Iqra Khalid

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, I have a lot of concerns about the member blaming the pornographic industry as the sole reason for intimate partner violence, gender-based violence and toxic masculinity.

I will pick up on her closing remarks when she said that women are not objects and ask her if she believes that a woman has the autonomy to decide what happens to her body. I will leave it at that.

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, in the member's speech she mentioned that there is a lot more to do to address the issue of gender-based violence. I wonder, as we find out through a holistic, all-emcompassing approach the role of a woman's autonomy over her own body, what role that plays within gender-based violence.

I ask the member how she feels about the stance of her party and members of her party on the control a woman has over her own body and the way that interacts with gender-based violence in teaching a woman that perhaps she is lesser than somebody else who has control over what happens to her body?

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for her very heartfelt speech. As she said, we really need to find that thorough and wholesome approach in combatting gender-based violence and ensuring equality for women.

Can the member comment on how she feels about her party, the Conservative Party, voting against the special committee for pay equity in 2016, and subsequently her party and members of her party's stance on a woman's autonomy over her own body and her right to chose?

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, that question ties in very much with the one by the previous member about coercive and controlling behaviour.

I think we are dealing with a culture within our country that accepts and condones violence against women. Until and unless we are able to really teach boys and men and really teach girls and women what consent is, what autonomy over one's own body is, what economic empowerment is, and what the ability to be considered equal on one's merit regardless of gender is, then we really cannot move past intimate-partner violence.

I look forward to continuing to work with all members in the House to ensure that we are putting forward policies and adjusting our laws and regulations so that we can do this from the top down. I also encourage, from the bottom up, our community leaders and all levels of government to ensure that we are working to address this very serious issue within each and every corner of our country.

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, the bill the member refers to has been top of mind to me and members of the justice committee as we have endeavoured over the past number of weeks to study the issue of coercive and controlling behaviours as leading up to potentially lethal violence against women. I wholeheartedly support measures that we can take as Parliament to address what coercive and controlling behaviour is. We heard from many police forces across our country that changes to our Criminal Code to include a criminal offence for coercive and controlling behaviour is something they are looking forward to. I also believe that in all of our Criminal Code provisions that deal directly or indirectly with gender-based violence, we need to have a gender-based analysis conducted of them so that we can fill in the gaps as—

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, if I understood the question correctly, we are talking about gender-based violence on an international stage and I have to say that Canada, being the human rights leader that it is, really has a role to play. We have been playing that role in empowering other countries around the world to take into account what gender equality means for citizenry across the world. Whether it is through funding human rights aid across the world or through empowering women parliamentarians across the world to advocate for gender-based analysis of all laws in their own nations, or through multilateral agreements and organizations providing that support, I think there is no one measure that our country can take. This has to be a thorough, holistic approach as to how we combat the culture of toxic masculinity, the culture of violence against women, the culture of using violence against women as a measure—

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for her ongoing advocacy. It was a pleasure to work with her in the all-party women's caucus in the last parliament, and I find her advocacy to be very sincere and very compelling.

With the Canadian Armed Forces, I have to say that it is not the responsibility of the survivors and women who have experienced that atrocity to be the ones who are leading that charge. In my opinion, I think there are three levels of things we can do. The first is that as members of Parliament, we have our own advocacy. We could be reaching out proactively to members of the Canadian Armed Forces who live in our constituencies to ensure they are doing okay.

Second, we could ensure that at the organizational institutional level, gender-based analysis is being provided on all of the actions undertaken within the Canadian Armed Forces. On a strategic, whole-of-country policy and level, we can ensure that we are really looking into, very surgically and very strategically, providing that support for those women, and I think—

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, over the last seven weeks, seven women in Quebec tragically lost their lives to heinous acts of domestic violence. This is incredibly alarming and, unfortunately, is reflected in provinces all across the country. I am reflecting tonight. A death because of intimate partner violence does not just happen all of a sudden. There is a lead-up to it.

Therefore, I will invite members to reflect with me this evening on what it is like to be in a home where one's every move could trigger an argument and any word that comes out of one's mouth could lead to a sharp slap across the face. I ask members to imagine their child watching and listening as their partner hurls profanities at them, and having to find their child later, hiding because they are too afraid from watching the abuse take place. I ask members to imagine the embarrassment, the shame and the helplessness.

I ask members to imagine not having anywhere to go for escape, or living miles away from their closest neighbour, or not speaking the language that others around them understand, or not having a penny to their name to seek out support to get out. Where would they go? Who would they count on?

