Domestic violence strategy should include more prevention programs: experts

Any Ontario strategy to end intimate partner violence must include more programs for men at risk of becoming perpetrators, an area in which the province is currently sorely lacking, experts told a committee Wednesday.

There is a "smattering" of services available, said Katreena Scott, academic director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children at Western University, but it is too few and far between.

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"The reality in Ontario is that we live, right now, in a system where if there is somebody who is engaging in — or is at risk for — hurtful, abusive or coercive behaviour, it's very, very difficult to find and get help," Scott told a legislative committee studying intimate partner violence.

"Really, what has to happen is they need to wait until they're involved in the criminal justice system."

The Progressive Conservative government said this spring that it would support an NDP bill to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, but then-government house leader Paul Calandra also tasked the justice committee with a broader study of the issue. Those hearings began Wednesday.

The move came nearly a year after the province rejected calls from an inquest into the deaths of three women at the hands of their former partner to make the declaration, saying it couldn't label intimate partner violence an epidemic because it was not an infectious or communicable disease.

The jury at a coroner’s inquest into the 2015 deaths of Nathalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton and Anastasia Kuzyk in Renfrew County made 86 recommendations aimed at preventing similar tragedies. One of those recommendations was to establish a 24-hour hotline for men who need support to prevent them from engaging in such violence, but the government has not yet acted on it.

Experts at the legislative committee Wednesday held up an Alberta program as a good example of support for prevention, which offers men counselling, a 24-hour telephone support line, online resources and toolkits.

Lana Wells, an associate professor at the University of Calgary and a domestic violence researcher, said men are predominantly the perpetrators of intimate partner violence and a provincial strategy to end it must include supports for them.

"When men and boys can emotionally self-regulate, embody gender-equitable norms and behaviours, have the skills to disrupt sexism, violence within themselves and their peers, embrace non-violence, have the skills to heal, repair and manage conflict, be accountable, and actively inspire their peers, colleagues and children to do the same, then we can stop violence before it starts," she told the committee.

"So what can Ontario do to advance this area? I think really focusing on removing the burden from victims and victimology and start to focus our attention on the people and systems that are causing harm."

Better data is also needed that can speak to prevention, Wells said, as most of the research in this area has focused on victims. There needs to be more information on any patterns that precede domestic violence and what factors can lead people to become perpetrators in order to disrupt those trajectories, she said.

The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services said it spent more than $350 million in the last fiscal year on services to address and prevent gender-based violence, including more than $10 million in violence-prevention initiatives.

"Everyone has the right to live free from fear, exploitation, intimidation, and the threat of violence," the ministry wrote in a statement. "That is why our government is working to prevent intimate partner violence before it occurs."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2024.