Good afternoon. I am the founder of La Maison des Guerrières, but I am also a victim who was left for dead.

The system is full of holes, and we are still trying to understand why. In my case, I was left for dead 30 years ago, and nothing has changed since. I would even say that things have gotten worse.

Court delays are appallingly long. We tell women to go to shelters that they have to leave two or three months later. Where are their violent spouses then? They are still there when the women leave the shelter. There should be no court delays. The courts should act right away.

We tell women to leave their homes, their furniture, their possessions, their jobs, everything they have, even though they are the victims and their spouses are the violent ones. In Quebec, no therapy is available for these violent men; there is no place where they can go for help. I think we need to build homes for violent men and put those men there. Instead of basic therapy once a week, they should have to undergo full-time therapy with experts who could appear in court and explain the danger these men pose. As other witnesses have pointed out, it's the victim's word against the perpetrator's in court. The women are often very emotional. I was when I went to court. I was a victim who had been left for dead, so naturally, I was crying, I was very emotional, I was scared.

We also have a lot of issues with our youth protection branch in Quebec. I deal with those cases in my job. All women who are victims of domestic violence have their children taken away from them, either because they are accused of being alienating or because their situations are considered separation disputes. Domestic violence is not a separation dispute. Women suffer the violence, and the children see it happen. The children are just as much victims as their mothers.

The child protection workers we deal with are not well trained. They do not understand the situation. To them, the man is a nice guy, a good guy, but he is a manipulator who is manipulating all of society. When people see these stories in the news, they always say how nice and polite so-and-so was and how they never would have suspected he would do something like that. The same thing happens in the child protection system. The people working in the system aren't at all able to assess the situation correctly. When I get involved in cases, I see that the caseworkers are totally incapable of recognizing domestic violence. They see the situation as a separation dispute. The mother has left everything. She has lost everything, and on top of it all, her children are taken away and handed back over to a violent father. That is serious.

As I said, the justice system is the same. I testify in court in all the cases I work on, and judges have absolutely no understanding of domestic violence. It's the mother's word against the father's. However, the mother is not always able to record, or provide evidence of, her bruises, the blows she suffered or everything that happened in the home.

The most important thing I want to talk to about today pertains to the court delays. I have clients who wait two, even three, years before they get to testify against their attacker in a criminal proceeding. That whole time, the women are living in constant fear. They cannot stay in women's shelters forever. These violent men have access to them at all times. It's no trouble; they can use Facebook or some other way to find their victims. They go to their workplace, or they follow the kids after school or some other family member.

Cases involving domestic violence should be dealt with by a judge right away, on a priority basis. That's how it works in cases involving the youth protection branch. The branch can intervene in an emergency. Victims of domestic violence should have the same rights. Women should be the ones able to roam free, while the men are put someplace. They are the guilty ones. They are the ones who should go to a centre or home for follow-up.

That is my message for you today.

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