Justice committee  Our Canadian laws are quite good around sexual violence and consent. I think the challenge is how they play out in court, so I think we need to look at that. That includes better training for lawyers and strongly encouraging that lawyers, judges and everyone who is part of the cr

Justice committee  Yes. I wish I could put my DMs on display right now on Twitter, because so many survivors are messaging me in a place of fear. I actually wrote to Justice today to say that I need better information to be able to explain the decision in plain language and why the sky isn't fallin

Justice committee  Thank you both. Everything Pam said, I agree with, so I would just co-sign on everything there. I would say, around transformative and restorative justice, that Courage to Act released two guides on working with people who have caused harm and working from a non-punitive approac

Justice committee  Our social location, our race, our gender and our sexuality impact the way in which we are believed. Are we going to approach the police if our community has been criminalized by the police time and time again? We are not. So Muslim communities, Black communities, indigenous comm

Justice committee  It will only do what we put into it. What I mean by that is that if we don't have clear communication, if we're not educating survivors, if we're not providing them access to justice that's outside of the Crown so they can talk to a lawyer independently to understand, then they'r

Justice committee  Yes. I did have the opportunity to speak to members of the justice department.

Justice committee  Yes. It actually gives provisions and ways in which people could go about addressing this, so I think, absolutely, it does. However, again, it's how we communicate those and how we make sure not only that the public knows, but also that the defence counsel understands it, that th

Justice committee  That is a challenge near and dear to my heart. I've been working in the field of not-for-profit. It raised me. The thing is always that we don't have the money to do our core services, so we're chasing grant after grant. People are living on shoestring budgets. There is an expect

Justice committee  I love this question because this is the crux of the issue. I travel across Canada and America as well, talking about sexual assault and consent with young people. The biggest issue they are challenged with is alcohol-facilitated sexual assault. It's the number one thing that yo

Justice committee  So, 71% of post-secondary students have been subjected to or have witnessed sexual assault or harassment. Much of that includes alcohol-facilitated sexual assault. During the first time that it was appealed, and then the Supreme Court decision, we had survivors come into our offi

Justice committee  That's so nice. Thank you. I think the biggest things that I want to name—and Pam has already brought it up—are the two pieces we see. We really need the justice department to look at public legal education to address the misinformation that comes out. I even think about the SCC

Justice committee  Yes, no problem.

Justice committee  I'd like to begin by acknowledging that this conversation takes place across the traditional territories of many indigenous nations. I'm currently on the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa

Status of Women committee  It's so important, because right now there's such a limited view of what happens in domestic violence—things like controlling your whereabouts, where you go, and how violence is actually manifested. Oftentimes it isn't physical or sexual. Allowing us to have a wider view of tha

Status of Women committee  I would add to that children of all genders who have disabilities. I have a son with a disability, and it's something I worry about every day. It's something we need to address in terms of how our service provision is done, how we access services and what services we're looking