The bureaucracy is expanding to support the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

The member from Eglinton–Lawrence spoke about how Bill 46, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, is helping to protect and amplify small businesses. I guess I wanted to know, then, why it was her government that granted small business grants to businesses that weren’t even in Ontario to the tune of some $200-plus million during the pandemic—money that was supposed to be supporting our small businesses going out of province. That seems odd.

I know that the member from Eglinton–Lawrence knows that we share communities like Little Jamaica and small businesses in midtown that are squelching for funds and had their grants turned down because of little administrative glitches.

I’m just wondering what the government has to say about that, and particularly the member from Eglinton–Lawrence.

Alexis de Tocqueville, speaking about democracy in America, spoke about the administrative bureaucracy, saying it’s like a “sovereign power” that “extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute and uniform rules, which the most original minds and vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them”—

It’s always a privilege and an honour to take my place and stand at my seat on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin.

I want to start my comments this afternoon by asking a question to the government. This bill is entitled Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act. I want to put a question, and I’m going to end with the same question in my comments that I’m going to be bringing in this afternoon: Does this government look at First Nations as being red tape? I’ll come back to that question at the end of my comments that I’ll be making this afternoon.

I do want to go through a few of the schedules that I do want to put some comments on. I want to talk a little bit about schedules 1 and 4, but most of my comments that I’ll be making today will be on schedule 5. There’s some concerns that I see there, and I want to raise those concerns because there’s certainly some issues that I have there.

I want to go to schedule 1, and I’ll cover schedule 4 at the same time. Bill 46 has been marketed by the government as taking measures to aid farmers and protect Ontario foods. However, they are basically tinkering around the edges with this particular piece of legislation. They are not taking on the larger challenges identified by industry groups as major hurdles to Ontario’s agricultural market.

The Ontario beef farmers have asked the government to take steps to support their industry by—the government calls it red tape, but these are really big steps and big milestones that the industry has been asking for, for a very long time, which are increasing investment in the risk management program to help protect the province’s food security, that’s one; to review the PAWS Act and examine farm inspections and enforcement practices employed under the act, there’s another one; and preserving farm and grazing lands through land use policies that see agricultural lands protected.

Now, the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane and many of our members have raised it often in the House, and let’s put the number out there: 319 acres of land are being lost every single day. That’s 319 acres of farmland that are being lost each and every day in this province. The government just removed protection on thousands of acres of farmland, which is a direct attack on the industry’s long-term future for Ontario.

Now I want to take some time and look at schedule 5. The things I want to cover under schedule 5, in the short time that I have left, are: Schedule 5 is eliminating the prohibition of deep geological carbon storage. It’s also opening up the path to storage in ground; however, it’s also being used to extract natural gas. I want to touch on this a bit.

The third thing that I want to talk about is that they’re opening up a process to crown land which—crown land is a colonial way of saying “treaty lands.” And I go back to the initial questions that I put to this government: Do you see First Nations communities as red tape? Do you see First Nations communities as stakeholders? And why is it that we’re seeing legislation such as this as an afterthought, that now we’re going to go back and consult with First Nations on treaty lands? We’re getting that wrong. These discussions should take place prior to the legislation coming into the House.

Now, on point number two, what I wanted to do is touch on a few things. This is an article in a paper, Narwhal. It says, “Critics of carbon capture technology see investments like those in the Prairies and argue it’s simply a way to prolong the lifespan of an industry that needs to put itself out of business if the world is to survive.”

It also goes on to say, “The push for government funding”—and again, the funding is coming from the federal government, but the province is opening up legislation here to permit this to happen—“also comes as oil and gas companies are pulling in big profits, and spending the windfall on stock buybacks and increased dividends for investors....

“Even those who support carbon capture technology”—one of the speakers—“including Chris Severson-Baker, the Alberta director of the Pembina Institute, don’t want an excess of public money invested in an industry that is ‘likely to decline in the not too distant future.’”

He also goes on to say, “These projects, at scale, are not cheap.... Most require significant public funding to make financial sense.... costs, including sourcing good storage areas, could become more expensive.” And he goes on to say, “the average cost of a big project in Canada is currently $1 billion for a megatonne per year of reductions.”

I’m just briefly touching upon some of the highlights that were in this article: “‘We think there’s definitely sources of [carbon dioxide] that could be captured in the upstream oil and gas sector, in the oilsands, today, but it’s not as extensive as the companies claim.’”

