Senator Boisvenu: You know that the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues. Nine million Canadians will suffer from mental health issues over the course of their lives. In 2017, close to 5.5 million Canadians received mental health services, and, in 2020, this number reached 6 million.

Does the Government of Canada plan to bring back programs such as At Home/Chez Soi, which helped reduce re-incarceration rates among people suffering from mental health issues by 90% and which funded itself through savings resulting from this reduction? Will the government commit to bringing back this program, which delivered very good results?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, on March 15 in Pointe-aux-Trembles, a 10-year-old girl was violently assaulted by a man with mental health issues. The girl was leaving school when the man threw her to the ground and started punching and kicking her. She is still in hospital suffering from severe shock.

Every night in Montreal, two out of three emergency response calls involve people with mental illness. I have spent the last 20 years working to ensure that these people are neither incarcerated nor hospitalized, but cared for in the community thanks to adequate funding.

For example, in 2008, the Conservative government created the At Home/Chez Soi program, which produced very good results. In 2019, the Trudeau government established a similar program solely for the homeless. Since 2015, what programs and funding has Justin Trudeau’s government set up to help people with mental health issues roaming the streets in Canada’s big cities?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Honourable senators, today I want to bring to your attention the National Assembly of Quebec’s recent passage of Bill 24, which will give Quebec parole board judges and wardens of provincial correctional facilities the power to require offenders convicted of intimate partner violence to wear an electronic bracelet while on parole.

I applaud this new bill, which establishes Quebec as a leader in the fight against intimate partner violence in Canada and makes it the seventh jurisdiction in the world to adopt this type of electronic monitoring program. It should be noted that 26 U.S. states have been using this type of monitoring with violent men for years. An electronic bracelet is becoming the tool of choice to break the unhealthy and repetitive cycle of intimate partner violence. It sets up a security perimeter between a partner or ex‑partner and his victim. If the former does not obey the perimeter, both the police and the victim receive a security alert. There are two benefits to this approach: It prevents homicides and proves non-compliance with conditions.

Honourable colleagues, as I’ve said many times in this chamber, intimate partner violence is a tragedy that affects thousands of women in Canada, and the record number of femicides that have been committed in recent years makes Canada one of the countries most affected by this scourge. Despite the Statistics Canada reports produced annually on domestic violence, despite reports from the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability and despite the first‑hand accounts from victims that we regularly read in the media, why is it so difficult for our government and for this Parliament to propose and adopt this modern and technically effective measure, namely the electronic monitoring device, to prevent these murders?

It is high time we took concrete action, as Quebec has done, to protect these women and children who must flee their homes, quit their jobs and hide in shelters to escape death. As parliamentarians, we have a duty and a moral and collective responsibility to our fellow citizens to do something to stop the attempted murders that occur every day in Canada, and the murders that occur every other day.

With electronic bracelets, femicide in Canada could be cut in half. That is why I have asked the Senate to refer my Bill S-205 to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in order to save as many lives as possible.

In the time it took me to deliver this message, one woman was killed in Canada.

Thank you.

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