Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
I'm representing the London Abused Women's Centre, which is an agency in London, Ontario, that provides women who are being abused by their intimate partners and women in prostitution with counselling, support, and advocacy. During our last fiscal year, the agency provided 3,300 women with services and responded to more than 5,000 phone calls.
I think it's important to go back almost 19 years ago to March 9, 1996, when Arlene May was murdered by her partner, Randy Isles. He then killed himself. After that the coroner for Ontario held an inquest into her murder and his suicide. The jury met with 76 witnesses over 51 days. On July 2 the jury returned with 213 recommendations.
In its opening statement the jury wrote:
Until we, as a country stand up and declare a 'Zero Tolerance', this problem will not only continue, but in this jury's opinion, will escalate.
They further went on to say:
A combined effort must be made by our Government and Communities in order to put an end to family violence.
Finally, they stated:
Domestic violence cases are different than other criminal cases. In most situations the accused and the victim would normally never meet again. With domestic violence, the accused often must have contact with the victim due to property, support and child issues.
The criminal justice system will have to be changed to deal effectively with these differences.
We live in a society where gender inequality, while present in almost every single aspect of our lives, is largely made invisible by our silence. I'm often asked whether we can ever end men's violence against women. I do know one thing for certain. With certain actions that we take we can definitely shift the culture for future generations and reduce men's violence against women. I often compare it to the work being done by MADD Canada. Drinking and driving was once considered the norm. Now thanks to legislation, advocacy, education, and awareness it is socially unacceptable to get in a car when you've had a drink. I believe we can do the same for domestic violence.
We need three things. First of all we need to speak out, just as President Obama and former president Jimmy Carter have done. We need the government at all levels in Canada to take a stand and say, “Not on our watch. On our watch we have a zero tolerance to men's violence against women.”
We need to name the problem and understand its source. The source is patriarchy and women's inequality, and we need to set our minds to achieving women's full equality in society.
We also need action. We need an investment in violence prevention, and public education and awareness programs, starting in the very early years in school. At the London Abused Women's Centre, six years ago, we started a campaign known as Shine the Light on Woman Abuse. The goals of the campaign were to raise awareness about men's violence against women, increase the profiles of agencies that can provide service to these women, and shift the blame and shame abused women so often feel to the shoulders of the perpetrators. Finally, we wanted to show women that we stood in support and solidarity with them as they tried to live their lives free from violence and abuse. The campaign has been overwhelmingly successful, has now spread to 25 communities throughout Ontario, and service demands at the London Abused Women's Centre continue to increase by about 100% each and every year.
We also initiated a Value Women campaign, which was started as an alternative to what was called, and is called still, the SlutWalk, which we opposed. The goals of the Value Women campaign are to change the culture for women to one where women are equally valued. To do so we're asking that everybody recruit one person, who then will recruit five, who in turn will recruit five more.
Over the next five years we hope to reach five million individuals and call them champions for women.
The London Abused Women's Centre is part of a coordinated effort between the City of London and the London Coordinating Committee to End Woman Abuse. We partnered with the corporation of the City of London to develop a national, award-winning, collaborative program called “I Step Forward to End Violence and Abuse in my Community, Workplace, and Home”. It is a training program for all City of London employees to increase their understanding of men's violence against women and to increase the capacity to recognize and respond to situations of violence at home, at work, and in the community.
The London Abused Women's Centre is the lead agency for the Ontario woman abuse screening project, which has promoted collaboration between the woman abuse, sexual assault, mental health, and addiction sectors to provide trauma-informed services including routine universal screening for abuse and trauma, and to promote these as best practices across all sectors. The project has been successful in ensuring improved services, with fewer women having to live their lives alone, homeless or in isolation. In fact, that project has now spread throughout 141 communities across Ontario.
Finally, we need legislative change. We strongly recommend amending the Criminal Code to reflect the realities of those women being abused by their partners. We have great models in place where they have done that, including Sweden, where they have put into place the “gross violation of a woman's integrity” legislation. We've done a lot of research and are certainly happy to make that available to you.
Finally, I want to say that never in my life, and I've been at the London Abused Women's Centre for 18 years, did I ever think we would see the result of legislative advocacy. We saw that with the passing of Bill C-36, which we did support.
We're already seeing an increase in women seeking service from our agency. Legislative changes, along with advocacy, public awareness, and information can make a difference in the lives of women and their children.