Placing LEAF’s Report “What It Takes” in Context: Part 1

PREFACE

This is the first of two posts placing LEAF’s recent report, What It Takes: Establishing a Gender-Based Violence Accountability Mechanism in Canada (“What It Takes” or “LEAF report)” on gender-based violence (GBV) in the context of historical efforts to address GBV (albeit fragmentary references) and more recent developments: the 2021 Joint Declaration by the ministers for the status of women for Canada, the provinces and the territories, leading to the 2022 National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence (“National Action Plan” or “NAP”), the 2019 Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (“MMIWG Report”), particularly its Call for Justice 1.7, the establishment of a National Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson, and the 2023 Mass Casualty Commission Final Report’s recommendation for a GBV Commissioner.
In Part 1, I outline existing efforts to end GBV and the above reports, the latter as relevant to LEAF’s report. Part 2 considers What It Takes.

INTRODUCTION

What It Takes, released last month (October 2024), is the result of LEAF’s Accountability Project, intended to “hold governments accountable for taking steps to end gender-based violence in Canada”. Its main recommendation, a GBV Commissioner, builds on the MCC’s final report recommendation for a GBV Commissioner, and the MMIWG report Call for Justice 1.7. I discuss these reports very briefly as relevant to What It Takes.

Some readers may remember, as I do, when MP Margaret Mitchell’s demand in 1982 that Parliament address the issue of domestic violence elicited laughter from other MPs. When I discussed domestic violence in a course I was teaching during the summer at Atkinson around the same time – I was in law school at Osgoode – a man in the class told the women how they should deal with it; the women gave little smirks and, more concerning, one woman asked, “can any woman be a victim of domestic violence?” Some forty years later, there’s been a great deal of discussion and study about, creation of shelters for victims of and legislative responses to what we now call “intimate partner violence” (IPV).

IPV is now considered a form of a broader GBV, which encompasses physical, sexual, psychological, emotional and financial abuse. “Gender-based” means women, sexual and gender diverse communities. Certain populations are particularly affected, including women with disabilities, racialized and immigrant communities and Indigenous persons, as well as people living in certain geographic areas where they are more isolated. More recently, the use of technology has become a means by which, as is usually the case, mostly men inflict GBV, especially domestic abuse.

Efforts to end gendered violence in its different manifestations, increasingly called an “epidemic”, continue. (See, for example, a map of the municipalities that have declared GBV an “epidemic” here and Canada’s Minister of Justice’s use of the term.). Before turning to the LEAF report, I say a few words about other efforts to eliminate or reduce or at least respond to gender-based violence in order to illustrate their scope.

RESPONDING TO GBV

    Examples of Initiatives

Although some efforts are directed at preventing GBV, most are responsive: they provide resources to victims or are intended to punish perpetrators. I do not claim by any means to be identifying all the many different efforts that would fit within this heading, merely to give a flavour of the types of efforts to respond to different forms of violence and the actors who have made them.

Plans developed under the NAP include efforts to prevent GBV before it happens. For example, Ontario-STANDS promotes “[t]raining for professionals who are likely to first notice and respond to the warning signs of gender-based violence can help stop violence before it occurs and connect survivors to the supports they need early” and “[e]ducation and awareness initiatives [to] help boys, men, children and youth learn about what gender-based violence is and how to foster healthy relationships”.

With regard to training professionals, in 2012, the Ontario Women’s Directorate funded the Law Commission of Ontario (“LCO”) to create Curriculum Modules in Ontario Law Schools: A Framework for Teaching about Violence Against Women, designed to expose all law students to basic information to help them identify whether their future clients (in any area of law) were or are victims of GBV. Without the means to follow up, despite an advisory group of law school representatives, the modules have not been adopted. Perhaps with this new commitment, they can provide a starting point for training future legal professionals. And there are always those who do not seem to get the message; for instance, despite education sessions for judges about sexual assault and admonishment by the Supreme Court of Canada, some judges continue to make decisions based on myths and stereotypes.

