TORONTO -- Quebec announced a $233-million investment to help victims of domestic abuse, after 10 women were murdered by abusive partners this year.
The announcement comes after blowback from the province’s latest budget that pledged only $22.5 million over five years, but advocates say this increase is still just a Band-Aid solution for shelters that are already overwhelmed.
“We need to have clarity, we need to have a clear, concise message on what the government is actually going to do for domestic violence,” Svetlana Chernienko, an advocate, told CTV News.
In a perfect world, addressing the problem with money might work, but Quebec is not a perfect world, she said. Systemic racism further exacerbates the issue in the shelter system.
“Let these homes know that they cannot turn their backs on any woman of colour because it is a thing, it does happen with some of the shelters and homes,” she added.
The announcement, she said, doesn’t do enough to address the underlying issues that lead to domestic violence.
“It's a start. However, the problem that we're having is that we're taking money and we're trying to sugarcoat the solution or put a Band-Aid on it,” she said.
More than $90 million will go towards the shelter system to create more spaces for survivors trying to flee abusive partners. It will provide 163 additional spaces in shelters and 313 more full-time staff. Annual funding for shelters will also increase from $77 million to $126 million by the end of 2025-2026 fiscal year. More announcements are expected in the coming weeks about the allocation of the rest of the funding.
Advocates wonder why it took the deaths of 10 women for the government to act.
Dyann Serafica-Donaire, a mother of four, was murdered by her husband last week. He died by suicide.
“She was a young, beautiful, talent and wonderful lady and a great human and did not deserve this,” family friend Kathy Brody told CTV News.
She was a pastry chef, who liked to share sweet creations and a smile. A GoFundMe has been started for her and will be given to her mother.
“I think it's sad we need to get to 10 femicides before the government decides to take action. This could have been done long before,” Genevieve Caumartin, who helps survivors of abuse find a safe place to live, told CTV News.
And with 10 femicides at the hands of male partners in under five months, there’s a deeper issue to be addressed.
“The issue is we have way too much domestic violence happening and why do we need more shelters,” Chernienko said.
Chernienko is a survivor of domestic abuse herself and uses her own personal experience to help others. She knows firsthand that while adding shelter beds is a start, it doesn’t go far enough.
“A lot of the time in these situations men who are arrested due to domestic abusive relationships are released either the same day or within a matter of a few days,” she said. “So we still have a lot of issues that we need to change in the judicial system and in the legislative system to be able to create a change.”
Not only are there racial divides to consider, the English and French divide in the province just makes matters even more difficult, she said.
“There's a lot of women of colour that write to me on my social media, multiple questions from Anglophone women that say ‘well how are we going to be treated because we're Anglophone?’ Women of colour too.”
She said that she’s had a lot of women reach out to her and express that her story of surviving domestic abuse and leaving with children gave them the courage to leave their own domestic abuse situations, and that the government needs to turn to advocates and survivors on how to handle this.
“Talk to us, see what you can do for us because we're the ones doing the work of raising awareness so that women can leave, because the government telling a woman to leave isn't enough.”
