019, and to end all operations by June 30, 2019. The inquiry is a collaborative federal-provincial exercise, and the federal government stated some provincial governments did not agree to extend the mandate for hearings, leaving only the option of extra time for writing the report. As of August, in addition to increased funding for the inquiry, the federal government allocated C$37.1 million ($28.5 million) for health-support services, family support, police investigative services, and a commemorative fund for victims in response to the inquiry’s interim reports. Indigenous and other critics criticized the inquiry for a slow work schedule.
Police received training in treating victims of domestic violence, and agencies provided hotlines to report abuse. In 2017 the RCMP, Ontario and Quebec provincial police services, and various municipal police forces announced reviews of their handling of sexual assault allegations. This review followed an investigative media report analyzing 870 police jurisdictions between 2010 and 2014 that found police dismissed complaints of sexual assault as “unfounded” without laying charges at an average national rate of 19 percent, with reported rates as high as 60 percent in some jurisdictions. As of December 2017, police had placed more than 37,000 case files under review across the country, of which they had reopened 402 cases of sexual assault previously deemed “unfounded” and determined 6,348 sexual assault cases had been misclassified. Some participating police forces announced they had initiated, or would launch, new training programs on policing sexual violence and its impact on victims. The same month a study by the national statistical agency of sexual assault cases between 2009 and 2014 across the country found one in five sexual assault cases substantiated by police went to court and an estimated one in 10 resulted in a conviction. The study estimated 5 per cent of sexual assaults in the country were reported to authorities. On January 19, the province of Nova Scotia hired two new prosecutors dedicated solely to sexual violence cases and to providing advice and specialized training to other Nova Scotia prosecutors.
The government’s Family Violence Initiative involved 15 federal departments, agencies, and crown corporations, including Status of Women Canada, Health Canada, and Justice Canada. These entities worked with civil society organizations to eliminate violence against women and advance women’s human rights. In 2017 the government launched a national strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence, budgeting C$101 million ($77.6 million) over five years to create a center of excellence within Status of Women Canada for research, data collection, and programming. In June the 2018 federal budget allocated an additional C$86 million ($66 million) over five years, starting in 2018-19, and C$20 million ($15.4 million) per year thereafter, to expand the strategy with a focus on preventing teen dating violence, bullying, and cyberbullying; health care for victims; investigative policing; police training; research; funding for rape crisis and sexual assault centers; and programs to prevent gender-based violence in postsecondary educational institutions. Provincial and municipal governments also sought to address violence against women, often in partnership with civil society.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C of women and girls and prosecutes the offense, including parents of minors, as aggravated assault with a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. FGM/C was practiced on occasion in the country, predominantly in diaspora communities. While internal government reports obtained by media organizations asserted that FGM/C practitioners and victims often travelled to a third country to provide the illegal procedure, officials also sought to prevent the entry of FGM/C practitioners into Canada. In 2016 the government instructed border services officers to monitor inbound baggage for FGM/C equipment and to be aware of young female nationals returning from regions where they may be subjected to the practice.
Sexual Harassment: The law offers protections from sexual harassment at the workplace but does not articulate a specific offense of “sexual harassment” outside of work; instead it criminalizes harassment (defined as stalking), punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, and sexual assault, with penalties ranging from 10 years for nonaggravated sexual assault to life imprisonment for aggravated sexual assault. Federal, provincial, and territorial human rights commissions have responsibility for investigating and resolving harassment complaints. Employers, companies, unions, educational facilities, professional bodies, and other institutions had internal policies against sexual harassment, and federal and provincial governments provided public education and advice.
Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.
Discrimination: Women have the same legal status and rights in the judicial system as men, and the government enforced the rights effectively. On May 1, the federal government passed legislation requiring companies in federally regulated sectors to file annual reports on the gender and racial diversity of their boards and on their diversity policies. The government reported women accounted for 48 percent of the workforce but held an estimated 14 percent of all seats on domestic corporate boards and an estimated 22 percent of seats in Financial Post 500 companies. Seven provinces and two territories require private-sector companies to report annually on their efforts to increase the number of women appointed to executive corporate boards. The government’s statistical agency reported hourly wages for women were, on average, lower than for men but that the wage gap had narrowed over the past two decades. On May 25, the Ontario government passed legislation to require employers to report salaries broken down by gender and other factors to promote transparency in pay and help close a gender wage gap. The measures apply first to the provincial public service and are to extend to private-sector employers in a staggered rollout over three years based on organizations’ number of employees.
Indigenous women living on reservations (where land is held communally) have matrimonial property rights. First Nations may choose to follow federal law or enact their own rules related to matrimonial real property rights and interests that respect their customs.
Indigenous women and men living on reserves are subject to the Indian Act, which defines status for the purposes of determining entitlement to a range of legislated rights and eligibility for federal programs and services. In December 2017 the federal government eliminated inequalities in the act that had prevented indigenous women from transmitting officially recognized Indian status to their descendants on the same basis as indigenous men. The change resulted from a 2015 Superior Court of Quebec ruling that the act violated equality rights provided for in the country’s constitution.