Speaker, I rise today to join the debate on Bill 102, the Strengthening Safety and Modernizing Justice Act, 2023, and I am sharing my time with the member from Kitchener South–Hespeler.

This bill aims to modernize community safety and justice systems and build safer communities by transforming policing and other community safety and justice legislation, freeing up court resources for more serious and backlogged cases, and responding to current and emerging challenges. If passed, this bill would be one of the final steps to bringing the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019, into force with its regulations, which will replace the current Police Services Act.

Speaker, Ontario and other jurisdictions have seen recent increases in violent crime and repeat offences. Since 2014, we have seen a 9% increase in crime, a 20% increase in violent crime, and a 129% increase in the illegal use of firearms in Ontario. Sadly, we have also seen the alarming rate of domestic abuse and violence against women and children grow. Our justice system must be able to address these societal issues so people feel safe in their homes and in our communities.

As the Solicitor General stated, to uphold our community safety is our most fundamental duty.

Today, the focus of my remarks will be on the changes being proposed in schedule 3 of the Courts of Justice Act and schedule 5 of the Justices of the Peace Act. The Chief Justice will be authorized to establish courses for newly appointed judges and for the continuing education of judges. And the Associate Chief Justice Co-ordinator of Justices of the Peace will be authorized to establish courses for newly appointed justices of the peace and for the continuing education of justices of the peace which will address sexual assault law; intimate partner violence; coercive control in intimate partner and family relationships; and social context, which includes systemic racism and systemic discrimination. In order to qualify for appointment as a new provincial judge or a justice of the peace, an individual must give an undertaking to participate in this training. To ensure accountability, the Chief Justice and Associate Chief Justice are to consult with stakeholders, which may include survivors of sexual assault and survivors of intimate partner violence, including Indigenous representatives. And to ensure transparency, no later than February 28 each year, the Chief Justice and the Associate Chief Justice shall provide a report to the Attorney General setting out the courses covered and the number of judges and justices of the peace who attended each course. The report will be tabled in the Legislative Assembly by the Attorney General. These amendments will go a long way to addressing a glaring gap in our Family Court system.

We are here today in large part due to the tireless efforts of Dr. Jennifer Kagan and her spouse, Philip Viater, who made it their life’s work to raise awareness of intimate partner violence and coercive control, and to advocate for protection of victims escaping abusive relationships.

And I do want to recognize that Dr. Kagan and Mr. Viater are with us here today. Thank you.

When I introduced my motion in the Legislature last November, I shared the tragic story of Dr. Kagan and her daughter Keira, who were victims of intimate partner violence and coercive control by her ex-husband. Though she had left him years earlier, Dr. Kagan worried about the safety of her daughter Keira during his unsupervised visits. She said that the abuse did not stop with separation; it only got worse, and Keira was used as a tool to get claws into her. Dr. Kagan went to the courts seeking protection for Keira and expressed concerns about her ex-husband’s violent behaviour and abuse. She was told by one judge that domestic violence is not relevant to parenting and as a result he was going to ignore it. On February 9, 2020, Keira and her father were found dead at the base of a cliff at Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area in Halton region.

The numbers are alarming. In Canada, a woman is murdered every 2.5 days—ranging from 144 to 178 murders each year between 2015 and 2019. And in 2021, the rate of femicide was trending even higher. Speaker, 44% of women in Canada have experienced some form of violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And ending the relationship does not end a woman’s risk of death, as 20% to 22% of intimate partner femicides were perpetrated by estranged spouses within the first 18 months of separation. Of the women murdered, 50% were killed by an intimate partner and 26% by a family member. Women account for 80% of reported incidents of intimate partner violence, which affects all ages, races, ethnicities and socio-economic strata. Young women are, in fact, at highest risk, as are immigrants, refugees, Indigenous people, and those living with disabilities.

In my own community, Halton Women’s Place took in 2,200 crisis calls in 2021. Over the same period, Halton police responded to 3,500 intimate partner violence-related calls, laid 2,000 charges and made almost 900 arrests.

The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses published a report on femicide. From November 26, 2021, to November 25, 2022, 52 women in Ontario died as a result of femicide. According to a report of the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative, it indicated that from 2010 to 2019, 9% of all domestic homicide victims were in fact children. They were killed in the context of domestic violence.

This month, Bill C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner), has just passed the Senate of Canada. This bill is commonly referred to as Keira’s Law. In the third reading of this bill, Senator Pierre Dalphond recognized that federally appointed judges are only one component of the legal system, and to a certain extent, a minor part of it, and that domestic violence is an issue often dealt with by police officers, social workers, family therapists, provincial judges and crown prosecutors, all regulated by provincial laws.

This is what we are doing here today. The bill represents a critical step forward in ensuring that our justice system can better protect victims of intimate partner violence and hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. By requiring judicial education on coercive control and intimate partner violence for provincially appointed judges and justices of the peace, we can ensure that they have the knowledge needed to appropriately understand the complexities of these cases and ensure that victims and their children receive the support and justice they deserve.

The tragic death of Keira Kagan is a heartbreaking reminder of the devastating impact that intimate partner violence and coercive control can have on women and children. While we cannot undo the loss of Keira’s life, we can honour her memory by taking these historic measures to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. This will be Keira’s legacy.

This bill is also a testament to the tireless advocacy of Dr. Kagan and all survivors, their families and community-based organizations who have worked to bring attention to the urgent need for training in intimate partner violence and coercive control. I want to thank the Attorney General and the Solicitor General for supporting my motion on the need for training of judges, justices of the peace and other legal professionals in the Ontario Family Court system on intimate partner violence and coercive control. I want to thank them for listening to the voices of survivors of sexual assault, survivors of intimate partner violence and the many organizations in our communities who support those survivors. We all acknowledge these changes are a vital first step and will help keep women and children fleeing abuse safe.

I would like to close with a couple of messages I received about our bill, and they go as follows:

“This groundbreaking law will save lives of women and children, and an abusive partner is an abusive parent, full stop.”

“Praying that this will move forward swiftly and effectively in Keira’s honour, saving other families the devastation of preventable harm and death.”

As members of this House, we can lead on how our society and province treat women and children, and so I ask all members to vote with the government and pass this bill.