I wrote last week, the day after the tabling of the provincial budget, that there was something in the latest financial decisions of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) which brought Quebec closer to the crossroads in its relationship to social issues. -democracy. I was concerned about the way in which we communicated the size of the deficit, justified by investments in health and education for which we are not even sure we will see concrete results, at least not in the short term. I feared that this discourse on the poverty of the State would justify a lack of investment in a social safety net which is nevertheless greatly needed, with underinvestment always ending up creating even greater pressure on public services.
The very day this column was published, last Thursday, the Minister responsible for Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, explained that she was blocking projects to build shelters for victims of domestic violence “because they cost too much.” Projects whose value exceeds $800,000 per door, located largely in the most remote regions, are thus put on ice for the moment.
Again this week, the government was hounded over this decision during question period in the National Assembly. “On what planet does the CAQ live to think that there are savings to be made on this? » asked the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, on Tuesday, after recalling that 17 women per day are refused a place in a shelter. due to reaching maximum service capacity. For his part, Prime Minister François Legault praised his government’s pre-existing investments in the issue – we are talking about $981 million – and accused the solidarity co-spokesperson of “populism”.
Since the Premier of Quebec has the reputation of being a man of numbers, let’s try, this week again, to calculate the cost of family violence in Quebec.
First, when there is a lack of “doors” in Quebec, it is also the children who suffer in many cases. We already know that there is a glaring lack of youth protection resources in several regions of Quebec. There is a lack of qualified personnel to fill vacant positions. The reception centers are dilapidated – nothing that inspires anything in a young person who arrives there to escape a difficult situation. And there is a shortage of host families.
It is important to make this link between violence against women and the protection of youth. Because in a significant proportion of cases, the two problems are linked. A woman who cannot leave a violent situation in time will suffer significant after-effects. The current pressure on youth protection services in Quebec is also a consequence of the lack of prevention and rapid intervention services in family violence.
Second, there is still much work to be done to raise awareness among our decision-makers about the link between family violence and disability. An example. In Canada, 200,000 victims of domestic violence each year have to live with the consequences of head trauma caused by their attacker’s blows. However, the question is still largely taboo – and certainly poorly understood by health professionals. When it comes to concussion, intervention protocols are still primarily designed for athletes; the symptoms of women who run away from their partners are therefore often poorly detected. And for many victims, it is also a question of frontal syndrome: through repeated lesions on certain parts of the skull, the brain is damaged, which can lead to behavioral or cognitive disorders which are also very often misdiagnosed.
In fact, the link between violence and disability is cyclical. The more a woman is abused, the greater the risk that she will develop a disability. And women who already have disabilities are more likely to experience violence. The situation is already terrible on a human level. But since we are dealing with an accountable government, let us add that these injuries have a cost. Both in terms of the health system, social services and the support necessary for the people who carry them and in terms of reduced capacity to participate in the labor market.
Let’s also calculate the pressure on the Quebec justice system, which increases when we do not invest sufficiently in prevention and rapid intervention in family violence. Because, of course, his cases often involve police services, lawyers and judges, both in terms of criminal law and family law. Let us also calculate the effect of this violence on the life trajectory of the children involved: their own traumas — and therefore their own capacities to be “productive” for the economy.
Let’s calculate the cost of the “doors” at Leclerc prison, also dilapidated, a real disaster in terms of human rights: because yes, according to experts, the vast majority of women there have become involved in crime after having themselves been victims of criminal acts and a lot of violence. Among the possible consequences of the damage to both mental and physical health that can be left by beatings are confinement in poverty and a higher risk of crime.
I don’t believe it should be necessary to develop an economic argument for violence against women. But I know who I’m talking to.
For the benefit of Minister Duranceau, what I am explaining here is what we call in the jargon “opportunity cost”, “option cost” or “opportunity cost”. It can be expensive to build “doors” in a shelter. It costs much, much more not to build them.