He also goes on to finish this article: “The injection of carbon into deep aquifers requires monitoring to ensure that carbon doesn’t escape for a very long time. He noted there might need to be a fund to manage that liability.”

So under schedule 5, we will allow for carbon dioxide to be injected into the bedrock as a form of sequestration: “Carbon capture ... and storage essentially means any technology that removes carbon from industrial processes and ... stores it deep underground ...

“Captured carbon can also be used for what’s called enhanced oil recovery, where the carbon is injected into old wells in order to increase pressure and force more oil or gas to the surface. The carbon is then stored in the wells. It’s a less carbon-intensive way of getting to the oil, but it’s still using carbon to access sources of, well, more carbon.”

Environmental groups have criticized carbon capture as a form of greenwashing during a time of climate crisis, allowing oil and gas companies to justify extracting more fossil fuels. According to the industry proponents, “There need to be more regulations put in place to oversee the expansion of carbon capture, utilization and storage, particularly when it comes to pore space and monitoring.” And the government has removed the prohibition of carbon capture on crown lands. These are treaty lands, and the government has not demonstrated any consultation with First Nations, Métis or other Indigenous groups about this change. So I come back to the question that I initially asked: Does the government look at Indigenous communities, Métis, Inuit and First Nations, as red tape? Well, if I look at this bill and compare it to the actions this government is doing, one would have to extract and say yes, because they are completely leaving them out of the decision process or engagement process.

These crown lands that this government is going to be tampering with and opening up is a colonial way of saying “treaty lands.” Let’s be straight about that, Speaker. There is a responsibility from this government to have meaningful consultation with First Nations, Indigenous communities, Inuit and Métis people, and they’re not doing that. They’re looking at them as being an obstacle.

I may be wrong. I’m hoping that someone from the government will steer me in the right direction and show me differently. But when legislation comes to this House—and this is not the first piece of legislation that came to this House and is in this format and denies and does not take—this government does not take the time to meaningfully participate, engage with the First Nations community leaders. It leads me to believe that this government exactly does that: They look at First Nations across this province as red tape. They look at them as being stakeholders. And I tell this government, you will have a lot of an easier time passing legislation if you sit and have meaningful discussions with Indigenous communities.

I’ll pick up on the question just asked by the member from Niagara West about democracy and red tape. This bill is about red tape reduction, and the government has argued that the other bill they have before the House, Bill 39—that you need to override the results of the last municipal elections in Toronto, Niagara, York and Peel in order to get more efficiency, to cut the red tape and get housing built. Is it not possible to build housing while still respecting the outcomes of our recent municipal elections and respecting the democracy that they represent?

Thank you to the member opposite for the question. We do share a border and lots of great companies that work along Eglinton in Toronto. I’m really proud that we were able to get all of the money out to small businesses to support them. I’m really proud that we’re doing a lot to save small businesses—all businesses, really—money in Ontario by saving them about half a billion dollars by reducing all of this red tape.

Under the former Liberal government, they had the highest cost of compliance for businesses in Canada, a total of $33,000 per business, which was at least $4,000 more than any other province. That is not a record that would draw businesses here, as my friend said earlier. We need to get businesses to come to Ontario so we have a prosperous economy for all of our workers and all Ontarians.

Certainly, he describes some of the red tape and the burden of bureaucracy and red tape on businesses and communities so that they can get things done. I think it’s very clear from what you read—and Alexis de Tocqueville put it better than just about anybody else—that it’s something that we need to address. We need to free people from the burden of red tape, and I’m very excited that we’re bringing forward yet another red tape bill to achieve that.

Government can be an undue burden. We have three levels of government in Canada: We have municipal governments, we have provincial governments and we have federal governments. It’s confusing for people, and it also poses a huge burden on people to achieve their ends. They have to make sure they’re complying with regulations of all kinds all the time, and I think the more we can do to streamline that, rationalize it and make it make sense so people can still get things done and so governments can still get things done—that’s a good objective and we should achieve that.

The member from Toronto–St. Paul’s.

Interjection: You’re not in your seat.

We are on questions and comments, right? I’m just clarifying. Excellent.

I had an opportunity to listen to many of the things that the member was saying. Listen, he brings up some valid points, and I do appreciate any time he rises in the Legislature.

