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Speaker, there were 1,326 cases actually thrown out in 2022 or withdrawn or stayed in our justice system, which is an injustice, quite frankly.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.

I am very proud to present this petition entitled “Justice for Sexual Assault Survivors.” It is a petition that urges support for Bill 189, Lydia’s Law, legislation that I am proud to be a co-sponsor of, along with my colleague the member for Waterloo and also the member for Toronto Centre.

The petition notes that the vast majority of sexual assault cases in this province go unreported. There are a very small number that actually go to trial. Of that small number, last year more than 1,300 of those cases that went to court were withdrawn or they were stayed before a trial had been held. This is shameful for the survivors who had the courage to actually report and tried to pursue justice. It is a denial of justice for those survivors, just as they were denied an opportunity to hear a debate about Lydia’s Law in this chamber.

The petition calls for the recommendations that were made in 2019—five years ago—by the Auditor General to ensure the proactive reporting on sexual assault cases that fall through the cracks in this broken justice system and to look for reasons that—

The petition calls on the Legislative Assembly to adopt the provisions of Lydia’s Law, including the Auditor General’s recommendations to ensure some accountability from this government for taking sexual assault cases to trial and also to enhance the independent legal advice program and the Victim Quick Response Program.

I couldn’t agree more with this petition. I affix my signature and send it to the table with page Kai.

I thank the member for his question and I appreciate that you had that many women working in your workplace. So it astounds me that you would have voted in favour to discharge Lydia’s Law to committee, because I can’t imagine that in a workplace of that many women you didn’t see issues of intimate partner violence; you didn’t see issues of gender-based violence or trauma. Because the stats will say that you did, whether you recognized it or not.

While showing up with a big cheque is important, as I said, these organizations are starved for funding. You need to do more. You need to dig deep and have the courage of your convictions to vote what is appropriate and vote what is just, not just what you’re told to do.

I really want to talk particularly about women workers, women who work in precarious jobs, women who work piecework. They’re very often afraid, even if they know what their entitlements are. They’re often afraid to speak up about the wages that are being stolen from them, because they fear reprisals.

The associate minister for women’s issues said that in the skilled trades sector, women feel that they are treated differently. Well, that’s no different from all women across all sectors. If they really wanted to help women in the workplace, as she has said in her speech here, you need to look at women having their wages stolen—the most low-income women in our province, pieceworkers, garment workers. You need to address that. The government’s job is to make sure that women get the wages that they deserve.

I would also remind you that intimate partner violence and the issue of sexual assault perpetrators, rapists, going free is not the same issue. This is a problem with the courts, and this is a problem with your government’s failure to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.

You pass bills here in a day, in two days, and we have all kinds of time here to debate your bills and debate bills that you’ve made mistakes on. Why did you not want to hear from the voices of women in this House that were prepared to come here? Instead, you dispatched it to committee where you know—

I met with a child care organization called Today’s Family in my community, and they shared with me that they are completely committed to the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program, but that they’re struggling to implement it because they can’t afford to pay the workers what they deserve and they can’t continue to retain workers who cannot work on starvation wages, and I will just say that I had a question in the House the other day about women and families that can’t afford baby formula.

So this is a government that’s completely tone-deaf, is in their own bubble when it comes to the impact that women are facing, the economic difficulties that women are facing in this province under your government’s watch.