STEPHEN RICCIO
PONTIAC April 7, 2021
The Pontiac’s women’s shelter L’Entourelle is joining others across the province in a call for the Quebec government to implement recommendations for increased resources, as there have been eight femicides within Quebec within the last . . .
eight weeks.
In a 2018-2023 action plan, 190 recommendations were put forward by the province’s secretariat for the status of women with 28 of them being directly linked to issues of domestic violence impacting women. A femicide is a type of hate crime that is defined as the murder of women or girls because they are female.
The CAQ government announced its 2021-22 budget on March 25, and L’Entourelle Director Ashley Nadeau said that the absence of the several-year old recommendations within the budget have renewed the call for action from the Fort Coulonge based shelter along with the Federation of Women’s Shelters.
“The budget was passed on the 24th and we still have no specific answers on the recommendations that the [secretariat] has made,” Nadeau said.
L’Entourelle community worker Vanessa Chabot explained that a study was done in combination with the recommendations which found that an overwhelming amount of femicides were tied to conjugal violence.
Should the recommendations be put into place, community actors such as social workers and police would be given more training.
“All of the social actors would be [required] to know the signs of domestic violence, because it was shown that in most of the situations, they either had reported it to the police or they had different follow ups and things like that with community actors,” Chabot said.
“So what they are asking is that we would get more budget that is forwarded into really forming those people to recognize the signs and having really something that’s in [line] with domestic violence to be put in all of their studies,” she added.
Chabot said that she and others from the shelter went out within the last two weeks and pinned the names of the victims of the 13 Quebec femicides since the start of the pandemic on the offices of Pontiac MNA André Fortin and Pontiac MP Will Amos to raise awareness, as well as the Campbell’s Bay Courthouse. She said that information was also sent out to each of the municipalities within the Pontiac as well.
“We’re really hoping that it will raise awareness and that we will get some answers very soon because all of those could have been avoided and we even got more in the last week,” she said. “It’s really important to understand that we are demanding to be heard, that’s what we’re doing.”
In an interview with THE EQUITY, Fortin said that the conversation around the rise of femicides and increasing resources for women’s shelters was ongoing and significant one at the National Assembly in Quebec City.
“As the finance critic, I’ve asked the government to speed up the investments that are made for women’s shelters,” he said.
Fortin said that the government has allocated a significant amount towards resources for women’s shelters, but the funds remained in provincial coffers.
“The request I made to the government was to speed up those investments, not only give them the money that was due last year that hasn’t made it to them, but to accelerate the disbursement of the sums that are owed this year to them.”
“Right now across Quebec there are waiting lists to have a spot in a women’s shelter and when you need that service you cannot wait,” he added. “When you’re in an abusive relationship and you need to leave, you can’t wait for a spot to open up, you need to be able to access those resources.”
Chabot also said that increased resources were needed quickly given the current state of demand for women’s shelters.
“It was in the 2018 to 2023 [guide] and we’re in 2021 and we still don’t have an answer as to what’s going on right now,” she said.
