The Ontario government has rejected calls to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.
The coroner’s inquest into the 2015 deaths of Natalie Warmerdam, Carol Culleton, and Anastasia Kuzyk at the hands of their former partner made that recommendation along with 85 others.
In a letter penned by deputy ministers, the province says intimate partner violence would not be considered an epidemic because it is not an infectious disease.
When pressed about the decision today, Premier Doug Ford says the government is implementing 22 of the coroner’s recommendations.
He then levelled blame on Canada’s bail system because convicted killer Basil Borutski was out on bail at the time of the murders for threatening Warmerdam’s family in 2012 and assaulting and choking Kuzyk in 2013.
Ford says the federal government must change the justice system.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for a Renfrew County group says she “rejects” the province’s decision to not declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.
Kirsten Mercer, who represents End Violence Against Woman (EVA) says she doesn’t understand why Ontario didn’t make the symbolic declaration. It was recommended by a jury from an inquest that examined the murders of three Renfrew County women.
Mercer says she received the province’s decision in writing this week, but immediately started contacting provincial officials to keep the discussion going.
“We don’t see this conversation as being over,” she says. “And, as I said to them, sort of tongue-in-cheek at the time, ‘we reject the rejection. Thank you, but no thank you. We think you need to re-consider.’ So that conservation is ongoing and will continue.”
Mercer says the province’s decision is at odds with what’s happening at other levels of government.
She says about 30 governments in Ontario, including Renfrew County, have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic, and more are expected to soon.
She says those declarations have proven to be more than symbolic, as it’s allowing those governments to build violence prevention measures into strategic plans.