Status of Women committee  Yes, this is an important issue. I would suggest that for the Public Health Agency of Canada, we would not necessarily be in the best position to answer that. It's likely a question for the justice department. We would see the impacts here in terms of coercive control from a health perspective.

Status of Women committee  There are a number of countries that have done some great work in this regard. Australia would be one of them. What I could definitely offer to the committee is for us to take that question away and provide some answers in terms of what we see as those international best practices that may be helpful for the committee in its study, particularly from the point of view of family, gender-based and intimate partner violence.

Status of Women committee  We know that teens who are at risk of dating violence are those who have grown up with a history of maltreatment, or who maybe have been bullied or are being bullied. They have friends who are aggressive. Perhaps they use substances. Some LGBTQ2+ youth also experience teen dating violence, including some who have not disclosed their orientation.

Status of Women committee  Essentially, I could just point to something that happens through our Health Canada colleagues as a really important piece, which is Wellness Together Canada, that phone-in chat line and email and online portal that allows people to seek a range of the kind of help known as stepped care.

Status of Women committee  We also have the program for ages two to 12, called SNAP, which is an evidence-based, multi-component, trauma-informed, cognitive behavioural model that provides a framework for teaching effective emotional regulation and self-control and problem-solving skills for kids.

Status of Women committee  Yes, we are very pleased to have made that investment. The myPlan Canada app is, in fact, based on an international example of this. We have been able to import that into Canada and put this in place. It's early days. We just announced the funding, but the objective of this will be to ensure that women have a safe ability to text in their own home via this app, and to seek assistance if and when they need that.

Status of Women committee  While we don't necessarily invest in media per se, we certainly do invest in all those prevention areas you just named. I could give you a couple of quick examples. We have a program called WiseGuyz that's run out of the University of Calgary. It's delivering and evaluating a community-facilitated, school-based, healthy relationships program for grade nine boys in Alberta.

Status of Women committee  I'm not familiar with the age band for all of our programming, but certainly for teen dating violence we would be looking at the tween-to-teen years specifically. We would also, I guess, have a couple of other programs about building connections. That also is run out of Mothercraft.

Status of Women committee  Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Thank you for the invitation to address this committee as part of your study of intimate partner and domestic violence in Canada. I join you today from the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Nation in Ottawa to speak to you about the Public Health Agency of Canada's role in addressing and preventing intimate partner and domestic violence, in light of the significant and long-term physical and mental health impacts of these forms of violence.