Good morning, dear members.
It's with great pleasure that I appear before you.
My name is Mélanie Lemay. I'm the co-founder of Québec contre les violences sexuelles, a movement I launched with Ariane Litalien and Kimberley Marin. We have succeeded in getting framework legislation passed in CEGEPs and universities throughout Quebec.
Since the wave of #MeToo, we have been very involved in changing awareness about sexual violence.
Given our many experiences, it seems obvious to us that it is necessary to improve at all costs the tools available to victim-survivors to flee violence or denounce it. It is essential to expand the models. Although we are testifying today in favour of adding the notion of coercive control to the Criminal Code, the fact remains that, in its very essence, criminal law too often challenges our experience and our reality. Since it is essentially focused on the rights of the accused, we are only witnesses. By dispossessing us of our histories, the criminal law reproduces power relations that already exist in our society.
In the position I find myself in today, I salute your courage and willingness to dwell on this difficult issue. However, I invite you to look further, to think about ways to innovate, beyond a rigid box that locks us up and forces us into compartments that don't fit our real needs.
This summer, we organized a march in Montreal. This event encouraged many people to unite their voices to demand concrete changes. We must stop the continuation of violence from one generation to the next. This truth is widely accepted in a society that claims to be egalitarian. Yet, in reality, we have been the target of several groups of violent men who wanted to silence us with the possibility of an attack. A battering ram car actually arrived on the scene threatening to attack the crowd. Throughout the day, we had to face men who came to shout their anger in our faces, under the amused gaze of the policemen. We had received online threats, but because they weren't in a form recognized in the Criminal Code, the police abandoned us. Luckily, we had taken care of ourselves and our own safety, and there were no tragedies that day, unlike at other events in the past.
However, we have remained marked by society's indifference to the personal sacrifices we make since we must continually advocate for this cause.
Today, I am speaking to you, but thousands of others did so yesterday and, if nothing changes, there will be just as many tomorrow. So I'm speaking to you with the sincere hope that this will be the beginning of a long dialogue on best practices. Here, in these unceded lands, ideas, expertise and proposals abound and are the stuff of international dreams.
I hope to see you unite as the various political parties in Quebec have done, by creating a transparent committee of experts who bring the realities on the ground to the decision-making table. From this committee, a report was born. I have the honour of being accompanied by Simon Lapierre, full professor at the University of Ottawa's School of Social Work, who was a member of this committee of experts.
This ability to unite and see beyond partisanship is a model and an inspiration. What we, as survivors of domestic and sexual violence, most sincerely wish for is a system that focuses on our rights and needs, in order to develop a real sense of justice free of victimization.
There is even a need to create a whole new area of law focusing on gender-based violence. In this regard, we could draw on the knowledge of First Nations and Black communities, who have long reflected on these issues. They have expertise that deserves to be heard within these walls. This would certainly create a more just and equitable world for all. In addition to being adapted to the realities of our gender, a form of law like this would allow for the inclusion of the violence suffered by LGBTQ+ communities.
I'll now turn things over to my colleague, who will return to the main topic on the agenda.