Responses to Renfrew County murder inquest due this week

The Ontario and federal governments were asked last summer to begin mulling 86 recommendations for how to prevent the deaths of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV).

This week, advocates are hopeful they'll learn which ideas the governments will act upon — and which they'll opt not to.

The recommendations stem from a coroner's inquest that wrapped in Pembroke, Ont., last June. 

The nearly month-long inquest examined the 2015 murders of three women in and around Renfrew County — Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam — using the tragedy as a springboard to combat IPV in that region and beyond. 

Culleton, Kuzyk and Warmerdam were murdered on the same day by the same man, despite red flags about his potential to inflict further harm. 

Over 14 days of evidence, jurors heard about everything from underfunded survivor services to missed opportunities by Ontario's probation and parole service following the man's prior IPV convictions involving two of the women he eventually murdered.

In response, the jurors suggested the provincial and federal governments adopt a wide range of preventative measures including:

• Tighter monitoring of high-risk perpetrators of IPV, including prioritizing regular contact with offenders' previous victims.
• Asking the province to explore the idea of making people charged or convicted of IPV wear electronic bracelets.
• Improved collaboration between corrections and probation staff when planning an abuser's rehabilitation upon release.
• Better treatment for abusers before they're ever charged or enter the criminal justice system. 
• Education programs for students in primary school and above about the signs of gender-based violence, including subtler non-physical forms of abuse known as coercive control. 
• Increased funding for shelters, sexual assault centres and other organizations that help survivors.
• Declaring IPV an epidemic, which neighbouring Lanark County has already done. Renfrew County is preparing to do the same this spring. 

The full list can be read here or at the bottom of this story. The recommendations are not binding.

Informal deadline this Friday

Ontario — the group to which the vast majority of the Renfrew County inquest recommendations were directed — alongside the federal government, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Chief Firearms Officer of Ontario are not legally required to respond to the inquest jury's recommendations.

But the Office of the Chief Coroner, which hosts inquests, does ask groups to share within six months which recommendations they're acting upon and to provide a rationale for any recommendations they don't adopt.

The Renfrew County inquest jury read out its recommendations on June 28, but the recommendations were not formally delivered to all groups until August. That means the six-month informal deadline to respond is this Friday.

"We're optimistic and preparing to have something to look at sometime this week," said lawyer Kirsten Mercer, who represented End Violence Against Women Renfrew County during the inquest. 

As of Monday afternoon, no group had provided a response to the coroner's office. 

Committee needed 'immediately'

The inquest jury also called on the provincial government to "immediately" launch a recommendation implementation committee that would apply some pressure on the governments.

Advocates championed that idea at the outset of the inquest. As of Monday, however, there were no signs the province had acted on that recommendation — a disappointment to Mercer.

"Every day that goes by concerns me," she said. "In Renfrew County there has been more than one femicide in the time since [the inquest]."

Memorials for two women killed in the county since last June were held on Saturday.

The jury wanted the provincial implementation committee to be composed of senior government officials with ministries central to IPV, plus a matching number of "community IPV experts."

Peter Emon, the warden for Renfrew County, said he hasn't seen any signs of movement on the implementation committee either. 

He said the county council might resort to a local resolution this spring to spark action by the province. 

"We'd also want to ensure that kind of an oversight body has local representation because we really think the uniqueness of rural Ontario should be reflected," he said. 

CBC has reached out to the province for comment but has not received a response.