The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Finding Solutions for IPV in Ontario

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

What can be done to curb intimate partner violence? Then, what are the economics behind liberalizing alcohol laws in Ontario? Is women's sports finally coming into its own. And journalist Nahlah Ayed talks about her new book.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sheldon, let's put this up here. In 2022, there were 117,093 victims 12 years of age and older of police-reported intimate partner violence. Of those victims, nearly 80% were women and girls. The rate of intimate partner violence was more than three times higher among women and girls than men and boys. And the rate is seven times higher among women and girls, if you look at the age 12 to 24 years, than their male counterparts in the same demographic. Okay, Paula, let's just make sure we're all talking about the same thing here, an explanation

of what intimate partner violence is. It's when you are in an intimate relationship and there is violence and abuse there. So it could be physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, financial as well. Partners are in a relationship where one has power and control over the other one. And like you've mentioned in the stats, it's pervasive in our society. When we're talking about minority groups or women, indigenous women, those stats go even higher. Well, let me follow up on that with Stephanie. I mean, it may be obvious to say it, or women, Indigenous women, that those stats go even higher. Well, let me follow up on that with Stephanie.

I mean, it may be obvious to say it, but let's do it anyway. This is disproportionately something that affects women. How come? I think it's because of patriarchal society, really, and really that's still alive today and in the history as well. And so women, men, you know, the old adage of being the primary breadwinner as well, women are home taking care of the children, and it makes it a lot easier in those instances for women to be perpetrated by men, right, for abuse. Derek, there was something in the stats I just gave that kind of caught my eye, and that was

the expression police reported, which I infer from that that there is a lot the stats I just gave that kind of caught my eye, and that was the expression police reported, which I infer from that that there is a lot of this that goes on that is not police reported. Is that true? That's absolutely true. And speaking with our partner agencies in that, the reports we get are way low compared to what's reported to our partner agencies. So what we're seeing here potentially is the tip of the iceberg. Absolutely.

Okay, let's do, I'm going to put another graphic up here, and for those listening on podcast, I'm going to describe what we're seeing here. This is essentially a graph that starts in the year 2009, goes to about 2022. Two things that we want to bring to people's attention here. Number one, the comparison of women and girls overall and men and boys. The lines for women and girls, as we have suggested, much higher than for men and boys. But we can also see that from 2009, the rates start to drop. And around 2014, they sort of go into a valley, but then they slowly climb back up again as we get to the year 2022. I think we need some explanation for that. Does anybody here have

an explanation for why the numbers dropped when they did, but now they're going back up again? I think a piece of the reason why we see it climb is that's right at the time of the pandemic. And so that was a high-risk time or a time where we really saw an increase in intimate partner violence because of all the stay-at-home orders. And the stay-at-home orders put people that were already victimized even more at risk because they were socially isolated even further. And also, as we all know, it put a lot of stress and strain on our own families, let alone where there's already violence and anger within a home environment. Angela, how do you encounter this issue as a city councillor? So through the city, we have taken on the declaration. Sioux St. Marie has

declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. We have encouraged the province to do so. As a councillor and as a woman myself, I have taken it upon myself also to work with Angie's Angels, a locally formed group that is speaking on behalf of Angie Sweeney after her death. And we have put forward a motion to support Bill C-332 to amend the criminal code to include coercive control. So we are trying our best in the small ways that we can affect municipally. We're using our voices to the provincial and federal governments to try and put an end to this epidemic. We want to start with a chart, and you can all watch it on the monitors up top or on the wall over there, showing what, in fact, the government takes in in revenue from booze sales compared to

what it costs to treat the harms that are caused by alcohol sales. Now, these are 2020 numbers. Sheldon, bring this graphic up if you would. It's detailed, so for those listening on podcast who can't see the numbers, I'm going to go through this a bit. If you take the country as a whole, the country as a whole takes in $13 billion plus from alcohol revenue, but StatsCan says the total societal cost of this is approaching $20 billion. In other words, a net deficit of $6.3 billion. Let's go province by province. In Quebec, $2.8 billion in revenue, $3.2 billion in the cost of alcohol sales, therefore a $430 million deficit. In Ontario, more than $5 billion in government revenue by selling booze, but $7 billion plus in the costs

of dealing with the after effects. That's $2 billion in the whole. And Saskatchewan, $300 million plus in the whole. Alberta, $1.82 billion in the hole. And Saskatchewan, $300 million plus in the hole. Alberta, $1.8 billion plus in the hole. British Columbia, nearly a billion in the hole, dealing with all of these things. Okay, Onondale, let's start with you. Could you explain how, just give us some more detail on whether it makes sense to be as indebted to booze sales given the costs associated with it. What's your view? Sure. I think that this is a great way to start the conversation.

I think what we're trying to do is trying to come up with a welfare function for society. The government has to raise revenue. But when we look at costs, it's just not the cost of running the operation, but it's also the social costs and economics, we call it negative externalities to health and so on and so forth. I think the way to think about it is that it's a layered approach. Like the first thing is, the first point is that how do we make

alcohol available in society, right? And they've made an announcement about that in the last couple of weeks. They're liberalizing sales. They're liberalizing sales, and this is a continuation of policies which began in 2015. Yes. Right? And so you want to ask yourself that,

are we doing that efficiently, right? That's the first point. Because we want to get to a point that when you look at net revenue, that sort of balances the harm. There's always going to be harm with alcohol consumption. And what I've studied in my research is the differences across provinces. So when you look at Alberta, on a per capita basis, they make much more in alcohol sales than Ontario and other provinces.

