Thank you to the members of the committee.
I want to begin by commending you on what has clearly been a tremendous success, a justice system so efficient, so protective and so flawlessly designed that victims and survivors across this country have nothing to fear. I honestly don't think that we need to be here today, so we might as well just go home, but we can't go home, because none of the aforementioned is remotely accurate or truly reflective of the graveyard of preventable deaths that Canada has become.
My name is Cait Alexander. I'm a model, actress, artist and founder of End Violence Everywhere, EVE, a registered charity in Canada serving survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault and gender-based violence.
On July 31, 2021, I was nearly killed by my former partner in Leaside in Toronto. Despite the severity of the attack, having photo and video evidence of him nearly beating me to death, despite the tactical team coming to my home and despite the eight charges he faced, he was released on bail almost immediately for $500. He never even had a criminal trial for my attempted murder because all eight of his charges timed out under the ruling of R. v. Jordan. I don't even have a peace bond, because it expired.
I lived in hiding for months after the attack before being forced to move to the United States, and had I not left Canada, he probably would have been successful in his quest to end my life. He nearly did that to the woman he dated after me and, I found out, the one before me as well.
The scariest part is that my experience is not unique. It is common in Canada. Abuse is happening to women, children and, yes, men as well every single day in this country without consequence.
At my organization, we serve these survivors we call the experts, because they are the experts of these issues, their experience and the horrors of not having a functional justice system. If you have not engaged with the system nor read the entirety of the Criminal Code of Canada, I would not call you an expert, regardless of your parliamentary title. We, the experts, call it the injustice system, and we live the damage that it does every single day.
A most recent example is of a club promoter, Mark Holland, who notoriously has sexually assaulted dozens and dozens of women spanning generations. He is on the registered sex offender list and this past August was released on bail for more sexual assault charges. He is free in the community once again. I met Mark when I was 18 years old outside a nightclub on King Street West in Toronto. Something in my gut told me to stay away from him. My instinct was beyond accurate.
Over the last decades, I have watched Mark Holland harm eight of my friends and brutalize dozens and dozens of other young girls with impunity, and he's out on bail again. I have seen hospitality groups and clubs continue to hire him despite knowing what he does. I have seen him breach conditions repeatedly and still remain free, still working in nightlife venues, still hunting victims and still protected by systemic gaps that enable serial predators. It's almost as if the government wants this.
Our team at EVE is supporting hundreds of survivors, and we receive thousands of disclosures online and directly through our advocacy channels. These are not fringe cases; these are Canadians, primarily women and children who are unsafe in their homes, unsafe in their communities and unsafe because the system that is supposed to protect them protects the abusers. The charter rights of criminals appear to outweigh the charter rights of victims.
We are supporting survivors who sleep with bags packed by the door. We are supporting survivors who relocate provinces because their abuser was released. We are supporting survivors who have been told directly that the system cannot help them until something worse happens, until blood is drawn. Even then, in those instances, as I know from personal experience, it's not enough. The only time it seems to be enough is when she's buried. We have to die, and then you care—sort of.
Dozens have been killed recently by partners who were released on bail despite clear histories of violence. Two of the parents of these women are testifying today, my friends Jackie Cobb and Brett Broadfoot. It is my honour to call them my friends, but I wish I didn't have to meet them, because their daughters were murdered in preventable deaths simply because the government doesn't have good policy and doesn't care.
Don't tell me that you do care, like you did, James Maloney, on October 28, 2024, when we met under former minister of justice Arif's reign. You promised me you would see our pleadings through. You promised me that having a family of lawyers helped you understand first-hand what we go through. You promised me that you cared, and you promised me that you would do something about the horrors of the Canadian criminal system.
I left your office that day hopeful. How stupid of me. You never called me again—