"In Canada, people who use drugs are dying in record numbers. Between January 2016 and September 2019, more than 14,700 people died of apparent opioid overdoses in this country. In Ontario alone, more than 1450 people died from opioid-related causes in 2018. The overwhelming majority of these overdoses and deaths involve fentanyl or its analogues, a potent drug that is now present in many street drugs. Never before have we experienced an overdose crisis of this magnitude, which is only exacerbated by the criminalization of personal drug possession.
In May 2017, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act (“the Good Samaritan law”) was passed as a partial response to this ongoing crisis. The law amended the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to give immunity from prosecution for the offence of simple possession of a controlled substance to anyone who calls 911 to report an overdose as well as to anyone who is on the scene when emergency services arrive.
In 2019, with the support of a research grant from the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (HIV Legal Network) embarked upon a research study in Ontario to evaluate familiarity with the Good Samaritan law, and what people who have experience with drug use believe to be true about this law. In the midst of the ongoing overdose crisis in Ontario and across Canada, it is critical to understand people’s awareness of this law, how (or whether) they interact with it, and how they experience its real-world impacts."
These recommendations were developed by OAITH in collaboration with Dr. Katreena Scott, Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children.
Concerns addressed within this document include:
- Issues relating to initial police intervention in domestic violence incidents, and the prevalence of release with promise to appear, or release with conditions after charges are laid.
- Issues relating to domestic violence offender early releases and the risk of harm to victims of gender-based violence.
- Limited access to support and intervention for perpetrators and potential perpetrators of gender-based violence
- Immediate consideration of COVID-19 implications for Partner Assault Response (PAR) program funding models and implications for survivor safety
For each concern outlined, contextual background information is provided along with evidence-based concrete recommendations.
Violence against women and girls includes domestic violence (intimate partner violence, or IPV, and family violence), sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and sex trafficking.
Spousal violence is consistently the most common form of violence against women in Canada.
Â
March 20, 2019
In the last week, we have witnessed and experienced an increase of transphobic, transmisogynistic hate speech online and backlash in response to a recent funding decision made by the City of Vancouver. As a trans-inclusive anti-violence organization, we feel a sense of responsibility to provide a counter-narrative to this trans-exclusionary radical feminism. It's no secret that there is a long, difficult history between feminism and trans people.
Preventing gender-based violence and supporting survivors requires leadership and investment from all levels of government, coordinated work by a variety of stakeholders, a robust human rights framework, and meaningful grassroots community engagement. In Canada, initiatives to prevent gender-based violence and support survivors have been historically shaped around the needs of white, settler, English-speaking, cisgender, heterosexual and able-bodied women who are Canadian citizens and who have and some degree of economic and class privilege. In this paper, we propose a paradigm shift and new frameworks in order to centre the needs of Black, racialized, immigrant, refugee, migrant worker, international student, and non-status survivors of violence (henceforth referred to as "migrant and racialized survivors of violence"), and highlight the need to carry out this work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
Shelter service provision to immigrant women impacted by family violence is explored by presenting findings from a qualitative research study. Semi-structured interviews were employed with four front-line workers of shelters for abused women and children in the Southern Ontario region. The training and experiences of participants were explored and workers were asked for recommendations that would improve shelter service delivery to immigrant women. Findings indicated that service delivery issues continue to exist when supporting immigrant women in shelters including lack of sufficient training, language barriers, and cultural barriers. Participants discussed a wide range of recommendations for one-to-one support, shelters, and larger systems that they believed would allow for better shelter service delivery to immigrant women.