Lessons might be learned from other jurisdictions. For example, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway have formed the Synergy Network Against Gender-Based and Domestic Violence, an informal network of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders who are recipients of grants from these countries. It identifies several approaches to preventing GBV: “training programs for professionals; rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators; campaigns to raise awareness; promote women’s empowerment; involve men and boys; education in non-violence and equality between women and men; challenge gender stereotypes”. Synergy’s website includes several stories from different European jurisdictions.

As far as responding to GBV, there have been many discrete initiatives of which I can provide only a smattering here.

Some organizations are dedicated to providing evidence-based information about the scope and prevalence of GBV; see, for example, the Canadian Women’s Foundation, which among other activities, “invests in programs to prevent and intervene in situations of gender-based-based violence”. Other organizations run shelters for women who have been abused or provide other assistance for women who have experienced sexual violence. The Ontario government is one government that provides free legal advice to people who have experienced sexual assault (in this case, up to four hours). A number of Ontario legal aid clinics have also received federal funding to provide legal support; see, for example, Legal Assistance of Windsor. Governments provide a variety of support. Recognizing the even greater risk of GBV during the Covid-19 lockdowns, the federal government provided financial support to front-line organizations providing multi-disciplinary support for those experience GBV.

Efforts have mixed results. For example, the LCO’s current “Improving Protection Orders project is examining why protection orders are not working effectively to prevent femicide and intimate partner violence in Ontario”. Prosecution of perpetrators has improved but still requires work and recognition that, as Synergy explains, there be “no excuses on the grounds of culture, custom or religion is important.” Acquiring stable funding for various initiatives is always a challenge.

Provinces and territories operate specialized domestic violence courts. Domestic violence court programs may take a restorative justice approach. For instance, Nova Scotia’s Domestic Violence Court Program is voluntary for perpetrators who have committed violence and been charged with an offence and for those who were subject to the violence; the perpetrators must accept responsibility. The purpose is to stop the violence, repair the harm and create a non-violent relationship going forward. The Newfoundland and Labrador Intimate Partner Violence Intervention Court is more traditional but requires the perpetrator to participate in programming and operates through interaction with other agencies.

Provincial and territorial plans to address GBV, such as Ontario-STANDS, are in partnership with the federal NAP. Under the NAP, “Provincial and territorial governments will continue working together in partnership with survivors, Indigenous partners, civil society, front-line service providers, municipalities, the private sector and researchers to implement the National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence within their jurisdictions in a way that responds to the evolving needs and emerging issues of survivors and victims of GBV.”

Increasingly, there is a recognition that responses to GBV must be collaborative. Ontario-Stands, for example, is based on “a more connected system where child protection workers, police, judges, social workers, educators, and health care professionals collaborate and share information more often” (see here).

The broad understanding of GBV is reflected in the Joint Declaration released by the federal, provincial and territorial ministers for the status of women.

    Documents and Reports
      Joint Declaration

The ministers for the status of women for Canada, the provinces and the territories agreed to the Joint Declaration in January 2021. It was a precursor to developing the National Action Plan. (Quebec did not join this Declaration because it wanted to maintain its jurisdiction in the area.) The Declaration extends to “gender identity, gender expression, or how [people’s] gender is perceived by others”. It sees GBV as being a problem on both individual and societal levels: “Violence can have long-lasting and negative health, social and economic effects that span generations, often leading to cycles of violence and abuse within families, and sometimes whole communities”. It recognizes that anyone can experience GBV but also that “some populations are more at risk of experiencing violence because of historical and ongoing oppressions, such as sexism, homophobia, transphobia, colonialism, ageism, classism, racism, ableism”, although “women and girls continue to be the primary victims and survivors of gender-based violence”. During lockdowns at the beginning of Covid-19, when victims were more isolated and insulated, there was an increase in GBV, highlighting the need for more resources to address it.

