The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Addressing Intimate Partner Violence in Our Communities

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Tragedies last year pulled intimate partner violence to the centre of discourse and municipalities across Ontario have declared it an epidemic. What are organizations doing to address it and what can be done to resolve the underlying causes? Sault Ste Marie Councillor Angela Caputo; Inspector Derek Dewar; executive director of CHADWIC Home Paula Valois; and Stephanie Fetherston, senior director of Algoma Family Services, come together to discuss this serious issue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From epic camping trips to scenic local hikes, spending time outdoors is a great way to create lasting memories to share with friends and family. This summer, TVO is celebrating the natural wonders that inspire unforgettable adventures with great documentaries, articles, and learning resources about beloved parks in Ontario and beyond. Visit tvo.me slash Ontario summer stories for all this and more. And be sure to tell us your stories for a chance to win great prizes. Help TVO create a better world through the power of learning. Visit TVO.org and make a tax-deductible donation today. Two tragedies made headlines in Ontario last year that brought intimate partner violence to the center of discourse.

Many municipalities have declared it an epidemic. What is happening across our province and what can communities do to help resolve this violence? Here in Sault Ste. Marie to discuss this and much more, we welcome Inspector Derek Dewar with the Sault Ste. Marie Police. Angela Caputo, she is City Counselor for Ward 3. Paula Valois, Executive Director of Chadwick Home, a non-profit organization just north of here in Wawa. And Stephanie Featherston, Senior Director of Services at Algoma Family Services, and they're based here in Sault Ste. Marie. And we want to thank all four of you for joining us here in this absolutely gorgeous building, actually, the GOMA. It is gorgeous, this music center here. And we want to start with some very difficult statistics to start

our conversation. Sheldon, let's put this up here. In 2022, there were 117,093 victims 12 years of age and older of police-reported intimate partner violence. Of those victims, nearly 80% were women and girls. The rate of intimate partner violence was more than three times higher among women and girls than men and boys. And the rate is seven times higher among women and girls, if you look at the age 12 to 24 years, than their male counterparts in the same demographic. Okay, Paula, let's just make sure we're all talking about the same thing here.

An explanation of what intimate partner violence is. It's when you are in an intimate relationship and there is violence and abuse there. intimate relationship and there is violence and abuse there so it could be physical sexual psychological emotional financial as well partners are in a relationship where one has power and control over the other one and like you've mentioned in the stats, it's pervasive in our society. When we're talking about minority groups or women, indigenous women, those stats go even higher. Well, let me follow up on that with Stephanie. I mean, it may be obvious to say it, but let's do it anyway. This is disproportionately something that affects women. How come? I think it's because of patriarchal

society, really, and really that's still alive today and in the history as well. And so women, men, you know, the old adage of being the primary breadwinner as well, women are home taking care of the children, and it makes it a lot easier in those instances for women to be perpetrated by men, right, for abuse. Derek, there was something in the stats I just gave that kind of caught my eye and that was the expression police reported, which I infer from that that there is a lot of this that goes on that is not police reported. Is that true? That's absolutely true. And speaking with our partner agencies in that, the reports we get are way low compared to what's reported to our partner agencies.

So what we're seeing here potentially is the tip of the iceberg. Absolutely. Okay, let's do, I'm going to put another graphic up here. And for those listening on podcast, I'm going to describe what we're seeing here. This is essentially a graph that starts in the year 2009 goes to about 2022. Two things that we want to bring to people's attention here. Number one the comparison of women and girls overall and men and boys. The lines for women and girls as we have suggested much higher than for men and boys but we can also see that from 2009 the rates start to drop and around 2014 they sort of go into a valley, but then they slowly climb back up again as we get to the year 2022. I think we need some

explanation for that. Does anybody here have an explanation for why the numbers dropped when they did, but now they're going back up again? I think a piece of the reason why we see it climb is that's right at the time of the pandemic. And so that was a high-risk time or a time where we really saw an increase in intimate partner violence because of all the stay-at-home orders. And the stay-at-home orders put people that were already victimized even more at risk because they were socially isolated even further. And also, as we all know, it put a lot of stress and strain on our own families, let alone where there's already violence and anger within a home

