Premier David Eby promised he'd meet with the family of Kelowna murder victim Bailey McCourt on Monday after making an appearance with federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser.
McCourt was killed in a Kelowna parking lot on July 4.
Her former husband, James Plover, was later charged with second-degree murder. Plover had been released on $500 bail hours before the murder, having been convicted of choking a person.
Eby, speaking in Victoria, said he was working with the Liberals in Ottawa to change the law on both bail and intimate partner violence.
He said his attorney general, Niki Sharma, had “worked closely” with the federal government with the aim of “ensuring that we don't see another situation like that that took the life of Bailey McCourt.”
“To know that no one will ever be killed like that again is crucially important for British Columbians,” he said.
Fraser, meanwhile, said the bail reform aspect of Bill C-14 was influenced by lobbying from the BC government.
Eby, though, said the Liberals had not granted the McCourt family everything they’d asked for, adding: “We continue to advocate for the reforms the family is asking for, related to a presumption around first-degree murder.”
The BC Conservatives, who are backing a federal Conservative bill (C-225) on crime reform instead, said the McCourt family has expressed “deep disappointment in Premier David Eby and Attorney General Nikki Sharma.”
“The Premier said he supported their advocacy for legislative change to protect victims of intimate partner violence, yet now refuses to stand behind Bailey’s Law,” the party said in a statement released on Monday.
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“The family’s grief and frustration are understandable. Once the spotlight was off, the NDP left them behind. This government seems more concerned about the optics of supporting a Conservative bill than about saving women’s lives.”
The opposition’s statement also included a comment from Debbie Henderson, a representative of the McCourt family.
She said: “The Premier said he supported our advocacy for legislative change to protect victims of intimate partner violence, so we are extremely disappointed that the NDP has now chosen not to stand behind federal Bill C-225, Bailey’s Law.
“We are also disappointed that Attorney General Nikki Sharma has yet to honour her promise to meet with us. Our family has lived the consequences of a system that fails to protect victims, and we will not settle for lip service from political leaders.”
The outcome of Eby’s meeting with the family on Monday has yet to be revealed.
But in response to Henderson’s comments, Eby said yesterday he shares the family’s “impatience entirely,” adding: “I'm glad that we are addressing some of the issues that came out of that case, that horrific attack that took place.”
He went on: "It's not everything that they want yet; it's not everything I want yet. So we will continue to work with the federal government on this."
The Tory bill, which was tabled by Kamloops MP Frank Caputo, would make the killing of an intimate partner first-degree murder regardless of whether it met the usual threshold for that charge.
The Liberals’ bill, meanwhile, would introduce tougher sentences for certain crimes and put the burden of proof in bail applications on the accused rather than the prosecution.