And the reason is that because they don't have administrative expenses, it's about $30 million, $67 million or something. And the reason is that because they don't have administrative expenses. It's about $30 million, $67 million or something. And the reason is that because they don't manage their outlets, unlike what we have in Ontario. In Ontario... It's a privatized system out there. It's a privatized system. In Ontario, we have the government running the LCBO and the outlets,

and that's about $1.9 or $2 billion. So we're ending up with a net income of $2.5 billion. So that's more than the net income we have in Alberta. But on a per capita basis, Alberta is much more. So the point being, what I'm trying to get at is that this perception among the population that if you have deregulation, it actually results in lower net income.

That's not true true that's not necessarily true all right let me go to norman with a follow-up here and that is can you give us a little bit more detail when we say when those numbers say that it actually costs society more to sell booze than the taxation revenue realized by selling booze what does that refer to that refers to excuse me a number of things it refers to a whole range of health costs, both emergency room and inpatient treatment, doctors' costs and staff costs. It also refers to law enforcement costs, justice system costs, policing costs. It refers to workplace disruptions and costs related to that. There's about a list of 20 or 30 categories that the team has examined with regard to the provinces and the territories.

That many categories? Yeah, a lot of categories. The other thing I would like to mention is that there's been recent research published this year indicating that the gap between the revenue and the costs is getting bigger. This seems to be, this moment in history seems to be an unprecedented moment in women's professional sports. Why is it happening now? I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of those reasons are sitting amongst us. It's the work and the foundation that women have put in over the years. It's not to say that women's sports are new in Canada,

but the professional level at which they're coming has been off the backs of so much toil and starts and stops again. But I think there's a variety of things the level of competition is elite the globalization of women's sports definitely the investment and the attention and some people with deep pockets are finally paying attention so and that actually is a factor and it matters i'm not the business expert but what i do know is the way that media has also been paying attention. So there's so many pieces that kind of feel like the engine is finally moving. All the cogs are moving together. Helen, let me get you to build on that in as much as Shireen is right. We've

always had superstar female athletes around. You know, Nancy Green is a skier in Canada. Billie Jean King was a huge superstar. Liz Manley captured the hearts of the country when she was figure skating. Penny Oleksiak, Perdita Felicien, that's always been there. What's different now? I think we also have the women in leadership now who go like us, like our group, put in the investment of time and money, and the whole community is ready for it. The amount of support that we get building the professional women's hockey league and our club in Toronto is incredible. People just can't wait for us to get started.

And just the level of support and excitement we get by women, but by everybody. The whole country is ready for this. I think that's the point. It's not just women. Men support women's sports as well now. That's different. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, coach, I got to ask you, how much of the rise in excitement around the WNBA coming to Toronto is because of a young woman named Caitlin Clark. Well, it's a lot. For sure, it's a lot. I mean, Caitlin's very, very impressive, as we all know. But as Shereen mentioned, there are a lot of impressive women that have been playing for a long time now. And, you know, it's kind of, I was saying to Shereen earlier, it's like this bucket of water has been filled.

It's the WNBA, and there's all these players that have have played and that final drop of Caitlin Clark has kind of tipped the bucket and pushed it over the edge and now people are jumping on board. So it's wonderful to see. It's long overdue and I think most people's opinion and hopefully it just continues to grow. She's had a tough start in her professional basketball career. Now you're a coach. Do you want to give her any advice on how she can do better? I think Caitlin's doing just fine, to be honest. I mean, it's an eye-opener when you get to that level. You're not the best. You're playing with the best now. So it's going to be a learning curve for her, but she's a smart player and I'm sure she has lots of people around her that'll help her with that learning curve. Ella, can I start with a

trivia question for you? Absolutely. Okay, here we go. Professional Women's Hockey League, who scored the first ever goal in PWHL history? I'm going to have to go with Ella Shelton. I think that's right. I think that was you. How much does that mean to you? Yeah, it's absolutely incredible to think back to that moment

and the memory I get to share with not only my teammates and my coaches, but teammates that I play against all the time now that we're not on the national team together and my family and my support people behind me going back to that day I just think like Toronto is such a place where it's close to home and so many people came to support me and I'm sure Toronto would have loved to have scored that first goal. But I know that the whole crowd and the entire fan base of the PWHL was supporting me and super happy to see me come up on top with that goal. And it's something that I'll remember forever. And it was quite emotional going back and seeing it in the Hall of Fame and being able to be a part of history and know that I'm making an impact today. And hopefully it's enough and I do enough for the future generations.

I'm pretty sure you didn't cover World War II firsthand. So the first question is kind of obvious. How did you find this story? Yeah, I have to give all credit to our producer at the time in London, Stephanie Jenser, who, you know, we were there in London as a correspondent there. Every year we did a story about D-Day. We would mark the anniversary, we'd go to Normandy. And that particular year was the 75th anniversary. So it was a big anniversary five years ago. She came with this, with Sonia's story and said, would you like to do this story? And I said, well, I'd been here for seven years or so, and I had never done a woman's story for D-Day. It was always men, and it was always men often who landed on the beaches,

and the many heroes who walked in on D-Day and did the hard work that liberated France. And so that's how the story came to me initially. But then I was taken with the story of Sonia. So she is both a know, she's both a combatant and a civilian. And she's a fighter, but she's also a victim in the story. And so after we did the piece, we had such a reaction from people, women, people from all walks of society, but especially women wrote and said, how is it that we don't know about Sonia D'Artois? And I remember many times lying there at night thinking about what she did and how I wanted to know more. And then I realized also that there was a bigger story to Sonia. Her husband

is also a story, an amazing story all on his own. So the two together, I just couldn't get them out of my mind. And so I called up the family again and I said, has anyone thought about writing a book about this? And she said, many times, but no one has. And here we are five years later, and that's how it happened. The Agenda with Steve Paikin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you.

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