‘Treated like dirt’: advocates, survivors of intimate partner violence shockingly disrespected by Liberal MP

On July 31, 2021, Cait Alexander sent the words “please help” over a WhatsApp message moments before collapsing. She had been beaten and left for dead by her boyfriend at the time. 

Although Alexander was accustomed to her partner’s violent outbursts, she was not prepared for what transpired that day. He was out of control in a way she had not seen before.

It went on for hours until Alexander was left unconscious in a pool of her own blood. 

“I’m supposed to be dead,” Alexander told members of a parliamentary committee last month as she held up images of her bleeding and bruised body. 

“My ex was beating me — all 6’3, approximately 250 pounds of him — because he couldn’t find his car keys,” she recalled. “For four hours, with his fists, his feet, a wooden rolling pin, whilst he split my head in three places, gouged my eyes out with his thumbs, kicked my ribs and tortured me in ways I can feel but can’t fully describe.”

“I don’t know how my body survived it. My ex enjoyed what he did to me.” 

On July 31, 2024, exactly three years since her former partner left her hanging within inches of her life, Alexander appeared before the House of Commons Status of Women Committee to share her story, and demand reform to Canadian laws that “dehumanize” survivors of intimate partner violence, human trafficking and sexual assault. The meeting date came a week after a vigil was held for 17-year-old Breanna Broadfoot who was stabbed on July 16th in a case of intimate partner violence in London. She succumbed to her injuries two days later in hospital. 

Alexander’s boyfriend was charged with eight offences — three federal and five provincial — and released on bail shortly after the incident. As a result of court backlogs and laws that guarantee the right to a speedy trial, his charges were stayed.

“Why does he abuse and why is he allowed to get away with it?” Alexander, who now resides in the U.S. for her safety, asked committee members. “He abuses because he is publicly and personally rewarded for it. And he is allowed to get away with it because you, the Government of Canada, let him. Abuse is a choice; a moral failing and it is also inexcusable.” 

Instead of being met with acceptance and sensitivity, Alexander’s harrowing story and the urgent pleas of other advocates were, stunningly, ignored by members of a committee specifically designed to give people just like Alexander a platform to help steer change. Instead, in a move that left stakeholders bewildered, Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld halted the discussion around violence against women — the entire reason for the meeting — so she could debate an unrelated motion on abortion rights. Her railroading of the critical topic at hand set the stage for the procedural disarray and partisan sparring match that effectively hijacked the meeting. 

Cait Alexander appears before the Status of Women Committee in Ottawa before she and other advocates walked out after MPs ignored their issue.

(Screengrab/ParlVu) 

The meeting devolved into a chaotic back-and-forth of MPs arguing over speaking orders and frustration over the hastily organized summer meeting, sidetracking any meaningful conversation around the testimony committee members had just heard from Alexander, who flew from Los Angeles to share the gruesome details of what happened to her exactly three years ago.  

Vandenbeld lambasted Conservative MPs who were present, accusing them of politicizing the issue by calling the meeting during the summer under short notice, which she and NDP MP Leah Gazan said left other members unable to prepare or recommend witnesses.  

But Vandenbeld expressed little interest in the issue, quickly turning the meeting into her own political opportunity to address an unrelated matter, while attacking her Conservative colleagues. 

Following several interruptions while MPs squabbled over speaking orders, Conservative MP Anna Roberts called a point of order to express her outrage with how the meeting was unfolding, stating before committee members, “I’m really disgusted in this whole day and I want to apologize to the two witnesses for coming all this distance to help us solve a problem that women in this country are being killed and the other parties don’t care. I’m disgusted.”

MP Gazan — who was visibly frustrated and upset — said she was “disgusted” that she was not able to put forward any witnesses when she is “representing Ground Zero for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls." She added, “this is about collegiality. This is about using people for a political agenda.” 

After turning her back to the committee members as the lengthy back-and-forth squabbling  continued, Alexander, along with Megan Walker, a fellow advocate, walked out of the committee room. 

“What has just occurred here with the witnesses that came here to testify have been completely shut out and the committee members here from the opposite parties, the Liberal and the NDP, have completely shut out these witnesses from testifying and it is absolutely brutal what has happened…,” acting committee member and Conservative MP Tracy Gray said. “They are being revictimized.”

“I am so disappointed by what happened at the status of women today,” Bloc Québécois MP Andréanne Larouche added. “Because of partisanship things are no longer moving forward and the same thing is now happening at the status of women committee. You all fell into this trap and we have made this issue of violence against women political. It is very disappointing. Witnesses left the room crying… I have never seen anything like this.”

“Women cannot become tools for political games and that’s what’s happening.”

Conservative MP Anna Ferreri, who at one point seemed at a loss for words over her frustration, admonished MP Vandenbeld for putting forward a motion on abortion rights in the middle of witness testimony that was calling for “legitimate change” to confront the epidemic of violence against women. “What is collegiality? What is compassion if you are not using this damn committee to change the legislation to save lives?” 

She took a moment to apologize on behalf of the committee members to Alexander’s mother who, standing behind the witness table, responded: “Sorry isn’t good enough. We’ve heard ‘sorry’ a lot.” 

