Further questions?

Further debate?

I want to thank the member for the question. One of the things we’re doing that I think is very good for the local municipalities is to have them have greater representation on the OPP police detachment boards. The contemplation is that the government will have 20% representation and the municipalities that make up the composition of the detachment boards will have the other 80%. This will give a lot of input to the local municipality to offer the council as a detachment board would.

This is the direction that I think will help the municipalities.

I just want to say in response that the chiefs of police are heroes to their communities and represent the communities—and to be a leadership figure to everyone that serves in their police service. So I just wanted to comment slightly differently to the question, but acknowledge the importance that the chiefs of police play in public safety throughout our province.

As we know, later on today we’ll be debating something similar about missing and vulnerable people, who are extremely important to this government. We believe all people deserve to be safe in their homes and in their communities. We do have vulnerable people out there, seniors and young people.

Right now, we have an Amber Alert program for missing young people. Certain criteria are sent into the police and an alarm goes off. We’ve all received the Amber Alert.

We are certainly looking at your bill, Bill 74, and that’s something that we’re going to bring to committee to discuss. But I also look forward to the MPP from Sarnia–Lambton’s debate this evening.

But the other piece is removal of animals. We heard this from numerous stakeholders out there. Lynn, if you’re watching, we’ve heard you, and Donna as well. We hear all the time that there was a loophole that didn’t allow people to take animals away in dangerous situations. We want to make sure that our animals feel safe and are safe. If you see an animal in distress, the first thing you should do is call the PAWS hotline, making sure that an inspector goes out to deal with the situation immediately.

I would like to thank the great collaboration between the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Office of the Solicitor General for coming up with these much-needed amendments.

My question is to the Solicitor General: What changes are being made related to defining an emergency for chiefs of police and the Solicitor General?

It’s starting to sound like a Bruce Springsteen song here.

Yes.

We told the police that we would go on the tracks at 10 and we would leave at 12, nothing would be damaged. We were making a point. But we were on with heavy equipment. We weren’t wrecking anything, but we were on with tractors and front-end loaders. We were there, and we weren’t moving.

The tactical police took a very aggressive approach, at which point we mounted our tractors, and we were going to get equally as aggressive. The first person on that line of tractors—and yes, I’m going to say his name in the House; he deserves to be recognized for this—was Louis Ethier, one of my best friends. He had a 100-horsepower John Deere with prongs on it. The tactical police was yelling at him to get off the tracks, and he said, “Okay, I’ll get off the tracks, but if I do, I’m going to put that cop car on top of that cop car.”

We all started walking back towards the tractors. That’s the only time in my whole activist political career I was truly frightened, because it was going to happen.

A local police officer, who knew the people, who knew the tension, stepped in front of the tactical police officer. He yelled, “John, you said from 10 to 12. Does that deal still hold?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Down,” and we all stood down.

That police officer—he’s retired now, Mr. Fisher—stopped a catastrophe, because he knew. He knew his local people, he knew—and it became somewhat of a party after that.

I’ve said it in the House before: I got charged for that, paid a penalty for it, because I organized it. But I want to make a point: That police officer knew how to de-escalate. He knew.

Interjection: Great story.

There’s a second part to that story. Actually, a few months ago, I was on Bear Island. Bear Island is an Indigenous community in my riding on Lake Temagami—beautiful community. They hold a justice day for their young people. They have justices of the peace who come from Bear Island. They have a couple of conservation officers who come from Bear Island and they have an Indigenous unit of the OPP. They were there to show young Indigenous people what opportunities there are in the justice system, to work in the justice system so that they can be better represented because they work in the justice system. It is a great day.

I was sitting there with an OPP officer and he said, “Hey, you’re John Vanthof.” I said, “Yes, I’m the MPP.” He said, “No, I remember you from before.” I said, “Really?” He said, “The day you guys blocked the train.” I said, “You were there?” He said, “Yes, I was there.” I said, “Well, I don’t remember you. Wait a second. You weren’t one of the gun-yelling guys in the back?” And he said, “Yes, I was. But we learned a lot that day.”

