December 9, 2025
RED FM News Desk
Federal lawmakers introduced new legislation Tuesday that would classify murders motivated by control, hate, sexual violence or exploitation as first-degree murder — and define such killings of women as femicide.
Under current law, some gender-based murders are treated as first-degree, while others fall under second-degree. The proposed Protecting Victims Act aims to close that gap by establishing femicide as a distinct legal category with automatically harsher penalties.
The bill would also criminalize patterns of coercive or controlling behaviour toward an intimate partner — conduct that is not currently a specific offence under the Criminal Code.
In addition, the legislation seeks to strengthen protections around privacy by expanding the existing ban on the non-consensual distribution of intimate images to include non-consensual deepfake content.
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