I want to go back just quickly to the question that I asked the member for London West. When we’re talking about eliminating red tape here in the province, looking at regulations that we can try to streamline or, quite frankly, eliminate if they’re redundant—my riding lost 12,000 manufacturing jobs, 12,000 good-paying jobs. These are jobs with pensions. These are jobs with benefits. These are jobs that people want, and we lost them to jurisdictions that had less red tape and regulation.

Just as a general question, does the member support the reduction of regulations here in the province, the reduction of red tape and things that will support good jobs, good-paying jobs, good, steady jobs for the people of this province?

I always enjoy being in the House when the member for Kitchener–Conestoga is in the House. It seems that when I’m not here, he seems to really ramp it up, and when I’m here, there are more cordial discussions that we have, because we have several sidebars. That’s something that a lot of people who are watching right now on the TV don’t get to see when the cameras are off: the work that gets done in this place.

I say to the member, of course I would support legislation that would be helpful, that would generate employment opportunity, economic growth in this province. However, a good part of my statement that was made today was actually on the bill. I talked about that. But I wanted to raise a flag and I wanted to hear from the government, who can tell me differently, is this government actually looking at Indigenous communities as being red tape? Because if you are not, then the consultation process would have taken place prior to this legislation hitting the floor of the Legislature.

I’ll leave that with you, my friend.

Merci au député d’Algoma–Manitoulin pour ses commentaires. J’ai une question sur la séquestration de carbone.

My question is about carbon capture and the sequestering of carbon. You talked quite a bit about it. It seems like an unproven technology, and it seems that there was a case in Australia where the government invested millions of dollars in carbon sequestration. It wasn’t very successful, and it seemed to be used more as an excuse for oil companies to continue burning fossil fuels rather than an actual way of reducing carbon output. Would you like to comment on that?

It’s a pleasure to join this discussion today on Bill 46, An Act to enact one Act and amend various other Acts. It’s the first red tape bill that our new Minister of Red Tape Reduction has brought forward, but I doubt very much that it will be the last, because it is something that we are absolutely seized on, on this side of the House.

And it didn’t start here. I’ve been around long enough to remember when former Premier Mike Harris was elected in 1995. He saw a province that had been governed by the party on the other side here for five years, and saw the absolute growth in red tape in the province of Ontario and what a constricting effect it was having on businesses and people in the province of Ontario.

I know they might get upset with me here, but socialists love red tape and bureaucracy. They absolutely love it. I’m not sure how they’re going to vote on this bill, but I’m sure they’re kind of conflicted because the people out there, they get it. Government is too big. It stands in the way of progress. Every time you talk to somebody on the street and you ask them, “How is this going?”—it could be their project to build a new home, it could be a project to build something in the community, it could be a public institution that’s going to be built in the community—the first thing they’ll say is, “I can’t believe the amount of regulations we’ve got to go through to get that done. It’s absolutely ridiculous.” You talk about other jurisdictions that get things done in a quarter of the time.

This bill is not going to fix all of it, but it does speak to the philosophy and the belief of this government and its members that we can do better. We can make Ontario much better by getting on with moving forward and not standing in the way.

I do want to appreciate the Oscar Wilde quote from the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler earlier today—I don’t have it in front of me—that the bureaucracy is expanding to serve the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. It may not be exactly the quote, but it certainly paraphrases it. That’s what happens as governments get bigger and bigger and bigger. The bureaucracy becomes more and more unwieldy, and the people aren’t even actually able to understand what a blockade it can be.

So you have to have a government that actually takes the position that we are going to remove some of that unnecessary regulation. I don’t know if there’s an actual definition out there, but to me, red tape should be defined as “unnecessary regulation that impedes the ability of society to move forward in a progressive and beneficial manner”—something to that effect; that’s my own definition.

But the members on the other side—while listening to this debate, I have to ask myself, do they really want to debate Bill 46, or do they want to regurgitate something else? Because I heard more about Bill 23 today than I heard about Bill 46. But there’s a news flash for you folks over there: We actually passed Bill 23. It’s now done. But I think youse are a bit conflicted on Bill 46. You actually barely want to speak to it.

With that in mind, Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

Further questions?

I’m very interested in the way this government interacts with our First Nations and First Nations leadership, as well as Métis. They obviously have something to say. They have governance and government in place. They have free and fair elections where they elect their leaders. They have elders who help to make sure that the right decisions are made, not just for today but for seven generations to come.