Interjection: No kidding.

But you also have to have community support. Not only does the community have to have support, but so do the police. So there’s a shortage. I’m going to continue the story, a local story—oh, I’m getting a note. They’re telling me to change subjects.

In my riding, in Timiskaming–Cochrane, we have lost one police detachment in Matheson and it looks like we’re going to lose another in Noëlville. I’m a rural guy and I don’t pretend to understand everything that happens in urban. I don’t understand. But a lot of people in urban settings don’t understand rural. And when we lose a police detachment, we lose access, potentially, to—when there is an issue, when you call 911—and not everyone in my riding can call 911. There are parts of my riding where 911 doesn’t exist. Can you believe that? There are populated parts of my riding where 911 doesn’t exist. People from southern Ontario are moving into my riding thinking that they can call 911. That’s something that we could maybe address.

In Noëlville, where they’re trying to save their detachment, thousands of people have signed a petition to save it because the OPP are their only 24-hour—you need to have a police officer if something goes wrong in the country; they’re the only people that are there. So we feel it when there’s not enough police officers. We feel it.

The thing that surprises me a little bit—not surprises me, but one of the things the government is talking about here is that they’re making a few changes to bring more police into the system. Now, there are a couple of issues there. How are we going to ensure that those police end up where they’re needed? That’s a legitimate issue because it’s hard to recruit professionals in rural parts of the province—any type of professional. That’s an issue.

The government seems to be focusing on recruiting new, but not focusing as much on why police are leaving, why they are not staying. In the OPP, for example, constables on long-term leave with PTSD made up 33% of the vacancies in Ontario. So I think police officers need help too. If you’re going to recruit more police officers, and if you’re going to make changes to make recruiting easier, the government needs to take into account how to make sure that those police officers can deal with the stresses they’re going to be put under because—I don’t pretend to be a scientist; I’m not. Everybody here knows what I am. I’m a farmer. But if a police officer is under stress and he or she is dealing with things slightly beyond their control, things could go wrong. They’re dealing with people who are also under stress. So making changes to make it easier to become a police officer without changing the training and support that police officers have available to help them do their job is not a recipe for success. If you’re going to keep recruiting and keep losing them at 30%, you need to invest in people who are going to do their job in the best way possible.

We want to invest in Constable Fisher. There’s a very good chance that if Constable Fisher hadn’t stepped in, I wouldn’t be standing here, because I probably wouldn’t have been eligible to be an MPP. I owe a debt to Constable Fisher. Constable Fisher was a great police officer. Actually, I think all the police who were there that day were trained and were good at what they did. But the tactical team, at that time, wasn’t there to de-escalate; they were there to control, and they didn’t realize that the people they were sent to control were as powerful as they were and maybe more determined. Constable Fisher realized that. Constable Fisher had the trust of his people, but he also had our trust.

Those are the people we need as police. Those are the police officers I talk to. Those are the people that we have, in the vast majority of cases. But when I talk to police officers, they get frustrated when the government doesn’t—how am I going to word this? With how things have changed, you see so many people who feel they have no more hope, so many people who are homeless, so many people who feel dejected and who end up breaking our laws, but they’re just going to break them again. As a professional trying to do their job, that has got to be incredibly frustrating.

So police officers can do the job they need to do—we do need police—we also have to look at what’s causing the issues that are making some types of crime rise. Some of those issues are societal. We can’t look at the policing individually, and we can’t look at the societal individually. We have to look at it together. I’m not sure that this bill, the policing part, actually looks at this.

I’m not going to focus on this at all, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it: There has been a change here that a police officer only has to have a secondary school diploma. I think many police forces have their own criteria. A police officer, to be an effective police officer, needs a level of education, yes, but needs a level of life experience to understand what their true role is.

