The little girl behind Keira’s Law was the best daughter Jennifer Kagan-Viater could ask for – smart, caring, gentle yet fierce, and captured your heart the minute you met her.
She, and all the victims of intimate partner violence were remembered during a celebration of the passage of Keira’s Law.
More than 100 supporters, including several politicians, representatives of women’s shelters, Halton Regional Police (HRP) and friends, gathered yesterday (Aug. 17) at Burlington's Millcroft Park for an afternoon of remembrance, appreciation for those responsible for the passage of the law and reflection on coercive control and domestic abuse.
“Her JK teacher said her favourite time of day was free play,” said Kagan-Viater. “Perhaps this was a way to escape from the trauma and harsh reality in the care of her father that she was experiencing. She was an old soul and able to connect with people of all ages. Keira always wanted to do the right thing and, like me, felt a need to fight for those who had suffered injustice, whether on the playground or in the classroom. Knowing Keira's nature, her untimely and sickeningly unjust end to life becomes even more horrific.
“This little girl deserved a full life, filled with happy memories, play dates and time with her little brother, who she calls her favourite person in the world, and also her cousins who she loved. From the bottom of her heart, Keira wanted to change the world.”
Now, thanks to Kagan-Viater’s fierce voice, she can.
The new law – federally (Bill C-233) and provincially (Bill 102) – aims to better educate judges and justices of the peace about domestic violence and coercive control to protect other children and women who may be at risk.
Burlington and Halton councils also passed motions earlier this summer declaring domestic violence against women an epidemic.
On Feb. 9, 2020, Keira was spending the weekend with her father, Robin Brown, 35, and was reported missing. HRP later found Keira and her father dead at the bottom of Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area in Milton.
Kagan-Viater had sought limits on her ex-husband’s access to her daughter, and believes the incident was murder-suicide.
A judge had found evidence against Brown, but decided it wasn’t urgent enough to prohibit contact with the four-year-old.
Now, Kagan-Viater is serving as an advocate for Keira and other victims.
And she’s powerful.
Keira’s step-dad and Kagan-Viater’s husband spoke about his wife’s strength.
“Getting a private member bill passed, that’s even more impossible, and getting it passed on the unanimous basis by all party lines, that is remarkable,” Philip Viater said. “I know it shouldn’t have happened, but I also know my wife and she wasn’t going to stop and she didn’t stop.”
He also spoke about Keira, who he viewed as his actual daughter.
“Keira was a joy. This was the little girl that would write poetry,” he said. “She would start rapping and she would start spinning out rhymes and then wait for me to do it. And when I explained to her that no, I can’t do it, she would encourage me. ‘Good job, Phil. Good job.'
“She would ask questions such as, ‘Why is an orange called an orange? Why is a chair called a chair?’ And other mind-boggling questions to which I unfortunately wasn't skilled enough to answer,” he continued. “But that was Keira, and now we're here and we wish she was here today. But we have Keira’s Law.”
As a family law lawyer, he said he sees the impact and shifts in the thinking of judges and social workers and some lawyers.
“When Keira's Law passed it was validation…for victims of domestic violence, for those who wanted to protect their children,” he said.
“I can't say overnight, everything changes. All I could say is that it starts a movement. It starts a shift. It brings the topic of domestic violence, intimate partner violence and control into the mainstream. It gets it from out of the shadows. And the more we talk about it, the more that we tell judges, social workers, everyone else who's involved in the family law system, that you must take this seriously. This is important. This is lifesaving. Eventually, I'm hopeful over time we're going to have a completely new culture."
He said he receives emails regularly, from survivors and from lawyers across Canada.
“Keira’s Law is being spoken….I could list every province….it’s making meaningful and impactful changes,” he said, and thanked everyone for making that happen.
Keira’s Law was tabled in 2022 after Oakville North—Burlington Liberal MP Pam Damoff and Quebec MP Anju Dhillon led the way. It was passed into law by the Senate last April. It would later get Royal Assent in the provincial legislature when spearheaded by Oakville North—Burlington MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos.
In addition to better education, the bill also amends the Criminal Code to allow a judge to consider ordering someone who has committed an offence against their intimate partner to wear an electronic monitoring device if it’s thought they pose a safety or security risk.
Damoff called Keira a beacon of hope now.
“To see a little girl whose life could have been saved, but the judge didn’t see the connection, and what could happen to little Keira,” she said emotionally, adding she is grateful to know Jennifer and Philip.
Meed Ward was equally emotional, choking back tears as she said the law passed because of people opening their hearts.
“It happened because you tore yourself apart and made yourself vulnerable and told us your story. I cannot even imagine how hard that is every day,” she said. “Your story, as horrible as it is, is the gift that got us here. The fact that you told it.”
She said when Damoff spoke about Keira’s Law at an International Women’s Day lunch, hearts were broken. But, she said that’s the fuel that keeps you going to make change.
“And so in Burlington, we could use our voice to say, this needs to stop. And, coercive control is the hardest to identify because it doesn't leave a bruise. And that's why education is needed. But we know it is just as deadly. And so when we think about the magnitude of this day that we're here to honour and celebrate it, it truly is unbelievable. And yet, when people open their hearts, anything is possible and everything is possible.”
She said the conversation around coercive control – a pattern of abusive behaviour used to control victims that may not involve physical violence, but instead involves emotional abuse, psychological abuse, gaslighting or financial abuse – affects women and girls who see themselves in those stories.
“They have thought about the way they're being treated and have probably for the first time come to understand it's not OK…and there is help, and we stand with you,” Meed Ward said. “I think that is another piece of the lasting legacy that is here. So I just want to say from the bottom of my wide open heart, how grateful I am for you and for each of you. And for people who put party politics aside as we all should.”