I’d like to ask the member from Manitoulin: What difference do you figure it would make if the government took the time to sit down with First Nations, listen to their ideas, listen to their way of life and listen to their knowledge to move bills like this bill forward?

I want to thank the member from Spadina–Fort York for his question, and he’s right. I did raise a lot of these comments, and a lot of those concerns I raised were under schedule 5. The huge concern I have is opening up treaty lands. See, I said that right, Speaker; it’s easy. We should all try to do that, instead of saying it the colonial way: “crown land.” We should be talking about treaty lands and what we’re doing to those particular lands in not engaging with First Nations communities and talking to them about how it’s going to be affecting the communities.

Also to your point, the intent, the idea behind this is that it’s supposed to be a wash. It goes in, but what it also does—there’s a new way of now inserting carbon into the ground which will push additional oil out, which will continue to perpetuate the idea of using oil. That’s something we should be thinking about, not only in this province but across the globe: getting away from fossil fuels.

Now, one thing we have to remember is: Watch out what you ask for. Because removing too much of that red tape also removes the oversight that we have put in place to make sure—why certain projects take longer to go through, why certain ones are successful and why others aren’t. The oversight is something that is very, very important, and sometimes removing some of the red tape eliminates that and takes away security from the variety of options and projects that are looking to move forward in this province.

As legislative representatives, that’s our role: to make sure that certain procedures, certain security measures are in place so that we keep the produce and the processes safe for all Ontarians.

A responsibility that we have as the Ontario government is to recognize that we are all treaty members. We are all part of this globe, and we need to respect the nation-to-nation relationship that is there, that is enshrined, that is their right. We should be consulting with them prior to any piece of legislation—

I think my job here as the elected MPP for Algoma–Manitoulin is to bring the lenses of how people feel and what their perceived sights are on what red tape is and how they can move the stake forward and how they can prosper as businesses. A lot of what they’re bringing forward is just—they need the ability to move their projects forward. They need to do it in a timely fashion. They want to do it in a secure way, as well—

I wanted to ask the member opposite—he had a lot in his remarks. But when we talk about red tape, a lot of us have different definitions of red tape. I just want to ask the member opposite how he would define red tape.

I just wanted to ask the member—you know, we talk about small businesses and helping them with red tape, and you were saying, in your definition, that you don’t want to overburden them and that you have to be cautious. I’m just wondering when was the last time you spoke to CFIB and what you heard from them and when your last meeting with CFIB was.

Point of order, Madam Speaker: If you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for us to see the clock at 6.

I move that, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should consult with the public and its partners in the Family Court system to promote and ensure the availability of continuing education seminars for professionals in Ontario’s Family Court system, such as judges, justices of the peace, crown attorneys, custody assessors and social workers, on matters related to intimate partner violence and coercive control in intimate partner and family relationships.

This motion comes with a heavy backstory, and it’s an example of why it is so important we re-evaluate and apply new strategies to eliminate these horrific crimes. It’s about a girl named Keira Kagan—she was four years old, almost five. Keira’s mother, Dr. Jennifer Kagan-Viater, remembers her for her love of animals, sweet-natured soul and courageous smile. We say “remembers” because Keira died suddenly in an apparent murder-suicide at the hands of her father.

On February 9, 2020, Keira and her biological father were found dead at the base of a cliff at Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area in Milton. Jennifer Kagan-Viater and Keira had lived in Burlington, and were living in Thornhill at the time.

In the years leading up to Keira’s death, Dr. Kagan-Viater remembered an escalation in abusive behaviour by her ex-husband. Though she’d left him years earlier, she worried about the safety of her daughter during his unsupervised visits.

She said, “The abuse did not stop with separation, and it only got worse. Keira was used as a tool to get claws into me.”

She said she went to the courts seeking protection for Keira, and expressed concern about Brown’s violent and coercive behaviour, but she said she was met with hurdles.

She went on to say, “When I brought forward the evidence about abuse of Mr. Brown, we had a judge, for example,” say “that domestic violence is not relevant to parenting and, ‘I’m going to ignore it.’”

This motion is aimed at addressing a glaring gap in our family law system to ensure that judges, crown attorneys, justices of the peace, court assessors, social workers and other professionals have the information they need to keep women and children safe.