I hope it’s not the government’s idea that—the Premier, I believe, in the press, said that this is going to create a pipeline of police. I disagree with the Premier, obviously, on many issues. I don’t want a pipeline of police. I want—we want an adequate number of police officers who are well trained, who understand what they have to face. They have to face incredible issues and have the communal support so that they can direct people who they deal with on a regular basis, that they have the community support so that those people can be helped.

It’s a sad, sad state in our province that for people with mental health issues, their first point of contact is the police. Now, if their first point of contact was the police and, actually, then there was a wraparound that the police could direct them to, to actually help them, it wouldn’t be a sad statistic. But that’s not the case. So then they have repeated contact with the police, and that frustrates the police, creates bad outcomes. It’s not just frustrating for the people, but it’s tragic, very tragic.

I might go back to that later, but there are a few things I would also like to touch on. I’m not going to touch much on the coroners part or on the courts of justice.

The training for judges, justices, justices of the peace: That’s good. Everyone in the justice system should have a high level of training so they understand the issues that they’re dealing with. I would say that that also includes police. The two don’t seem to fit together, that while we will, according to this legislation, whether it’s the government’s meaning or not, lower the educational standards for police, but education for judges—and education for judges and justices of the peace is incredibly important. I’m not trying to minimize that at all, Speaker. But it should be important for all people in the justice system because those people have the responsibility and the power to impact people’s lives more, almost, than anyone else. So I’m not going to focus a lot on that, but increased training so we don’t get tragic outcomes—we are all human, we all make mistakes, but the more training we can have, the better off we are.

I’m going to come back to that too, but there’s one that I would like to talk about—the PAWS Act. Everyone in this House voted for the PAWS Act. Animal welfare is very important. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone sitting here who wants animals to be abused. I think we can be fairly safe on that. But—and I hesitate with this; I’m not taking this lightly—there’s a difference between a pet and livestock. There’s no successful farmer who mistreats their livestock. It doesn’t work like that, because if they’re not healthy and happy, they’re not flourishing, and it’s not worth getting up in the morning if they’re not healthy and happy.

But the PAWS Act—and there’s a case I’m going to talk about. The livestock organizations are all in favour—again, because farmers do not want to have animals abused, but the PAWS inspectors have the ability to change people’s lives as well. Now the parliamentary assistant alluded to—I’m not sure if she was talking about the same issue—who pays? When an animal is deemed that there’s an issue and the inspector says that animal has to be removed, who pays for the care and control of that animal? That should be the liability of the owner, but there has been a case where the animals were completely healthy but the inspector deemed—it was a beef herd—that there was too much debris in the yard. The animals were completely healthy and they were removed and placed under supervision, and the bill was sent to the farmer. The bill was some $400,000. It would have been much better if they had just said, “Sell them.” They were healthy; sell them.

The farmer took it to the tribunal and he won. The bill was reduced to $14,000, which is much more, for lack of a better word, sane in commercial—the government’s appealing it. I can’t talk about the appeal. Neither can the government. That’s their line. But in that case, if this happens, then the PAWS Act destroyed that farm, and the animals were healthy. There’s no argument about the health of the animals.

Agricultural organizations are concerned. Farmers are concerned. I’ve talked to a few farmers, talked to a few organizations who didn’t know there were changes to the PAWS Act coming. They would have liked to know. When this bill goes to committee, hopefully they will accept some amendments or the government proposes amendments themselves, because that is a flaw in the PAWS Act.

No one should have the right to abuse an animal—no one. But when the animals are healthy, then we also have to look at common sense. Common sense would dictate that, okay, perhaps the owner isn’t capable of taking care of these animals, so perhaps there’s some way to help the owner sell the animals as opposed to boarding them and having a bill for far more than the animals are ever worth. That’s an issue.

It might only be one issue, but it’s an issue. I’d like to read into the record, if I can just—bear with me, Speaker. It’s legal now to use—

Yes, it’s legal now. I can use it now. News flash: This is the first time I’ve ever done this.

