Last week, on October 23, four people, including three children aged six, seven and 12, were fatally shot in Sault Ste. Marie. Police are calling the shootings a result of intimate partner violence. The Premier called the news “gut-wrenching,” but his words ring hollow when he refuses to even act on the first recommendation of the Renfrew inquest, which is to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.

I’ll give the Premier one more chance today to stand with survivors. Will the Premier support cities and their public health officials by finally declaring intimate partner violence an epidemic?

Speaker, we need to talk about how intimate partner violence harms and kills children as they live with their mothers. On average, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every six days in Canada, and as of September 30, there have been 46 femicides in Ontario alone, and that number has now become higher. The Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative has found at least 30 children are killed annually in Canada by one of their parents.

Speaker, the clock is running out. When will the Premier finally take action to protect children and their mothers by declaring intimate partner violence an epidemic?

Interjections.

Intimate partner violence is an epidemic in Ontario, as it is in Canada. The court delays the survivors across Ontario are enduring are inexcusable.

There was a stabbing and a shooting in Barbara Hall Park, only a few steps away from this House, on Tuesday. The frustrated Toronto police have informed me that one of the assailants apprehended was actually out on bail—he was wanted for a warrant.

A year ago, I asked this government to take action to keep all our communities safe. Since I asked this question, things have only gotten worse under your watch. Violent repeat offenders are being released back into neighbourhoods because Ontario’s justice system is literally collapsing on our heads.

Can the Attorney General explain to Ontarians why he spent his summer setting up and awarding King’s Counsel honorific titles to PC insiders instead of fixing our collapsing courtrooms?

Since June 2022, front-line advocates have reached out to this government about the Renfrew recommendations. This is arising from the 2015 triple femicide, and included an implementation committee to make sure that all recommendations there would actually be carried forward to end intimate partner violence. Those requests have gone unanswered.

Again to the Premier: Yes or no, will this government use its political voice and commit to, today, the number one recommendation from that inquest and declare intimate partner violence an epidemic?

To the member from Toronto–St. Paul’s, thank you very much for your sage comments and observations about Bill 26. I’m just very curious: What we’ve heard from the Honourable Minister of Colleges and Universities in previous debates is that this is just one piece of many pieces of legislation that may or may not be coming to address gender-based violence on campuses and perhaps in civil society. Would the province of Ontario benefit from having a comprehensive strategy to address gender-based violence? Would the province have the benefit of creating a new round table to address this particular issue?

Thank you for the question.

There are so many things that are missing from this budget. There are probably too many to list, as I’ve got a minute left. But I do want to highlight one thing which I think is critically important.

Earlier this month, Statistics Canada released some new data and it specifically talked about the rise of gender-based violence and how Canada is seeing no end in sight. We’ve seen the highest level of gender-based violence that we have seen in past years, and this has grown an astounding 18%. There’s absolutely nothing in this budget that addresses gender-based violence. I couldn’t even find the words “gender-based violence.” I couldn’t find the words “sexual assault.” And yet we know it’s an epidemic in Ontario.

That is one example of the things that are missing, but we also know that when it comes to missing one critical policy piece, the others fall apart—with respect to court services and support, with respect to housing for women who are fleeing violent situations, with respect to children who are losing the capacity to stay in school because their housing situation is so unstable.