Attorney General Caroline Mulroney has announced a $1 million budget increase for the province’s rape crisis centres for the next fiscal year — money that falls far short of what they’d been expecting.
Under a gender-based violence plan unveiled by the previous Liberal government a year ago, the centres were to receive almost $4 million this fiscal year, and almost $4 million the next.
The Ford government has frozen their funding since taking office last June, and Tuesday’s announcement is for one year only and shared among the approximately 40 such centres in the province.
New Democrat MPP Suze Morrison — herself a sexual assault survivor — called the money “minuscule one-time funds that amount to nothing more than a drop in the bucket.”
In a statement, the Ministry of the Attorney General said budgets of a number of programs for victims of crime would continue to remain the same for 2019-20 while a review of services is under way.
However, “despite a difficult fiscal outlook and a $15 billion deficit inherited from the previous government, Ontario will also provide $1 million in additional one-time funding to sexual assault centres, increasing overall funding for the centres to $15.8 million in 2019-20,” says the announcement.
“This funding will directly support sexual assault centres across Ontario, including French-language centres, which offer free and confidential specialized support services to survivors of sexual violence.”
Mulroney said in a statement that “the people of Ontario and their government have zero tolerance for sexual assault, harassment and any other form of violence in our communities. We recognize the important work of victim services organizations across the province and are committed to supporting survivors of sexual violence and their families.”
Late last week, Mulroney had said the government would let centres know “shortly” if any additional money would be provided.
“I know that this is difficult. We inherited a large deficit — we are looking very closely at all the programs that we fund across the province,” Mulroney said at the time.
“I recognize the important work they do,” Mulroney also said. However, she added, “the Liberals waited until the last moment to announce this funding.”
The rape crisis centres had been counting on a 30-per-cent budget increase over three years to help them cope with an increase in demand amid the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
A decade ago, they logged 30,000 calls a year — now, more than 50,000.
The Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres and its French counterpart have urged the government to release the funds.
Nicole Pietsch, co-ordinator of the coalition, has said survivors of sexual violence are waiting months for much-needed counselling services — in some cases, as long as 18 months.
“After months of waiting and public pressure, Ontario’s attorney general provided no clarity today in her announcement on the status of a promised funding increase for rape crisis centres,” said MPP Morrison (Toronto Centre) said in a statement.
“This is funding that was committed to the centres last spring, which has not been disbursed … Survivors in our province deserve predictable multi-year funding that enables organizations to have stability. This one-time handout falls woefully short of what is needed to tackle staggering waiting lists across Ontario to access counselling.”
The centres had been hoping to hire more front-line workers, given some centres have the same staffing levels they did two decades ago.
Kristin Rushowy is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2019/02/26/attorney-general-caroline-mulroney-boosts-rape-crisis-centre-funding-by-1-million.html
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