Intimate partner violence is an epidemic. Agencies that support women have long been sounding the alarm. We have many local organizations that have been working to ensure women are safe and supported when leaving abusive situations, so that they and their children can be safe and have hope.

Luke’s Place is based in Oshawa but has been reaching its arms and care wide to serve women and children across the province. Pamela Cross, who has long served as the legal director at Luke’s Place, has been calling on all of us to take action.

Rates of violence have escalated, and women’s ability to access justice is worse. We need investment into legal aid and legal supports for women, as many women fleeing abuse are not working with a lawyer. The province could fix it if it chooses to.

The YWCA in Oshawa gets ministry funding for 15 violence-against-women beds, but they have more than 15 beds that they have to fundraise to use. These beds are for women leaving in the middle of the night with a child under their arm, the clothes they’re wearing, and hopefully some identification. There’s growing need, and funding doesn’t go as far as it used to. Also, women have to stay in those emergency shelter beds longer because they can’t find safe housing, and that means those emergency beds are already full when another woman comes looking for safety. It is unimaginable that a woman fleeing for her life and the lives of her children might get turned away. We need funding for more women.

After the terrible murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam, the Renfrew county coroner’s inquest yielded 86 recommendations. I’m glad that the region of Durham resolved to adopt the number one recommendation and declared intimate partner violence an epidemic.

Today, again, we call on the province to show leadership and be clear in declaring intimate partner violence an epidemic in this province, for the women who live with fear and harm, and for the women who have been murdered in this epidemic of gender-based violence.

Women’s lives have value, and this province has to do better.

Today we have folks from Oshawa for the debate on intimate partner violence. I want to welcome Karly Church from Victim Services of Durham Region, and Pamela Cross, legal director at Luke’s Place in Oshawa.

Good morning. This question is for the Premier. Nearly 10 years ago, three women were tragically murdered in Renfrew county on the same day by the same man. Since then, hundreds of women have lost their lives to acts of intimate partner violence. The first recommendation from the coroner’s inquest into the murders in Renfrew county was to formally declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. It’s a simple yet very important and impactful step that this government has so far resisted.

My question is, will the Premier right this wrong and support the NDP’s bill to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in Ontario?

I think all of us here often feel like we have a great privilege in being able to speak for so many who have been more directly impacted, often, by things like intimate partner violence. I always say it’s a privilege that we are able to be the ones to be here to advocate, and I do want to thank the government.

I am going to move on: I appreciate the government’s commitment to creating a committee. I’d like the government to consider taking everything a little bit of a step further today. We are joined, as I mentioned earlier, by dozens of survivors, their supporters, their loved ones, and they are here because, frankly, this government has ignored survivors for too long. This is the same government that cut millions in funding for the victims’ compensation fund and they changed the eligibility rules so that it’s even harder for survivors to get justice.

So I’d ask the minister and the Premier if they might consider explaining to the folks here today why they have taken that lifeline away and to, perhaps, restore it.

This is urgent. We need to increase that base funding right now. I would ask the government: Let’s not push this over to another committee for another 10 years or 12 years; let’s get this done today together.

I also want to mention courts again. We were joined this morning by a survivor who had the case against the accused stayed because too much time had passed. We hear this over and over again. We would ask the government to please consider properly funding the courts so that victims, survivors can truly see justice.

Will the government—and I know the government doesn’t want us to be talking about all these issues today, but this is what it means to declare this an epidemic. It means that you have to now treat it like the epidemic that it is. So I would ask the government again to restore the funding to the victims’ compensation fund and ensure that our courts are properly funded.

Interjections.

To be clear, we are passing the bill through the committee, but simultaneously, we will be reaching out to committee and asking them to conclude or to begin the process of the very extensive study on all aspects of intimate partner violence, concurrent with the bill being in front of committee. We will have the ability to call the ministers in this government. We will have the ability to call victims in front of the committee. We’ll have the ability to call providers of services, and we will criss-cross the entire province to find out what we can do better and how quickly we can enact some of those changes.

Look, I can sit here and highlight all of the great work that the ministers have done to address this, but I don’t think today is the day for that. What we’re going to do is we are going to engage all parliamentarians in an effort to replicate the great work that we did on human trafficking. I think members on both sides of the House will agree that what we accomplished on human trafficking is an example of Parliament working at its best. I believe that we can do the exact same thing here, and we will provide the resources necessary to do just that.

As I said, there is no point in us highlighting all of the extraordinary work that has been done already—I think there are a lot of things that we can be very proud of, but we have to do more, right? We’ve heard that loud and clear, that more has to be done. There needs to be more work done with respect to how it is impacting northern communities. We’ve heard from various other communities too that it is impacting them in different ways. We’ve heard, frankly, across the country, from our partners in other provinces, that more work needs to be done in co-operation with each other and, of course, the people who provide services to the victims have asked for better coordination.

So yes, absolutely, we will work quickly. We will do an extensive study. The committee can work as quickly as it possibly can, and we will provide it with the resources that it needs to get the job done properly and provide Parliament with recommendations that we can act upon as quickly as possible.