environment. Angela, how do you encounter this issue as a city councillor? So through the city, we have taken on the declaration. Sault Ste. Marie has declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. We have encouraged the province to do so. As a councillor and as a woman myself, I have taken it upon myself also to work with Angie's Angels, a locally formed group that is speaking on behalf of Angie Sweeney after her death. And we have put forward a motion to support Bill C-332 to amend the criminal code to include coercive control. So we are trying our best in the small ways that we can affect municipally.

We're using our voices to the provincial and federal governments to try and put an end to this epidemic. You're one of 95 municipalities across the province of Ontario that have declared this an epidemic. And there's been, I guess there's been some controversy about the use of that word epidemic. Do you want to comment on that? Is it appropriate to call this an epidemic? Absolutely. I think, yes, I hear what the province is saying, but the health and well-being of our children, our youth and our women is a health and safety concern for sure. And so I think it falls right in line with being called an epidemic. I was just going to say it was the first recommendation that came out of the Renfrew County inquest into the deaths of the three women in Renfrew County.

And it was one that the jury, who are just ordinary people, they listened to three weeks of testimony from experts and witnesses, and they came up with that recommendation. That was the language they wanted used. That was the language that they wanted used. That was the first one. And women's organizations and, you know, people working in violence against women organizations really took on the task of, you know, pushing that forward. So it started off with the Lanark County Council

declaring it an epidemic. They thought, well, fine, if the government doesn't want to do that, then there's no reason why communities can't take it up and make the declaration. Over the couple of years since that inquest, there is 95, at least 95 communities that have made that declaration so far. And I think even though it's largely symbolic it's saying to women who are in situations where they're being abused that their community members and their council their leaders that we have your back right if I understand it as well part of

the motivation behind this inspector was to say to governments and quasi governmental organizations of which you are working for one, this is a problem and you need to pay attention. Do you infer the same thing? Oh, absolutely, it's a problem. Anyone that's hung up on the word epidemic, in my opinion, is arguing semantics. This is a problem that needs to be dealt with. And as a police services organization takes this very seriously.

We've recently implemented new measures to try and improve safety for victims. We implemented a callback system so that any call that officers attend to that don't come in as domestic in nature or IPV in nature, but when they arrive there and find out that maybe it's a property dispute or a noise complaint or something of that nature, within a couple of days, an officer calls the complainant back to give them another opportunity to voice if anything did happen, if there was a criminal event, so then we can then follow up and make sure people are safe. Are these new tools working? So far, yes. This started May 5th.

The chief was at the Agoma Council on Domestic Violence, I believe Councillor Camuto was with him and he implemented it then. There were approximately 253 calls that we've made since then, 17 investigations launched and four people have been charged with domestic related offences since then. How long have you been with the service? Over 23 years. 23 years plus. Yes.

Is it worse now than it was? It's hard to say. Our numbers are declining. If you look at the stats locally from 2018 till now, we're down about 350 calls, which is pretty significant for our service. But I think that's due to underreporting on behalf of the victims. In which case, Stephanie, why is there still so much of this? I think because we haven't taken a full society view of this,

or we haven't been working as a full society, and that's what it's going to take to make a difference. It's all of the social services responsibilities. It's also the responsibilities of each of us, that if we notice something going on with a difference, right? It's all of the social services responsibilities, it's also the responsibilities of each of us that if we notice something going on with a friend or a neighbour that we go out and we ask, are you okay? Or, you know, sometimes we think, well, you know, we don't want to interfere or we don't want to get involved, but I think, I mean, we can see with the tragedies that it's so important that we do get involved and we do ask and

