Local MP Caputo tables private member’s bill aiming to crack down on intimate partner violence

The member of parliament for Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola has tabled a private member’s bill that he calls the most substantive change to intimate partner violence laws in Canadian history.

Frank Caputo, the Conservative Party’s critic for public safety, says his private member’s bill includes:

• creating a new offence of assaulting an intimate partner;
• making the murder of an intimate partner first-degree murder in all cases;
• allowing a judge to have a risk assessment conducted while a person is on release;
• streamlining and modernizing the detention of seized goods.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa Thursday (Sept. 18), Caputo says other parties haven’t seen his full private member’s bill, but he’s received positive feedback so far.

“To me, this is a bipartisan issue — an issue that transcends every party,” Caputo says. “I hope the Liberals will get behind this. I hope the Bloc and NDP will get behind this and they get behind it very quickly.”

“This is ultimately up to the Liberals,” Caputo says. “For far too long on crime, safety and justice, they’ve taken a back seat. Conservatives have been beating the drum of victim concerns for so long. It’s time that these concerns come to the forefront for parliamentarians.”

Speaking over the summer, Caputo said he had three or four private member’s bills drafted.

It’s a rare occurrence to have a private member’s bill from the opposition benches enshrined into Canadian law, but Caputo has had success in the past. He authored Bill C-291, a private member’s bill that sought to amend the Criminal Code to replace the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”. C-291 became law in October 2024.