Thank you so much for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Corinne Paterson and I'm an obstetrician gynecologist in Manitoba. I've been practising here since 2011. I want to share with you my experience working with women experiencing intimate partner violence.
In residency we are trained regarding the basics of how to help our patients who are dealing with domestic violence. First, we're taught to ask about it, knowing that 25% of Canadian women will experience it. If a woman discloses domestic violence in her relationship, we talk about safety. We talk about having an exit plan. We talk about shelters. We support them if they wish to report to the police. We talk about leaving their abusive partner.
Most of us became doctors because we wanted to help people, and this seemed so straightforward when it was taught in university. Unfortunately, helping women in these situations is far more complicated. Women can go through all the right steps and still die or lose the lives of their children. The loss of life of women and children from intimate partner violence across Canada is appalling. It has become a public health emergency that has been made worse by the pandemic. A woman dies every 1.5 days in this country, and 30 to 40 children die every year from domestic violence. We can do better.
We also know from a medical perspective that children who survive domestic violence do not emerge unscathed. Exposure increases the risk of adverse health outcomes, including depression, anxiety and suicide. Physical illnesses, including obesity, heart disease and cancer, are increased as well.
If a woman tells me that she's being abused by her partner and she has children, we discuss leaving. However, in Winnipeg, as is common across the country, it is unlikely that we will be able to have a shelter bed available for her on the day that she happens to need one. I remember once calling a shelter on behalf of my pregnant patient who showed up to my clinic with two black eyes, and I was told the wait for a shelter bed would be approximately two weeks' time. That's not helpful.
Women like this are often scared, and so am I. I know her risk of dying increases significantly when she decides to leave a violent relationship. I will often encourage people to get a restraining order. I also know that in Winnipeg we do not always have the police resources to come right away. I know when she goes to a lawyer to talk about getting a divorce, they will possibly explain to her that a judge may feel—as did the judge in Dr. Kagan's case—that domestic violence is not relevant to parenting and they're going to ignore it.
I've heard from patients and from lawyers that their clients are aware of this phenomenon. It's become an unacceptable but understood fact amongst professionals: A woman can go through every step correctly, but the Canadian judicial system is unable to consistently protect abused women in this country.
Education on domestic violence is absolutely required to protect Canadian children. Specifically pertaining to this bill, we talk about educating judges. They act as the final gatekeepers to justice for women leaving the path of abuse. If they are unaware of the full implications of their decisions on the lives of women and children, how can we expect them to do their job properly?
If any individual were to argue with me that this education is unnecessary, I would ask them to picture what 280 mothers and children would look like. That's 10 classrooms full of women and children. Even if, with this bill, we manage to save 10% of them, that would be significant. We're asking judges to invest their time in learning how to save these lives.
We know that, according to the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative, recent separation and domestic violence are the two biggest risk factors for domestic violence-related child homicide. Custody disputes increase this risk as well. If we can properly risk-score these perpetrators, perhaps we can save the lives of children. Every judge needs to know these facts.
I became involved in speaking about this bill because I was particularly touched by the media coverage of the case of Keira losing her life after her mother, a fellow physician, did all the right things. She left. She trusted the system; there are 53 court orders to prove it. Her daughter still died. Another physician, a mother of three, Elana Fric, lost her life at the hands of her husband after suffering from significant domestic violence and telling him she wanted a divorce.
A woman's risk of domestic homicide goes up 900 times when there is a history of coercive control, violence and a recent separation.
We are fortunate that research has been done which clearly demonstrates that ankle bracelet monitoring saves lives. Ankle bracelet monitoring for offenders, including notification of the victim and police if the perpetrator is violating a restraining order, has been shown to reduce intimate partner violence-associated deaths by up to 100% in some jurisdictions.
I wonder how many Canadians could be saved by this technology, and I sincerely hope we get the chance to find out.