that we do talk to our council about it and, you know, if we need help, get help. And I think that by all of us, you know, talking to our neighbours or letting people know that if we notice that something seems not okay, they might not feel alone. And then they might know that it's okay to reach out for help and support. I think something further that I always like to touch on is education. I don't think we've got to a point in society yet where we're properly educating young men that this is not okay. And I don't think that we're quite there yet in educating young women that a red flag is a red flag. Move on. You know, we can't fix everyone. You know, women historically have that job as the fixer. And I think further educating young kids is really

the way out of this. That sounds right. But Paula, I wonder what, I wonder what's going on out there that a young boy or a young high school, I guess he's a young man in high school, a youth anyway, thinks that it's okay to smack a woman. Who thinks that? Well, I think sometimes it's a learned behavior. They may be living in a home where they're witnessing their mother being abused by their dad. It's also, you know, we do still live in a very sexist society and racist society. So, you know, our society kind of reinforces a lot of those attitudes. And we still hear about, you know, the locker talk, basically,

that happens sometimes, right? And I think you're right, Angela, that there has to be more education with young people, you know, on healthy relationships and how to speak up when you're hearing those negative comments being made. I don't think that the abusers, like they obviously are part of our community. We've grown them ourselves, right? They're not from outer space. They're from our world.

And our society contributes to how they think about things and their attitudes and their values. So we need to make a lot of changes on a lot of different levels. And starting with prevention programs in the schools is a really good way to to go and if I could I just think that a lot of times you know you're saying a young boy is how does he not realize it's not okay to smack a woman and that is part of intimate partner violence but the coercive control is really the portions where you see things happening even in high schools. In high schools, a lot of the times it starts out as, I don't want you to talk to that other boy.

I don't want you to speak to your best friend anymore. Maybe, you know, a young man is telling his girlfriend that, you know, her mother doesn't have the best interest at heart and you should listen to me. And I think it goes forward from there um that is why that coercive control piece is so important that's the criminal code amendment yes is being looked for in ottawa yes i but i think like when we're speaking about younger folks it's not always uh physical abuse but they the that control of having a woman under their thumb is sometimes how it starts. You can't be everywhere all the time, obviously. So, I mean, are we going to get to a point now where we're patrolling the hallways at high schools to make sure that boyfriends are not

putting stupid pressure on girlfriends, that kind of thing? Yeah, that's obviously not realistic. Right. But to Councillor Caputo's point and Paul's point that education, start at junior grades, teach kids, teach boys that it's not right to put your hands on it. It's about control normally and teach them how to deal with those control issues that you don't control somebody else. That's not your role. Stephanie, I wonder if part of it is, I mean, that's clearly a significant part of it. I wonder if part of it as well is that young girls have to be taught, you don't have to put up with this. This is nothing that you can sanction. Do you have to do that, too?

Absolutely, right? So I think what Angela was talking about, letting people know that it's okay to say it's not okay and that a red flag is a red flag and you know some of the things she was talking about in terms of oh I don't want you talking to this person or I really want to be around you all the time young women and girls can mistake that for oh he really loves me and he wants to be around me all the time instead of recognizing that this is a way to start to gain that control over you over time right and start to break you apart from your friends. So absolutely, the prevention programs need to not only be for boys and men, but also to be for girls so that they understand what a healthy relationship looks like.

Like Paula was saying to you, that they may also have grown up in homes where there might have been intimate partner violence, and for them, that was their example of a healthy relationship. So they're not aware of what a true healthy relationship looks like. I'm going to assume that because you're on city council, you've got a pretty good sense of the pulse of the community most of the time. I try my best. There you go. Okay. I'd like to know what happened in the community. I had a really interesting perspective on this, being a community member, but also seeing inside of City Hall. And I think for women, we were angry. We were like, we have been telling you, why is no one

listening to us? And men were shocked. And the difference between men being shocked and women being angry, it was so stark. And, you know, when I wanted to bring the motion forward to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, it was right after Angie's murder. And it was suggested to me that perhaps we needed, the community needed breathing room and time to grieve before I brought it forward. But I held strong and said, no, I think they need to know from elected officials. And from my perspective, it was that women needed to know. Women needed to know that I was sitting in that seat

and that I recognized it and that our council supports you and that we are taking a stand in the best way that we knew how. So yeah, the shock and the anger were two, the two differences that I really noticed. I think as well, maybe Paula, you can help us with this. I suspect our people watching or listening who will be thinking to themselves, if you're in a toxic relationship and you fear for your safety, what are you still doing living in that home with that person? Why don't you get out? What's the answer to that? So it's easier said than done.

