“I want to see the province step up and look at my original letter that got hand delivered to Mark Carney,” said Debbie Henderson to politicians at the B.C. Legislature on May 26.
Henderson is the aunt of Bailey McCourt, a Kelowna woman killed during a brazen, daytime attack on July 4, 2025. McCourt’s estranged ex-husband, James Plover, has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.
On the day of McCourt’s death, Plover had been found guilty that morning in Kelowna for uttering threats and strangulation. Hours later, Plover is alleged to have attacked McCourt in broad daylight outside her place of employment. A friend and coworker of McCourt, Carrie Wiebe, suffered serious injuries from the altercation.
Henderson said her letter requested GPS monitoring with real-time alerts for victims.
“One of the biggest issues that I have is these protection orders. Are you expecting a woman to stand there and paper cut the individual? It’s a piece of paper, and there’s no protection,” the aunt stated.
When asked about her feelings on the federal government’s response, Henderson said it’s both a fast and slow process.
“We need our communities to see that the government is stepping up and doing something quickly… We need something now,” Henderson commented that government bill C-16 takes precedent, delaying action on Bailey’s Law.
B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma said there’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t think about McCourt.
“We attacked the government bill for three reasons,” Sharma said. “One was about the choking and suffocation, that should be grounds for serious action against an individual because it can lead to more harm, the presumption of a first-degree murder charge, and a correction between conviction and sentencing so that what happened to Bailey can never happen again.”
Sharma said a meeting is taking place later in the week with experts to discuss creating better risk and safety assessments.