A woman who walked out of a parliamentary committee meeting in tears Wednesday is demanding an apology from a Liberal MP who derailed a planned discussion on violence against women in favour of a debate on abortion rights.
Cait Alexander had been on Parliament Hill to testify at a rare summer hearing of the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women when Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld allegedly re-victimized her as a survivor of domestic violence.
“I am completely stunned,” said M.me Alexander in an interview after Wednesday’s meeting.
“That’s exactly what I’ve felt the last few years, where I’m literally showing my body bludgeoned and bleeding and bruised and people who have authority and power in this country say, ‘Well, we care about you.’ But then they silence you,” she described.
Mme Vandenbeld, who is parliamentary secretary to the minister of international development, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mme Alexander was one of two witnesses who stormed out of a meeting set up so MPs could hear from advocates for victims of domestic violence and a deputy chief of Peel Regional Police.
Although witnesses began to make dark claims that the current justice and bail system is failing victims, the hearing quickly derailed into a chaos of political bickering.
In an opening statement, Cait Alexander, who leads the advocacy group End Violence Everywhere, shared her personal story as her family looked on in a public area.
“I’m supposed to be dead,” she said confidently, showing lawmakers graphic photos of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend three years ago.
“If you haven’t met a survivor or a victim’s family, well, now you have.”
Procedural Chaos
Moments later, the MPs’ interventions degenerated into a partisan demonstration that turned into procedural chaos.
It all started just minutes after Mr.me Alexander, then lawyer Megan Walker and Deputy Police Chief Nick Milinovich, at the end of a first round of questions and answers with Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri.
Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld then spoke. After assuring the federal government that the issue was serious, she chastised the Conservatives for politicizing the matter and accused them of giving other parties little time to prepare or an opportunity to recommend witnesses.
“We are not using victims and survivors of trauma to try to score political points within this committee,” she argued.
“It’s cruel to make people relive the trauma they’ve been through just so they can have a meeting. If that meeting isn’t accepted, then you can read on social media that the Liberals or other parties don’t care about these issues, and we all know we care very deeply about them,” she added.
Instead of returning to the discussion of the subject under consideration with the witnesses, Mr.me Vandenbeld instead proposed that the committee resume a different discussion on abortion rights.
The witnesses, left hanging, began to inveigh against Mr.me Vandenbeld.
While Mme Alexander showed the photos of his injuries again, Mme Walker, visibly upset, asked of the MP: “Did she listen to anything that was said this morning?”
The witnesses were not given back the floor. Instead, a lengthy back-and-forth between the members ensued, with multiple points of order raised to the committee chair.
NDP MP Leah Gazan accused the committee chair, Conservative Shelby Kramp-Neuman, of not giving her the floor and instead favouring her Conservative colleague.
“The fact that my voice has been silenced within the commission, when I have not had the opportunity to call witnesses, is deeply offensive, deeply violent and deeply disturbing,” she said.
“I am disgusted because I was not given the opportunity to present witnesses, while I represent Ground Zero for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls,” continued the New Democrat.
Indignation
M’s motherme A frustrated Alexander told the Liberal instigator that she was “disappointed” and that the exploitation of her daughter’s testimony constituted, in her eyes, another form of abuse.
Shortly after, Mme Alexander stormed out of the room in tears, followed by Mme Walker.
Conservative MP Anna Roberts said she was “disgusted by the whole day” and apologised to both witnesses.
Mme Ferreri, for his part, castigated M.me Vandenbeld, reminding him that the victims had come to testify in order to bring about “legitimate change.”
She added that the committee should hold more meetings on the subject to hear from other witnesses, then apologising to M’s mother.me Alexander, who stood behind the witness table.
“Being sorry is not enough,” the lady retorted.
Women victims of violence “big losers”
The Bloc Québécois MP for Shefford, Andréanne Larouche, then denounced “the throwing of mud between the party in power and the opposition”, which, according to her, led to the politicization of a large number of parliamentary committees.
“I filled in on the Health Committee, that committee became political; I filled in on the Public Safety Committee, that committee became political; I filled in on the Foreign Affairs Committee, that committee became political,” she listed.
“I was crossing my fingers that my committee, the Status of Women, would not do that,” she continued. “And I am extremely disappointed to see that today, they did the same thing.”
“In the name of partisanship, things are no longer moving forward. You have all fallen into the trap of making the issue of violence against women political.”
“Women must not be politically instrumentalized, and that is what is happening. The big losers today are women who are victims of violence,” she added.
The meeting was adjourned shortly afterwards.