Jennifer Kagan-Viater, her spouse, Philip Viater, friends and supporters worked hard to spread the message about the need to fill this gap. I am proud to have Jennifer’s support for this motion and her commitment to see this become law in Ontario. This work is in honour of Keira and to ensure that no family has to mourn a lost loved one because of violence and abuse.

Violence against women and children is a blight on our society. All of us in this House know we need to fight it. It takes money for shelters and education. It takes teaching men and boys, women and girls that domestic violence of any kind is wrong. And it takes arming those who make decisions about custody access and child safety with the full information they need to keep everyone safe.

Last Friday was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, running until December 10, Human Rights Day. The Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity joined me and MPP Pierre at Halton Women’s Place in our community to see the vital work they do.

This is also Woman Abuse Prevention Month. Yesterday, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services marked the month, as we all did, by wearing a purple scarf, the symbol of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses’s Wrapped in Courage campaign. And December 6 is the anniversary of the Montreal massacre. We mark all of these commemorations because we know we need to do so much more.

Forty-four per cent of women in Canada have experienced some form of violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Ending the relationship does not end a women’s risk of death; 20% to 22% of intimate partner femicides were perpetrated by estranged spouses within the first 18 months of separation.

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. Of the women murdered, 50% were killed by intimate partners and 26% by family members.

Women account for 80% of reported incidents of intimate partner violence, which affects all ages, races, ethnicities and socio-economic strata. Women at highest risk are those who are young, immigrants, refugees, Indigenous or living with disabilities.

In my own community, Halton Women’s Place took 2,200 crisis calls in 2021. Over the same year, Halton police responded to 3,500 intimate-partner-violence-related calls, made 890 arrests and laid 2,000 charges.

Data on femicide in Canada show alarming trends among non-urban and Indigenous women. One quarter of all murdered women in Canada are Indigenous.

The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses published a monthly report on femicide. In September 2022, they reported 40 confirmed femicides in Ontario since November 26, 2021.

Furthermore, violent and aggressive behaviour towards female partners is not always weighted heavily enough to change outcomes during decision-making in Family Court, such as in child custody cases.

A report from the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative included statistics on children killed in the context of domestic violence in Canada. There were 74 children killed, representing 9% of all domestic homicide victims identified in the period from 2010 to 2019. There were 54 accused identified in 52 cases of domestic homicide involving children; 82% were male. The majority of children killed were the biological children of the accused at 70%, followed by stepchildren at 24%.

Now, what these stats tell us is that the danger in cases of intimate partner violence does not end with separation or divorce. The most dangerous time for a victim of abuse is when she separates from her partner. According to research from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when there is history of coercive control, violence and a recent separation, a woman’s risk of domestic homicide goes up 900 times. A study from the US found that 11% of 231 women killed by their intimate partner had been issued a restraining order; about 20% of those who had been issued a restraining order were killed within two days of the order being issued.

Jennifer drew my attention to the case of Jared Osidacz, an eight-year-old boy in Brantford, Ontario, who was killed by his father after a judge granted him unsupervised access.

In courts in Canada and other countries, one of the strategies used by abusers is victimizing themselves or alleging parental alienation. This is a tactic used by abusers whose interest is not in the best interest of the child or the ex-spouse but in controlling them.

We all know that abuse can be more than physical or sexual. Coercive control is part of the definition of family violence contained in both the federal Divorce Act and in the update our government made to the Children’s Law Reform Act in 2020. Both define it in the same way: “‘Family violence’ means any conduct by a family member towards another family member that is violent or threatening, that constitutes a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour or that causes the other family member to fear for their own safety or for that of another person, and, in the case of a child, includes direct or indirect exposure to such conduct.”

We have the definition in our laws. We just need to ensure that training about domestic violence includes knowledge about coercive control and all aspects of intimate partner violence.

A federal bill, Bill C-223, introduced by Quebec MP Anju Dhillon, calling for training for federally appointed judges, passed the House of Commons with all-party support and is currently before the Senate. It follows on a law originally proposed by former MP Rona Ambrose for mandatory training in sexual assault law for judges. It was eventually passed as a government bill. The new law would add to this. This is what is needed in Ontario too, as Ontario regulates far more of the Family Court system.

