Justice committee  My apologies. We know that these populations do not have a greater propensity for criminal behaviour than their white counterparts, but the overrepresentation is, again, due to systemic racism and pathologizing. I think it's important to note that I am not advocating for the ideological indoctrination of judges; rather, our research has demonstrated the importance of identifying systemic bias in the legal system and the differential impact on rights holders to access justice in accordance with their charter rights.

Justice committee  Yes, it's just to ensure diversity of representation of the review panel.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and committee members. I want to first acknowledge that I'm Zooming in from my home on indigenous land, the traditional territory of many first people of this land, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa, Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples.

Status of Women committee  It's not a matter of, how is it? It is, why is it? It is the fact that it is, right? It is by design. That's why we are constantly at the receiving end, because not only does anti-Black and anti-indigenous racism play a part, it's embedded in these systems. Because it's embedded in these systems, the solutions that are currently—and I use the word “solutions” lightly—manifest are designed not to benefit....

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much. I just want to say that whilst I respect Monsieur Lapierre's comments on coercive control, I fundamentally and radically disagree with him. I don't believe that coercive control should be criminalized. I think that if the system is not nuanced enough to even understand physical violence—it can see broken arms and broken limbs—how can it understand the nuances of coercive control?

Status of Women committee  That's me.

Status of Women committee  I'm so glad you raised this and that my anger and my frustration are coming through even though I'm not with you in person. My anger and my frustration, as I said, are borne out of my lived experience. On Mother's Day 2003, I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to die in front of my three children.

Status of Women committee  That's what I mean when I say that the systems we have in place are woefully inadequate, because we tell women to leave, but where are they going to go in the dead of night with young children in tow? Housing is not available. Affordable housing is not available. Domestic violence pushes women into poverty.

Status of Women committee  It is devastatingly impactful, because survivors oftentimes don't even recognize they are suffering from a traumatic brain injury, so they blame themselves, number one. They can't connect why they used to function in a usual manner and, all of a sudden, they are not. One of the most significant risks is that strangulation and traumatic brain injury are cumulative.

Status of Women committee  First of all, we are sort of constrained by lack of funding for the research, but what we have been able to do is to capitalize—I hate the word—on our community networks and share the findings amongst our networks so that they can then go and share those amongst their own particular networks, so it's sort of a report effect.

Status of Women committee  The Fresh Breath research that we conducted in 2012 and 2013 is still the only Canadian-context work examining the experiences of women-identified survivors of non-fatal strangulation in the context of an intimate partner relationship. That work focuses on how dangerous the physical violence associated with being strangled is, and the short, medium, and long-term health impacts of such violence.

Status of Women committee  Thank you so very much. Thank you for inviting me today. I want to start by acknowledging that I'm coming to you from Tkaronto, from stolen lands belonging to the indigenous peoples of this nation including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa and the Wendat peoples, and which have been home for many first nations.

Status of Women committee  I'm coming at this from a slightly different perspective, because people talk about specialized courts and specialization. In the court watch that we conducted in 2014-15, it was of the specialized domestic violence courts. We found, overwhelmingly, that even though it was called “specialized courts”, where you had specialized police, specialized crowns, and allegedly specialized judges, the reality was that even with all the specialization, they still lacked the fundamental analysis of gender-based issues.

Status of Women committee  For us, it's really around who is delivering the training and the quality of the information that's coming forward. As women survivors, when we talk, we're talking from a place of lived experience. We're talking about issues, like what Mandi and Jeremy spoke about, like the way that their trial impacted them, and the lessons that you can learn as a result of going through that whole process.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning, committee members. That was very, very considerate—thank you—for my colleague Bonnie. On behalf of the Women's Centre for Social Justice, better known as “WomenatthecentrE”, we thank you for the opportunity to make this submission on this very important bill.