And when you are in the middle of it, you're just trying to survive on a day-to-day basis, right? You're trying to placate him so that he doesn't get angry, so he won't hurt you. You're trying to make sure your kids are protected. You're doing the best you can in that situation. There also may not, you may not know about services that are available to you, even though we try really hard to get the word out and let people know. Women may not be aware that there's anywhere for her to go. She's contemplating a life outside of that relationship. What's that going to look like for me?

Am I going to be able to afford to live on my own? Am I going to be able to find housing that's safe and affordable um right now there's a huge housing crisis and you know where do you go if you can't if you need to move out of your home then where are you supposed to go a lot to consider a lot to consider i mean do i want to take my kids like i'm going to speak from my perspective being in because i'm not from sault sainte marie i live in wawa and we serve a huge area including shop low horn pain they're all little communities in north algoma so if somebody's in horn pain for instance and they want to take off like lead with their children and go to the

shelter that's two hours away so they have to take their kids out of school. They have to relocate to another community, get another doctor, possibly. All of those things have to be taken into consideration. So there's a real possibility she could be living in poverty as well after leaving. So there's a lot for her to consider, and there's a lot of barriers in the way. Even if she's in horn pain, there's no public transportation from horn pain to Wawa. So how do you get out? There's one road. So if he decides to follow you down that

road, it's very dangerous too. Right after a woman leaves and the police will attest to this, that's the most dangerous time for a woman too. I want to circle back to this issue. Angela, I'll go to you first on this. This notion that we're in the midst of an epidemic, 95 municipalities have labeled it so, you are waiting on the provincial government to follow suit. What do you think the chances are of that happening? I hope that they're high, but my gut tells me that they're slim. I think that the province recognizes that with declaring an epidemic, they're going to have to back it up with some funds so that we can start these educational pieces and maybe have

funds for women who are fleeing intimate partner violence, et cetera. So I don't think this Conservative government is ready to take that step. I do hope that I'm wrong. I am hopeful. There are members of that caucus that give me hope, and I hope that they will push for the benefits of women. But from what I have read, I don by declaring it an epidemic that that has no sort of legal force in law. Right. Just by having a city council say this is an epidemic in our community does not therefore, I mean, beyond bringing attention to the issue, it doesn't have any force of law. Is there value still in doing it? Yeah, like I was saying, it definitely sends a message to the women in the community who may be living in an abusive relationship that their community has their back and that they care about the issue.

It's symbolic, largely, but at the same time, it sends a message to the community that this is a serious issue, and it starts a conversation, and I think that's really important. There are two bills that are sort of making their way through the bowels of Queen's Park right now. There was a bit of a foofarot at the legislature a few weeks ago where the NDP wanted all the members in the legislature to have the right to speak about it. A lot of people wanted to put their feelings on the record about it, have Angela's name read into the record and so on. That didn't happen. The House leader for the Conservatives,

Paul Calandra, decided to move the two bills right to committee right away to begin examination. Depending on how you want to interpret it, that could either be a good thing, meaning they're trying to get the show on the road, or it could mean they're trying to slow the process down by sending it to a committee where these things often go to die. What are you inferring from it all? I think that Lydia's law deserved to be debated. I am very disappointed that it got sent straight to committee. I think that having these things said on the record are important. It is important for an abuser to hear that elected officials have an opinion

and have strong opinions about these things. It is important for victims to hear these things. It's important for families and survivors. So I was really disappointed in the government for doing that. And I think that, I hope that this is not the case, but many bills go to committee to die. 550 plus days. I mean, Lydia's law is about things not getting done

in a timely manner. Sexual assault victims waiting and maybe never seeing their day in court. And there's thousands of cases thrown out of court for delays. So how terrible to have Lydia come forward and bring this forward and say, you know, I just want my voice heard, to silence her again. How hopeful are you that these bills are going to see the light of day again and become law someday?

