Status of Women committee  As I said, friends, family and the community are among the most essential resources. They are the first people who can act and help victims find and access resources. Then there are all the front line organizations, such as the centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel, the CALACS, and the shelters, which can help victims access the resources they need to start their healing journey.

Status of Women committee  It's absolutely essential.

Status of Women committee  The essential problem is the lack of resources. Year after year since the COVID-19 pandemic, we've seen an increasingly sharp rise in the number of survivors seeking our services. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, we've observed that people wait less and less time to file a complaint and that those who do are increasingly younger.

Status of Women committee  For the moment, the ideal would be for the courts and judges to be able to acknowledge coercive control as a contextual factor. I believe that certain elements are already criminalized in the Canadian Criminal Code. However, further to what some of my peers who have previously appeared before the committee and who are appearing now have said, as well as the experts from the north, I would be very cautious about promoting the criminalization of coercive control.

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much.

Status of Women committee  I'd like to add that the control an aggressor exercises on a woman's life may begin long before children are conceived. We're talking about reproductive coercion when power is exercised or a domination dynamic exists with regard to the decision whether to have children or to use means of contraception.

Status of Women committee  According to the statistics that we see, 8 out of 10 women know their aggressor, and more than half of sexual assaults occur in private homes. It's a myth, in law and among the general public, that sexual assault is always committed by an unknown person in a dark alley. That's not the case.

Status of Women committee  For more than 45 years, the Regroupement québécois des centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel has been committed to promoting an exchange of expertise among its members, supporting the search for solutions for putting an end to sexual assault and promoting the development of intersectional feminist intervention services for women in Quebec.