This is a news article: “Tribunal judgement saves farmer from almost $400,000 bill after beef animals removed for no reason.

“The 77-year-old” farmer “must pay only $14,276 of the $391,196 sought by Provincial Animal Welfare Services ... when its officers seized his healthy beef herd before Christmas and held them at expensive foster farms for months.” Again, this is a news article. I wasn’t there; I’m just going by the news.

“PAWS rounded up and removed 101 ... Angus-cross beef cattle December 16, after he failed to comply with orders to clean up ‘hazardous debris’ on parts of the 200-acre property where the animals roamed. Two animals were injured badly enough to be put down during the chaotic roundup involving the use of ATVs, and a contractor ended up in a Toronto hospital with serious injuries.”

That wasn’t the farmer who did that; that was PAWS. I think, now that we’re looking at PAWS, we need to look at how PAWS actually interacts. I take the parliamentary assistant at her word. When you create something, nothing is perfect. You need to look at how to make it better.

We all want to protect. We all have our favourite animals. The Solicitor General has got a rabbit; I have a dog.

Interjection.

But the difference is how to deal with an individual animal or how to deal with a herd. The animals were healthy. They weren’t healthy after the roundup, and neither were some of the people involved in the roundup. Again, the government, from what I understand, is appealing that. In the PAWS Act, perhaps that’s one of the amendments. But we always need to look at the cause.

I don’t want to leave the impression—and I’ve repeated it several times—that anyone in the official opposition or anyone in the agricultural community is okay with the abuse of animals—at no time. We have no problem with, if it’s identified that you have to act and you have to act quickly.

Speaking of quickly—and better minds than mine might know this better—if you are charged under the PAWS Act, you have five days to appeal. For a farmer, who could be very good at his job—it’s an allegation—five days in May is different than five days in November, because agriculture is very seasonal.

I’m not trying to disparage anyone. I don’t know any PAWS inspectors. I’m sure that they’re good at their job. But it’s so varied.

When it used to be under the SPCA—I don’t know if I’ve told this story before in the Legislature, but I’m going to tell it.

We had a dairy farm, and my wife had a little store across the road. We had a horse across from the store. It looked kind of cute. When people came to the store, they looked at it. The SPCA inspector at the time came to my wife’s store one day. She was a regular customer, a very nice person. And I’ll make this really clear: It’s the wife’s horse. I don’t like horses, and they don’t like me. Horses are pretty good judges of character.

The horse was lying sprawled out in the field. That’s how horses sleep sometimes. The inspector looked at my wife and said, “Oh, my God, that horse is dead.” She got really upset. And then Ria went, “Velvet,” and she went like this, and the horse got up and came to her.

Interjection.

I shouldn’t say this, but honestly, it wouldn’t have bothered me. I didn’t love the horse. I love my wife. I didn’t love my wife’s horse. I have no affinity for horses.

Interjections.

That inspector was probably very well trained at many things, but she didn’t recognize that. And I often think about that, because a PAWS inspector has a lot of power. If a PAWS inspector doesn’t know something, then that five days might not be enough.

There are very few other appeal processes where you only have five days. Now, I understand—I’m guessing why that five days is there is that if the animal is in crisis or near-crisis, you don’t want to give a 30-day period. I understand that. But there are all kinds of issues. Another one, anecdotally: The inspector didn’t know how to work the water bowl, so the animal didn’t have access to water. That’s not as silly as it sounds, because some of that stuff is very complicated. Like, I can’t use a cash machine. But when a person of power and who needs to have that power—we’re not disputing that that person needs to have that ability. But there needs to be some kind of appeal process, and it needs to be reasonable.

I think that’s something that has to be looked at if the government is now opening up the PAWS Act. Every piece of legislation, you should be able to open it up, and make it better. So if we’re going to open up the PAWS Act, let’s make it better. Let’s protect animals, but let’s make sure it actually works on the farm.