The ministers made a public commitment to achieving a Canada free of GBV over a period of 10 years (but realistically ensuring support when GBV does occur):

We, the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers responsible for the Status of Women acknowledge the urgency to address the multiple, complex and deeply rooted factors that contribute to gender-based violence. We commit to continue to work together and with other departments, agencies and ministries, partners, stakeholders, experts, survivors, families and people with lived experience to create a Canada free of gender-based violence, where victims, survivors and their families are supported no matter where they live. More than ever, there is a strong need to prevent and address gender-based violence in our country.

To achieve this vision, we agree that concrete efforts are required at the federal, provincial and territorial levels. We further commit to ensuring that our efforts align with and complement our responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Calls for Justice.

The ministers acknowledged the need to include others in the process: “survivors, Indigenous partners, civil society, front-line service providers, municipalities, the private sector and researchers”. Pursuant to the Joint Declaration, the guiding principles of the future National Action Plan were to reflect a multijurisdictional, multisectoral, trauma-informed approach. The principles not only are relevant for framing the plan but also for measuring whether it meets the requirements of a potentially successful plan and it is therefore worthwhile to cite them in full:

• Be flexible in response to regional and sectoral realities
• Respect jurisdictional authority of each order of government
• Promote interjurisdictional collaboration
• Support Indigenous-led solutions
• Ground in an intersectional approach
• Promote a multi-sectoral, cross-departmental/ministry approach
• Support community-based, community centered approaches
• Promote evidence-based, innovative and responsive policy and programs
• Incorporate a systems view of services and programs
• Be survivor-centric and inclusive of children and families
• Recognize the expertise of survivors and community agencies providing support
• Be trauma and violence informed
• Be culturally safe, relevant, accessible and appropriate
• Recognize that community organizations provide gender-based violence supports and services that are critical to advancing gender equality
• Recognize the role of men and boys in addressing gender-based violence

The Declaration’s goals were to involve all Canadians in this endeavour, deal with factors such as economic or social variables that contribute to GBV, ensure access to appropriate resources and “[i]mprove the health, social, economic and justice outcomes of those impacted by gender-based violence”.

      National Action Plan

The National Action Plan begins by identifying the statistical scope of GBV in Canada (for example, that 44% of women report they have experienced GBV in their lifetime) and the demographic scope (women in all communities, but disproportionately in some). It emphasizes not only the need to include Indigenous communities and voices, but also that it must collaborate with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan: Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People [MMIWG2S NAP]: “They both aim to prevent GBV, address its root causes, and provide better supports for victims, survivors, and their families.”

The NAP recognizes the various forms GBV can take, including technologically-facilitated violence, and that it can occur in public and private settings, as well as on-line. Although there are several sources of data about the occurrence of GBV, it is likely underreported for various reasons, including stigma and lack of trust in the legal system. The NAP nevertheless sets out the degree of sexual assault, intimate partner violence and homicide for various communities, unwanted sexual touching, human trafficking and online child exploitation. The statistics show that these versions of GBV occur more often (or are reported more often) in some communities than others; for example, “[i]n 2018, transgender and gender diverse people in Canada were more than twice as likely as cisgender people to have experienced unwanted sexual behaviours in public places that made them feel unsafe or uncomfortable (58% versus 23% respectively) and in the workplace (69% versus 23%)” and “[w]hile Indigenous women account for approximately 5% of all women in Canada, they accounted for 21% of all women killed by an intimate partner between 2014 and 2019 (83 victims).”

The National Action Plan is based on five pillars:

• Support for victims, survivors and their families
• Prevention
• Responsive justice system
• Implementing Indigenous-led approaches
• Social infrastructure and enabling environment

The discussion of each pillar includes not only the meaning or purpose of the pillar, but also “what remains to be done” and “opportunities for action”. “Implementing Indigenous-led approaches” is slightly different: it includes “Alignment of the National Action Plan to End GBV and the MMIWG2S+ NAP”, “priorities and wise practices” and “opportunities for transformational change”.

