-by April MacDonald
This week I listened to a news report out of Brockville, Ontario, where a 17-year-old man allegedly stabbed and killed a 17-year-old girl, her 15-year-old sister, and their mother.
I stood in the kitchen with tears in my eyes.
What must be done in this country for lawmakers, political parties, the RCMP, and the justice system to actually want to protect women and children?
Or do they?
Then I remembered Bailey McCourt.
Bailey McCourt was a British Columbia woman and mother who was killed in July of 2025 by her ex-husband shortly after he was released on bail.
Her death is just another “one of those” that advocates said was “a preventable failure of the justice system.”
She lived in terror for over a year, following an attack in June of 2024 where her estranged husband, James Plover, was charged with assault for choking her and uttering threats.
On the morning of July 4th, 2025, her estranged husband was convicted of these charges.
Despite his conviction, he was not held in custody and was allowed to leave the courthouse with a promise to appear at a later sentencing hearing.
Less than three hours after leaving court, Plover allegedly attacked McCourt and a friend with a hammer in a Kelowna parking lot as they returned from lunch.
McCourt died from her injuries in the hospital later that day.
McCourt’s family, led by her aunt and uncle, launched a national advocacy campaign to reform Canada’s bail and domestic violence laws.
Their efforts resulted in the introduction of Bill C-225, which aims to make certain that people with a history of intimate partner violence are subject to stricter bail conditions and that such homicides are automatically classified as first-degree murder.
Her estranged husband was initially charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was upgraded to first-degree murder in November 2025.
What lawmakers, her family, and advocates against intimate partner violence have created is called Bailey’s Law (Bill C-225). This proposed Canadian legislation is designed to strengthen the criminal code regarding intimate partner violence – the bill is supposed to protect victims by restricting dangerous offenders.
What’s more is that it has cleared House of Commons hurdles and passed a third reading in the House of Commons on April 27th.
The key proposed changes – far too long in the making are:
1) Automatic First-Degree Murder Charge: Modifies the Criminal Code to define the killing of an intimate partner as first-degree murder, recognizing the inherent risk and premeditation often involved in abusive relationships.
2) Strict Bail Conditions and Assessments: Mandates that a judge (not a police officer) must review bail for any individual with a prior domestic violence conviction in the last five years.
3) Seven-Day “Red Flag” Detention: Empowers courts to hold individuals charged with domestic assault for up to seven days for a formal risk assessment if “red flags” are present, even without a prior breach of bail.
4) Expansion of Offenses: Recognizes and expands laws around coercive control and persistent abuse within intimate partner relationships.
The bill has received significant support from both opposition and government members in the House of Commons.
For too long women have suffered in silence and fear and shame.
The innumerable preventable and tragic deaths that have taken place in this country is enough to make a person sick.
We need to keep dangerous individuals in custody rather than releasing them back to their homes or communities after a violent incident.
We need to create a new specific offence of murder in the first degree if the murder is committed against an intimate partner and follows a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct.
If an offender commits manslaughter against their intimate partner while engaging in, or after having engaged in, a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct, the court must impose a sentence of imprisonment for life on the offender and, if that sentence is imposed, an adult offender is ineligible for parole for 10 to 25 years.
Create new offences where violence is used, threatened, or attempted against an intimate partner.
An emergency protection order or restraining order is nothing but a piece of paper.
If an offender is released they must wear an ankle bracelet to keep women and children safe whether they are a repeat or a first-time.
The time for talking and talking is over; the time to protect victims of intimate partner violence is now.
Enough is enough.