Let me be clear. Intimate partner violence is prevalent in all cultures, ethnicities and socio-economic situations. In 2019, I had an event through my women's council in my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills on raising awareness for intimate partner violence. I remember there were about 100 women who had come to this event to learn more about the supports that are out there.

At the end of the event, there was a very young woman who approached me. She said how afraid she was for herself. I asked her what could we do. She said, “I'm a police officer, and I still feel like this in my home.” The helplessness in her eyes that day will haunt me forever.

On average, 69 women are killed by intimate partner violence every year. To put that in a different context, a report by the Canadian Women's Foundation states that a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner approximately every six days. Indigenous women are three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence. Women with disabilities are two times more likely. Research also shows that approximately 28% of domestic homicides in Canada between 2010 and 2018 involved rural and remote communities. Intimate partner violence accounted for a third of all violent crime in 2018.

In 2018 alone, about 100,000 people reported intimate partner violence to police, and 79% of them were women. This is based on data that is reported to the police. According to the police, the majority of incidents go unreported. The real number would be much, much higher. On any given night, 3,491 women and their 2,724 children sleep in shelters because it is not safe at home, and 300 women and children are turned away because shelters are full.

Over the last year, more people are staying in their homes instead of going out, obviously because of the pandemic. In this environment, where there are many struggling with their mental health, victims of intimate partner violence are living full time with their abuser.

A report by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability found that in 2020 alone, 160 women were killed by acts of violence. This is one woman killed every two and a half days in our country. The Peel region, which is where my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills is, sees officers responding to over 1,000 calls for family violence and intimate partner violence each month. That is 33 calls a day. Over the last two years, about 40% of all homicides in the Peel region were the product of family violence.

According to Statistics Canada analysis, calls related to domestic disturbances rose by approximately 12% between March and June 2020, according to data from 17 police forces across Canada, compared to the same period in 2019.

Women's shelters and help lines in regions across the country have experienced a major surge in calls. From March to July 2020, calls to the Vancouver Battered Women's Support Services tripled, while in Alberta, calls to specialized crisis lines for intimate partner violence increased by up to 50%. Across Canada, 54% of victim services programs saw an increase in domestic violence victims during that same period.

From September to December alone, Canada's Assaulted Women’s Helpline saw a 60% increase in calls compared to the previous year. In April to June, they saw double the number of calls from 2019.

I have spoken to shelters and police services in my riding, and they are very worried that these numbers do not reflect the whole picture. When victims are trapped with their abuser, unable to see family or friends, it limits their ability to call for help before the situation escalates. It limits the ability for services to go out and proactively reach these individuals who are need of that support.

Worse still, domestic violence is not only becoming more common, it is becoming more severe. Last year, the Ending Violence Association of Canada and Anova conducted a survey of staff and volunteers working at women's shelters, and 82% reported that violence had become more frequent. Abusers' violent tactics have changed, and control over their victims has increased. They use access to technology, or the outside world, even information about the coronavirus, as a weapon. In these cases of isolation with an abuser, the scale of violence has also escalated, with one worker describing many more cases of strangulation and serious physical assaults leading to a higher risk of lethality.

We see the same trends echoed in our partner nations across the world. UN Women and women's organizations around the world have called this the shadow pandemic, which has grown amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and threatens to impact our communities long after this health crisis has passed. The data tells us that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.

More needs to be done to prioritize addressing this crisis. It is vital that we continue to take action.

Since 2015, our government has taken firm action on this issue of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence. In 2017, we launched the first-ever federal strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence to fill important gaps and support women and girls, indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ2+ members and gender non-conforming people in communities across Canada.

We launched the gender-based violence knowledge centre to coordinate federal actions under its three pillars. We announced $15.6 million in funding for projects to end violence against women and girls. We are investing more than $50 million in nearly 60 projects to support survivors of gender-based violence and their families in communities across Canada—

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for his allyship on this very important cause.

I would ask the member to highlight for us the work he has done specifically in his constituency to support women who are fleeing from violence, raise awareness and build more allies within the male space to become champions of combatting intimate partner violence. What can we do collectively? I would ask the member to outline some of these items for us.

[Gender-Based Violence, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for her advocacy.

How does she feel about the leader of the Conservative Party not answering her question about a woman's autonomy over her own body or the Minister for Women and Gender Equality's question about why he voted against funding the Quebec organizations that would help the very women he says that he cares about?