Thank you, Shelina.
I'd like to thank the committee and the Safe Centre of Peel for including Peel Regional Police in this deputation.
My name is Inspector Lisa Hewison and I lead one of the largest intimate partner violence units in Canada. The communities we serve are not immune to intimate partner and domestic violence. Consistently, our number one call for service is for intimate partner disputes. In 2020, it accounted for 30% of our homicides.
In 2021, we responded to over 16,000 incidents of intimate partner violence and domestic violence. That's 45 incidents every two hours every day. Also in 2021, we laid 393 strangulation charges where survivors were seconds away from being a femicide. That's over one woman being strangled every day in our region.
PRP has identified gaps in services and inconsistencies with the judicial system when it comes to IPV, which often leaves survivors experiencing additional trauma. Many IPV—