‘Insulting’: Intimate partner violence study cut short as Ontario eyes early election

TORONTO — Victims of intimate partner violence and their supporters are upset after early election speculation forced an Ontario legislative committee to cut short what was supposed to be an exhaustive study of the issue.

A possible spring election forced one of the committee’s leaders to expedite the study’s timeline with the goal of completing a report by February, while the other leader called the situation a “farce.”

The justice policy subcommittee, co-led by a Progressive Conservative and a New Democrat, completed Phase 1 of its work after listening to nearly 90 subject-matter witnesses over the summer.

The committee had grand plans that included travelling across the province to hear from survivors, with a key trip to Renfrew County in eastern Ontario to meet with those involved in a seminal coroner’s inquest into the murders of three area women – Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton and Anastasia Kuzyk – at the hands of a former partner.

Now, the trip to Renfrew has been cancelled and those discussions with survivors will occur either at Queen’s Park in Toronto or over video calls.

“I don’t know if there will be an early election, but given everything is possible and given everything that we’ve worked on, I’m expediting the timeline,” said Jess Dixon, the Progressive Conservative co-lead of the committee.

Premier Doug Ford has not ruled out calling an early election in 2025 instead of sticking with the date set for June 2026.

The changes do not sit well with New Democrat Kristyn Wong-Tam, the committee’s other leader.

“This whole process is very much becoming a farce,” Wong-Tam said.

Dixon, a former Crown attorney who prosecuted numerous domestic violence cases and who was recently acclaimed as the Progressive Conservative candidate for Kitchener South-Hespeler, pledged to move the issue forward with the goal of producing long-lasting change for victims of intimate partner violence.

“This is incredibly important to me,” Dixon said. “No one is going to be able to stop me from working on this and from advocating for this.”

Her report with recommendations on a way forward is now expected to be completed in February 2025, at least two months earlier than planned.

Wong-Tam tabled a private member’s bill in March that seeks to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in Ontario.

The government initially signalled it would reject the idea, then voted in favour of the bill in April after second reading and sent it to committee for a well-resourced review – including money to take the committee on the road.

Then-government house leader Paul Calandra said the committee would perform “an in-depth study on all of the aspects with respect to intimate partner violence, both the current programs that are available, some of the root causes of it and how we can do better in the province of Ontario.”

Ford defended the decision to put the bill on hold in favour of studying the issue, saying the legislation needed “some teeth” before proceeding. The province has since twice denied motions put forward by the opposition to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.

Such a declaration also topped the list of recommendations the Renfrew County inquest jury issued in June 2022.

The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses said in its annual report on femicide that 62 women were killed by men in the province between November 2023 and November 2024.

The organization defines femicide as “the gender-related killing of women, children and gender-diverse individuals by men that occur in Ontario.” At least 25 of those killings came at the hands of an intimate partner, the report said.

In September, both Dixon and Wong-Tam had said they were were hopeful after the committee heard from about 90 witnesses in total, most of them advocates and organizations who help women.

Just as importantly, the pair worked well together.

“Kristyn cares and wants to see a change and understands that I am pushing for this just as hard as anybody else,” Dixon said in September.

Wong-Tam said there were better ways to spend their time than to produce yet another report on the issue, but believed it was “better to have a seat at the table” with Dixon.

“MPP Dixon’s heart is in the right place, but I do find it hard to trust the rest of this government,” Wong-Tam said at the time.

Both agreed the committee should travel to meet and hear from victims, with Wong-Tam saying a few months ago that the work would not be complete without a trip to Renfrew.

The committee’s Phase 2 – a fact-finding mission to understand the responsibilities of numerous ministries that touch on intimate partner violence – was to start in September, but committee room space was impossible to find until late November.

That phase is now limited to 20 minutes per minister, with five minutes for opposition questions and five for questions from Progressive Conservatives. Those time constraints sparked anger among NDP opposition critics last week after several of them only managed to squeeze in one or two questions in the allotted time.

The final phase of the committee will now start and end in January, Dixon said. She lamented the cancelled trip to Renfrew.

“Should I win (the next election), I will obviously continue championing this with everything I have and would love to make arrangements to go (to Renfrew) later on,” she said.

The changes were met with anger and disappointment from intimate partner violence survivors.

“It’s right on brand for this current government to be shortening what should have been a thorough and thoughtful committee and report,” said Cait Alexander, a sexual assault and intimate partner violence survivor who has pushed the Queen’s Park politicos for change and launched the organization End Violence Everywhere.

“It’s insulting, frankly.”

The coroner’s inquest held in Renfrew County seven years after the murders had been critically important to the community, said Kirsten Mercer, a lawyer and advocate who represented End Violence Against Women Renfrew County at the inquest.

Mercer said the province should follow the coroner’s lead in holding hearings in the rural county.

“It’s very hard to govern from Queen’s Park and adequately hear and represent all of the needs that exist,” she said. “There’s some sense of frustration among the community that what was promised — really doing a deep dive — is dissipating.”

It is important for politicians to have time to complete their work, especially if it involves crafting legislation, Mercer said.

“But there is a cost to that time,” she said. “The inaction is measured in people’s lives.”

The committee’s long-term goal is to come up with recommendations that will likely include a sustained funding model for a whole host of preventive measures, more support for victims, as well as changes to how criminal and family courts deal with intimate partner violence, Dixon said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2024.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press