I think that as long as we continue the conversation. So I agree with Angela. It was very disappointing. I agree in that there needs to be a voice like we're having a voice right now to talk about this important topic. But I think that we need to keep the conversation alive. And those grassroots organizations, right, like Angie's Angels, they're integral and they really are so powerful in the work that they're able to do to push things forward that sometimes we can't do in our roles. And so any support that we can put back behind them to continue these conversations, I always have to be an optimist and hope that they're not going there to die and hope that they're going there for meaningful conversations. So I'm always hopeful, but I think that it's important that all of us in our roles continue those conversations and continue to support the grassroots organizations that are trying to move these things forward.

I don't, well, I was going to say I don't mean to get so graphic here, but I think we have to get a little bit graphic if we're going to talk about this, because we need people to understand how serious it is. We've been talking about Angie. Angie was killed in her own home, shot by an obviously very disturbed man who somehow got a gun, despite the fact that he was known to police, that he'd assaulted a police officer in the past, that he had a very troubled background. And I guess I'm not laying this all at the feet of the police, but somehow, somehow this guy who was known to be a problem got a hold of a gun and went and killed somebody in her own home, where she should feel as safe as safe goes. Do we know how that happened?

How we got the gun? Yeah. No, we don't. We've been investigating that. And unfortunately, we have been unable to determine where he got that gun. Do we have any sense about whose responsibility it is to make sure that a person like that doesn't get a gun? He was already on probation or a prohibition order to not have weapons. But as you know, he's in violation of his order. That's a piece of paper and a promise. And speaking further on that tragedy specifically, he had a camera in her house. He was listening to her in a phone call to a friend. He was sending her, you know, after he heard things he didn't like, she had him blocked on all socials, all texts, all everything. He was sending her e-transfers

for one cent with, you know, terrible messaging. And so again, those coercive control pieces, you should not be being videotaped in your own home. You should not have to be accepting e-transfers with terrible messaging. Yes, it's about the gun. Yes, it's about everything that happened. But that's the end result of such a pileup of things. She thought she blocked him everywhere she could, but then he would send her an e-transfer for one cent

with disgraceful language in that e-transfer. So he was still exhibiting coercive behavior against her and being miserable to her. I don't know. Can an amendment to the criminal code stop that kind of thing or at least punish it appropriately? What do you think, Paul? I'm not sure. I think that if we're talking about the course of control amendment, I mean, I'm maybe the odd person out on the panel because I don't necessarily think that that's a law that necessarily should go forward. How come? Well, for a lot of reasons, but I think primarily because it's going to be very it's complicated course of control is something that happens over a period of time you know it's a look that a guy will give to somebody and she just knows uh-oh I better change my behavior right I just feel like it's going to be very difficult to prove

something like that, let alone how are police officers supposed to go into a situation and determine whether a crime has taken place around coercive control. That's a good point. Can I get the police officer to comment on that? Absolutely. So theoretically, it's a great idea. In practical terms, it's going to be very difficult to do. I know there's some other countries that have implemented similar things with varied success in it, but it will be extremely difficult for an officer to show up. Some will be obvious, but the more creative people, the same ones that are manipulative and are going to lie to my face when I answer the door to

me are going to be the same ones that are creative and make it difficult to do. So does your service have an official position on whether this criminal code amendment is advisable? Anything that's going to protect a victim, we're for. You think this will? Ultimately, I think if it's laid out properly, it can, absolutely. Steve, just to comment a little bit about this and the criminalization of intimate partner violence, we can see some examples of where we try our best, but it falls a bit short,

