Good morning. My name is Céline Hotte, and I am pleased to be here today to support Bill C-44.
At the time of the crime, I had two daughters, and I was living with my spouse, who is a paramedic in the Buckingham area of Gatineau. Annick, the eldest, was 15 years old at the time. She had decided to go live with her father. Everything was going well until, one day, our lives were turned upside down. A gratuitous murder was committed. I had four weeks left of a contract, but I was unable to return to work because time had stopped for me.
The bills continued to come in regularly. It was very difficult with only one income. Let me give you some examples. My spouse made the minimum payments to all the creditors, often less. The telephone got cut off. Hydro called us nonstop. We lived with another stress: money. This added to all the sorrow the murder had caused. It was very painful for us. I was also worried about my daughter, Pascale, and concerned that she continue going to school and being involved in her sports activities, but especially that she eat properly, which was not always possible.
We also had to pay for half the funeral costs and all the other expenses incurred by the situation. We really needed specialized psychological assistance. This is why Bill C-44 is indispensable for the relatives of victims. The $350 weekly payments over 35 weeks are very important to lighten the financial burden on victims and to help them continue to live with a little less worry because, I should mention, it is very difficult to carry on with the realities of life after such a tragedy has happened.
Following this trauma, I was diagnosed in 1999 with fibromyalgia, and this was a result of the murder. I was experiencing too much stress at that time. This is an incurable disease. There was also the stress related to parole, which plunged us back into it after 10 years, 12 years; he is trying for parole each year. After 17 years, he was reincarcerated because he did the same thing to another girl. We are witnessing that. We are being thrown back into it. We are in it almost all the time.
I would like to thank you for listening to me. It is important because other families will unfortunately experience similar situations. But, they will have the opportunity to get money to meet their needs.
Thank you very much.