Treating male violence as hate in Canada (LEG00263)

Overview

Delivery method

Virtual classroom

Duration

1.5 hours

Audience

Employees

Description

NOTE: This event will take place mostly in English, without simultaneous translation.

Join Dr Myrna Dawson, director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, and Dr Debra M. Haak, Co-Director of Feminist Legal Studies at Queen’s University, for this presentation in which they examine sex-motivated hate, and the violence that results from sex-motivated hate in Canada, to explore its absolute and relative visibility.

Sex is included as a targeted social group in hate crime laws in Canada, and some incidents of male violence against women and girls (MVAWG) could be recognized as sex-motivated hate crimes. Often, however, crimes of male violence are neither treated as hate crimes nor reported as sex-motivated. The presenters consider whether and how sex is reflected in crime reporting data, sentencing, and public discourse, and demonstrate that violence motivated by sex is rarely identified as hate crime by legal actors tasked with enforcing and implementing criminal offence and sentencing provisions. They conclude by providing steps that could be taken to ensure sex-motivated hate, including sex-motivated violence, is recognized as a form of hate like other more commonly recognized targeted groups going forward.

Learning Objectives / Topics covered

• Participants will learn about the current legislative framework applicable to hate-motivated crime in Canada and about the targeted social groups identified in legislation.
• Participants will learn data and statistics about sex-motivated hate and the violence that results from it in Canada, sex being one of the targeted social groups identified in legislation.
• Participants will gain an increased understanding of why violence motivated by hatred toward women is relatively invisible in crime-reporting data, sentencing and public discourse, and the importance of an intersectional lens to capture the complex experiences of hate crime victims.
• Participants will learn of steps that can be taken to ensure that hate-motivated violence against women and girls is recognized as a form of hate like other more commonly recognized targeted groups going forward.
• Participants will reflect on the reasons that sex-motivated violence is relatively under-recognized as such, and will be able to act on this knowledge to support substantive equality, including in the workplace.

About the Presenters

Dr. Myrna Dawson is a professor of sociology at the University of Guelph in Canada. She is director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence and the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability and is Senior Advisor for the Femicide Watch Platform, a joint project of the United Nations Studies Association (UNSA) Global Network and the UNSA Vienna Femicide Team. Her research examines responses to violence against women and children. Dr Dawson appeared as an expert witness on domestic violence in the Desmond Fatality Inquiry, which investigated a mass murder of women.

Dr. Debra M. Haak is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, where she teaches criminal and constitutional law. Her research focuses on law in the context of interests, rights, and values in tension. Dr Haak’s work on the Charter, competing conceptions of equality, criminal prostitution laws, and sex workers’ rights has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and in Parliamentary Committee reports. She has been retained by the Attorney General of Canada to provide expert testimony based on her research and regularly consults with Crown counsel across Canada.

Registration deadline: 2 working days prior to the course date.

• Please note, due to system limitations, late registration requests will not be able to be processed for this event.

Participants are responsible for adding their training activities to their Outlook calendars.

Accommodation measures: The Department of Justice is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free learning environment. If you have any accessibility needs in order to fully participate in the training activity, please contact your manager to discuss your needs. You may also call upon the services of the Centre for Workplace Access-Ability, Health and Wellness to help identify what type of accommodation measures you require.

For more information: Contact the Centre for Legal Education Services.

For information about the continuing professional development (CPD) hours for this course, please consult the 2025 Accreditation Summary.

If you have questions concerning the accreditation process, please contact our accreditation team by email (Accreditations@justice.gc.ca).