or there's some struggles. And I think that one of the things that can be done that could make a difference is services for the abuser. So right now in order to get services if you're an abuser you have to be convicted and there's a partner assault response program, PAR program is what's called for short, but one of the recommendations from the Renfrew Enquest is to have a 24-7 hotline so that men who are realizing or that they're that they're having issues with with abuse can get help right at that time so right now they're getting help by chance if they happen to get counseling or support but there's no actual help for people that

are abusive until after they get that conviction there's no funding for support so if they're they don't take that initiative themselves to you know pay for their own therapy or that type of thing they're not getting that support but i think that's something that we can do is you know lots of times after an incident happens there is remorse right and that's the the chance that we have to really make that difference if we had services available that the people that needed the most can get help angela I want you to have the last word on this tie up our conversation and put a bow on top if 95 municipalities in the province have gone on record passing resolutions saying intimate partner violence is an

epidemic in our province right now by my math that means 340 or more still haven't done it. What's your message to them? My message to them is, as an elected official, it is our job to protect our constituents in the best ways that we can. Municipally, we are the people that are closest to the people. So stand up for your people, show that you can, that you care, and that, you know, we're not going to stand for this anymore. In no disrespect to the other panelists, but when we talk about something being difficult, we talk about something being difficult.

I always think of the victim. How difficult is it every day for someone to go home to a place where you are supposed to be safe? And you're sometimes living in an absolute hell. So I apologize. I'm not trying to be ignorant to you guys, but if it's difficult for the police to implement, then so be it. But let's do our best. No, and to your point,

no, I don't care how difficult it is for the officer. My point is it's difficult to make sure we're getting to the truth. Absolutely. Right, and it's about the truth and protecting victims. So yeah, if it takes my officers an extra two hours at the call or five hours or 12 hours, I don't care how difficult it is.

Let's do the job. Let's do things properly. For me, I feel like it's not just about the difficulty of implementing it. It's also about how is this possibly going to be used against women in situations? Because we've seen similarly, we're having a conversation right now around mandatory charging. And that was one of the other recommendations within the inquest to take a look at it to see whether or not that should be changed because that was implemented 40 years ago and at the time we all celebrated that because we thought this is good because typically what would happen is the police would go to the home, and then they'd tell the guide to take a walk around the block, settle down, you know, they're there dear to the woman, and nothing would change.

So with mandatory charging, we thought this is good. They'll charge the primary aggressor, and at least something will start happening. What we're finding now is that a lot of women are also being charged in that situation when the police go. And sometimes they are defending themselves. And so they're saying, the women, the survivors are saying, you know, we need to take a look at this

because we don't know that it's actually working for women. If you're an indigenous woman or a woman from a marginalized community, you're maybe even at more risk of being the one that's charged. And that's going to have huge implications on their ability to keep their kids, if it's a situation of custody and access, once you have a charge against you, then you're in the criminal, you know, you're in that criminal court and stuff. So it's complicated. And I appreciate the conversation, though. And I think definitely we need to have the conversations. We need to figure it out and do what we need to do to make women safer in countries where this has been implemented though uh the uk for instance uh the calls

for intimate partner violence have gone up people are feeling more confident to call and uh they're they were worried the same worry of of victims being um. And so far, they're not reporting that happening. So I'm still hopeful. That's a good place to leave this. Mr. Director, can I get a four-shot, please, so I can thank all of our guests? Angela Caputo, City Councillor from Ward 3, Inspector Derek Dewar with the Sault Ste. Marie Police,

Paula Valois, Chadwick Home, the non-profit organization up in Mois, Stephanie Featherston, Senior Director, Sioux St. Marie Police, Paula Valois, Chadwick Home, the nonprofit organization up in Mois Mois. Stephanie Featherston, senior director, Algoma Family Services based here in the Sioux. Great to have all of you on TVO tonight and thanks for having us here in the Sioux. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us.

The Agenda with Steve Paikin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you. Thank you for supporting TVO's journalism.