Hon. Wanda Thomas Bernard: Honourable senators, I rise today to also speak in support of Bill S-249, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy for the prevention of intimate partner violence, also known as Georgina’s Law.

Georgina, I want to thank you and your family for being here. I remember very intently your speech, and our colleague has just highlighted some of the key messages.

Senator Manning, thank you for championing such an important issue.

Colleagues, tomorrow I am participating in a panel discussion as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. This year’s theme, as you have heard, is “Come Together, Act Now.” As I was preparing for this panel, I was reflecting more and more on Senator Manning’s bill on intimate partner violence. The panel I am speaking on is called “Beyond the Silence: Black Women’s Leadership in Addressing Gender-based Violence.”

I found much of the testimony at our Social Affairs Committee’s study of the bill very difficult to listen to. In fact, it was triggering. Being triggered resulted in my reluctance to speak on this bill, but after some exploration and deeper reflection about this, I realized that I have both personal and professional reasons for being triggered. Hence, I decided to speak to Bill S-249 to add my voice to the debates to amplify the voice of Black Canadian women. I have decided to emphasize both perspectives, adding to our collective study of this bill.

First, the personal connection: I know the impact of witnessing violence as a child. I grew up in a home where my mother was a survivor of intimate partner violence. My father was killed in a very tragic car accident when I was 12, and for years I had a hard time remembering anything positive about my father because the memories of the violence left such deep scars. I am feeling them even now.

The impact of such scars can be such a heavy weight, a weight you carry with you for the rest of your life. This heavy weight can fuel long-lasting hurt, trauma, anger, bitterness, maybe even rage. I have felt all of those. But it can also fuel a passion to make the world a safer place for women. I have personally found a way to use my family’s experience to fuel my passion and my deep commitment to breaking the silence around violence in our families and our communities.

So imagine, colleagues, over 60 years later, the topic is still triggering for me. Ultimately, though, this is what pushed me to stand up for those who are not able to express their experiences related to intimate partner violence, so I am here to advocate for those women and families. As Senator Manning reminded us a few minutes ago, children are also silent victims of intimate partner violence.

This leads me to my professional journey, the professional work I have done in this area. As a social worker in mental health, as a travelling counsellor who travelled the County of Halifax, as a professor of social work and as a private practice practitioner, I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of women survivors of intimate partner violence, women who came forward about the violence they experienced and women who were not able to come forward with their reality. And I have also worked with a few men who have been victims of intimate partner violence.

One of the things I love about this bill is the fact that it has a focus on prevention through education. Back in the 1980s, as a very young social worker, I met with the then Minister of Education, the Honourable Tom McInnis, now a retired senator, with a proposal to bring an educational program around healthy relationships to the public school system in Nova Scotia. This was the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the proposal was not accepted, but I think that now there is more of an appetite to do this. There is more awareness of the need for education to start early, as Senator Manning has reminded us repeatedly. I believe that a focus on education around healthy relationships and the impacts of misogyny and sexism are essential to prevention.

While our language and terminology have changed over these past four decades that I have been involved in this work, the impact has not. My interest, in particular, is in breaking the silence around violence in African Nova Scotian communities. That is where I have spent a lot of my time. During my time as a leader in the Nova Scotia Association of Black Social Workers over the past 45 years, we have organized conferences, workshops, seminars and educational programs, engaging young girls and women and seniors and even men and boys to bring awareness to communities to end gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. We have also engaged in youth education programs to focus more on prevention.

Yet, dear colleagues, the violence continues. At times, the impact of the work on the ground can feel minuscule when looking at the high rates of intimate partner violence across Canada in general and in Black communities in particular.

A Statistics Canada report in 2021 highlighted that 42% of Black women disclosed having experienced intimate partner violence or domestic violence. Yet, we know from research that colleagues at Dalhousie University have done that many of these women suffer in silence. I was involved in a research project called “The Culturally Responsive Healthcare to Address Gender-Based Violence Within African Nova Scotian Communities.” This project, led by Dr. Nancy Ross, explored Black women’s experiences with gender-based violence during COVID. We learned that the majority of the women interviewed were more concerned about the violence of racism they experienced than about the intimate partner violence they were experiencing. They feared coming forward about intimate partner violence because of the lack of culturally responsive care in health, social services and policing.

There is such a stigma associated with violence in Black families and communities, and we have worked to find ways to break through the stigma and to break through the silence. And, as I shared earlier, when you have experienced or witnessed intimate partner violence, it can be retraumatizing to talk about it. It should not fall on the shoulders of survivors to describe their experiences in order for change to happen.

I support this bill, and I hope that it is supported by our colleagues in the other place because this ongoing national epidemic needs a systemic approach. As the minister engages with a full range of partners in leading national action, I would encourage the specific attention to an intersectional lens looking at intimate partner violence, particularly the inclusion of Black women and communities, in order to recognize the historic silence of intimate partner violence in these particular communities that face more stigma and truly fear coming forward.

Colleagues, to conclude, I encourage you to support Bill S-249 so we can see a more significant change in the pervasive issue of intimate partner violence in Canada. It is time to “Come Together, Act Now.” Asante.