The livestock organizations all signed on. Many of them have their own internal processes, their own inspection systems, because they want to make sure that when they sell a product—I know a lot about dairy. When they ensure that the milk that you buy is produced by healthy animals that are housed in well-maintained facilities and that they have access to everything they need, Dairy Farmers of Ontario ensures that, but Dairy Farmers of Ontario also signed on to PAWS, to make sure that if there is any question that a third party can go in and say, “No, no. Okay,” that third party has to be reasonably appealable.

Now we’re going to go back—

I remember your yak story—protect the yak.

Your phone?

It’s cows.

Cows outside in the winter?

Cattle, especially dairy cattle, work hard. They work, right? Producing milk is hard. But for cows outside—so beef cows, who have thicker coats and who are used to it—it’s actually as healthy or healthier outside. As long as they eat more. It takes more energy to be outside. It’s better if they have protection, if you have protection from the wind. It’s a lot like us: If you’re ice-fishing in a tent or if you’re ice-fishing—

Interjection.

But that’s why I’m kind of out of my element talking about some of these issues, like policing, because I don’t know policing. I have an idea of what police officers face because I’ve seen some of the things they’ve faced. I’ve been involved. Police officers are unique: You’re either really happy to see them or not happy at all, right? And, tragically, in some cases, they never know what their next call is. They never know, right? And we have had tragic cases; tragedies have happened. They have an incredibly stressful job.

Anything that we can do to help them help us is good. But simply more faster, when we’re losing 30% due to PTSD? We need to look at what’s going on.

Policing is totally different, I think, in the city and in the country, but we need to make sure that they have access to the continuing training programs. We need to make sure that they are supported, but we can’t look—and this bears repeating, because I’ve got 11 minutes: We can’t look at it in isolation. You can’t just police yourself out of a problem. Even police will tell you that. You can’t just police yourself out of a problem, because your underlying problems continue to get bigger and you continually need to bolster your enforcement, and the same people keep getting recycled, recycled, recycled. That’s not a long-term solution. It’s not.

We need to look at what’s happening in our society, what’s causing some of the underlying issues and, yes, we need to make sure that there are enough police officers that are trained, supported, and that the justice system supports them and that the justice system—this bill speaks to it, partly, that in the justice system, the people, the judges, the justices of the peace are well trained. But also there has to be enough of them that we don’t have people languishing in provincial jails.

I toured the Monteith correctional facility a couple of times in my riding. And, I believe, the last time I toured it, 70% of the people in that correctional facility had never been tried for anything. They’re just waiting. Now, we have issues, and this House has discussed it, about violent offenders who have a high chance of—there’s a word for it—recidivism. So we need to concentrate on them, but we also need to deal with and help the people who have fallen in trouble with our system but really could be helped if they had access to justice in a more reasonable time.

I don’t often talk about Indigenous issues because I am not Indigenous. I have no lived experience. One of my colleagues is; I’ve learned so much from the member from Kiiwetinoong. But there is something that happens often in our ridings. If someone from one of the communities on the coast falls on the wrong side of the law, they go to Monteith. The courthouse is in Cochrane. If they get their day in court, and if they are found to be not guilty, they are stuck in Cochrane. They have no way to get back home. They just: “See you.” So they take you from Moosonee or wherever, they take you to Monteith, then you get your day in court and the courtroom doors open and you’ve got no way to get home, and you’ve got no money. And you wonder why we have issues with criminality.

Interjection: And homelessness.

If we see cows outside in the winter, are they safe?

Questions?

Thank you to the member. I always enjoy hearing his dissertations and form.

I loved listening to your presentation honestly, to the member, and to be able to start off with some words and then move into a personal story felt like a lawyer delivering a summation in court—and then end it with the punctuation starting with the story of Officer Fisher.

I think that, definitely as a northerner, certainly some of the farming stories, I can relate, and as well in terms of some of those northern issues and some of those things that are germane to us all. We all know why we’re here, and I don’t think anybody ever questions the motives of any of us. We all want to do right by our constituents. We all want to do right by our province. We all want to do right by our country.