The latest continuing education plan for Ontario judges notes that criminal law education conferences have recently covered a range of topics, including sex offences and sexual offenders and the meaning of consent in sexual assault cases. The plan does not appear to specifically reference intimate partner violence or coercive control in a family law context. The most recent Justice of the Peace Education Plan posted on the Ontario Court of Justice website includes two references to domestic violence issues.

We need to go further than this to ensure that decision-makers in the Family Court system learn about intimate partner violence, including emotional violence and coercive control. For too long, women have been silenced from speaking out about domestic violence and the trauma faced while navigating our legal system. That ends today as the Legislature passes Keira’s Law motion.

I would like to thank the Attorney General of Ontario as we take the first step to ensuring we have training about intimate partner violence and coercive control for Ontario judges, justices of the peace, crown attorneys and other professionals in our family courts. We need more tools to ensure all decision-makers know the signs of abuse so we can keep women and children safe.

To all those women who have suffered or are suffering: We hear you and see you. We know this is only the first step, but I’m going to keep working until we’ve found solutions. The best way that we, in the House, can honour Keira’s memory is to keep safe other women and children at risk from intimate partner violence.

I ask members in this House to support my motion. Thank you.

Mr. Yakabuski has moved that the question be now put. I am satisfied that there have been 25 speakers and over nine hours of debate. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion that the question be put, say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be put, say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote is required. It will be deferred to the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

I am pleased to rise today to participate in this debate on private member’s motion 19. Certainly this is a motion that the official opposition is pleased to support. It calls on the government to promote and ensure the availability of continuing education seminars for professionals in Ontario’s Family Court system.

Now, in saying that this is a motion that we can support, I want to point out the contrast between the contents of this motion that was tabled since the election and the recommendations that were made by the coroner’s jury to the province of Ontario following the murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam in Renfrew county several years ago. In particular, I want to highlight recommendation 8, recommendation 28, recommendation 29, recommendation 31, recommendation 42 and recommendation 57, that all dealt extensively with training in our justice system.

Recommendation 8 requires “that all justice system participants who work with” intimate partner violence “survivors and perpetrators are trained and engage in a trauma-informed approach to interacting and dealing with survivors and perpetrators.”

Recommendation 28: “Review existing training for justice system personnel.”

Recommendation 29: “Provide professional education and training for justice system personnel ... which should include”—and then there’s a long list of content recommendations for what the training must include.

And then recommendation 31 is to “track whether mandated” intimate partner violence-related “professional education and training is completed by all justice system personnel.”

It’s one thing to promote and ensure the availability of training; it’s quite another to mandate training for all those who are involved in the Family Court system.

I just want to remind members—I think it was about a year and a half ago or so—that we debated in this place Bill 207. That was amendments to the Children’s Law Reform Act legislation that was brought forward by the Attorney General to recognize the fact that many of the cases that come before the family courts involve families where one partner, typically the woman, has been experiencing violence at the hands of the other partner, typically the man, and so the Family Court system is involved in making custody decisions.

At the time, Luke’s Place from Durham region presented to the committee and they made some recommendations to this government that were endorsed by a long list of women’s shelters and sexual violence agencies and gender-based violence agencies. One of those recommendations that was endorsed by all of these agencies involved in the violence against women sector was that “family law services, courts, and legal advisers must complete family violence and family violence assessment training and practice requirements.”

Unfortunately, at the time that Bill 207 was debated the government chose to ignore the recommendation to make that training mandatory. It appears that in the motion that is before us today, the government still wants to leave it up to the professionals involved in the court system to decide whether they’re going to participate in this training. We know from the inquest that was conducted in Renfrew that making the training mandatory is critical.

I also wanted to highlight a couple of other recommendations that were included in the coroner’s report, and in particular, recommendation 18, that says, “Recognize that the implementation of the recommendations from this inquest, including the need for adequate and stable funding ... will require a significant financial investment,” and they call on the government to commit to providing such funding.

Unfortunately, Speaker, we have not seen this government commit to coming to the table to provide the stable funding, the ongoing funding, that organizations that provide intimate partner violence support services need to help survivors navigate the justice system. In fact, we see an exemplary program, the Family Court Support Worker Program, which provides assistance to survivors as they navigate the Family Court system. We have seen that program—that funding is provided year after year. Agencies have to reapply. They never know whether the minimal dollars that are allocated are going to be there.

So providing the supports, making the training mandatory: That is what is going to have a meaningful difference for survivors of intimate partner violence in Ontario.