Sorry. Of course.

It reads:

“Dear members of provincial Parliament for Hamilton-based ridings:

“At its meeting on August 18, 2023, Hamilton city council passed a motion respecting the ‘Declaration of Gender-Based Violence and Intimate-Partner Violence as an epidemic in the city of Hamilton.’ By way of this email, I would like to forward the contents of that motion for your awareness.

“The motion is as follows”—I might have to actually read a couple and then get to the whereases because it’s quite long, and I only have six minutes on the clock left. Time goes fast around here.

“Whereas gender-based violence is defined as violence or abuse perpetrated against a woman, girl or gender-diverse individual because of their gender, gender expression, gender identity or perceived gender;

“Whereas according to the official 2023 UN Women statistics, globally, an estimated one in three women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner, non-partner violence or both at least once in their life (30% of women aged 15 and older);

“Whereas, globally, according to the same report, there is a woman or girl being killed every 11 minutes in their home;

“Whereas femicide is a result of gender-based violence and 22 countries specifically reference it in their criminal legislation;

“Whereas Canada does not currently include the term femicide in their criminal legislation;

“Whereas Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people experience higher rates of gender-based violence;

“Whereas Indigenous women are more likely than non-Indigenous women to experience sexual assault at a younger age;

“Whereas transgender and gender-diverse people are significantly more likely to have experienced physical or sexual assault at least once since 15 years of age;

“Whereas the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability ... found that in Canada between 2018 and 2022 one woman was killed every 48 hours”—come on, Speaker, to not have this included in legislation that’s called the Enhancing Access to Justice Act is an absolute crime on its own. That would just add to the criminal investigations happening on the other side. It’s actually quite interesting that they’re bringing a bill forward such as this when the RCMP are investigating the government at the exact same time. It’s kind of like smoke and mirrors in the Ontario Legislature once again.

I’m going to jump quickly to the “Therefore, be it resolved” part because I’m sure everybody has the picture here of how awful of an epidemic this truly is—“(a) That council declare gender-based violence and intimate partner violence an epidemic in Hamilton;

“(b) That staff meet with the Women Abuse Working Group ... to develop recommendations that will further address gender-based violence and intimate partner violence in Hamilton;

“(c) That staff be authorized to provide one-time funding in the amount of $30,129.00 from the City Enrichment Fund ... to support the Women Abuse Working Group”—because the city has to pay for it, because the provincial government refuses. It’s not in here; that was my adding—“to further identify and help address service gaps;

“(d) That staff continue to actively engage with the Hamilton just recovery coalition and their recommendations to identify further actions;

“(e) That staff continue to work closely with the community safety and well-being system leadership table to increase awareness of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence and explore opportunities for further action;

“(f) That council, by way of a letter from the mayor, and staff continue to actively engage with the province of Ontario to advocate for sustainable investments that meaningfully address gender-based violence and intimate partner”—that was the part that really does affect us here.

I’m going to leave the rest because I am running out of time and there are other things that I really want to be able to say—and that is: We can do better as a province. When we are turning a blind eye to our most vulnerable citizens—when a woman is in an abusive situation, it is so hard for her to be able to leave that situation. She has children. She has bills. How is she going to pay the rent? How is she going to be able to afford to do this? Many men can be very manipulating, so she has no credit. How is she possibly going to do this? Who’s going to pay for everything? It compounds. To have the guts to actually stand up and say, “I’m out,” and then leave with her kids, drive to the nearest shelter and realize that the doors are locked because there are no beds—what is she supposed to do then?

Visiting one of our shelters—they tell us they makeshift beds on the floor in some of the rooms just to make space. I see members shaking their heads over there. If you’re shaking your head, tell your Premier to do the right thing: Fund our women’s shelters. Ensure that they have safety, that there is somewhere for them to go—somewhere. Funding from the 1990s is the funding base level that they’re at—imagine, the 1990s. You talk about inflation, you talk about the cost of everything, but you don’t fund our services to ensure that they can take care of our communities and that we can have healthy communities. Start with the basics. Make sure we’re proactive, that we’re actively looking into ways to help our community instead of trying to figure out a way to stack the deck against them.

We can do better as a province. This bill could have done so much better to ensure that we had a real, truly safe ability to enhance access to justice in the province of Ontario, and not just more smoke and mirrors and great titles. No great title is going to save one person. Real action is going save people. It’s your turn to do that.

Yes, we should all be passionate when we talk in this House—and sex trafficking is no different.

I’ve seen recent articles about big cases being brought down and the work of specialized teams in our police forces who are really doing that hard work. I need to say thank you to them for doing that work. It’s not easy to go home to your own family and children at the end of the day after seeing some of the most horrific things that people with minds that we can’t explain do to our children, and how they can exploit women. We need better legislation to ensure that we’re protecting them and that there are more tools to be able to conquer this and to challenge it so that no one—male, female—is put up for sale in the province of Ontario.