Status of Women committee  There absolutely needs to be better integration between the criminal justice and family law systems because we know that these things, particularly where intimate partner violence is considered, cannot be separated. We have to look to the reality that the current system does not work for many of the individuals—women, children and marginalized people—who are experiencing it.

Status of Women committee  We've seen recent studies and reports about the rates of perpetrators of violence who are in law enforcement. The rates of that are actually significantly higher than we would see in the general population. There have been several studies done. I think the percentage is 40% of partners of law enforcement officers are at risk versus 10% in the general population, so I think that—

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. Even just in thinking about where the assessment needs to start in the training of the officers on the ground in assessing the situation, the nuances and the complexities of an individual or survivor trying to explain her stories and the impact of maybe a look or the many instances over a span of time of this type of coercive control that have been played out in her relationship, the individual across from her, the officer taking her statement, needs to have the training in assessment, the ability and the will to carry that forward and to identify that.

Status of Women committee  I can echo what Lori has shared in that often we see that being used as another form of abuse. We know that children are often used as pawns in the custody and access process, as was spoken to earlier, and that's one of the most powerful weapons of coercive control in the reality that we know.

Status of Women committee  That's not a problem. Thank you. With the current system, which does not address appropriately even the most overt and physical forms of violence, I am doubtful that our system as it is has the ability to respond to the complexities of coercive control, which my colleague Lori Chambers spoke to so eloquently.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members, for the invitation to speak before you today on the matter of criminalization of coercive control. I bring my testimony from the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe people. I'm the director of housing and gender-based violence with YWCA Hamilton and have close to a decade of frontline experience in the VAW sector.