Senator Boisvenu: If your government has done so much, will you finally present in this chamber a clear record of all the measures taken by the Liberal government to combat domestic violence, and in particular the improvements made to the Victims Bill of Rights over the past eight years?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: My question is for Senator Gold. According to statistics from the Canadian Femicide Observatory, 184 women were murdered last year, in 2022. That is 11 more than in 2021 and 36% more than in 2019. As I said before, Quebec is doing its part by creating courts specializing in cases involving domestic and sexual violence on the initiative of Quebec justice minister Simon Jolin-Barrette.

The minister is just getting back from London, where he presented his project to the legal and political communities, who commended him for it. Minister Jolin-Barrette wants every Quebec district to have its own court by 2026. He said that he is fully committed to shifting the focus of the Quebec justice system to victims. Can you tell me when Justin Trudeau’s government will do the same?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Honourable senators, Sergeant Maureen Breau, a veteran police officer with the Sûreté du Québec in Louiseville, Quebec, was murdered on Tuesday night by a violent man with a lengthy criminal record who suffered from very serious mental disorders.

I would like to offer my deepest sympathy to Ms. Breau’s spouse, also a police officer, to their two children and to their family and loved ones, as well as to all her colleagues, who are still in shock from this tragedy.

It bears repeating that the man who stabbed Sergeant Breau to death has been found to be not criminally responsible five times since 2014. He had very strict release conditions; however, no one was monitoring him.

For more than 20 years I have lamented the fact that Quebec is doing a disturbingly inadequate job of managing people with serious mental disorders. Every year in Quebec, dozens of people are murdered by someone close to the family with a serious mental health disorder who is left to cope on their own.

It happened two weeks ago, when three members of the same family, the grandmother as well as the father and mother, were murdered by their son. Three people were murdered about 10 days ago in Amqui. Two children were torn from their families a month ago in Laval. In the last two cases, the acts were perpetrated by men who were ill and chose to get behind the wheel and run over their victims. Nine innocent victims were murdered in one month.

Since the beginning of this year, nearly a dozen people have been murdered in Quebec. The families of the victims and the general public are asking the same question: why?

It’s important to remember that in 1995, the Quebec government closed 50% of its psychiatric hospital beds for budgetary reasons. Since then, society has been paying the price in terms of loss of life, which is all too often predictable.

It should also be noted that managing mental health is the poor cousin in our health care system, in Quebec and in Canada. Resources are not being provided to support families caring for a loved one with a mental disorder that requires close, daily care or to support community groups that could help them, which would reduce recidivism.

I am well aware that mental health is still a very taboo subject. However, after all of these homicides, we must have the courage to act in order to save lives and break the stigma surrounding this taboo, which is no longer relevant.

My home province of Quebec needs to take drastic action to improve its management of the mental health file. The families of those with an illness must no longer be left to pay the price of this monumental failure on their own.

I am convinced that 95% of people who are diagnosed with a mental illness can lead a responsible, independent life. However, we need to adopt a more preventive approach for the few who do not and never will have the capacity and autonomy required to take care of themselves, without posing a risk to themselves, their families and their communities. These people need medical and social support, which would help prevent these kinds of tragedies.

To that end, there are already possible solutions in both the provincial and federal jurisdictions to better support and monitor these people. We need to work together both on the medical side and the legislative side to achieve those goals.

I am committed to doing that, and I hope many of you will join me to ensure we can make it happen.

Thank you.

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