My question to the member would be, will you trust your gut, the way Officer Fisher did, and trust that we are here to do the right thing?

And homelessness.

I’ve said this before: The district of Cochrane, the area covered by the Cochrane social services board—so that’s Cochrane, Timmins and the surrounding area, to the coast—has the highest number of homeless people per thousand in the province. The highest in the province. There is still a couple of feet of snow north of Cochrane. It hits minus 40 degrees regularly in Cochrane. It’s a great place to live but it has its issues. We know that; we live in northern Ontario. So we’re wondering why we have issues there. Let’s look at how to fix that and then we’re going to have fewer issues.

Are we going to solve everything? No. We are always going to need well-trained law enforcement; that’s a fact of life. That’s one of the things about a civil society: You need people to enforce rules and regulations when some people aren’t civil. But it is also the role of civil society, the role of our government, to actually look at the underlying issues, identify them, and try to deal with them.

I’ve had this job for 12 years. I can remember, when I got here, being homeless was a Toronto thing. It was a big-city thing—and it’s never acceptable. I’m not saying it’s ever acceptable, but it was kind of: “Oh, there’s a homeless person there.” But now, there are encampments. The highest level of homelessness in the province is in Cochrane, and we just keep going on like there’s nothing wrong. We talk about spending millions here and we’re spending millions there, but I don’t see it on the street.

I do see that the use of food banks is going up exponentially. That tells me that what the government is talking about and what’s really happening are two different things. There are two Ontarios. It’s almost like there’s corporate Ontario and the rest of us.

I’m veering off the bill, Speaker. I’m going to veer back because I’m self-correcting here. I’m one of those people who doesn’t really need enforcement; I self-correct.

I was coming to the theme of, again, you can’t simply enforce yourself out of a problem, because when you try and do that, you’re just pushing the problem onto someone else. And, without proper community support, one of the groups you’re forcing the problem onto is our justice system, our police officers, our court system—and it’s being overwhelmed now. We need to look at having trained officers on the ground. We need all those things, but we have to also look at the underlying cost. We need to look at that.

I’m going to close on this issue: We need to have people in place who understand local conditions. That’s why people in the country instinctively know that when you lose detachments, when you lose—it’s not that the OPP is not going to try and do their job. That’s not the case. But you’re going to lose your local connection to the community. In my case, Officer Fisher might not have done that. We would have made a lot more news coverage. The only reason that happened is because Officer Fisher was around. He was at local sports events. He knew us, and I think—I’ve never asked him this, and I never asked his permission to use his name either, so I might be in big trouble. I’m sure it might have been frowned upon when he did that, when he went and stepped in, but he trusted his gut because he knew us. It’s really important that we don’t forget that and don’t think that we can control everything from far away.

When the Solicitor General talked in one of the questions about the changes to police boards, that might be a good thing to have them more local. Hopefully, we’ll have some time when this comes to third reading—that we can be a lot more technical. I said it was going to be a pretty high overview on this, because this is what you get in under 24 hours. You get a few good stories. But it’s an issue, an issue that hopefully we can correct here.

In closing, I’d like to thank you very much for your indulgence, Speaker, for your occasional smile and for allowing me to speak.

Madam Speaker, it’s always a pleasure to listen to my colleague. He always has very, very interesting speeches, and I love listening to his stories about how he was a dairy farmer and all that. I just want to thank the member for his comments.

Madam Speaker, one thing that we’re doing with this piece of legislation is—it’s comprehensive legislation that’s focused on making Ontario safer in all aspects: policing, fire prevention and protection, justice and animal welfare. My question is, will the member and will the opposition support our government’s multi-faceted approach to keeping our province safe?

Speaker, through you: This bill creates an advisory council for the provincial police. I know many front-line workers who carry a heavy burden from their experience on the job, police officers especially. Police are responding to situations that are increasingly difficult, like mental health crises. Can you expand on why investing in those training pieces that consider the community and involve the community is so vital?

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.