A week later, Alexander, who heads up the advocacy group End Violence Everywhere, told The Pointer her treatment during the meeting left her “heartbroken”, feeling “confused” and “further abused”. She said her appearance in the House of Commons was a continuation of the same exact experience she had in the “injustice system.” She was “blindsided” by the behaviour of certain elected officials present at the meeting.   

“I was white out. I was like, ‘I have to get out of here. I can't do this.’ I can't believe I just was this vulnerable—opened up my heart, showed these pictures, my parents are sitting behind me, and I'm not even being heard,” she lamented. 

“I feel how anyone would feel, treated like dirt, less than dirt. There wasn’t even an open discussion about what needed to be done. It was blatant. It was intentional. Anita knew exactly what she was doing.” 

Since the July 31st meeting, Alexander has demanded an apology from MP Vandenbeld, who serves as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of International Development, and other MPs who contributed to the obstruction of the meeting. On August 7th, Vandenbeld issued a statement on National Newswatch after receiving backlash for her behaviour during the meeting. The lengthy statement pointed blame at other politicians. 

“In my focus on trying to save our committee from the same dysfunction and partisanship that has plagued other committees, I played a role in adding to their trauma and for that I am very sorry. Nothing that happened in that meeting should ever have happened.” 

The apology has provided Alexander no relief from how she felt during the meeting that day, forcing her to walk out after travelling from California to testify. She is frustrated by elected officials, specifically the women on the committee who abandoned victims to score political points, despite the life or death reality of the issue. 

“I don't know why they don't take it seriously. I don't understand it,” she said. “It's very sinister, it's very dark, and it's not just IPV. It's human trafficking, it's [sexual assault], it’s violence against women, it's violence against children. It's perpetuating family abuse; the family court system’s an abysmal failure. There's no recourse for any of this. Nobody that I've ever spoken to has had a good experience with any of this, and it’s not fair.”

Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld severely disrupted a discussion on violence against women in a House of Commons committee meeting last month.

(Facebook)

Despite all the information now widely available on intimate partner violence, much of the responsibility to confront the growing horror falls to the justice system which is being asked to reform policies and practices that continue to harm women. Data and crime statistics show the worsening behaviour of offenders; the increase in repeat violence; and the growing danger women are placed in when they try to leave dangerous relationships. The justice system has done little to respond to this information. Offenders are repeatedly handed short sentences or let go on bail, enabling them to repeat the cycle of abuse. 

“The entire Canadian justice system is redundant and might as well not exist,” Alexander said. “And I know those are strong statements, but there is no justice in the country. It is not safe.”

Peel Regional Police deputy chief Nick Milinovich, who was also among the witnesses that testified before the committee, said the statistics around intimate partner violence are beyond “concerning”. He highlighted that in 2023, Peel’s police force responded to over 9,500 calls for family and intimate partner violence, approximately 26 incidents of intimate partner violence every single day. Peel police laid roughly 9,050 charges related to IPV in 2023, which included uttering threats, failure to comply with a peace order, assault with a weapon, and choking or suffocating.

Between 2015 and 2020, Peel police reported a 74 percent increase in the number of domestic violence calls and between 2016 and 2021, there was a 3.5 percent increase in the rate of intimate partner disputes reported. In 2019, over 40 percent of homicides that year were related to family or intimate partner violence. 

“Our data shows that a woman is strangled every single day in the Region of Peel,” Milinovich told the committee. “Of the 14 homicides that we’ve had in Peel Region, almost 20 percent have been femicides. These are just the instances that are reported.”

That is in Peel alone. 

Data from the Canadian Femicide Observatory shows 184 women and girls were violently killed, mostly by men, in 2022. In 2023, 62 women were violently killed. 

“There's a lot of nuance, there's a lot of sensitivity, there's a lot of different factors for each and every single person, but ultimately, these are not hard concepts to grasp,” Alexander explained. “If you boil it down, they're very simple, very based in humanity, very based in values, and we don't have those values anymore.”

While nearly 100 municipalities across the Province — including Brampton, Mississauga and the Region of Peel — have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic, the Province has failed to follow suit, despite the declaration being at the top of the list of 86 recommendations made in a Coroner’s Inquest into the murder of three women in Renfrew County.   

In April, the PCs took an unexpected turn, supporting the NDP’s Bill 173 to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, but the decision was made to send it to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy instead of passing it immediately. The move has been criticized by advocates for being a delay tactic, but the PCs claimed they wanted to form a task force to consult with survivors and service providers to get a better idea of what actions need to be taken ahead of making the declaration, despite all the research and recommendations that already exist from the countless studies that have been completed. Few details have been released on what the consultations and review process will look like. 

But while elected officials continue to sit on the fence, failing to enact tangible action, it leaves women with shared experiences like Alexander struggling to heal from their trauma.

“You can't get past it, no matter how much therapy you do,” Alexander told The Pointer. “Until it's over it's an open wound, and to be honest, they poured salt and they poured gasoline and lit the fire on my open wounds.”

If you're in need of assistance: Call or text 211 or the Assaulted Women's Helpline at 1- 866-863-0511. If it's an emergency call 911 immediately. 

Agency to End Violence Crisis Line - 1-855-676-8515

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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