Status of Women committee  I hope you're okay if I respond in English. It's devastating. We all have experience in our families, in our personal lives and with our friends. Intimate partner violence, as I said at the outset, is an epidemic in this country. We all want to do something about it. I come from the experience that most of the people we work with, who are criminalized and who are in our prisons and our jails, have experienced intimate partner violence or violence of some kind.

Status of Women committee  Okay. I also wanted to bring the Renfrew inquiry into this discussion, because the Renfrew inquiry mentions electronic monitoring as a potential solution for intimate partner violence. The recommendations do not go so far as to say it must be implemented, but rather that we should be studying it.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I think these also involve national awareness campaigns, basic universal incomes, easy access to counselling services and acknowledgement that intimate partner violence is a societal issue, not a private one. Thank you.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, honourable members and Chair. It is such a pleasure to be with you today, although, as you said, this is a very difficult topic. I work as the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. Our work is situated predominantly here on the territory of the Algonquin nation, although our work takes place across Turtle Island.

Justice committee  Oh, yes, certainly. As people are coming off whatever substance they may be addicted to, it's harmful to their own safety. As I said, many people have been dying in our territorial and provincial jails, and there hasn't been a public outcry about that. I am concerned about the fact that the families and loved ones of people who have been dying in our jails, many of them on pretrial detention....

Justice committee  Yes, that is correct.

Justice committee  I think that beyond what Dr. Myers has said, because I think she has put it really well, I am concerned about access to legal aid. I am concerned about access to adequate representation, obviously, for the people we work with. Practically speaking, what I always come back to is investment in upstream resourcing of communities: supporting people who are experiencing poverty; ensuring that precarious housing is something people are not being punished for when it comes to bail; enhancing social welfare supports and increasing investments in education and health care—essentially just keeping people in the community and ensuring they have the supports necessary so they don't experience the complete uprooting that happens when they are put into jail, even for a short period of time.

Justice committee  Thank you so much. I just wanted to say that when we are talking about public safety, in the line of work we do, we have to remember that the people we work with and alongside—who are the many people who are criminalized; they are the women and gender-diverse folks who are often in prison—are also part of the public when we're talking about public safety.

Justice committee  Think of going to jail for two weeks, which is hard on people's lives.

Justice committee  Yes, that still happens. It goes back to an earlier question around how many people we are seeing enter the system due to mental health disability or substance use, which are connected, undeniably, in the work we do. Social science will tell us that there's a reason people with trauma and mental health disabilities use substances, which is that we don't have the resources to support them in their wellness journeys.

Justice committee  —the overwhelming number of [Inaudible—Editor] defence counsel who works with our.... Oh, I apologize. Did you hear me?

Justice committee  I apologize. You would think that in New York the Internet would be good, but apparently not. I was just saying that one of the defence counsels who works with one of our Elizabeth Fry Societies was saying that sometimes people are waiting up to two weeks in order to have a bail hearing.

Justice committee  My short answer is yes. A longer answer is that— I'm being told that my Internet is unstable. Can you hear me?

Justice committee  Okay. Good. The CAEFS network is made up of 23 local member societies all across the country. They do the essential on-the-ground work of supporting the most marginalized people in their communities. Many of them have bail beds, but most of them don't. That's a problem. We don't have Elizabeth Fry Societies in the north of Canada.

Justice committee  Thank you. Most of the people we are working with suffer from substance abuse and the issues that stem from that. The people who are imprisoned and go through the revolving door of the jail system are people who are often suspended or revoked on breaches that are related to substance abuse and the poverty that comes with that.