For the most part, the pillars speak for themselves. It is worth noting, however, how expansive “social infrastructure”, which “refers to health and social programs, services, and support, including childcare, long-term care, and GBV services” is intended to be: “providing care support for children, families, seniors, and communities; providing socioeconomic benefits for those in need; providing wrap-around services; increasing culturally and socially relevant trauma and violence-informed support and services, particularly for those living in rural, remote, and northern areas; and providing a range of housing options.”

I use Pillar 3, Responsive Justice System, to illustrate how the NAP addresses the pillars. It begins by identifying the relevant components of the justice system and some of the advances that have been made to address GBV over the past years; it also recognizes that more work needs to be done. Under “What Remains to be Done”, it identifies the “need to address underlying, intersectional factors that result in individuals experiencing bias and re-traumatization within the justice process”, provision of more information to and greater engagement with the system by victims and survivors and making family law more responsive to GBV. It recognizes the need for collaboration between levels of government and community involvement. The final segment, “Opportunities for Action”, consists of an extensive list of suggested actions to achieve what remains to be done, rather than specific recommendations. The provincial and territorial plans, in agreement with Canada and supported by federal funding, contain measures reflective of these suggestions (for an example of a funding agreement, see the Canada-Nunavut Agreement; Nunavut’s actual plan under NAP is Schedule B to the funding agreement)..

Pillar 4 of the NAP, Implementing Indigenous-led approaches, is “aligned” with the NAP resulting from the MMIWG inquiry, “highlight[ing] the synergies and complementarities between the two national action plans”. The Canada NAP “recognizes that Indigenous Peoples will determine, develop, and implement initiatives, programming, and services for themselves, their families, and their communities, inclusive of urban, on reserve, rural, remote, and Northern communities”; actions under Pillar 4 will be rooted in traditional knowledge and the involvement of all segments of Indigenous communities.

Women’s Shelters Canada released a statement on the release of the NAP. This organization of shelters and transition houses led the preparation of a Roadmap for the National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence developed by advocates, including “anti-violence leaders across Canada: experts, advocates, and survivors from national organizations, frontline service and support organizations, grassroots community groups, the labour movement, the law, academia, and the public.” It promoted an independent oversight body to track NAP developments, among other recommendations, and is a good source for a critical analysis of the NAP. In its “Reflections on the First Year” of the NAP, it notes the lack of oversight and recommends the implementation of the MCC’s recommendation for a GBV Commissioner.

Other organizations expressed concerns about the NAP, while acknowledging its benefits. For example, the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres criticized the lack of attention to sexual assault as a form of GBV and the need to build on existing work, including ensuring core rather than project funding.

I turn briefly now to the final reports from the MMIWG Inquiry and the MCC. This is not the place for a detailed review and what follows is sketchy and selective in the extreme; however, apart from being important reports in themselves, LEAF’s report refers to them and, indeed, adopts the MMIWG Inquiry’s call to justice 1.7, an Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson and furthers the MCC’s recommendation for a GBV commissioner by making it the main focus of What It Takes .

      MMIWG Inquiry Final Report (2019)

The evidential and anecdotal evidence already established the highly disproportionate numbers of Indigenous women and girls who have been murdered or remain missing, although this had not been always acknowledged by those in authority and the failure to investigate (or to investigate poorly) underestimated the extent of the violence. As Commissioner Michèle Audette stated in her Preface to the final report of the MMIWG Inquiry, “Although this crisis was identified long ago, we have been slow to examine it in depth” (MMIWG Final Report, Vol.1a, p.7). However, the MMIWG Inquiry Final Report confirms the extent of the problem as part of its thorough analysis of the gendered violence to which Indigenous persons are subject. It is informed by the experiences of “more than 2,380 family members, survivors of violence, experts and Knowledge Keepers”, showing the value of the direct involvement of both grassroots and experts.

