In my community of St. Paul’s—the question is to the Premier—we are fortunate to have the John Howard Society community office working tirelessly to support people affected by the justice system and those trying to rebuild productive lives post-incarceration.

JHS has been on the front lines, advocating for a just and reformed bail system. They have offered substantive recommendations to this government’s Standing Committee on Justice Policy. One of those key recommendations was for the government to invest in bail supervision programs that have a proven history and provide a lower-cost alternative to pretrial detention, a practice that is disproportionately applied more to Black, Indigenous and racialized individuals than white individuals for the same and similar charges.

Can the Premier share what investments they have made in the current budget to address the need for more bail supervision programs?

The John Howard Society is recommending deep government investments in programs focused on prevention, intervention and reintegration, as well as robust investments in supportive housing, people, since the overall dismantling of the social safety net by this government has led to an increase in incarceration.

My question, again, is back to the Premier. Hopefully he’ll answer. Why is spending $300 a day to warehouse legally innocent people the status quo, as opposed to lower-cost, effective, community-based interventions like supportive housing?

I have a petition entitled, “Justice for Sexual Assault Survivors (Bill 189: Lydia’s Law).”

This was a very important private member’s bill that we were going to be debating in this House yesterday. It addresses the fact that women in this province continue not to see justice in the court system that is underfunded by this government. There were 1,226 cases of sexual assault in 2023 that were thrown out of court because there were not enough staff in our court system to see these cases. These were women that were assaulted that had to live through their trauma not once but twice, and unfortunately, the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington stood in his place and moved a motion that would send this bill directly to committee and denied women the opportunity to come and be heard in this House.

So, I fully support this petition. I think that it behooves all of us, on both sides, to listen to the people of the province because that is who we are elected to represent. And I share the outrage of women across the province that you’ve silenced the voices of women in this province, and I will add my name along with the thousands of women that share my dismay and outrage with this government.

I have a very important petition, Speaker, and it’s titled “Justice for Sexual Assault Survivors.” This petition was part of a tool under a private member’s bill, Bill 189, Lydia’s Law.

The reason why this petition is very important is because it’s connected to survivors’ voices. Unfortunately, this government decided not to allow a debate on a very important private member’s bill which gave access to sexual assault victims to have their voices heard here in this Legislature through members who have been elected to represent their ridings.

Speaker, there were 1,326 cases actually thrown out in 2022 or withdrawn or stayed in our justice system, which is an injustice, quite frankly. And 80% of sexual assaults are not reported—

So, again, the reason this petition is very important is because it is asking this Legislature to honour the recommendations of the Auditor General’s 2019 report 1 and 3, which allowed better access, more access to survivors of sexual assault to access the independent legal advice because of the way they’re being treated in the courts. And, quite frankly, the way women are being treated here in this Legislature isn’t the right thing to do when we’re talking about the rights of people and sexual assault victims to be heard in the justice system, to get legal justice and put their offenders through the system to make sure they are convicted correctly.

I support this petition, and I would like to sign it and give it to page Harry for being so patient here, listening to me today with this petition. Thank you, page Harry.