The MMIWG Final Report’s “calls for justice” are premised on the foundation that Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people are “rights holders”, including human rights, among others, and therefore “all actions and remediation to address root causes of violence must be human and Indigenous rights-based with a focus on substantive equality for Indigenous Peoples” (MMIWG Final Report, Vol.1b, p.169), which finds an echo in LEAF’s Report. Call for Justice 1.7 is for “the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples, to establish a National Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson, with authority in all jurisdictions”, as well as a National Indigenous and Human Rights Tribunal (MMIWG Final Report, Vol. 1b, p.178).

The lessons inherent in the MMIWG Final Report are specific to the experience of Indigenous communities and serve to inform how the NAP’s pillars, especially Pillar 4, Implementing Indigenous-led Approaches, are realized.

      MCC Final Report (2023)

The perpetrator responsible for the mass casualty in Nova Scotia on April 18-19, 2020 killed 22 people (see Part A of the Executive Summary of the report for their names, photos and for most of them commemorations). Although on its face, it did not initially appear to have a particular connection to GBV, the MCC Final Report noted, “We need to accept that those who perpetrate mass casualties often have unaddressed histories of gender-based, intimate partner, or family violence – which means that tackling those forms of violence must be an urgent priority.” And on an individual level, it turned out that the perpetrator had been controlling and emotionally and physically abusive to his partner, as well as in relationships with other women, including women from marginalized communities. (He also exhibited violence towards male and female patients if they complained or had problems paying and to strangers, including men.)

Chapter 11 of Volume 3 of the report is devoted to a detailed consideration of issues related to GBV, including risk assessment. It takes an unusual and realistic approach, using a framework of what is keeping women unsafe. Among other recommendations about “how to ensure progress through effective accountability”, it identifies three that are also prominent in LEAF’s report:

• community-based accountability mechanisms
• meaningful coordination between all levels of government, within government (i.e., between different departments or agencies within the same level of government), community-based service providers, academia, and those with lived expertise who are routinely omitted from planning and decision-making tables
• a whole of government response that includes collaboration between levels of government but also between relevant ministries (MMC Report, vol. 3, pp.458-459).

Although the recommendations the MCC Final Report presents apply to mass casualties of various kinds, many of them reflect the report’s emphasis on GBV. For example, Recommendation V.13 speaks of “epidemic-level” and core funding to address GBV, including for “services that have been demonstrably effective in meeting the needs of women survivors of gender-based violence and that contribute to preventing gender-based violence, including interventions with perpetrators” (MCC Final Report, Vol.3, p. 402) This supports the concerns by grassroots organizations that there is a tendency to fund new initiatives at the expense of those already existing.(Chapters 10 to 13 in particular address GBV issues, although it is also addressed elsewhere, for example a discussion of GBV in rural settings in chapter 4.)

As far as LEAF’s report is concerned, the most important MCC Inquiry recommendation is V.17 under “National Accountability Framework”: “The federal government establish by statute an independent and impartial gender-based violence commissioner with adequate, stable funding, and effective powers, including the responsibility to make an annual report to Parliament”, with a “mandate [established] in consultation with provincial and territorial governments, women survivors including women from marginalized and precarious communities, and the gender-based violence advocacy and support sector.” (MCC Final Report, Vol.3, pp.460-461).

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Even the smattering of initiatives, both public and private, to which I referred above illustrate the range of efforts to address what continues to be a serious societal problem. These initiatives are designed to addpress different aspects and consequences of GBV and have a particular role to play in that regard. Preventing GBV is, of course, ideal, but there must also be resources for victims to turn to when the ideal is not realized, as is all too often the case. It is also crucial that those who are in some way involved with GBV or with its victims be trained to identify victims and understand its impact.The number of separate and distinct initiatives may be its own problem, however. As far as government efforts are concerned, LEAF’s Accountability Project is intended to hold government to account for its efforts to end gender-based violence in Canada. A commissioner of GBV, the focus of LEAF’s report and adopted from the MCC Final Report, has the potential to coalesce at least all the government initiatives rather than view them as discrete albeit broadly related efforts.

In the second part of this post, I focus on LEAF’s Report: What It Takes: Establishing a Gender-Based Violence Accountability Mechanism in Canada.

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